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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

TroperOnAStickV2 Call me Stick from Redneck country Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
Call me Stick
#237351: Apr 3rd 2018 at 4:39:48 PM

[up][up]That is, if you play strictly by the rules. At this point, I'd be all for bending them as far as possible, for abusing any little loophole that could be used to counter this shit.

edited 3rd Apr '18 4:40:11 PM by TroperOnAStickV2

Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#237352: Apr 3rd 2018 at 4:40:08 PM

There already are limits on the president's power, as we saw with Obama. Right now we just have the one-two punch of multiple branches of government being under Republican control.

edited 3rd Apr '18 4:40:40 PM by archonspeaks

They should have sent a poet.
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#237353: Apr 3rd 2018 at 4:40:25 PM

[up]x3 Agree wholeheartedly.

[up] There can always be more; like rescinding his Congress-less power to declare wars (even if they're only for 2 Months).

edited 3rd Apr '18 4:41:32 PM by DingoWalley1

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#237354: Apr 3rd 2018 at 4:40:51 PM

[up][up][up][up]That would change exactly nothing and hurt Democratic Presidents, the solution is purely to get Democrats elected. Which considering the high chance of a Blue Wave come November is rather likely if we all get out and vote.

edited 3rd Apr '18 4:41:08 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Wariolander Since: Nov, 2017
#237355: Apr 3rd 2018 at 4:48:03 PM

[up][up] And his Tariff powers. My grandfather putting on VICE News (I REALLY hate them) doesn't help my mood either.

edited 3rd Apr '18 4:48:12 PM by Wariolander

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237356: Apr 3rd 2018 at 4:49:35 PM

Let's look at this logically.

What are the norms and standards that are not cemented into law but are expected to be followed has this admistration defied?

A good example of his would be how Trump has refused to release his tax returns despite every other candidate has done so for decades.

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#237357: Apr 3rd 2018 at 4:49:45 PM

[up][up][up][up] I wouldn't go that far. The president has war powers for a reason.

What really needs to be rescinded is the 2001 AUMF.

edited 3rd Apr '18 4:49:53 PM by archonspeaks

They should have sent a poet.
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#237358: Apr 3rd 2018 at 4:52:11 PM

[up] But that's the thing; constitutionally, the President only has War Powers in a war. Congress has the main War Power of declaring War; the President should not have the power to randomly attack whoever they want without Congress' consent.

[up]x3 That one too.

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#237359: Apr 3rd 2018 at 4:56:20 PM

[up] Congress having sole authority over war sounds nice, but congress is slow moving by design even in the best of times. Some renegotiation of the War Powers Act might be in order, but given the way modern wars would develop and the way our military is used outside of peer-state hostilities it makes sense for the president to have a degree of authority over them outside of wartime.

They should have sent a poet.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#237360: Apr 3rd 2018 at 5:01:47 PM

But that's the thing; constitutionally, the President only has War Powers in a war. Congress has the main War Power of declaring War; the President should not have the power to randomly attack whoever they want without Congress' consent.
This sounds like a great way to cripple the national military response by placing it in the hands of a ossified and inefficient institution like Congress.

Also FYI this logic can be used against literally any government power, the solution is not to strip powers from the Presidency it's just to fight against the wrong person getting access to them.

edited 3rd Apr '18 5:02:07 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#237361: Apr 3rd 2018 at 5:04:23 PM

[up] I don't think there's a single country on the planet that rests all military authority on a legislative body. It's just not a good idea.

They should have sent a poet.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237362: Apr 3rd 2018 at 5:40:55 PM

Personally I would just rather close loopholes like cementing into law that all presidential candidates must release their tax returns, etc, to try to nip this in the bud before it gets here.

edited 3rd Apr '18 5:41:44 PM by megaeliz

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237363: Apr 3rd 2018 at 5:53:49 PM

A new study suggests fake news might have won Donald Trump the 2016 election. [1]

President Trump has said repeatedly that Russian interference didn't matter in the 2016 presidential campaign, and he has suggested — wrongly — that the intelligence and law enforcement communities have said the same. His overriding fear seems to be that Russian interference and the “fake news” it promoted would undermine the legitimacy of his election win.

Trump won't like this new study one bit.

The study from researchers at Ohio State University finds that fake news probably played a significant role in depressing Hillary Clinton's support on Election Day. The study, which has not been peer-reviewed but which may be the first look at how fake news affected voter choices, suggests that about 4 percent of President Barack Obama's 2012 supporters were dissuaded from voting for Clinton in 2016 by belief in fake news stories.

Richard Gunther, Paul A. Beck and Erik C. Nisbet, the study's authors, inserted three popular fake news stories from the 2016 campaign into a 281-question You Gov survey given to a sample that included 585 Obama supporters — 23 percent of whom didn't vote for Clinton, either by abstaining or picking another candidate (10 percent voted Trump, which is in line with other estimates).

