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

TheRoguePenguin Since: Jul, 2009
#243301: May 23rd 2018 at 2:37:27 PM

If nothing else, I sense that he knows what audience he wants to appeal to. Single payer, campaign finance reform, decent trade policies; definitely a strike from the left to make himself stand out.

BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#243302: May 23rd 2018 at 2:48:05 PM

What exactly happened that caused someone to throw water at Tomi Lahren?

Do not obey in advance.
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#243303: May 23rd 2018 at 2:52:11 PM

[up]I mean, she's a far-right piece of shit. Now, that doesn't mean that assaulting her is right or particularly smart/effective, but there you go.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#243304: May 23rd 2018 at 2:54:34 PM

I was going to say, "being herself."

Splashing her with water isn't nice but it's not exactly blood either.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#243305: May 23rd 2018 at 2:55:22 PM

they mistook her for a witch and acted according

In seriousness,apparently she's a' 'Fox News contributor' and her attacker believed this justified their attack

edited 23rd May '18 2:55:43 PM by Ultimatum

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#243307: May 23rd 2018 at 2:57:19 PM

[up][up] I'd say they were "putting out the Blaze", but I don't think she works there anymore?

edited 23rd May '18 2:57:37 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#243308: May 23rd 2018 at 3:03:23 PM

She still works for Fox according to Wikipedia

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#243309: May 23rd 2018 at 3:06:30 PM

Well, that's... really bad then, that someone attacked her because she works for Fox Ews.

I wish that people wouldn't do that because it's wrong and it feeds into the persecution complex that these conservatives have.

Do not obey in advance.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#243310: May 23rd 2018 at 3:11:21 PM

they attacked because she works for Fox and that the fact that she's racist

But yeah,people who do that help no one

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#243311: May 23rd 2018 at 3:53:19 PM

Cc Kushner Security clearance: (from Rep Don Beyer) [1]

Today the White House and Jared Kushner’s representatives are saying that the decision to grant Mr. Kushner’s clearance was made by career personnel, and that this decision was the deserved outcome of an above-board process.

Both claims are false or misleading. 1/

The claim that Kushner's clearance was granted by ‘career’ personnel and not the White House contradicts the FBI, which told us "the granting or suspension of Mr. Kushner’s clearance would be the responsibility of the client adjudication entity, in this case, the White House"

The suggestion that Mr. Kushner has been adequately forthcoming during this process, or that he deserves a security clearance, is belied by his constant failure to honestly disclose his foreign contacts and business conflicts, and to properly complete his ethics filings. 3/

Kushner had to update his SF-86 multiple times after failing to disclose connections with foreign officials and entities, including an attempt to set up a back-channel communication with the Kremlin. He has also been fined for repeated failure to file ethics disclosures. 4/

Jared Kushner does not deserve a permanent security clearance.

Kushner has been deceptive and dishonest, and there are many reasonable questions about whose interests he is serving in his efforts to influence US foreign policy. 5/

That the White House kept him in his position and granted him a permanent security clearance makes it clear that Congress needs to step in and create new safeguards for this process, which it should do by passing legislation I put forward: the Security Clearance Review Act. 6/6

And from Ted Lieu

.@FBI does not grant or adjudicate security clearances. Decision to give Jared Kushner a clearance was made solely by the White House.

Kushner omitted his Trump Tower meeting not once, but TWICE on his SF-86s. If he wasn't the son-in-law of @POTUS, he would not have a clearance

edited 23rd May '18 3:56:51 PM by megaeliz

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#243312: May 23rd 2018 at 3:54:02 PM

So, when the Supreme Court case regarding worker's rights was discussed a couple of days ago, I think the main point was missed. (Unless I missed part of the discussion, which, thank to my work hours, I may have, and apologies if so.) Everyone was talking about unions, but it really wasn't directly about unions, (although it certainly impacts them) it was about arbitration. Arbitration is the practice of allowing a company to essentially handpick a private judge and jury for disputes with an employee, and it keeps employees from being able to take it to court via the use of non-disclosure agreements.

