Mueller Investigation pt 6

[theprestige]

This isn't some game. What do you make of the possible effect of Trump's emboldening racists and the so-called non-PC bigots on the psychological health of the country?

Special pleading. Also not as risky as you make it out to be. I think people are putting a lot of effort into getting hysterical about Trump - more effort than is actually warranted by the man himself. I think the mainstream media has done far more to harm the "psychological health of the country"* than anything President Tweetcheeks has actually done.

 

[theprestige]

We're talking between elections, here, obviously. There's no need to deal with a president who's been voted out.

And I think it's generally better for liberal democracies to have limited recourse in between scheduled elections. Nothing I've seen about the Trump presidency so far suggests to me that it's time to make an exception.

We have impeachment. You have a vote of no confidence. Neither is guaranteed to work in every case. If your prime minister survives a vote of no confidence, but you want him out anyway, what recourse do you have? What recourse should you have?

 

[JoeMorgue]

There is also the massive disenfranchisement of large sections of the populace. California has a population of nearly 40-million and elects two senators, Wyoming has a population of nearly 600-thousand and elects two senators. Washington DC has a population greater than Wyoming or Vermont, and elects no senators.

Why should a voter in Wyoming have their vote worth sixty times that of a voter in California when it comes to selecting who might act as a check on the President?

bUt wIthOUT tHe eLECTOral coLLEge nEW YORk aNd LA wOULd piCK DA PRESident!

 

[Cabbage]

Personal joke. It's a meme elsewhere. Maybe your conclusions about my judgement are mistaken.

I wasn't familiar with that meme, but this is far from the first time you, in my opinion, demonstrated poor judgment. I don't base that conclusion on a solitary quote.

Sure. There's always the possibility. But every time we examine specific risks that are supposedly unique to Trump, they seem to either be special pleading, or not particularly risky, or both. Anyway, I'm not trying to convince you Trump is okay.

....(sigh).....here we go with "unique" again. Did I say "unique"? If another president is also risky, does that make the risk with Trump acceptable?...But yeah, I know exactly why you keep deflecting to "unique": You know I'm right so you instead argue against a straw man. Like pretending I claimed Trump was "unique" when I never said anything of the sort. "Unique" is not a necessary condition to be alarmed by the abuse of his power.

I'm just telling you how I see it.

And I'm saying you're wrong.

 

[Bob001]

.....
Why should a voter in Wyoming have their vote worth sixty times that of a voter in California when it comes to selecting who might act as a check on the President?

Why should someone in Washington DC have no vote in this at all?
....

1/ Washington is a unique case with an obvious solution. When the U.S. was created, most political power resided in the states. A national capital was deliberately created from land donated by Maryland and Virginia that would not be part of any state, and therefore not subject to a state's authority. The Virginia land was returned to that state in the mid-1800s, before the Civil War. The rest of the District of Columbia could be returned to Maryland, apart from a small federal enclave that would basically include the Capitol, the White House and the Mall. The current D.C. residents would become residents of Maryland and vote in Maryland's federal and state elections. "Retrocession" has been widely discussed for decades; it's not a particularly radical proposal, but several problems are associated with it, including the fact that the 23rd Amendment guarantees D.C. three electoral votes and questions about whether Maryland would assume the D.C. government's pension obligations.

2/ There is nothing in the Constitution that requires states to deliver their electoral votes to one candidate on a "winner take all" basis, and two states choose to do it differently. Most of the problems of the Electoral College would be solved if the states simply allocated their electors in proportion to the popular vote, or as close to it as possible if fractions weren't permitted. In Florida in 2000, there would have been no Constitutional crisis; Gore and Bush would each have gotten half the electoral votes. But obviously the states that benefit from the current system won't support any changes.

 

[Paul2]

Not only that, but what if the President ignores the court? Someone has to have the balls to remove the President.

Nit-picking, but the court isn't going to rule to remove the president, only Congress does that through impeachment. The court could rule against the president about, say, delivering some documents to Congress, and if the Trump refused, then I think Congress has some power to enforce (fines, jail), but I don't know the details. And, even then, how would the docs actually get delivered to Congress?

