talkpolitics | Entries tagged with constitution

Legal scholars increasingly raise constitutional argument that Trump should be barred from presidency

There is increasing discussion, and raising consensus, that the 14th Amendment bars individuals that have supported or been the focal point of insurgent or rebellion activity from seeking Presidential office.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Me, I think the question is who decides? Could be secretaries of state who run elections, but no doubt the person being banned for insurrection will challenge it in court and the Supreme court will eventually have to decide.

The 14th Amendment does, however, mean that a person who has caused insurrection or rebellion cannot hold public office if someone actually manages to raise an objection and push it through the electoral bureaucracies (unless they have lots of buddies holding federal elected office, of course).

fridi

The whole thing reminds me of when a cop shoots someone and everybody wants them charged with murder, but if they do charge them with that, it goes nowhere because it's such a high bar to prove, and you end up with a not guilty verdict.

Democrats Are Pursuing the Wrong Impeachment Charges Against President Trump

"However, if House Democrats want to minimize politicization and maximize the chances of conviction in the Senate, they would have a much better chance if they adopted articles of impeachment stripped of partisan rhetoric and containing multiple, independent charges, each grounded on federal criminal law and indisputable evidence."

"The draft article of impeachment characterizes the president’s impeachable conduct as “Incitement of Insurrection.” After all, Trump had fanned the flames that led to the events on January 6 for months with baseless claims of election fraud. And just hours before the deadly mob attack, at a rally down the street, he encouraged his mass of supporters, who had gathered in D.C. in the thousands, “to fight much harder” and to head toward the Capitol “to show strength.” But the charge as written not only makes bipartisan support difficult; it also creates a hornet’s nest of legal argumentation—about the First Amendment, how to prove “incitement” and the meaning of “insurrection”—that could complicate and impede Senate conviction."

Maybe it's academic since they are going to wait to pursue anything till after Trump is out of office, but I think the charge is guaranteed to fail because it's overreach.

( Read more... )

johnny9fingers

The slowest coup d'état in recent memory continues its grinding path over the US constitution as it slouches towards Bethlehem, bringing bedlam to the American body politic:

www.ft.com/content/6ff4a677-eb2e-438e-ac48-bb5da5a0e588

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/05/trump-protesters-warned-not-to-carry-guns-as-washington-dc-calls-up-national-guard

Wherein we find that '...on Tuesday, Mr Trump falsely suggested that Mr Pence could use the occasion to nullify the result. “The vice-president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors...” Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.'

So I have to ask US Republican voters and the undecided folk if they think this is a precedent which they are happy seeing set? Come on guys, you can't put up with allowing this to happen. He has to go to prison now just for what he's done in this past few weeks; that's if you are serious about protecting the Constitution.

If it's all about sticking it to the Libs then please don't clothe yourselves in the Constitution. Accept that you are actually a fascist and you don't care about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Separation of Power, the makeup of Government etc. You are just about being strong, manly, bullying types who need to beat other folk from time to time to re-enforce your machismo; and who have an unhealthy love of guns; and who aren't too sure about Black folk, because, according to the cartoons on some of your websites, Black folk's skin doesn't make good lampshades.

Have I managed to express my distaste enough, I wonder?

Even so, and to reiterate: Trump needs to go to prison after screwing with the Constitution and the electoral process; no matter what his other sins or crimes may be.

asthfghl

Is there a greater democratic show on Earth than the American presidential election? The sheer entertainment! The endless debates! All the polling! The pundits! The spin! Truly. There can't be a bigger circus than the famed, fabulous Road to the White House. Right?

Yet, there are things in the US election process that simply fail to make any sense to anyone outside the US itself (and arguably, to many within). Most of them are seemingly still being kept there out of sheer veneration for tradition, whatever that's supposed to mean. Here are some.

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kiaa

Interesting arguments down there in this long-lasting debate about the usefulness of the Electoral College:

It’s time to abolish the Electoral College

"Having a president who loses the popular vote undermines electoral legitimacy. Putting an election into the House of Representatives where each state delegation has one vote increases the odds of insider dealings and corrupt decisions. Allegations of balloting irregularities that require an Electoral Commission to decide the votes of contested states do not make the general public feel very confident about the integrity of the process. And faithless electors could render the popular vote moot in particular states."

"Yet there is a far more fundamental threat facing the Electoral College. At a time of high income inequality and substantial geographical disparities across states, there is a risk that the Electoral College will systematically overrepresent the views of relatively small numbers of people due to the structure of the Electoral College."

Good points on all accounts. The Electoral College historically no longer serves the purpose it once had, there is no doubt. It is ironic that the Federalist Society, that so proclaims the US should go back to the intent of the Founders (not even going to say how that group of rich, almost all white men, feels that means), defends the Electoral College the way it works and is allocated. The EC was composed of electors who were the elite of their states, much like the Senators were chosen, and they were supposed to act as a bulkhead against the 'passions of the people'. That intent has been turned on its head. Most places now don't let electors vote against the person they are pledged to. More importantly, thanks to the winner-take-all, and the way electoral districts are gamed, you have an election decided by some swing counties in a few states, 50,000 people can decide the electoral college out of hundreds of millions of votes. The US now has elections that are designed by places that don't represent much of the country, you have counties that are older and almost purely white deciding the national election.

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edelsont

In an interview broadcast yesterday evening, President Trump indicated that he would ... again ... be prepared to accept "dirt" on an opponent from a foreign government. As he should know by now, the "foreign government" part makes this illegal.

The Speaker of the House has criticized him for this, but has still not (last time I checked) called for beginning a formal impeachment inquiry.