So if you think your boss is mistreating you for reasons of your gender, sexuality, sexually harassing you, or just doing good old wage theft, (say that your paycheck always seems to be smaller than it should be and it turns out that your employer was holding back on some of your overtime, tips, whatever) you can't take them to court, you have to go to arbitration... with in some cases the employer already having a relationship with the arbitrator, in many cases being the ones who actually pay the arbitrator, (not that it's better the other way, when you might be paying the arbitrator $10,000 or more to investigate your case, which kind of defeats the purpose if your case is about, say, $2,000 worth of missing overtime) and arbotrator seldom rule in favor of employees. One figure I found claims arbitrators rule in favor of employees barely more than 20% of the time, or less than half the percentage that a state court rules in favor of the employee.

What's more, the court's decision means that each individual has to go through arbitration separately rather than joining together ala a class action lawsuit. So every single employee has to decide if it's worth the expense, the possibility for retaliation, the burned bridges, and the knowledge that they're much more likely to get ruled against in arbitration than in a court.

More than half of non-union employees are already covered by mandatory arbitration in the case of such disputes. Since arbitration can now effectively sidestep and significantly cut down on the cost of employer liability when they take advantage of their employees, expect that figure to go up significantly, and for mandatory arbitration to become common, where you can't even get hired into a company without agreeing to arbitration in settling disputes. All part of the process to usher in America's Feudal Future where we're all serfs.

About the only good news is the ruling rests on the presence of a 1925 law, so if that's repealed by a future democratic Congress/President, or a law is passed outlawing arbitration for settling employee-employer disputes, this can all be averted. But until then, for anyone caught in this process, things are going to suck.

Relevant quotes and sources:

Is Arbitration Faster and Less Expensive Than Trial? Many employers adopted mandatory arbitration of disputes with employees under the belief that arbitration was faster and less expensive than trial. Often it is not. At least one study comparing a number of employment cases arbitrated by one employer versus a similar number adjudicated in court by that same employer found that the trials occurred faster than the arbitration hearings and at a lower cost to the employer. In order to achieve the touted goal of efficiency, employment contract arbitration provisions must be very carefully drafted to include, among other things, firm timelines from the initial demand for arbitration through to the arbitration hearing. Relatively few arbitration clauses contain such deadlines.

Is Arbitration More Expensive for the Employee? If an employee is represented by an attorney, the expense should be the same whether the dispute is in arbitration or trial. However, if the employee is required to also pay a portion of the arbitrator’s fees and costs, then the cost will be substantially higher than if the case was in court. Experienced arbitrators generally charge top dollar for their services. Arbitration fees can range from the $7,500-$10,000 range to more than $100,000. Many employment agreements, however, require the expense of the arbitration to be paid entirely by the employer.

Is Preparing for the Arbitration Hearing the Same as Getting Ready for Trial? Generally, unless the arbitration clause requires parties to adhere to court discovery and evidence rules, the pre hearing arbitration process is often much less clear and less formal than is preparing for trial. Employers chafe because they have difficulty obtaining dispositive motion relief such as summary dismissal of an employee’s claims in arbitration. In addition, an arbitrator’s failure to properly manage pre hearing discovery can result in confusion, delay and additional party expense, an economic cost that is usually more painful for employees than their wealthier former employers.

Will the Employee Get a Fair Hearing in Arbitration? Employees and their attorneys often complain about arbitrator bias in favor of employers. Arbitration providers such as AAA (American Arbitration Association) and JAMS are often identified in employment agreements as exclusive arbitration providers. These ADR providers may have conducted many, even more than one hundred, arbitrations for a single employer and have been well paid for these services. It is naïve to expect arbitrators having such entrenched business relationships with employers to be unbiased.

Is There Appeal from a “Bad” Arbitration Award? Most employment arbitration contracts provide for “binding” arbitration. Where binding arbitration is specified, successful appeals in court are exceedingly rare and the grounds for appeal are extremely narrow. Even if the arbitrator makes one or more mistakes of law, that may not justify reversal of an arbitration award and will not occur under federal law.

https://www.execrank.com/board-of-directors-articles/employment-arbitration-a-minefield-for-employer-and-employee

By delegating dispute resolution to arbitration, the Court now permits corporations to write the rules that will govern their relationships with their workers and customers and design the procedures used to interpret and apply those rules when disputes arise. Moreover, the Court permits corporations to couple mandatory arbitration with a ban on class actions, thereby preventing consumers or employees from joining together to challenge systemic corporate wrongdoing. As one judge opined, these trends give corporations a “get out of jail free” card for all potential transgressions. These trends are undermining decades of progress in consumer and labor rights.

