2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Estebonrober]

I thought the "Moon Nazis," were the product of Robert E. Heinlein's fervent imagination...



The U.S., and the world, would be much better off if both major American Duopoly Parties met, and were ALLOWED to meet, their long-deserved political demise, and a healthy and functional multi-party system with real voter choice and an actual chance and possibility of government accountability were able to replace it.

The more I see you say this the more I think that multi party might very well have a party that makes the GOP look liberal be the leading party making a coalition government with the GOP unless voter suppression and gerrymandering trends were dramatically reversed.

 

[Lexicus]

The more I see you say this the more I think that multi party might very well have a party that makes the GOP look liberal be the leading party making a coalition government with the GOP unless voter suppression and gerrymandering trends were dramatically reversed.

Or maybe there'd be no majority able to form a real government, so the Trump government would be governing by emergency decree. That would definitely fix everything!

 

[Patine]

The more I see you say this the more I think that multi party might very well have a party that makes the GOP look liberal be the leading party making a coalition government with the GOP unless voter suppression and gerrymandering trends were dramatically reversed.

What a bleak point-of-view. I'm surprised such a doomsaying fatalist can actually rouse up support and trust of any sort of for the Democratic Party.

 

[Takhisis]

Or maybe there'd be no majority able to form a real government, so the Trump government would be governing by emergency decree. That would definitely fix everything!

Become an aconstitutional parliamentary undemocracy like the UK! You already have a dimwitted, self-centred sexist corrupt NY-born blond pig in position and your flag is the same colours but distributed differently.

 

[Perfection]

For the record, since I haven't stated as such in this thread, I don't very much care for that Donald Trump person and I hope that he loses his US President reelection bid.

 

[Camikaze]

TL;DR - Its either going to be Pat Leahy (D)VT that takes over as POTUS from the Senate's President Pro Tempore position, or Nancy Pelosi (D)CA who takes over as POTUS from the Speaker of the House position.

How we get there is fully explained in the video. Very well done as usual by Legal Eagle.

I don't think the guy in the video does a good job of making clear that he is talking about what would legally happen - at the end he basically just says that there's "no way" that Trump can remain in office, as if the legal explanation which he has given answers the question. I think what the video and a lot of people theorising about how Pelosi or Grassley or Leahy would take over are missing, is that if the US arrives at January 2021 without having had an election, the country is in extralegal and extra-constitutional (in the broad sense) territory. The Constitution (as distinct from America's constitution, i.e. the set of norms and values which set the boundaries of the US legal system, of which the Constitution is the most important part) does not provide an answer to what would happen. The American fetishisation of its written Constitution has I think resulted in a failure of imagination about what a determined autocrat would or could do.

Also, just playing along with the legal theory, given the (a) President Pro Temp is selected by the party in the majority, (b) that would be the Dems as a result of appointments by governors, and (c) Chris Coons is up for re-election this year; why wouldn't the Delaware Governor appoint Joe Biden to the Senate, to be duly elected President Pro Temp by the senators?

 

[EnglishEdward]

I have the feeling that the Donald is getting very tired and would
welcome a face saving method of withdrawing his candidacy.

Of course that's not helped by all the rhetoric about prosecuting him

 

[Estebonrober]

What a bleak point-of-view. I'm surprised such a doomsaying fatalist can actually rouse up support and trust of any sort of for the Democratic Party.

lol are you reading what I write about the DNC or the party? There is a small subset I have some faith in which likely jsut means I will be disappointed again sometime in the next 3 years. Your fallacy is believing abolishing these two parties would actually change much.

 

[Estebonrober]

Well now I'm mad again. . .

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/202...s-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air

By early April, some who worked on the plan were given the strong impression that it would soon be shared with President Trump and announced by the White House. The plan, though imperfect, was a starting point. Simply working together as a nation on it “would have put us in a fundamentally different place,” said the participant.

But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.

I got this feeling that there will not be that thing where we let the previous administration walk away after this one which is going to start a very bad trend imo. . .

 

[EnglishEdward]

I suspect that is entirely true for an awful lot of countries.

But gross incompetence, misplaced priorities and wishful
thinking are rarely grounds for establishing criminal intent
behind reasonable doubt and imprisoning ex leaders.

 

[Patine]

lol are you reading what I write about the DNC or the party? There is a small subset I have some faith in which likely jsut means I will be disappointed again sometime in the next 3 years. Your fallacy is believing abolishing these two parties would actually change much.

It would change the bottleneck that forced each forced coalition non-party to have to have a majority of their constituents support someone they'd rather not, sit at home, or "waste their vote on a protest gesture on the ballot." Also, the "extreme right-wing," politically is not nearly big enough in number to dominate the electorate in a multi-party environment on it's own - I don't know where you got that idea (probably from people with distorted and paranoid views of reality like Ms. Strife) - but they're actually, statistically, a small minority of the population - just very vocal and in your face - much like the extreme left-wing in the U.S., in fact. A sense of perspective and proportion are very important qualities, despite the fact it's become fashionable of late to flagrantly cast such qualities aside and ridicule them in others.

Moderator Action: Once again you have demonstrated your unerring ability to name and insult other posters. Something I have asked all of you not to do on more occasions than I can count. You will stop this behaviour immediately. It's inflammatory and drags discussion down to the level of personal attacks. I have stated quite frequently of late (to repeat myself in case some of you didn't get it the first time) that this sort of behaviour is not going to be tolerated any longer. If you can't make your point without pointing a finger at someone and insulting them, then you really have no business posting here. And in case some of you are reading this and thinking "Ha ha, she got Patine!", remember that this applies to everyone.