Here are the false stories, along with the percentages of Obama supporters who believed they were at least “probably” true (in parenthesis):

  1. Clinton was in “very poor health due to a serious illness” (12 percent)
  2. Pope Francis endorsed Trump (8 percent)
  3. Clinton approved weapons sales to Islamic jihadists, “including ISIS” (20 percent)

Overall about one-quarter of 2012 Obama voters believed at least one of these stories, and of that group 45 percent voted for Clinton. Of those who believed none of the fake news stories, 89 percent voted for Clinton.

This alone does not prove that fake news made a difference, of course. A recent Princeton-led study of fake news consumption during the 2016 campaign found that false articles made up 2.6 percent of all hard-news articles late in the 2016 campaign, with the stories most often reaching intense partisans who probably were not persuadable. And it wouldn't be surprising if Obama voters who weren't reliable Democratic supporters were more apt to believe fake news stories that affirmed their decision not to vote for Clinton.

So the researchers sought to control for other factors such as gender, race, age, education, political leaning and even personal feelings about Clinton and Trump using multiple regression analysis, a method to measure the relative impact of multiple independent variables. According to the researchers, all of these factors combined to explain 38 percent of the defection of Obama voters from Clinton, but belief in fake news explained an additional 11 percent.

For those defecting from Clinton, believing fake news had a greater effect than anything except being a Republican or personally disliking Clinton. Obama voters who believed one of these fake news stories “were 3.9 times more likely to defect from the Democratic ticket in 2016 than those who believed none of these false claims, after taking into account all of these other factors,” the researchers write.

“We cannot prove that belief in fake news caused these former Obama voters to defect from the Democratic candidate in 2016,” they write. “These data strongly suggest, however, that exposure to fake news did have a significant impact on voting decisions.”

But we can use this study to glean clues and even rerun a hypothetical 2016 election. The Washington Post's polling director, Scott Clement, ran a predictive probability analysis using the OSU team's data and compared the existing 2016 election to a hypothetical election in which these fake news stories didn't exist. The result: Clinton lost 4.2 percent more of Obama's votes in the race with fake news vs. the hypothetical race without it.

If we multiply that 4.2 percent drop-off by Obama's 2012 vote share in the three key states that delivered the presidency to Trump, it suggests that fake news cost Clinton about 2.2 or 2.3 points apiece in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And Clinton lost Michigan by just 0.2 points and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by 0.72 and 0.76 points, respectively.

These are rough estimates, to be clear. But notably, Clinton's estimated drop-off in each state would be about three times bigger — or more — than the study's impact of fake news. That would mean that, for fake news not to have made the difference (according to these data), Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin would have had to be uniquely impervious to the effects of fake news, compared with the rest of the country.

The survey also notably doesn't measure what effect fake news might have had on increasing Trump's support, instead only focusing on how it depressed Clinton's. That could increase the shift. But even with this limited purview, it suggests it made a significant difference.

And it suggests it may well have cost Clinton the presidency.

This just confirms what I had been saying this for a long time. The Russians figured this out already, to the fact that this is just tactics straight out of the Soviet playbook, and they have proven to he effective time and time again. Combine that with the modern power of targeted advertising designed to make you want to buy stuff, and you've created a weapon of unimaginable power.

edited 3rd Apr '18 6:09:32 PM by megaeliz

PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#237364: Apr 3rd 2018 at 5:58:32 PM

What, NO WAY! I don't believe it! Good to have numbers, though.

edited 3rd Apr '18 5:58:54 PM by PushoverMediaCritic

BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#237365: Apr 3rd 2018 at 6:03:23 PM

...Pope Francis endorsed Trump?

Do not obey in advance.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237366: Apr 3rd 2018 at 6:05:00 PM

[up] that's an example they're giving of Russian Dezinformatisya, aka, actual fake news.

edited 3rd Apr '18 6:09:48 PM by megaeliz

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#237367: Apr 3rd 2018 at 6:28:36 PM

No offense to any Catholics here, but you'd have to be a particularly gullible Catholic to believe the Pope, especially one as progressive as Francis, would endorse the monumental insult to all that is good and holy that is Trump.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#237368: Apr 3rd 2018 at 6:31:57 PM

I don't think that would offend any Catholics, unless they believed it tongue

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237369: Apr 3rd 2018 at 6:55:21 PM

This is big, but not as big as you'd think (I'll get to that in a moment)

Mueller told Trump’s attorneys the president remains under investigation but is not currently a criminal target

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III informed President Trump’s attorneys last month that he is continuing to investigate the president but does not consider him a criminal target at this point, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

In private negotiations in early March about a possible presidential interview, Mueller described Trump as a subject of his investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Prosecutors view someone as a subject when that person has engaged in conduct that is under investigation but there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges.

