Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Here's a pie in the sky hypothetical question. Suppose we do manage to get an overwhelming Blue Wave and take control of both houses of Congress, and then impeach Trump, and he gets convicted of treason, collusion, and all that good stuff. Would all Trump appointees and any executive orders and other policies made by him and his administration be nullified in a "he was never legitimately president, so all these things don't count" kind of way?
There's no precedent for it. But then, there's also no precedent for a POTUS being removed from office, either.
The executive orders would almost certainly go away simply by virtue of the executive changing to one hostile to Trump's abhorrent agenda, but the rest, I'd say, would likely depend on amending the Constitution, which itself depends entirely on how many Democrats can take power and how many Republicans can lose it.
Edited by TrashJack on Jun 28th 2018 at 12:14:51 PM
"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's DictionaryReading up on the New York upset. While I am concerned with the loss of experience from Crowley getting primaried, the fact that he skipped out on debating her leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Hillary Clinton shouldn't have even had to debate Trump. There should have been no question that she's the more qualified candidate, period. But she did, because your first responsibility in any electoral role is to be responsible to your constituency.
Crowley said he couldn't attend the debate because of a scheduling conflict. If he'd been held up in Washington dealing with Republican obstructionism, I could respect that. Dude was in Queens at a civic association meeting. What could possibly have been more important than being accountable to the American people? Whatever he was doing, it was apparently more important than facing his constituents and defending his seat against the challenger.
We do need experienced politicians in Washington. More than ever, we need people who know how to play the game. Pelosi especially needs someone to take up her mantle; she's not going to last forever, and whoever replaces her can't be some 20-something upstart who's never gotten a bill passed in their life. So this is still a heavy blow.
But. Like. I'm not sure I'd want the next Pelosi to be someone who can't even be arsed to attend the debates in their district. That just doesn't feel like the kind of professionalism I've come to expect from my Career Democrats.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jun 28th 2018 at 10:22:00 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
Yeah, but if he gets nailed for collusion, election tampering, and treason, that means he was never legitimately president, which throws the legitimacy of all his acts while in office into question. ![]()
![]()
is right in that there's no precedent for this sort of thing, but you'd think that someone at some point would have thought it'd be good to have some sort of procedure written down in case this was ever a thing.
Edited by danime91 on Jun 28th 2018 at 9:22:01 AM
No, we never did.
At no point was out government ever designed or expected to deal with malice, partisanship, and corruption and possibly even high treason on this big a scale this deep into it's legislative body.
Nobody ever dreamed that Trump or the Republicans would have gotten this far.
Oh really when?In any case, some tips from the Norwegian resistance
:
First, you're never going to win a head on battle with an adversary that's got you outgunned. That's not the point of the Resistance. The point is to create friction, make it hard for your adversary to operate, to increase transaction costs.
Second, resistance doesn't have to be a dramatic act. It can be a small act, like losing a sheet of paper, taking your time processing something, not serving someone in a restaurant. Small acts taken by thousands have big effects.
Third, use your privilege and access if you've got it. He and his buddies stole weapons from the Nazis by driving up with a truck to the weapons depot, speaking German, acting like it was a routine pick up, and driving away.
Fourth, and this is part of the third point really, sometimes the best way to do things is right out in the open. Because no one will believe something like what you're doing would be happening so blatantly. All good Social Engineers know this.
Five, bide your time. But be ready for opportunity when it strikes. Again, your action need not be dramatic. Just a little sand in the gears helps.
Six, and this is a no brainer, operate in cells to limit damage to the resistance should they take you out. Limit the circulation of info to your cell, avoid writing things down and . . .
Seven, be very careful with whom you trust. Snitches and compromised individuals are everywhere. My Dad was arrested because of a snitch. His friends weren't so lucky, the Gestapo machine gunned the cabin they were in without bothering to try and arrest them.