I will not repeat this again. --LM

 

[cardgame]

how about willful negligence to the tune of hundreds of thousands dead though

 

[EnglishEdward]

My understanding of the US constitution is that civilian healthcare is not assigned to the POTUS, rather left to the states.

Yes, I know that there is the federal Affordable Care Act, but that seems more about funding than operatational decisions..

 

[Ajidica]

My understanding of the US constitution is that civilian healthcare is not assigned to the POTUS, rather left to the states.

Yes, I know that there is the federal Affordable Care Act, but that seems more about funding than operatational decisions..

No idea where you got that idea from. The federal government, as executed through the executive branch, has a huge role in providing health care in the US, ranging from Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP to hospital grants.
Plus, as with most countries, there are statues that during a public health emergency give federal government effectively unlimited power to protect public health. State and local government have some of those powers on their own, but in matters like this it is the federal government that carries the big guns.

 

[Birdjaguar]

My understanding of the US constitution is that civilian healthcare is not assigned to the POTUS, rather left to the states.

Yes, I know that there is the federal Affordable Care Act, but that seems more about funding than operatational decisions..

Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security are all Federal programs.

 

[EnglishEdward]

No idea where you got that idea from.

I actually read the US constitution once.

I never bothered to read their statutes. So I shall take what you say as read.

But it seems to me that if the argument is wilful negligence, it is necessary to:

(a) first identify the particular statute, clause and schedule,
(b) establish that it imposed a clear duty on the POTUS,
(c) find evidence he was notified of it and actually read the notification
(d) and then prove that he has willfully and knowingly broken such duty of care.

If he goes to court, all he has to do is say he did not know or did not understand and a jury may well believe that.

I also rather think that there is a conceptual problem for his critics here; there is an inconsistency
between saying he is ignorant, stupid and totally incompetent AND that he his "willfully negligent".

And remember how the prosecution of George Bush II went for invading Iraq.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't think the guy in the video does a good job of making clear that he is talking about what would legally happen - at the end he basically just says that there's "no way" that Trump can remain in office, as if the legal explanation which he has given answers the question.

I think that his answer being 'common knowledge' would help tamp down the crisis. Not much, cuz of his evil, but some.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I don't think the guy in the video does a good job of making clear that he is talking about what would legally happen - at the end he basically just says that there's "no way" that Trump can remain in office, as if the legal explanation which he has given answers the question. I think what the video and a lot of people theorising about how Pelosi or Grassley or Leahy would take over are missing, is that if the US arrives at January 2021 without having had an election, the country is in extralegal and extra-constitutional (in the broad sense) territory. The Constitution (as distinct from America's constitution, i.e. the set of norms and values which set the boundaries of the US legal system, of which the Constitution is the most important part) does not provide an answer to what would happen. The American fetishisation of its written Constitution has I think resulted in a failure of imagination about what a determined autocrat would or could do.

Also, just playing along with the legal theory, given the (a) President Pro Temp is selected by the party in the majority, (b) that would be the Dems as a result of appointments by governors, and (c) Chris Coons is up for re-election this year; why wouldn't the Delaware Governor appoint Joe Biden to the Senate, to be duly elected President Pro Temp by the senators?

I disagree. He does make it abundantly clear that he is speaking in terms of legality. Also, he's an attorney, the channel is called Legal Eagle and is specifically dedicated to discussing things in legal terms. So implying that he's somehow hiding or burying that he's speaking in terms of legality is completely unfair and wrong. He also explicitly says that Trump could use the military to illegally suspend the election.

As I've said before, its pointless to assume that Trump will adhere to any legal or traditional conventions. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he won't. But I also don't mind discussing the implication of the election in legal terms, because it allows us to then discuss the illegality of what Trump may do in response. I think there is some merit in making it clear that Trump has no legal unilateral recourse to stop the election, so that when he tries to stop it, we will already know, in advance, that he is acting illegally, and we won't have to go look up whether whatever cockamamie excuse he gives is legitimate, nor will we have to give his defenders any benefit of the doubt when they do the same.

I'll add that the bit he discusses about the legal/procedural implications for Republican members of Congress also helps to give context for how supportive they might be for any efforts Trump makes to stop the election. Currently Republicans in Congress have been pretty negative towards any notions of stopping the election, and I can see why, given what was discussed in the video.

 

[Takhisis]

think there is some merit in making it clear that Trump has no legal unilateral recourse to stop the election, so that when he tries to stop it, we will already know, in advance, that he is acting illegally, and we won't have to go look up whether whatever cockamamie excuse he gives is legitimate, nor will we have to give his defenders any benefit of the doubt when they do the same.

But you'll still have to disprove whatever arguments they make. It's like the government here, who rejected a submission made by an opposing party in an ongoing trial citing ‘wrong typeface’ as a reason, forcing the submitters to spend nine pages in an additional writ explaining why Verdana is allowed as a font in court documents.

 

[Hrothbern]

Russia will for sure want to win the global vaccin competition.

That Sputnik moment is now planned in October

Just before the POTUS election

Russian health authorities are preparing to start a mass vaccination campaign against coronavirus in October, the health minister has said.

Russian media quoted Mikhail Murashko as saying that doctors and teachers would be the first to receive the vaccine.

Reuters, citing anonymous sources, said Russia's first potential vaccine would be approved by regulators this month.

However, some experts are concerned at Russia's fast-track approach.

On Friday, the leading infectious disease expert in the US, Dr Anthony Fauci, said he hoped that Russia - and China - were "actually testing the vaccine" before administering them to anyone.

Dr Fauci has said that the US should have a "safe and effective" vaccine by the end of this year.

"I do not believe that there will be vaccines so far ahead of us that we will have to depend on other countries to get us vaccines," he told US lawmakers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53621708