The General US Politics Thread

That is correct. The pardon is for the stuff he was accused of, not a general blanket “Get out of Jail Free” card. If he was involved, he can be charged and punished independent of the crimes he was pardoned for. That’s part of why Trump didn’t give himself a pardon, well, that and the state crimes.

Edit - Page topper.

Edited by Beatman1 on Jan 22nd 2021 at 5:39:05 AM

Biden becoming president has actually made me look forward to checking out the news again, knowing there's actual policy to look at and not more histrionics or depressing atrocities on the front page. And, conversely, it allows me to sleep better at night and not feel bad that I didn't check the news, knowing there is a much smaller chance of someone I care about getting gunned down or illegally arrested due to government bullshit.

People need to hold their leaders accountable and disengaging from politics just because you no longer have a straight-up fascist in the office is exactly the kind of breeding conditions for another fascist to take his place. Some radicals would call non-constant engagement with political news a sign of liberalism (which I don't really think is a great descriptor considering these types use liberal as a generic insult for damn near anything they don't like), but it is definitely complacent and more than a little bothsideist.

Edited by AlleyOop on Jan 22nd 2021 at 5:45:18 AM

There's no precedent for a pre-emptive pardon, and it's pretty likely that part of the reason Trump didn't pardon himself was because someone told him that if it was challenged, he'd have to explain to a court what he was trying to pardon himself for. If he thought he was innocent, he wouldn't need to pardon himself, so clearly there would be some reason why he thought it was necessary.

And "I thought I might be accused of something in the future" again raises the question of why he thinks that would be the case, unless he's planning to break federal law. And the Supreme Court owes him absolutely nothing now, and some of his appointees actually really hate him now because he started attacking them last year.

There’s precedent for a pardon covering crimes not yet know or charged for, Nixon’s pardon covered any and all crimes he committed while president.

Screw you Ford.

That's not actually pre-emptive though. If Nixon murdered someone the day after getting pardoned, it wouldn't have been covered. The way Trump and his team talked about it, it honestly sounded like Trump was trying to get a permanent exemption from ever being prosecuted on a federal level.

A Senate vote should be held tomorrow where they vote to make it illegal to pardon oneself.

So need for a legal challenge for the, Ain't No Rule.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 22nd 2021 at 3:06:00 AM

I don't believe Congress has the power to clarify the President's pardoning power. And that's typically something the constitution explicitly specifies if they do have such power.^note hence why so many amendments have a clause granting congress the power to enforce the amendment through appropriate legislation

In practice it would almost certainly end up before the Supreme Court regardless of what congress says, who would make a ruling on the question of if the President can self-pardon.

Schumer is saying the impeachment trial will begin in the second week of February.

Probably the best option under the circumstances. While the sooner the better, getting Biden's Cabinet confirmed has to come first so he can actually fulfill the basic functions of government.

Currently only the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence has been confirmed.

Like... I know at the end of the day this boils down to "he's a democrat so every thing he does is wrong"

But like isnt the allotment of land like explicitly the job of the federal government? Making that statement even more stupid?

At least I remember the feds got involved with a border dispute with New Jersey...

Federal land is a bit of a contentious issue in states where in some cases well over 50% of their land is federal (and Utah is one of them). And it's a lot more then just the Federal government's name being on the deed to the property, on this land the Federal government pays neither taxes nor has to follow state regulations.

Given this typically states want Federal land to be used for some purpose they get some side benefits from if the government isn't willing to turn it over to them outright. National monuments aren't really a great source of side-benefits for the states, financially speaking anyways.

Edited by Falrinn on Jan 22nd 2021 at 4:24:48 AM

There have been shooting incidents over the designation of federal lands.

Fighteer keeps saying that Republicans are inherently incompetent, so I sincerely wonder what his verdict is on Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan, who all won reelection with landslide victories and were extremely popular while being President.

Yes, Nixon's reputation was tarnished by Watergate after the 1972 election . . . where he won 60.7% of the popular vote. Reagan's reputation has been retroactively tarnished by Trump, but Ronnie still persuaded 58.8% of popular voters to reelect him in 1984. Ike comes in third by being reelected with 57.4% in 1956.

Contrast the three with Trump's static base of 46% in both 2016 and 2020.

Edited by FluffyMcChicken on Jan 22nd 2021 at 4:31:37 AM

"Republicans" meaning "Modern Republicans" was quite obviously implicit in the context of the conversation.

Edited by Perseus on Jan 22nd 2021 at 11:36:05 PM

All three of them are dead, and thus not currently part of the Republican Party.

While the Republican Party has been trending rightward on economics since Goldwater and rightward on race since Nixon, the anti-intellectualism and veneration of stupidity is slightly more recent, starting either with Reagan or maybe as late as Bush junior.

Again, I think it useful to distinguish between competence at governing vs. competence at political marketing. The Cambridge Analytica scandal convinces me that we cannot afford to be complacent with regards to this.

I mean, all you would need is someone somewhat less self-sabotaging than Trump was to qualify.

Trump was competent at political marketing, he’s always been a very skilled conman. He has a huge amount of control over the Republican base.

When it comes to national political performance Trump is the competent one for the Republican Party.

While I consider impeaching Trump the most important thing I wonder how it's going for impeaching Ted Cruz.

@Silasw: I don't agree: he lost. If he were good at it, he would have had a majority behind him.

Trump just was a belligerent, crude jackass, basically what he always was. The thing is that the Republican base loves that kind of shit. And him being an outsider was looked at as a plus. But most of the people could see through it after a while and it only really worked the first time.

Trump's "competence" was a double-edge sword; it was very good at getting turnout for himself (he seems to have gotten millions of votes from people who otherwise don't bother) but also had the effect of stirring a lot of turnout against himself (getting even more votes against him from people who otherwise wouldn't bother/have hurdles against it).

And that success seemed to only work directly for himself, and not the Republicans at large.

Mhm. The thing about Trump is that while he was very good at motivating people to vote for him, he was even better at motivating people to vote against him.

A more boring republican wouldn't have had the same cult following, but also probably could've skated to re-election by doing this like not deliberately calling attention to their attempts to rig the election or get their own followers killed by the plague.

That was because the dispute was over the wording of old-ass 17th and 19th century treaties from the English monarch between New York and New Jersey, which meant it went directly to the Supreme Court and gave most of Ellis and about half of Liberty Island to New Jersey.

Edited by megarockman on Jan 22nd 2021 at 8:35:43 AM

Republicans are very good at talking to their base. That's not the kind of competence I was talking about. I'm talking about accomplishing things once they're in government. Running the apparatus. Crafting good legislation. Executing good policy.