Eight, use the skills you have to contribute. Dad was an electrical engineer. When the Nazis imposed the death penalty for owning a radio (the British sent coded messages to the Resistance after BBC shows) he said he became the most popular guy in town.
But everything's cool and we're not going to need to engage in any of this. We don't have a President who openly admires and coddles dictators while trashing our democratic allies. Our President has read the Constitution he's taken an oath to uphold, and so have his followers.
In case you need it.
Edited by TerminusEst on Jun 28th 2018 at 9:30:10 AM
Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele![]()
![]()
The law isn’t applied retroactively, even if the election was somehow found to have been tampered with to an unacceptable degree he would still have been president. In that scenario there would probably be an investigation into whether his actions in office were manipulated by foreign agents, but in the case of appointed officials that might not lead to their removal since they they themselves might not have been guilty. Such an investigation could recommend to his successor that certain policies be undone, but the investigation wouldn’t undo them itself.
That said, I highly doubt the election will be found illegitimate. That’s not really inside the realm of plausibility. If Trump is impeached it will be for more mundane and straightforward offenses.
Edited by archonspeaks on Jun 28th 2018 at 9:35:35 AM
They should have sent a poet.
The chaos in the American system has led to trade wars against the rest of the Western world and America abandoning its role of bulwark against Russian expansionism. So already, Putin's getting Europe financially destabilized and much less capable of fending off a Hitler-ian invasion.
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/06/28/day-525/
Day 525: Completely unacceptable.
1/ Paul Manafort owed $10 million to a Russian oligarch who was sanctioned by the U.S. in April, according to an unsealed search warrant application from July 2017. Oleg Deripaska financially backed Manafort's consulting work in Ukraine when it started in 2005-06. Robert Mueller also indicted Konstantin Kilimnik, a political operative who served as an intermediary between Manafort and Deripaska, as well as allegedly having ties to Russian spy agencies. The search warrant also confirmed that Mueller has been investigating Manafort's role in the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. (Reuters)
2/ Trump and Putin will meet on July 16 in Helsinki to discuss a "range of national security issues," as well as "further development of Russian-American relations." Before the summit meeting was announced, Trump repeated Moscow's denial that "Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!" via Twitter. He added: "Why isn't Hillary/Russia being looked at?" The Helsinki talks will follow a NATO meeting in Brussels on July 11 and 12. Trump told leaders at the recent G7 summit in Canada that "NATO is as bad as NAFTA," stoking fears that Trump plans to undercut the alliance's values and commitments. (New York Times / Washington Post / Axios)
Mike Pompeo: Trump will warn Putin that it is "completely unacceptable" to interfere in U.S. elections. "I'm confident that when the president meets with Vladimir Putin he will make clear that meddling in our elections is completely unacceptable," the Secretary of State said. (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/27/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-russia-midterms-680041
3/ Immigrant children as young as three are being ordered to appear in court for their own deportation hearings without legal representation. The children are being served with notices to appear in court, but they are not entitled to an attorney. Instead, they are given a list of legal services organizations that might help them. Requiring unaccompanied minors to go through deportation alone is not new, but the number of children who are affected by this process has gone up during the Trump presidency. (Texas Tribune)
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/27/immigrant-toddlers-ordered-appear-court-alone/
4/ Federal officials have launched two reviews into Trump's handling of families at the border. The Government Accountability Office and the Health and Human Services inspector general both launched reviews. The GAO will audit the systems and processes used to track families as they were separated, while the HHS inspector general announced that it will review the safety and health protections in the agency's shelters for migrant children. (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/27/trump-border-migrant-children-investigation-680626
5/ The Pentagon said the Department of Homeland Security requested that it help "house and care for an alien family population of up to 12,000 people." The Pentagon has been asked to "identify any available facilities that could be used for that purpose," and "identify available Do D land and construct semi-separate, soft-sided camp facilities capable of sheltering up to 4,000 people, at three separate locations." (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/27/politics/defense-request-migrants-dhs/index.html
poll/ 54% of Republicans think it's "very likely" that social media platforms intentionally censor political views they consider "objectionable." 64% of those surveyed believe tech companies support liberal views over conservative ones. (Axios)
Notables.