This report tracks these developments and presents the most recent research findings, summarized here:

  • It is common for employees to be presented with terms of employment that include both a clause that obligates them to arbitrate all disputes they might have with their employer and one that prohibits them from pursuing their claims in a class or collective action in court.

  • Employees subject to mandatory arbitration can no longer sue for violations of many important employment laws, including rights to minimum wages and overtime pay, rest breaks, protections against discrimination and unjust dismissal, privacy protection, family leave, and a host of other state and federal employment rights.

  • On average, employees and consumers win less often and receive much lower damages in arbitration than they do in court.

  • Employers tend to win cases more often when they appear before the same arbitrator in multiple cases, indicating that they have a repeat-player advantage over employees from regular involvement in arbitration.

https://www.epi.org/publication/the-arbitration-epidemic/#epi-toc-1

IMAGINE wanting to sue your employer, because you have been harassed or discriminated against, only to find that your access to the courts is blocked. It turns out you signed away your right to use the judicial system when you started the job: somewhere, hidden in the documents that came with your employment contract, was a clause obliging you to resolve future disputes through private arbitration, rather than in court.

An increasing number of American employees find themselves in this situation. Over half of non-unionised employees are covered by arbitration requirements, estimates Alexander Colvin of Cornell University, based on a survey in 2017 of 627 private-sector workplaces. Such agreements have come under greater scrutiny after the wave of workplace sexual-harassment revelations last year. Gretchen Carlson, a former news anchor for Fox, a broadcaster, has called arbitration “the harasser’s best friend”. Prevented by an arbitration clause from suing the network, Ms Carlson sued her boss and alleged harasser, Roger Ailes, instead.

Arbitration was originally designed for commercial disputes. It has also become a common feature of consumer services: Airbnb’s terms of use include them, as do mobile-phone contracts. But such clauses increasingly show up in employment contracts, too. Back in the early 1990s, only around 2% of non-unionised workplaces used arbitration for employment disputes, says Mr Colvin. A number of Supreme Court rulings since then have encouraged its broader adoption.

...

Others argue that arbitration is ill-suited to employment disputes. In many cases, it and its terms are in effect imposed on employees, says Imre Szalai of Loyola University in New Orleans. New recruits may not look at the small print, or think it will ever apply to them. “It is a fantasy of consent, rather than the real thing,” says Katherine Stone at University of California, Los Angeles.

Another concern is that the process of arbitration favours employers. They often pick the firm of arbitrators. And individual arbitrators are more likely to encounter the employer than the employee in future cases. Both features may lead the arbitrator to be unconsciously biased towards the employer, says Victoria Pynchon, a former arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association (AAA), who now runs She Negotiates, a training and consulting firm.

In some cases, biases are explicit. Ms Pynchon was warned at the start of her career that awarding punitive damages against employers could mean she would never arbitrate another case. Large arbitration groups, such as the AAA, do have codes of conduct that prohibit such partiality. But Mr Szalai, of Loyola University, questions whether these counteract implicit biases.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, recent studies suggest that outcomes and payouts in arbitration are, on average, significantly less generous to employees than those made in court, says Mr Colvin. But comparing arbitration and court cases is not easy: the terms of arbitration can vary widely, making generalising across them difficult.

Another criticism of arbitration agreements, voiced by Ms Carlson, the news anchor, is that they silence victims. Often the proceedings have confidentiality clauses attached that prevent the employee from speaking about the case, thereby protecting repeat offenders. Paula Brantner of Workplace Fairness, an employee-rights charity, contends that, without the threat of litigation and the negative publicity it brings, companies have less of an incentive to root out bad behaviour.

https://www.economist.com/business/2018/01/25/when-you-cannot-sue-your-employer

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Suffice to say that over the last 25 years, the court's conservative justices have transformed the 1925 federal arbitration law into a strong federal statement favoring arbitration over litigation. The conservative majority's current reading of the 1925 law allows companies to require their employees to give up their right to go to court as a condition of employment. In place of the right to go to court is arbitration on a one-on-one basis, the employee versus the company. And yesterday the Supreme Court said that workers cannot skirt these limits by bringing a class action in court. Consumers, too, can be required to arbitrate instead of suing. And, like workers, consumers are on their own if they can find a lawyer willing to represent them. That said, there are serious advocates of arbitration who note that when it's done fairly and openly, it's faster, more efficient and works well for employees, employers and consumers. Ted Boutrous has litigated lots of these cases for business in arbitration proceedings, as well as courts.