'Lil help, anyone?

 

[Cabbage]

The US political system actually has a substantial and obvious recourse for such a thing. A recourse that has stood the nation in good stead since its founding, and shows no sign of flagging now.

Translation: It's OK if the president obstructs Congress' Constitutional check on him; Congress has a Constitutional check on him, after all!

 

[Ziggurat]

Translation: It's OK if the president obstructs Congress' Constitutional check on him; Congress has a Constitutional check on him, after all!

In the posited scenario, the President is not obstructing Congress. The Senate is obstructing the House.

 

[theprestige]

Why should a voter in Wyoming have their vote worth sixty times that of a voter in California when it comes to selecting who might act as a check on the President?

For much the same reason that the UN General Assembly grants one vote per member nation, regardless of the nation's population size, or economic activity, or any other damn thing besides the fact that it's a nation and a member.

The US is a union of independent states, not a monolithic nation-state divided into administrative districts.

Specifically, the Senate acts as a check by the states on the federal government. Each member state gets an equal say in that, regardless of its population size. The House of Representatives, being more focused on the administration of the union, is weighted by population, as well as by simple membership.

It's an interesting and unique system, and one that I think works pretty well. It's not perfect, of course, but no system is. For all the touted virtues of the parliamentary system, we still get things like Brexit, and Australia's refugee hellholes. And let's not forget that it was a parliamentary system that produced a regime so horrible that it's still a byword for man's inhumanity to man almost 80 years later. So don't piss in my ear and tell me a parliament would turn it into rain.

 

[Cabbage]

In the posited scenario, the President is not obstructing Congress. The Senate is obstructing the House.

Do you expect me to believe this action of the Senate is completely independent of the presidency? It is explicitly due to the presidency, so I stand by my claim; it is a direct consequence of Trump in the White House, along with the general GOP intransigence that has been growing the past few decades. The Senate is working in concert with Trump.

And is Barr's refusal to appear before the House today the fault of the Senate as well? If Trump does the same, will you blame that on the Senate, too?

 

[theprestige]

I wasn't familiar with that meme, but this is far from the first time you, in my opinion, demonstrated poor judgment. I don't base that conclusion on a solitary quote.

Fair enough.

....(sigh).....here we go with "unique" again. Did I say "unique"? If another president is also risky, does that make the risk with Trump acceptable?...But yeah, I know exactly why you keep deflecting to "unique": You know I'm right so you instead argue against a straw man. Like pretending I claimed Trump was "unique" when I never said anything of the sort. "Unique" is not a necessary condition to be alarmed by the abuse of his power.

I wasn't claiming you said Trump is unique. I'm arguing that if Trump is not uniquely risky, then the risk can't be uniquely unacceptable. If he presents a similar degree of risk as other presidents, then we should be similarly tolerant of that risk as we are with other presidents.

I'm not particularly alarmed by the abuse of his power, because so far I haven't seen anything unusually abusive.

And I'm saying you're wrong.

Am I wrong in saying Trump doesn't seem to pose a unique risk?

 

[theprestige]

Translation: It's OK if the president obstructs Congress' Constitutional check on him; Congress has a Constitutional check on him, after all!

In the posited scenario, the President is not obstructing Congress. The Senate is obstructing the House.

Also, Cabbage's translation is awful. I was referring to elections, but his translation assumes I mean impeachment. The first rule of being a good translator is making sure you understand the author's intent before setting out to translate their text.

 

[Ziggurat]

Do you expect me to believe this action of the Senate is completely independent of the presidency?

The power of the Senate is independent from the presidency. In a hypothetical, you can make up whatever motives you want, no matter how sensible they are, so I'm really not much concerned with the motives you imagine for your hypothetical.

And is Barr's refusal to appear before the House today the fault of the Senate as well?

No, it's the fault of the House for setting unprecedented conditions on a cabinet secretary's appearance. But that was probably the plan: put conditions on his appearance he wouldn't accept, so that they can bitch about it.

