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"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

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Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#461

Post by ModernMech »

jmyeet wrote: post #440
axus wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Supreme Court literally said that Trump has absolute immunity for criminal use of presidential power. Combined with the statistical impossibility of a 2/3 senate majority for impeachment, this is a license to grab as much power as that same court will allow.

A competent Joe Biden would've taken that ruling, said "thank you very much" and "cleaned house" with Seal Team Six of select judges and politicians and then pardoned everyone involved. The fact that SCOTUS wasn't even slightly concerned about that happening belies the problem: the Democrats are ineffectual by design. They knew Biden would throw his hands up citing "norms" and "institutions" as an excuse to do absolu…

> the Democrats are ineffectual by design.

The Democrats are people who believe in the rule of law, and they act like it. When pitted against people who have no qualms to win at all costs, even it means breaking the law and destroying the constitution, Democrats lose; if you value those things you can't preserve them by destroying them yourself. We are where we are because Republicans convinced themselves they deserved the power they have taken. The people who voted for them were convinced as well. That's the only failure we should be talking about right now. The Democrats, flawed as they are, did the right thing.

That said, they will not be the people to lead us out of this. They know how to fundraise, campaign, and maintain the status quo. They're not built for this, so it's time to just look for someone new rather than try to reform people who are clearly not made for this moment.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#462

Post by vharuck »

avalys wrote: post #442
Zamaamiro wrote: post #258

This EO, combined with his proclamation that "He who saves the country does not violate any law" paint a very concerning picture. This has, historically speaking, been the language of tyrants. No President is above the law, nor does the President "interpret" the law; that is the domain of the Judiciary. “Wherever law ends, tyranny begins”

This EO says nothing about the Judicial branch and presents a perfectly reasonable policy statement about how legal decisions and interpretation should be made within the executive branch. What specific language in this EO do you have a problem with? I’m no fan of Trump, but this pattern of people hallucinating that Trump said something he didn’t and then freaking out about their nonexistent hallucination, is getting…

Consider this hypothetical: a federal judge rules against the Trump administration's firing of the inspectors general and must offer the fired employees their positions back. The Attorney General says the judge overstepped his constitutional power and calls the ruling invalid. What should the person who would've rehired the employees do?

Continue that hypothetical further: the case makes its way to the Supreme Court, who agrees with the federal judge. The executive branch continues to ignore the order. The Attorney General is held in contempt of court and fined a large amount of money. Who's going to collect it? Any executive branch employee trying to carry out that fine would be violating this executive order, and be dismissed. So the fine would never happen.

Considering the president and vice president's recent disdain for judicial rulings against them, this may happen.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#463

Post by NotYourLawyer »

Zamaamiro wrote: post #258

This EO, combined with his proclamation that "He who saves the country does not violate any law" paint a very concerning picture. This has, historically speaking, been the language of tyrants. No President is above the law, nor does the President "interpret" the law; that is the domain of the Judiciary. “Wherever law ends, tyranny begins”

> nor does the President "interpret" the law; that is the domain of the Judiciary

Everyone tasked with enforcing a law must necessarily interpret its meaning. The judiciary gets the final say though.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#464

Post by NickC25 »

michaeljhg wrote: post #63
casenmgreen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear-armed dictatorship, and the strongest military power on the planet, run by Donald Trump. All bets now off.

Well he is talking about disarming US nukes

Horrifying, and it plays right into Putin's desires.

God help us all.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#465

Post by crooked-v »

johnsimer wrote: post #437
crooked-v wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people want a zero-effort LLM summary, they can get one themselves.

the fact that the majority opinion on this thread seemingly does not even agree with Claude (which scores ~88% on MMLU (a measure of reading comprehension)) is a topic worth discussing

No, it really isn't, because the disagreement in interpretation stems from the obvious fact that Claude isn't aware of all the other blatantly illegal acts that the Trump administration is currently performing.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#466

Post by jmyeet »

steveBK123 wrote: post #162
dkobia wrote: post #128

This new administration lays bare what we've known all along - the legislative gridlock and dysfunction in the house of representatives and senate has made them completely incapable of governing -- the least productive in a generation. This is opened up an opportunity for a well funded strongman, and the checks and balances that were intended to protect our democracy are now mere suggestions.