TED BOUTROUS: They're both good forums if they're operated in a fair way.

TOTENBERG: Of course, there's nothing that requires fairness or disclosure in federal law. But some states, like California, do require that outcomes and data be disclosed. A four-year study of California data from 2003 to 2007 analyzed nearly 4,000 arbitration cases. It found that in arbitration, the employee win rate was substantially lower than the win rate for cases that went to trial. In cases where the employee won, the award rate was also substantially lower in arbitration cases, but the arbitration process was much faster at resolving disputes. More recent statistics come from Yale law professor Judith Resnik, who studied nationwide data provided by the American Arbitration Association for AT&T's arbitration of consumer complaints. Between 2009 and 2017, says Resnik, AT&T had between 85 million and 140 million customers, but only 60 of them, 60, availed themselves of the arbitration system to resolve disputes.

...

TOTENBERG: Indeed, the Supreme Court's arbitration cases in recent years all go in one direction. That suggests strongly that complaints of race, sex and religious discrimination will also be funneled into mandatory arbitration, depriving workers of their right to go to court and let a jury decide. Ron Chapman, who represents businesses in labor management disputes, says that yesterday's Supreme Court decision likely has that result.

RON CHAPMAN: It gives employers the green light to eliminate their single largest employment law risk with the stroke of a pen.

TOTENBERG: No longer, he says, will companies have to settle cases for fear of what a jury might decide.

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/22/613254279/supreme-court-breaks-ground-with-workers-rights-ruling

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the four dissenters, called the majority opinion "egregiously wrong." She said the 1925 arbitration law came well before federal labor laws and should not cover these "arm-twisted," "take-it-or-leave it" provisions that employers are now insisting on.

She noted that workers' claims are usually small, and many workers fear retaliation. For these reasons, she said, relatively few workers avail themselves of the arbitration option. On the other hand, these problems are largely solved by a class-action suit brought in court on behalf of many employees.

The inevitable result of Monday's decision, she warned, will be huge underenforcement of federal and state laws designed to advance the well-being of vulnerable workers. It is up to Congress, she added, to correct the court's action.

In his oral announcement, Gorsuch took the unusual step of elaborately rebutting Ginsburg's dissent, which is five pages longer than the majority's opinion.

The ruling came in three cases — potentially involving tens of thousands of nonunion employees — brought against Ernst & Young LLP, Epic Systems Corp. and Murphy Oil USA Inc.

Each required its individual employees, as a condition of employment, to waive their rights to join a class-action suit. In all three cases, employees tried to sue together, maintaining that the amounts they could obtain in individual arbitration were dwarfed by the legal fees they would have to pay. Ginsburg's dissent noted that a typical Ernst & Young employee would likely have to spend $200,000 to recover only about $1,900 in overtime pay.

The employees contended that their right to collective action is guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act. The employers countered that they are entitled to ban collective legal action under the Federal Arbitration Act, which was enacted in 1925 to reverse the judicial hostility to arbitration at the time.

Employment lawyers were elated. Ron Chapman, who represents management in labor-management disputes, said he expects small and large businesses alike to immediately move to impose these binding arbitration contracts to eliminate the fear of costly class-action verdicts from juries. "It gives employers the green light to eliminate their single largest employment law risk with the stroke of a pen," he said.

Labor law experts said Monday's decision very likely will present increasing problems for the #Me Too! movement, and for other civil rights class actions claiming discrimination based on race, gender and religion. There is no transparency in most binding arbitration agreements, and they often include nondisclosure provisions. What's more, class actions deal with the expense and fear of retaliation problems of solo claims. As Ginsburg put it, "there's safety in numbers."

