Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Pattern Ghost]

12 minutes ago, Badger said:

I wasn't trying to imply anything beyond that.

 

Sorry, I wasn't trying to contradict you there, more just expanding on your point.

[Badger]

12 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Sorry, I wasn't trying to contradict you there, more just expanding on your point.

 

No worries, I just thought I had fouled up my own intent, somehow.

[Ranxerox]

3 hours ago, archer said:

When she was making the claim that she was a Native American to the University of Pennsylvania she would have been under that version of the statute.

 

She for most of her time at Harvard would have been covered under 18 U.S. Code § 1001 as it existed 1996 and later which provided:

 

 

 

Are you sure that the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard count as agencies of the federal government for the purpose of this statute?

 

[archer]

8 hours ago, Ranxerox said:

 

Are you sure that the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard count as agencies of the federal government for the purpose of this statute?

 

 

Yeah, it counts. 18 U.S. Code § 1001 was the one they nailed Martha Stewart for and she wasn't a federal employee on any level.

 

https://www.wisenberglaw.com/Articles/How-to-Avoid-Going-to-Jail-under-18-U-S-C-Section-1001-for-Lying-to-Government-Agents.shtml

 

At that link, a law firm goes over that law and some court cases in how its been used by the government.

 

For example, if you lie to your employer on your time and attendance records and, unbeknownst to you, he submits your records, along with those of other employees, to the federal government pursuant to some regulatory duty, you could be criminally liable.

[Pariah]

More than 50 ex-national security officials tell Trump his national emergency is not justified

 

Presidential twitstorm in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . 

[Lord Liaden]

58 minutes ago, Pariah said:

More than 50 ex-national security officials tell Trump his national emergency is not justified

 

Presidential twitstorm in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . 

 

In general, "tweetstorm" would be more accurate. In this case, though...

[Hermit]

1 hour ago, Pariah said:

More than 50 ex-national security officials tell Trump his national emergency is not justified

 

Presidential twitstorm in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . 

 

"Mr. President, not to say you don't know what your'e talking about, but we're all experts and...

you don't know what you're talking about"

 

Did I quote it right? that was a guess

[Ranxerox]

14 hours ago, archer said:

 

Yeah, it counts. 18 U.S. Code § 1001 was the one they nailed Martha Stewart for and she wasn't a federal employee on any level.

 

https://www.wisenberglaw.com/Articles/How-to-Avoid-Going-to-Jail-under-18-U-S-C-Section-1001-for-Lying-to-Government-Agents.shtml

 

At that link, a law firm goes over that law and some court cases in how its been used by the government.

 

Well, then if the university gave the information to the federal government for some reason, and if they could prove prove the necessary criminal intent, and if the five year statute of limitations on 18 U.S. Code § 1001 hadn't expired long ago, then Warren could be in some serious legal difficulty.

 

As it is, chanting "LOCK HER UP" probably is not going to get you anywhere.

[archer]

37 minutes ago, Ranxerox said:

 

Well, then if the university gave the information to the federal government for some reason, and if they could prove prove the necessary criminal intent, and if the five year statute of limitations on 18 U.S. Code § 1001 hadn't expired long ago, then Warren could be in some serious legal difficulty.

 

As it is, chanting "LOCK HER UP" probably is not going to get you anywhere.

 

Yeah, the statute of limitations was 5 years from when she stopped being employed at Harvard so it expired last year, you know, "long ago".

 

I don't want to lock her up.

 

I want people to look at her with a critical eye and decide if that's the kind of person they want to be representing the Democratic Party. She clearly pretended to be a minority to benefit her career then tried to quietly drop that claim when it was no longer to her benefit.

 

I think the wide array of choices the Democratic Party has this time around that it can find someone who isn't so ethically flawed (especially on the issue of representing rather than exploiting minorities).

 

And if all the candidates turn out to be ethically flawed, let's look at all their flaws and all of their positions on policy issues and find the best person to represent to party.