A former aide to Roger Stone was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury in Robert Mueller's investigation and to hand over documents. Andrew Miller worked for Stone during the campaign and plans to argue that Mueller's appointment "was unconstitutional." (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/us/politics/roger-stone-andrew-miller-subpoenaed-trump.html
A former ICE spokesman turned whistleblower was interrupted at his home by Homeland Security officials during a television interview. James Schwab was explaining why he quit in March following pressure from the Trump administration "to flat-out lie" when DHS unexpectedly interrupted the interview. (CBS News)
Lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill to make Puerto Rico the nation's 51st state by 2021. The Puerto Rico Admission Act of 2018 was authored by Puerto Rico's resident commissioner, Jennifer González-Colón, a Republican nonvoting member of Congress. The bill is cosponsored by 22 Republicans and 14 Democrats, and calls for the creation of a task force of nine members of Congress to look into the changes necessary to incorporate Puerto Rico as a state. (NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/new-bipartisan-bill-calls-puerto-rico-statehood-n887116
Trump's pick to run the IRS owns properties at the Trump International Hotel Waikiki and Tower in Hawaii. Chuck Rettig had previously disclosed his 50% stake in a pair of Honolulu rental units, but he did not specify their location. Rettig is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Finance Committee today, where his ownership of the Trump-branded hotel properties is expected to come up during questioning. (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/27/irs-nominee-chuck-rettig-trump-hotel-659313
![]()
Yes, pretty much all of us do own smartphones and computers. On which, thanks to the wonders of the Internet and improvements in wireless transmission, the government can and does track every single thing you do and say on them.
No need to go through all the trouble of searching for untraceable radios and rounding up and killing their owners when you may as well have sniper rifles pointed at dissidents all the time.
Edited by TrashJack on Jun 28th 2018 at 1:45:55 PM
"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's Dictionary![]()
Yeah, when Wariolander is telling you to chill a bit, you should chill a bit. Fact of the matter is, the sheer amount of random junk data prevents any sort of monitoring agency from keeping serious tabs on everyone, all the time. It's why they prefer to seize your electronics and search them rather than tracing stuff through digital means.
![]()
![]()
I’ll take this opportunity to point out that the ways cell phone communications can be monitored are pretty specific, and easily navigated around if you know how.
I’ll also point out that those “resistance tips” are for a literal resistance against a hostile government, not a political resistance.
Edited by archonspeaks on Jun 28th 2018 at 10:52:30 AM
They should have sent a poet.I doubt Putin's threatening Trump with any kind of compromising information. Not because he doesn't probably have some intel on him, but because there's no info about Trump that could possibly affect his support base. Trump really has nothing to fear from that direction; even if Putin released some damning info about some shady financial dealings of Trump's, the Trump Chumps wouldn't care and neither would the GOP as long as Trump continues to be the bedrock of their voter base.
What happened to that bit of the plutocratic GOP establishment that wasn't a fan of Trump? For now they're subsumed into the greater Republican coalition and not fighting much with the ethnonationalist somewhat-protectionist lot because they have the whip hand over Congress and can try to pass things there, but if they lose the House and/or Senate in the midterms they might show up again once Trump has outlived his usefulness and possibly throw the hypothetical kompromat at him. Sure, the voting base wouldn't care, but when has that ever stopped them?
Maybe Vlad has info on Republican Senators and could blackmail them into endorsing an impeachment motion. Which would be more effective seeing as they don't have any teflon, as Roy Moore figured out.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I’m hoping he doesn’t do anything too stupid at this upcoming meeting.
I maintain that Russia is still the most canny and dangerous out of all of our enemies, even China. They know the game and they play it well, and someone like Trump isn’t really equipped to resist them politically.
They should have sent a poet.