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"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order

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

#891

Post by kelnos »

chii wrote: post #756
kbrkbr wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nearly half of dictatorships start as a military coup do you see jan 16 as a military coup? Coz i do. Just because the people involved are poorly equipped, and badly organized, doesn't mean it isn't. We, as a nation, did not punish them hard enough. We as a nation, did not cut the hydra at their head, and allowed it to fester. It is done, perhaps, as a form of peace keeping and appeasement. But history has taught u…

By definition it was not a military coup, because the US military did not participate in it.

Sure, some people were private militia members, but that is not the same thing.

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

#892

Post by kelnos »

claar wrote: post #326
buttercraft wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> legislative gridlock and dysfunction Isn't this a direct result of "no compromise" policies on one side of the aisle?

I recently watched a 2 hour congressional committee session, with 5 minute talking points per member. BOTH sides of the aisle used their entire 5 minutes to spout one-sided rhetoric and talking points obviously designed for re-election rather than anything resembling debate or conversation. I have no idea which side "started it", but where we've landed isn't useful.

I don't think you can make a general statement based on watching a single 2-hour committee session.

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

#893

Post by [deleted] »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #880
refurb wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying that a President’s personal interpretation of Congress’ laws or the courts precedence, completely overrides any individual executive employees good faith understanding and responsibility to the Constitution, laws, and judicial rulings is madness. But it's not madness based on the intended structure of government? The EO isn't saying "ignore Constitutional violations". It wouldn't be valid if it did. If Congr…

> The EO isn't saying "ignore Constitutional violations". What if the President says "I interpret [irrefutably unconstitutional action x] to not be in violation of the constitution"? Then anyone in the executive branch has to behave as though that action were constitutional, no matter what it is, don't they?

[deleted]

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

#894

Post by kelnos »

thephyber wrote: post #351
buttercraft wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> legislative gridlock and dysfunction Isn't this a direct result of "no compromise" policies on one side of the aisle?

The causes are more complicated. The founding fathers envisioned the legislature be slow and deliberate, so it was never intended to move quickly. One major party doesn’t think government solves any problems, so it’s not incentivized to use it to solve any problems. In fact, a generation of Republicans have tried to stifle fixing any of the large problems. The other party is frequently torn between a wide spectrum of…

> so they can’t even agree when they are in majority how to weird their political capital.

"Weird" is a presumably a typo there, but I think it actually works as-is. As long as we allow for the verbing of adjectives, anyway.

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

#895

Post by ActorNightly »

neom wrote: post #306
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.

[flagged]

American Politics = world politics unfortunately.

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

#896

Post by [deleted] »

sympil wrote: post #815
refurb wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying that a President’s personal interpretation of Congress’ laws or the courts precedence, completely overrides any individual executive employees good faith understanding and responsibility to the Constitution, laws, and judicial rulings is madness. But it's not madness based on the intended structure of government? The EO isn't saying "ignore Constitutional violations". It wouldn't be valid if it did. If Congr…

Say something like "hey, no, that law is unconstititional!". What is the purpose of having cabinet secretaries swear an oath to defend the Constitution if the President has the sole authority to decide what this means? Why do you support Trump being an autocrat?

[deleted]

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

#897

Post by kelnos »

maxwell wrote: post #289
buttercraft wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> legislative gridlock and dysfunction Isn't this a direct result of "no compromise" policies on one side of the aisle?

No, it's the lack of representation. We're an extreme outlier among OECD countries, worst representation in the free world. Even Communist China has better representation. The U.S. in the 1790s had representation in line with Nordic countries today. The only change needed is repealing the Apportionment Act of 1929.

Increasing the size of the House and fixing apportionment would certainly help with some things, but we need to eliminate gerrymandering too.

It is bonkers to me that legislative districts are drawn by whatever party is in power once every ten years. Not only should the census be more frequent (real-time/ongoing, really, and more lightweight than the system we have now), but districts should be redrawn yearly, and it should be done by a non-partisan committee.

And we really need an objective, quantitative measure of gerrymandering, and comprehensive law against it.

But really I don't think all of that is it. Making representation more proportionate might make Democrats win the House (and possibly presidency, since electoral college votes are apportioned the same way) more often, but the Senate will still be broken, and political polarization will still rule the day.

We need more than two viable political parties (which would require a major overhaul of each and every state's election process, at the least), and they need to govern through coalition-building, more like how parliamentary systems operate.

And ultimately it's just the tone of the whole thing. Legislators need to stop with this all-or-nothing approach, where the biggest hot-button issues don't see any measure of compromise. But that's a culture thing, and you can't fix that with laws or process.

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

#898

Post by Aeolun »

timoth3y wrote: post #651
arunabha wrote: post #503

In general, people are going to interpret this EO with their own lens. Unsurprisingly, reasonable people may disagree on the merits of the EO as a whole. However this part of the EO is pretty concerning > 'The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch' and later > 'No employee of the executive bra…

Even with a highly sympathetic Supreme Court it is hard to imagine this EO standing. It goes against the foundation of not only US law, but couple of hundred years of international democratic tradition in which allegiance is not to a person, but to the nation itself. US civil servants and military alike swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution not the president or their commander. Illegal orders are not o…

It’s pretty amazing. A few days ago someone posted a comparison of the oath of allegiance for officers before and after Hitler, and it has basically exactly the same change.

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

#899

Post by [deleted] »

ncr100 wrote: post #742
ta8645 wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ostensibly, this EO is meant to remove power from bureaucratically controlled agencies in the government. The right have been complaining that real power has been usurped from the institutions mentioned in the constitution, and centered in a professional managerial class, that works below the surface, and has no culpability or exposure to voters. That's all massively up for debate obviously, but this EO seems to be a…

This is not up for debate. It is settled law.

[deleted]

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

#900

Post by [deleted] »

tsimionescu wrote: post #873
losvedir wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, on its face this is simply more of the "drain the swamp" rhetoric from his first term. The way the EO is written sounds "fine" to my high school civics ears: there's three branches of government, one is the executive branch, and ostensibly the president is the head of that branch. The motivation of the EO was clearly articulated all throughout the campaign that, as you say, even within the executive branch the…

> The way the EO is written sounds "fine" to my high school civics ears: there's three branches of government, one is the executive branch, and ostensibly the president is the head of that branch. Then maybe you need to get an understanding of human organizations in general and the US government in particular that goes beyond your high school civics days. The president has no power or authority to interpret the law,…

[deleted]
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