Yale Law professor Judith Resnik observed that the decision applies to all manner of class actions. "What this says is that when you buy something, use something, or work for someone, that entity can require you to waive your right to use public courts," she noted.

Cornell University labor law professor Angela Cornell expects the number of these litigation waivers to skyrocket now. "What we see is the privatization of our justice system," she said.

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/21/605012795/supreme-court-decision-delivers-blow-to-workers-rights

This decision was ENORMOUS, and legislation to eliminate mandatory arbitration for employees and consumer issues should be a top priority for Democrats.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#243313: May 23rd 2018 at 4:20:45 PM

If there was ever a time for a general strike, this ruling should be it.

RJ-19-CLOVIS-93 from New Zealand (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#243314: May 23rd 2018 at 4:53:23 PM

Since William Henry Harrison died so early into office, I've always wondered what his presidency might have been like. What were his plans as president? How might that change the Whig Party with the troubling John Tyler stuck as VP?

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#243315: May 23rd 2018 at 5:00:47 PM

[up] From what Harrison said when he was alive, he had 1 major goal that we know he could've accomplished with the Whig dominated Congress; re-establish the National Bank. He also wanted to get rid of the Spoil System (Where Political Parties, once in power, would give civil service jobs to their supporters), but Speaker Henry Clay was a supporter of it (and was mad that Harrison sided more with Daniel Webster when it came to cabinet appointments), so who knows if that would be possible.

And that's all we really know of what Harrison would do; he died too soon for any other issue to arrive at his desk, so we don't know what his opinions and ideas on them would be.

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#243316: May 23rd 2018 at 5:15:05 PM

Fortunately, the new SC ruling only covers civil suits. If an employer does something that violates criminal law, then employees very much can still take them to court. Still, not a good day for worker rights.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#243317: May 23rd 2018 at 5:20:52 PM

it probably wouldn't have been good for Native Americans.

Not that his replacements were.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Cid El Cid Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: Hiding
El Cid
#243318: May 23rd 2018 at 5:24:19 PM

NAFTA is a shitty shitty deal.

What it did in Juarez turned out to be the reason it's got an absurd and horrifying rate of femicide.

It also provided countless jobs to the middle class all throughout the country, and it allowed many people to open their own businesses, especially in areas like IT and the like.

It also helped create jobs in underdeveloped areas that the government and the Mexican private sector used to ignore completely.

In short, since I don't have a lot of time to go into detail: NAFTA is a flawed deal but it's been relatively good for Mexico. Most of its drawbacks can be traced back to the usual Mexican corruption (the IP bribing the government so the wages remains low, allowing medium-sized corporations to open factories without following the required regulations, ignoring the abuses of big corporations to workers' rights when taken to court, etc), which is something that can only be fixed from our side.

Scraping the treaty would be a disaster for our economy and it'd erase any progress we've made in the last 2-3 decades.

P.S. Cd. Juarez was worse before NAFTA.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#243319: May 23rd 2018 at 5:28:52 PM

some good (but unexpected) news on the Russian Hybrid Warfare front:

Exclusive: FBI Seizes Control of Russian Botnet

FBI agents armed with a court order have seized control of a key server in the Kremlin’s global botnet of 500,000 hacked routers, The Daily Beast has learned. The move positions the bureau to build a comprehensive list of victims of the attack, and short-circuits Moscow’s ability to reinfect its targets.

The FBI counter-operation goes after “VPN Filter,” a piece of sophisticated malware linked to the same Russian hacking group, known as Fancy Bear, that breached the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 election. On Wednesday security researchers at Cisco and Symantec separately provided new details on the malware, which has turned up in 54 countries including the United States.

VPN Filter uses known vulnerabilities to infect home office routers made by Linksys, Mikro Tik, NETGEAR, and TP-Link. Once in place, the malware reports back to a command-and-control infrastructure that can install purpose-built plug-ins, according to the researchers. One plug-in lets the hackers eavesdrop on the victim’s Internet traffic to steal website credentials; another targets a protocol used in industrial control networks, such as those in the electric grid. A third lets the attacker cripple any or all of the infected devices at will.

