Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Marjorie Taylor Greene May Have Sent Hunter Biden Nudes to a Bunch of Minors

[Hermit]

Well, she'll certainly get a good solid slap on the wrist for that if so.

[Cygnia]

How long before Matt Gaetz does the same? 🙄

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Man who had jail sentence commuted by Trump arrested again
 

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

Man who had jail sentence commuted by Trump arrested again
 

 

What's interesting is the rumors from the past that said commutation was obtained in exchange for money. If Weinstein is looking for a reduced sentence for these latest charges, he may be willing to testify about that process to state and even federal investigators.

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

What's interesting is the rumors from the past that said commutation was obtained in exchange for money. If Weinstein is looking for a reduced sentence for these latest charges, he may be willing to testify about that process to state and even federal investigators.

 

Would it matter?  I don't think there are any limits whatsoever on Presidential pardons.  Sure, ethically, but we already know Trump's ethics don't extend past his ego.

 

Unless it wasn't reported in ANY way, then there might be tax evasion charges, but with a complex tax return like Trump's, there are probably ways to attribute any such payment as something that had been reported.

[Iuz the Evil]

32 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

Would it matter?  I don't think there are any limits whatsoever on Presidential pardons.  Sure, ethically, but we already know Trump's ethics don't extend past his ego.

 

Unless it wasn't reported in ANY way, then there might be tax evasion charges, but with a complex tax return like Trump's, there are probably ways to attribute any such payment as something that had been reported.

Not for Federal charges but the POTUS cannot pardon State charges.

[Lectryk]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

Would it matter?  I don't think there are any limits whatsoever on Presidential pardons.  Sure, ethically, but we already know Trump's ethics don't extend past his ego.

 

Unless it wasn't reported in ANY way, then there might be tax evasion charges, but with a complex tax return like Trump's, there are probably ways to attribute any such payment as something that had been reported.

 

If an inducement was offered for the pardon, that's a crime.  Weinstein might have something to deal with.

[unclevlad]

Mmm...ok, yes, it's offering a bribe.  But as you say, that's not Trump's problem.

[Lectryk]

1 minute ago, unclevlad said:

Mmm...ok, yes, it's offering a bribe.  But as you say, that's not Trump's problem.

 

How is being open to a charge of bribery not Trump's problem?  Granted, Weinsteing may or may not have this to offer, but if he does, Trump would be the target of the charges.

[unclevlad]

Offering the inducement is separate from charging Trump with accepting a bribe...because it was a pardon/commutation.  Found this page:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/presidential-pardons-settled-law-unsettled-issues-and-a-downside-for-trump/

 

It doesn't discuss the issue of whether bribery can be committed, but it does lay out that the limitations are pretty much on what can be pardoned...and those limits are narrow.  The story also points out that the courts are not at all likely to want to take up the question.

[Lectryk]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

Offering the inducement is separate from charging Trump with accepting a bribe...because it was a pardon/commutation.  Found this page:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/presidential-pardons-settled-law-unsettled-issues-and-a-downside-for-trump/

 

It doesn't discuss the issue of whether bribery can be committed, but it does lay out that the limitations are pretty much on what can be pardoned...and those limits are narrow.  The story also points out that the courts are not at all likely to want to take up the question.

Thank you for the article.   It lays out the issues surrounding limitations on the pardon power, the scopes of what can be pardoned, etc.  I didn't see it saying that the president was immunized from bribery to gain a pardon, though (https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-2041-bribery-public-officials and https://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/sites/ca3/files/Chap 6 Bribery.pdf seem to cover what Weinstein may be able to offer evidence of).

 

I think from your reply we're talking past each other.  I am not saying anything about the pardon power of the presidency (which seems to me to be the point of your posts), but the potential activity around this particular pardon, and if Weinstein obtained it through offering some consideration.  If I misunderstand your postes/intents, I apologize.

[unclevlad]

Granted...but I'm questioning, and I'll grant I'm not sure, if the fact that it IS a pardon, which has almost complete leeway, invalidates the notion of bribery...at least on Trump's side.  If it was practically anything but a pardon, then, yes, it's bribery.  Something to note:  is a pardon an objective decision in the first place?  Take a weird, TV drama case...the president's kid gets into a fight at college, goes away, then comes back to shoot up the scene and kill 4 people.  Everything is in place for the death penalty, and there's NO reason for clemency.  The president pardons his kid.  Game over.  

