Live by the witch hunt, die by the witch hunt.
What's Going on at the FBI?
61–70 of 189 posts
Re: What's Going on at the FBI?
#62Wild to see a bloodless coup in action.
What makes it a coup? Trump was elected on a platform of government reform and that's what he is doing.
A leader who is democratically elected, and then violates or exploits loopholes in the law to give themselves powers that they are not supposed to have, is engaging in a self-coup.
The US Constitution grants Congress, not the executive branch, the power to determine how the federal government’s money is spent.
Elon Musk’s team within the Executive Office of the President have reportedly gained full admin access to the payment system of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service at the Department of the Treasury, which is responsible for the majority of the federal government’s payments, and are using that access to prevent certain payments from being made. Among other things, they are also attempting to close down the US Agency for International Development, which was established and funded as an independent agency by an act of Congress.
Re: What's Going on at the FBI?
#63[flagged]
Re: What's Going on at the FBI?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Hu… no, it is not « normal ». It displays a wild disconnect from the duties of the position (to protect the Constitution, among which).
> During his four years as president, Democrat Joe Biden experienced a sustained series of defeats at the U.S. Supreme Court... "I think it is the toughest series of defeats since Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s had many New Deal programs declared unconstitutional," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley Law School
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-dealt-bide...
I'm not particularly trying to argue if it's good or bad, just that presidents often stretch the law to apply their agenda. I would tend to side more on the bad side, but it seems necessary due to senate dysfunction.
Re: What's Going on at the FBI?
#65Wild to see a bloodless coup in action.
What makes it a coup? Trump was elected on a platform of government reform and that's what he is doing.
The pardoning of the J6 rioters that broke into the capitol, and now trying to fire all law enforcement that were involved in their prosecution feels like the end of the rule of law. Law will now be whatever Trump says. It's a coup.
Re: What's Going on at the FBI?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes it a coup? Trump was elected on a platform of government reform and that's what he is doing.
What makes it a coup is that Trump is acting completely illegally. He was elected president, not dictator. He does not have the legal authority to create a new government department, DOGE, to appoint Musk as its head without Senate advice and consent, and to give it full power over all other agencies.
That doesn't make it a coup. "Coup" has a definition, which is to unseat a government through illegal means, or to stay in power through illegal means. For example, January 6th could be considered an attempted coup. But just acting illegally a coup does not make.
Re: What's Going on at the FBI?
#67I think a lot of people just want to give the current administration a chance. Half the country wanted him, and if it wasn't this, it would be an actual civil war eventually. However, isn't it a bit naive to presume the current administration would relinquish power and allow for a peaceful transfer of government in the end? I hope I'm wrong but all the evidence and data is pointing to a decline of America and the Ame…
Half the country did not. 1/3 of eligible voters. Which doesn't even count people under 18.
And to say that everyone who voted for him "wanted him" is a stretch.
Re: What's Going on at the FBI?
#68Live by the witch hunt, die by the witch hunt.
Do you believe the j6 rioters breaking into the capitol were not acting illegally so that there prosecution was a witch hunt? Help me understand.
Re: What's Going on at the FBI?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's anywhere near that simple. Organizations are ongoing processes, constantly in flux, not structures erected in the past. Like a river, you can never step in the same organization twice. Like ghosts and money, they only exist in people's minds; they consist of belief in them, hyperstitiously. The democracy the FBI is sworn to protect has turned on it. What is left for it to protect? The laws handed d…
> You can count on the FBI to protect itself, but never believe that what it is protecting is democracy. Except the only thing that what makes them different from organized crime is also the shared belief in laws that form and direct them. > will the FBI continue to enforce yesterday's laws? If they don't, i.e. if they start to openly pick and choose which laws are valid and which are not, the whole thing will unrave…
> if they start to openly pick and choose which laws are valid and which are not
They already did that under Biden.
Re: What's Going on at the FBI?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hu… no, it is not « normal ». It displays a wild disconnect from the duties of the position (to protect the Constitution, among which).
> During his four years as president, Democrat Joe Biden experienced a sustained series of defeats at the U.S. Supreme Court... "I think it is the toughest series of defeats since Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s had many New Deal programs declared unconstitutional," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley Law School https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-dealt-bide... I'm not…
Doesn't make it more normal. Not sure what point you're trying to make.