This is the problem with people being OK with executive overreach when "their team" is in power. Eventually, and in fact about 50% of the time - the OTHER team is in power.. and may just push the overreach further. We should desire that the legislative side actually legislates and each branch of the government holds the other two in check, regardless of partisan control. Further having our judicial branch become open…

This is an example of what I like to call the "both sides fallacy". There are several reasons why people try and make a both sides equivalence in US politics. For example:

- As a way of not having to know anything while appearing intellectual or somehow "above it all";

- Genuine and fundamental misunderstanding of the political forces in the US. Example: thinking there's such a thing as "socialism" or "the far left" in America;

- To knowingly deflect from the excesses of the conservative movement.

Here are the two political forces in American politics:

1. The fascist party who has had a 50+ year project to take over and subvert every aspect of government to destroy any aspect of democracy and create a neofuedal dystopia masquerading as a Christian theocracy; and

2. The controlled opposition party who loves nothing more than to be out of power and, when in power, to do nothing. It's why Democrats not in office are suddenly for progressive policies like medicare-for-all (as Kamala Harris was in 2019) but when on the cusp of taking power, they have a policy of no longer opposing the death penalty, capitulating to right-wing immigratino policy, arming a genocidal apartheid state and the only tax breaks proposed are for startups.

Look at how successful progressive voter initatives were in the last election compared to the performance of the Democratic Party. Florida overwhelmingly passed recreational marijuana and abortion access (~57% for, unfortunately you need 60%+ to pass in Florida) while Trump carried the state by 14. Minimum wage increases passed in deep red Missouri. In fact, abortion access has never failed to garner a mjaority of votes whenever it's allowed to be put in front of voters, no matter how deep red the state.

So why if progressive policies are so popular, are the Democrats so opposed to them as a platform? Really think about that. The Democratic Party doesn't exist to abuse power. It exists to destroy progressive momentum at every level of government above all else.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#467

Post by fjjjrjj »

phkahler wrote: post #433
fjjjrjj wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lying and blaming Ukraine for starting the war and taking sides with Russia puts blood on his hands. That an aggressor nation can walk into another country's sovereign territory and annex it with the blessing of a sitting US president is a disgrace.

>> That an aggressor nation can walk into another country's sovereign territory and annex it with the blessing of a sitting US president is a disgrace. They did that first in 2014 under Obama, and again under Biden. The current situation has no criteria for an end - it's an endless conflict. Trump is going to move towards resolution of that and the fighting.

That won't stop Russia. It just buys them time to regroup and keep pushing.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#468

Post by concordDance »

dang wrote: post #298

There's a bit of background at https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5152723-donald-t... . If there are better third-party reports, let me know and I'll add to this list. The above is just the first one bestowed by Google.

Honestly dang, I'm seeing mostly not thoughtful substantive commentary here, just ideological battling.

Which is a shame because this is certainly a topic it's possible to do that on (e.g. this comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43105417 ).

Are the good comments really worth the large amount of heat?

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#469

Post by NotYourLawyer »

grandempire wrote: post #30

The only rebuttal I see in the media is that congress set these up to be “independent”. But our government doesn’t have independent branches. In fact that sounds a lot like “unelected and unaccountable”. So which branches are these agencies under? Is it in the judicial, legislative, or executive - and if it’s in the executive why can’t the chief executive manage business? On the other hand, one of the issues brought…

There’s prosecutorial discretion. If Congress doesn’t like it, impeachment is the remedy.

Re: "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

#470

Post by pjmlp »

kbrkbr wrote: post #293
pjmlp wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most dictorships started by the people in power streamlining decadent processes and burocracy, by putting into place the new regulations that would improve everything. Until a couple years later on average, a state protection organism gets put in place to check those organisations are working as expected. Eventually, the state protection organism gets a bit carried away on what they are supposed to be checking on.

I don't think so. "Nearly half of dictatorships start as a military coup, though others have been started by foreign intervention, elected officials ending competitive elections, insurgent takeovers, popular uprisings by citizens, or legal maneuvering by autocratic elites to take power within their government. Between 1946 and 2010, 42% of dictatorships began by overthrowing a different dictatorship, and 26% began af…

I might be wrong on being most, and eventually they might even be in minority, still some well known across Europe, have started with people that originally were democratically elected deciding that it was about time to change everything from inside.
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