[archer]

4 hours ago, Pariah said:

More than 50 ex-national security officials tell Trump his national emergency is not justified

 

Presidential twitstorm in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . 

 

From what I remember reading the statute, the president doesn't have to justify the emergency, he only has to declare it.

 

Congress needs to do a whoopsie on that because like on so many other things, they assumed that all future presidents were going to act rationally. Or at least in accordance with his own political interests.

[Ranxerox]

1 hour ago, archer said:

 

Yeah, the statute of limitations was 5 years from when she stopped being employed at Harvard so it expired last year, you know, "long ago".

 

 

The statute of limitations uses her leaving employment at Harvard and not her the date that she made the false statement?  That seems odd.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Ranxerox said:

As it is, chanting "LOCK HER UP" probably is not going to get you anywhere. 

 

Since I'm the one that brought up the illegality of it, I'll clarify: I mentioned it, because as a lawyer, she should have understood the situation before she put it on the forms. She's been playing dumb on this, and it's underhanded. I'm calling her out on her "ignorance of the law" excuse, which as a lawyer is especially not an excuse. I don't want her locked up. I want her or one of the other relatively sane Democrats to beat Trump in 2020. Doesn't mean my opinion of her hasn't been tarnished by this fiasco.

[Pariah]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

in general, "tweetstorm" would be more accurate. In this case, though...

 

I stand by my original verbiage.

[megaplayboy]

2 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Since I'm the one that brought up the illegality of it, I'll clarify: I mentioned it, because as a lawyer, she should have understood the situation before she put it on the forms. She's been playing dumb on this, and it's underhanded. I'm calling her out on her "ignorance of the law" excuse, which as a lawyer is especially not an excuse. I don't want her locked up. I want her or one of the other relatively sane Democrats to beat Trump in 2020. Doesn't mean my opinion of her hasn't been tarnished by this fiasco.

The irony is, someone with Trump's baggage--not even his policy positions--wouldn't even get out of the starting gate as a candidate for the Democratic nomination, while people with 5% or less of his baggage will be put through the wringer and their shortcomings errantly held up against Trump's in an effort at false equivalence.  Nothing Warren has done even hits 5% of the baggage Trump has.  But she could still sink over it.  Ditto for virtually any other Dem running.  It's more than a little bit of an outrageous double standard.

[archer]

5 hours ago, Ranxerox said:

 

The statute of limitations uses her leaving employment at Harvard and not her the date that she made the false statement?  That seems odd.

 

Harvard reports to the EEOC yearly so the last date of her being in violation of that law would be her last year of employment there.

[Pattern Ghost]

4 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

It's more than a little bit of an outrageous double standard. 

 

Seems like the same standard: Our party can do no wrong.

[megaplayboy]

10 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Seems like the same standard: Our party can do no wrong.

Not particularly.   There's a world of difference between 5% impure and 99.99% impure.

[Pattern Ghost]

42 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

Not particularly.   There's a world of difference between 5% impure and 99.99% impure.

 

Not many people on Warren's side who are admitting the 5%. Even here, it's been a whole lot of making excuses for her as if this was all some innocent mistake on her part, and the folks around here are pretty reasonable.

[DShomshak]

My internet connection is slow and unstable, so I haven't followed the links Pattern Ghost posted; maybe these points are already made, and likely made better. But here goes.

 

Warren's, ah, malleable approach to her ethnicity unfortunately plays into a narrative that sociologist Arlene Hochschild found among the white conservatives of a Louisiana parish,  which she believes are the key to understanding Tea Party and Trumist rage and zeal. Her subjects thought that they weren't getting the economic advancement and social respect that they were due because liberals and minorities were cheating -- "cutting in line" was the phrase Hochschild proposed, and which her subjects affirmed as an apt summary. For instance, they don't see affirmative action as redress for an ongoing unfairness, but as a kind of scam to help minorities (and their liberal elite sponsors).