 

This is completely within the scope of his powers.  If something like this is an acceptable use, then what isn't?  If Trump gets re-elected, he may well pardon anyone left in jail for Jan. 6th convictions, even those for sedition.  How is that an objective decision?

 

Secondary, from the article I posted:  the courts may well not want to become involved in a bribery case that is about a pardon, because of that degree of freedom.  Trump is going to claim executive privilege, and that will also be a tough shield to crack.

 

There is a part of the Brookings article worth noting, highlights mine:
 

Quote

One of the most disturbing aspects of the president’s broad power to pardon is that it apparently empowers the president to conspire with others to commit crimes that personally profit him or serve to maintain him illegally in office, since he can assure those who aid in these endeavors that if their perfidy is discovered, he will pardon them for the crimes they have committed. Surely, one might think, the framers did not intend for the pardon power to extend this far. It appears, however, that the drafters of the pardon clause recognized this danger, but did not act to prevent it. The issue was raised during the discussion of the pardon power at the constitutional convention when it was proposed that the president’s power to pardon be restricted not just for impeachments but also when treason was charged. George Mason, in language that seems to anticipate what some think is true of some Trump pardons, argued in favor of the addition: “The President of the United States has the unrestricted power of granting pardons for treason; which may sometimes be exercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime and thereby prevent the discovery of his own guilt.” George Iredell argued against Mason’s position as unduly weakening the executive when the chance of a president committing treason against his country was “very slight” and suggested that no man honored by his country by being elected president would risk “the damnation of his fame to all future ages.”

 

In other words, they failed to anticipate how badly warped the political system might become.  (Which, BTW, also is a massive argument against the literal interpretation of the Constitution so heavily used by the conservative Justices.)

So if this is the case, again...is any court going to consider prosecuting a bribe related to a *pardon*?  MUCH LESS, of course, THIS Supreme Court.  There is no doubt in my mind that even should a lower court convict, it would never be upheld by the Supreme Court as it would stand now.

[Clonus]

Presidents can pardon participants in a criminal conspiracy with him for their involvement.  But a direct quid pro quo offer of money for doing anything as president would not be protected.  It's not likely that anything that direct happened, though.  Trump is sly enough to avoid being that direct when asking people to do something illegal or offering to do something illegal.  

Edited July 21, 2023 by Clonus

[death tribble]

Meanwhile over here the by-election results are in. Three Conservative MPS resigned after Boris was censured over Partygate. These were all safe seats. And they lost two of them. They retained the London one by just 495 votes.

Labour took the Yorkshire seat overturning a Tory majority of 20,000. The view is that the voters took revenge after their MP resigned in spite leaving them without a representative. Labour have never overturned a majority that big. It is also particuarly embarrassing as the PM Rishi Sunak's constituency is close by. 

The Liberal Democrats took their West Country seat. This used to be one of the strongholds until the 2015 election when they were all but wiped out.

[Doc Democracy]

7 minutes ago, death tribble said:

Meanwhile over here the by-election results are in. Three Conservative MPS resigned after Boris was censured over Partygate. These were all safe seats. And they lost two of them. They retained the London one by just 495 votes.

Labour took the Yorkshire seat overturning a Tory majority of 20,000. The view is that the voters took revenge after their MP resigned in spite leaving them without a representative. Labour have never overturned a majority that big. It is also particuarly embarrassing as the PM Rishi Sunak's constituency is close by. 

The Liberal Democrats took their West Country seat. This used to be one of the strongholds until the 2015 election when they were all but wiped out.

 

And yet you do not highlight the biggest difference between UK and US elections...

 

 

[DShomshak]

As a vacation from the impending self-destruction of the USA, here's a brief Economist article about states and cities redesigning their flags.

 

(It resulted in some amusing letters in the latest Economist, including a recommendation for the flag of Wales. "It has a dragon on it. It's badass.")

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

You can always watch the impending self-destruction of Russia if you want a vacation. I guarantee it's at least a year ahead of the USA.

[Cygnia]

One Woman’s Mission to Rewrite Nazi History on Wikipedia

Quote

When Ksenia Coffman started editing Wikipedia, she was like a tourist in Buenos Aires in the 1950s. She came to learn the tango, admire the architecture, sip maté. She didn’t know there was a Nazi problem. But Coffman, who was born in Soviet-era Russia and lives in Silicon Valley, is an intensely observant traveler. As she link-hopped through articles about the Second World War, one of her favorite subjects, she saw what seemed like a concerted effort to look the other way about Germany’s wartime atrocities.