The special counsel also told Trump’s lawyers that he is preparing a report about the president’s actions while in office and potential obstruction of justice, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.

Mueller reiterated the need to interview Trump — both to understand whether he had any corrupt intent to thwart the Russia investigation and to complete this portion of his probe, the people said.

Mueller’s description of the president’s status has sparked friction within Trump’s inner circle as his advisers have debated his legal standing. The president and some of his allies seized on the special counsel’s words as an assurance that Trump’s risk of criminal jeopardy is low. Other advisers, however, noted that subjects of investigations can easily become indicted targets — and expressed concern that the special prosecutor was baiting Trump into an interview that could put the president in legal peril.

John Dowd, Trump’s top attorney dealing with the Mueller probe, resigned last month amid disputes about strategy and frustration that the president ignored his advice to refuse the special counsel’s request for an interview, according to a Trump friend.

Trump’s chief counsel, Jay Sekulow, and Dowd declined to comment for this report. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred questions to White House attorney Ty Cobb.

“Thank you, but I don’t discuss communications with the president or with the Office of Special Counsel,” Cobb said Tuesday.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, declined to comment.

The wide-ranging special counsel investigation, which began as an examination of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, has expanded into other areas, including whether Trump sought to obstruct the probe.

Mueller’s investigators have indicated to the president’s legal team that they are considering writing reports on their findings in stages — with the first report focused on the obstruction issue, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

Before you get too Freaked out:

THREAD: What does today’s news that Trump is a “subject” of Mueller’s investigation but not a “target” mean? (Short answer: Not as much as it seems at first glance.)

1/ Today the @washingtonpost reported that Mueller told Trump’s attorneys that he is a “subject” but not a “target” of his investigation.

2/ You are a “subject” of a federal investigation when your conduct is part of the government’s investigation. So if the government is investigating what you did, you are a “subject.” It’s what people commonly refer to as being “under investigation.”

3/ A “target” of an investigation is someone for whom the prosecutor has substantial evidence linking him or her to a crime and is a “putative defendant.” In other words, is someone the prosecutor intends to charge.

4/ As a practical matter, federal prosecutors typically don’t decide until late in an investigation whether they will charge a person who is under investigation. Usually prosecutors don’t make that judgement until they’ve interviewed witnesses and reviewed the relevant documents.

5/ For that reason, defense attorneys typically complain that a “non-target letter” isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. As a practical matter, if your client is a “subject,” a statement that the prosecutor doesn’t intend to indict you at this time doesn’t mean much.

6/ The prosecutor can just continue to collect evidence and make the decision to indict at a later time. That’s why any good federal criminal defense attorney knows that what really matters most is whether your client is a subject.

7/ So all today’s news tells us is that Mueller hasn’t decided to indict Trump at this time. But if Trump’s lawyers know what they’re doing, they’ll tell him that he’s still under great risk. /end

edited 3rd Apr '18 6:55:50 PM by megaeliz

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#237370: Apr 3rd 2018 at 6:57:19 PM

The reason why we shouldn't freak out is in the title, "Mueller told Trump’s attorneys the president remains under investigation but is not currently a criminal target".

In the grand scheme of things this is nothing, heck I wouldn't be surprised if Mueller is intentionally trying to put Trump at ease and get something damaging from him.

edited 3rd Apr '18 6:57:52 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237371: Apr 3rd 2018 at 6:59:00 PM

The reason why we shouldn't freak out is in the title, "Mueller told Trump’s attorneys the president remains under investigation but is not currently a criminal target".

In the grand scheme of things this is nothing, heck I wouldn't be surprised if Mueller is intentionally trying to put Trump at ease and get something damaging from him.

[up] Apparently it worked:

The president has privately expressed relief at the description of his legal status, which has increased his determination to agree to a special counsel interview, the people said. He has repeatedly told allies that he is not a target of the probe and believes an interview will help him put the matter behind him, friends said. [1]

edited 3rd Apr '18 7:00:35 PM by megaeliz

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#237372: Apr 3rd 2018 at 7:00:26 PM

[up]Nice to see Mueller playing Trump like a damn fiddle. evil grin

edited 3rd Apr '18 7:00:43 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
TroperOnAStickV2 Call me Stick from Redneck country Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
Call me Stick
#237373: Apr 3rd 2018 at 7:01:11 PM

Given some of Muller's earlier actions that seems a fairly likely possibility, which of course would be good.

... bloody hell this thread is fast sometimes.

edited 3rd Apr '18 7:01:44 PM by TroperOnAStickV2

Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#237374: Apr 3rd 2018 at 7:02:31 PM

The keyword is “currently”. A smarter person would still be worried about being under investigation at all. Then again a smarter person would never have gotten themselves into this mess in the first place.

Disgusted, but not surprised
BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#237375: Apr 3rd 2018 at 7:09:31 PM

@Fourthspartan: IKR? grin

Do not obey in advance.

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