 

Now, you can't get much more liberal-elite than a Harvard law professor. And wow, it sure looks like Warren used a claim of Native American status as a scam. Maybe it was just liberal desire to identify with an oppressed minority to alleviate a sense of guilt at her white privilege; maybe it was something else; I don't know. But a reasonable person could hypothesize it was a scam.

 

It's hard enough convincing white folks that other people can rise without them falling. I suspect Senator Warren has made it just a little bit harder.

 

Dean Shomshak

[megaplayboy]

1 hour ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Not many people on Warren's side who are admitting the 5%. Even here, it's been a whole lot of making excuses for her as if this was all some innocent mistake on her part, and the folks around here are pretty reasonable.

My point is, compared to the incumbent, most of the "scandals" involving his challengers are pretty bloody trivial.  I'm pretty sure that Hubert Humphrey wasn't pure as the driven snow when he ran against Nixon in 1968, but the country would have been immeasurably better off had we been spared Watergate and all the other corrupt practices of the Nixon administration.  I am firmly convinced that we are not afforded the luxury of declining the good and waiting for the perfect.  

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Not many people on Warren's side who are admitting the 5%. Even here, it's been a whole lot of making excuses for her as if this was all some innocent mistake on her part, and the folks around here are pretty reasonable.

 

I have yet to see conclusive evidence that Warren intentionally misrepresented her race for personal gain.  But more to the point, on the spectrum of wrongdoing, checking the wrong racial box on an application is surely closer to a speeding ticket than, say, dodging the draft, or sexual assault. 

 

Warren's mishandling of her race is certainly disappointing, and character is a factor in any election.  But it's only one factor.  I have no illusions that anyone in America, let alone American politics, is going to have a squeaky clean record.  Warren has at least reached out to Native American organizations on this issue, which is more than most politicians do.

[Pattern Ghost]

32 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

My point is, compared to the incumbent, most of the "scandals" involving his challengers are pretty bloody trivial.  I'm pretty sure that Hubert Humphrey wasn't pure as the driven snow when he ran against Nixon in 1968, but the country would have been immeasurably better off had we been spared Watergate and all the other corrupt practices of the Nixon administration.  I am firmly convinced that we are not afforded the luxury of declining the good and waiting for the perfect.  

 

Compared to Trump, what Nixon did was trivial. I'll restate my position on Warren, in case it wasn't clear: She gets my vote over Trump if it comes to it, but not my first primary choice. 

[Pattern Ghost]

29 minutes ago, Old Man said:

I have yet to see conclusive evidence that Warren intentionally misrepresented her race for personal gain.  But more to the point, on the spectrum of wrongdoing, checking the wrong racial box on an application is surely closer to a speeding ticket than, say, dodging the draft, or sexual assault. 

 

Plenty of tribal members would disagree on the latter part. As for proof, it seems evident to me that she's been playing off her "family story" for gain at least since the start of her teaching career and all of her political career. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

 

31 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Warren's mishandling of her race is certainly disappointing, and character is a factor in any election.  But it's only one factor.  I have no illusions that anyone in America, let alone American politics, is going to have a squeaky clean record.

 

Agreed on this point, as I've said before.

 

32 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Warren has at least reached out to Native American organizations on this issue, which is more than most politicians do. 

 

After being played by Trump and having the DNA test backfire to the degree that it endangers her chances at nomination. She's had ample opportunities over the years to reach out over the issue and has not. I doubt her sincerity at this point.

[megaplayboy]

6 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Compared to Trump, what Nixon did was trivial. I'll restate my position on Warren, in case it wasn't clear: She gets my vote over Trump if it comes to it, but not my first primary choice. 

Which is fine, I guess, though as has been stated, you will find similar or comparable flaws among most of the major candidates.  Harris has issues related to her conduct as a prosecutor and AG.  Klobuchar has issues with how she treats her subordinates.  Biden...dear lord, where to start?  Sanders has an oppo file a foot thick.  Booker is tainted by association with Wall Street and charter schools.  Tulsi Gabbard has so many issues she arguably is already disqualified.  

[Dr.Device]

Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz commits felony obstruction of justice

live on twitter

 

Good times.