Coffman can’t recall exactly when her concern set in. Maybe it was when she read the article about the SS, the Nazi Party’s paramilitary, which included images that felt to her like glamour shots—action-man officers admiring maps, going on parade, all sorts of “very visually disturbing” stuff. Or maybe it was when she clicked through some of the pages about German tank gunners, flying aces, and medal winners. There were hundreds of them, and the men’s impressive kill counts and youthful derring-do always seemed to exist outside the genocidal Nazi cause. What was going on here? Wikipedia was supposed to be all about consensus. Wasn’t there consensus on, you know, Hitler?

 

A typical person might have thought, Something is wrong on the internet again. What a bummer. Next tab. But Coffman is the person who finishes the thousand-page Holocaust novel. Whatever she chooses to spend her time on—powerlifting, fragrance collecting, denazification—she approaches the assignment like a straight-A student. You can time-travel back and watch her begin. Wikipedia never forgets; it keeps a permanent public record of every change an editor makes.

 

[unclevlad]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/21/1189179220/amid-a-record-heat-wave-texas-construction-workers-lose-their-right-to-rest-brea

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/21/1189179220/amid-a-record-heat-wave-texas-construction-workers-lose-their-right-to-rest-brea

 

 

 

More evidence that legislation like this is authored by men who never did a day's hard physical labor in their lives. They don't understand and they don't care.

[unclevlad]

53 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

More evidence that legislation like this is authored by men who never did a day's hard physical labor in their lives. They don't understand and they don't care.

 

I don't disagree, but it's not the point, IMO.  They WANTED to strike these down.  It's one of those pesky anti-business rules.  That it will cost money, health, and possibly even lies, isn't an issue at all.  So, it's not that they don't understand;  it's WORSE.  They DO.

[Lord Liaden]

I also don't disagree, but perhaps I should have emphasized the "don't care" part of my comment. It would have been easy enough to amend this legislation to make allowances for the practical needs of laborers. These politicians never even thought of that implication because they can't relate to people who have to work hard outdoors for a living. But even if they were made to understand that, it wouldn't matter enough to them to change it, unless it causes political blowback.

[Cygnia]

Inside the Republican effort to force millions of farm animals back into cages
 

Quote

If enacted, and if it were to survive likely court challenges, the EATS Act would open up all those cage-free laws to lawsuits, potentially erasing decades of progress for animals suffering on factory farms. The bill would also threaten other farmed animal welfare laws, like California’s and New York City’s prohibitions on the sale of foie gras, a product made by force-feeding ducks and geese. (Disclosure: Prior to Vox, I worked at animal welfare groups that advocated for cage-free laws and opposed legislation similar to the EATS Act.)

A Vermont law concerning genetically modified food provides an example as to how passage of the EATS Act could play out. The 2014 law required food producers that use genetically modified ingredients to disclose the use of the technology on their product labels, but in 2016, shortly after it went into effect, Congress passed a watered-down version of the law that preempts state law, essentially nullifying Vermont’s regulation. Vermont’s attorney general decided to stop enforcing the original law rather than defend it in court, and state attorneys general with cage-free laws might take a similar course in response to the EATS Act.

 

[Clonus]

On 7/22/2023 at 8:53 PM, unclevlad said:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/21/1189179220/amid-a-record-heat-wave-texas-construction-workers-lose-their-right-to-rest-brea

 

 

 

Six days later, the first worker died.  Meanwhile in the "Just try that in a small town" department:

 

Black man who says he was elected mayor of Alabama town alleges that White leaders are keeping him from position - CBS News

 

Braxton was elected mayor by default, making him the first Black mayor of Newbern in the 165 years since the town was founded. 

 

Braxton was informed by county probate Judge Arthur Crawford that because no one had qualified or been elected to town council positions, he could appoint people to the positions, according to the lawsuit. This was in line with previous mayoral administrations, who also appointed council members. Braxton asked both Black and White residents to serve, but no White residents agreed to join his council, according to the lawsuit. 

 

Meanwhile, in August 2020, just weeks after his election, Stokes and his council members Gary Broussard, Jesse Donald Leverett, Voncille Brown Thomas and Willie Richard Tucker allegedly "met in secret to adopt a 'special' election ordinance." Notice of the meeting was not published, and the group set a special election for Oct. 6, 2020.