 

[Ziggurat]

Also, Cabbage's translation is awful. I was referring to elections, but his translation assumes I mean impeachment.

Good point. I should never have trusted that he was making any sense to begin with.

 

[Cabbage]

Fair enough.


I wasn't claiming you said Trump is unique. I'm arguing that if Trump is not uniquely risky, then the risk can't be uniquely unacceptable. If he presents a similar degree of risk as other presidents, then we should be similarly tolerant of that risk as we are with other presidents.

I'm not particularly alarmed by the abuse of his power, because so far I haven't seen anything unusually abusive.

And I am wondering why you even brought it up, as:

1) I never said it, and

2) It's not even relevant.

When someone says X is bad, responding that X isn't the absolute worst ever is not a contribution to the debate, it's pure deflection, and you know it. I stand by my straw man claim.

Am I wrong in saying Trump doesn't seem to pose a unique risk?

I'm saying it's irrelevant, but nevertheless I'll ask: Can you name a time in recent memory when the Senate and the President have worked together to restrict the House's Constitutional check on the President?

 

[Cabbage]

Also, Cabbage's translation is awful. I was referring to elections, but his translation assumes I mean impeachment. The first rule of being a good translator is making sure you understand the author's intent before setting out to translate their text.

The debate explicitly excluded elections, referring to the interim in between. I don't know if the first rule of being a good debater is "Pay attention to the Topic", but it's pretty high up there.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I must respectfully disagree with you, Vox, and evidently a lot of others. While I generally agree with Hirono about Barr, I cannot support the grandstanding. It may make us feel self-righteous, but I don't think it actually accomplishes anything.

Barr was there so that we could learn more about the goings-on with the DOJ, the White House, and the various investigations. Instead, we heard Hirono's opinions.

Look at it this way: Did we learn more from Hirono's 5 minutes, or from Harris'?

IMO, we can learn a lot more from a non-answer than from a non-question.

Regardless of what anyone learned from Hirono giving her opinion and Graham spouting his faux outrage, the idea Barr was there to provide the information you cite is laughable.

As Nadler put it yesterday, with Democratic questions, Barr filibusters for 4.5 minutes and misstates the answer the remaining .5.

The GOP runs the Senate and all the committees. The point of Barr's testimony was to reinforce the dishonest narrative he's put out about the Mueller report. The more that lie is repeated, the more people come to believe/remember the false narrative over the facts. No matter how much the actual narrative of the Mueller report is publicized, the false narrative has been reinforced to such an extent, the real report is like background noise.

 

[Cabbage]

The power of the Senate is independent from the presidency. In a hypothetical, you can make up whatever motives you want, no matter how sensible they are, so I'm really not much concerned with the motives you imagine for your hypothetical.



No, it's the fault of the House for setting unprecedented conditions on a cabinet secretary's appearance. But that was probably the plan: put conditions on his appearance he wouldn't accept, so that they can bitch about it.

De jure, sure, but not de facto in this case. Hypothetical? Not at all, I'm watching it play out before my eyes.

I honestly can't speak to the accuracy of your "unprecedented" claim, but I will say: Based on previous engagements with you, I'm quite skeptical.

 

[theprestige]

I'm saying it's irrelevant, but nevertheless I'll ask: Can you name a time in recent memory when the Senate and the President have worked together to restrict the House's Constitutional check on the President?

I can try. But first can you be clear on what specific acts or omissions of the Senate you're talking about?

 

[theprestige]

The debate explicitly excluded elections, referring to the interim in between. I don't know if the first rule of being a good debater is "Pay attention to the Topic", but it's pretty high up there.

Here's the original claim I was replying to:

And here's the problem: the Trump clique can cock-block the Democrats until the cows come home. The US political system simply has no recourse for a total stonewall by a President of the same party of the Senate (mainly because originally the Senate was not elected).

There's no explicit exclusion of elections there. And I think it's a mistake to exclude elections from this debate anyway.