The FBI has been investigating the botnet since at least August, according to court records, when agents in Pittsburgh interviewed a local resident whose home router had been infected with the Russian malware. “She voluntarily relinquished her router to the agents,” wrote FBI agent Michael Mc Keown, in an affidavit filed in federal court. “In addition, the victim allowed the FBI to utilize a network tap on her home network that allowed the FBI to observe the network traffic leaving the home router.”

That allowed the bureau to identify a key weakness in the malware. If a victim reboots an infected router, the malicious plugins all disappear, and only the core malware code survives. That code is programmed to connect over the Internet to a command-and-control infrastructure set up by the hackers. First it checks for particular images hosted on Photobucket.com that held hidden information in the metadata. If it can’t find those images—which have indeed been removed from Photobucket—it turns to an emergency backup control point at the hard-coded web address To Know All[.]com.

On Tuesday, FBI agents in Pittsburg asked federal Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan in Pittsburgh for an order directing the domain registration firm Verisign to hand the To Know All[.]com address over to the FBI, in order to “further the investigation, disrupt the ongoing criminal activity involving the establishment and use of the botnet, and assist in the remediation efforts,” according to court records. Lenihan agreed, and on Wednesday the bureau took control of the domain.

The move effectively kills the malware’s ability to reactivate following a reboot, said Vikram Thakur, technical director at Symantec, who confirmed to the Daily Beast that the domain was taken over by law enforcement on Wednesday, but didn’t name the FBI. “The payload itself is non-persistent and will not survive if the router is restarted,” Thakur added. “That payload will vanish.”

In other words, average consumers have the ability to stop Russia’s latest cyber attack by rebooting their routers, which will now reach out to the FBI instead of Russian intelligence. According to the court filings, the FBI is collecting the Internet IP addresses of every compromised router that phones home to the address, so agents can use the information to clean up the global infection.

“One of the things they can do is keep track of who is currently infected and who is the victim now and pass that information to the local IS Ps,” said Thakur. “Some of the IS Ps have the ability to remotely restart the router. The others might even send out letters to the home users urging them to restart their devices.”

This is really, really good news, and it's great to see that meaningful steps are being taken to combat and disrupt Russia's cyberwarefare.

edited 23rd May '18 5:34:39 PM by megaeliz

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#243320: May 23rd 2018 at 5:36:46 PM

[up][up] Wait a minute, did someone try to claim that NAFTA is to blame for the ongoing femicide in Mexico?

Really?

That's a new low when it comes to demonizing free trade agreements. And I say this as someone who is not the biggest fan of them.

Disgusted, but not surprised
ElSquibbonator Since: Oct, 2014
#243321: May 23rd 2018 at 5:37:33 PM

So, it's been declared that President Trump's blocking of people from him Twitter feed is a violation of the First Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. Why is this not a bigger deal? By definition, a President performing an unconstitutional act is grounds for impeachment.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#243322: May 23rd 2018 at 5:39:17 PM

Wouldn't that only count of he tries to block them going forward?

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#243323: May 23rd 2018 at 5:42:30 PM

[up][up] I highly doubt impeachment proceedings could be brought against him for that. For starters, it was legal when he did it. It also may not fit the bill of "high crimes and misdemeanors", depending on the exact case.

edited 23rd May '18 5:42:53 PM by archonspeaks

They should have sent a poet.
ElSquibbonator Since: Oct, 2014
#243324: May 23rd 2018 at 5:49:12 PM

Violating the First Amendment isn't a "high crime or misdemeanor"? Man, we've raised the bar.

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#243325: May 23rd 2018 at 5:54:38 PM

[up] "High crimes and misdemeanors" is actually a legal term that refers to some general abuses of power by executives. Perjury, taking bribes, dereliction of duty and abuse of power, things like that.

When Clinton was impeached there was a lot of discussion about what exactly that term covers, but it's generally understood to be a specific set of crimes unique to someone holding a high office. Like I said, depending on the case made blocking someone on Twitter might have some trouble fitting in there. Of course, there's plenty of other stuff he's done that might fit but obviously it's not that simple.

The judge in that case said that if the blocked users were unblocked there wouldn't be an issue. Rulings like that aren't typically retroactively applied.

edited 23rd May '18 5:57:05 PM by archonspeaks

They should have sent a poet.

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