Americans need to start thinking about next steps: what to do if the president is attacking our constitution, and the responsible authorities are failing to defend it. Here's one such step that could be considered:

It's too early to form a government in exile. But it's not too early to begin making contingency plans for how to proceed, if that becomes necessary.

So if y'all are willing, I'd like to pick your brains about what countries might be willing to host such a government in exile (and be otherwise suitable). Some possibilities (in alphabetical order):

- Canada?

- Germany?

- Iceland?

- South Africa?

- Switzerland?

Any others come to mind?

Mood: worried
Location: stuck

edelsont

After Robert Mueller spoke on Wednesday, I was left, like a lot of people, with more questions than answers. But unlike most folks, I have access to the Wayforward Machine. So I logged in there, and poked around, and found something that cleared it up for me.

It's a published interview with him, which will appear [redacted] years in the future. After I read it, I felt that I understood the current situation a lot better. Maybe you will, too.

It's in PDF format, and on a different site. Here's the URL:

people.well.com/user/edelsont/politics/mueller-speaks.pdf

I hope this helps. (Seriously. All kidding aside, that's why I wrote it.)

Mood: awake
Location: [redacted]

luvdovz.livejournal.com

Today, over 55 million Turkish citizens are voting to decide if they want a presidential republic. The whole country is pretty excited about the whole thing. There's nationwide ban on public campaigning on the voting day, the media are not allowed to announce exit poll results or air political adverts, or discuss the vote with politicians or experts, so we won't know the final result until tomorrow morning.

Actually the voting itself is not secret. A special stamp is given to the voter, then they put it either on the Yes or No option. 3 million Turkish expats were the first to cast their ballot, most did it a week ago. The preliminary polls showed a very tight race, with the Yes camp having a slight edge.

( Read more... )

johnny9fingers.livejournal.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34873057

So...the Donald doesn't object to a database to assist monitoring Muslims. Is there a constitutional amendment that deals with this? Is it possible to be on other lists too? Could, for example, one be on the Muslim database, and the gun-owner's database, or are they mutually exclusive? Or is it unconstitutional to have a gun-owner's database? Or, given the separation of state and religion, and the constitutional safeguards for religious freedom, are other religions required to enrol their members on other databases?

The Donald brings such a refreshing set of ideas to the US presidential election. Between his wonderful ideas and Doctor Carson's perspicacity and deep thinking, the possibility of Hillary becoming the next POTUS is diminishing rapidly: almost to the point of becoming a sure-fire certainty. (If you will excuse the contradictory and pleonastic subordinate clause used for emphasis.)

Oh America: you make the rest of us so confused. Given the amateur constitutional lawyers we hear from on here from time to time, can this be constitutional when gun control isn't? And if so, how? And if not, why aren't these same amateur constitutional lawyers up in arms about the Donald's idea?

nairiporter.livejournal.com

Children who were born on US territory automatically acquire US citizenship. Doesn't matter if their parents are legal or illegal immigrants. But many Americans now have a problem with that rule. And Donald Trump advocates for a harsher approach to illegal immigrants, including their children who are born on US soil.

You either have a homeland or you don't have one, he recently said. And he is far from being the only US politician who supports that position. Most Republican candidates either share the same opinion or they are still hesitating about it. But none are outright rejecting it. Only Jeb Bush, whose wife was born in Mexico, and Marco Rubio, who is the son of Cuban immigrants, have publicly stated that they support the current system of obtaining citizenship.

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ricomsmith77.livejournal.com

Originally posted by

ricomsmith77 at "The President's New Groove"

The fire has been lit. The bull has been let loose. The well has been poisoned. The country has exploded.

fn111414a

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ricomsmith77.livejournal.com

Originally posted by

ricomsmith77 at "The Executive Orders of America: Why Obama Has No Excuses, But To EXECUTE"

Alright kids, its time for a little high school refresher course on CIVICS....

civics101

.....well sorta!

( Read more... )

luvdovz.livejournal.com

Recep Tayyip Erdogan wins Turkish presidential election

On election night, Erdogan pointed out in his speech that he'll be president of all Turks. That is, of those 48% who didn't vote for him, too. That's a timely promise, since he was often being accused of only favoring his base with his policies, and turning his back on the rest. Well, now the first commitment he did was to "a new societal accord". And, well, constitutional changes of course. Because he wants to change the political structure of the country, and establish a US-style presidential system, where the most important prerogatives will belong to... him, of course. Any surprises?

I bet he ultimately wants to see himself like this:

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policraticus.livejournal.com

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

When we consider the US founding document, we spend a lot of time talking about the first, tasty, juicy section, where Jefferson lays out in elegant prose an expression of the American Mind, as he put it. And rightly so. We almost always elide the list of grievances, the lawyer's brief, the largest and arguably what was most important part for the signers themselves. But, rereading the Declaration today, 237 years on from its signing, I was struck by the very last line. What Congress, through Jefferson, was saying to George III was that the best proof of the document he had in his royal hands (received sometime in August!) was a mutual pledge by the Congress, of the very things inalienably granted each individual by their Creator: life, liberty and property, as asserted in the beginning of the Declaration. Our founders were willing to put it all on the line, to go "all in" against the most powerful nation on Earth at that time.

For what and with whom would you pledge your Life, your Fortune and your sacred Honor? Can you imagine our current Congress being so resolved? Thank God nothing of such consequence, requiring a pledge like this, faces us today.

Mood: thoughtful
Location: Six Miles At Sea
Music: Revolution, The Beatles.

gunslnger.livejournal.com

http://reason.com/archives/2013/06/12/three-reasons-the-nothing-to-hide-crowd
http://www.cato.org/blog/why-nsa-collecting-phone-records-problem
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110524/00084614407/privacy-is-not-secrecy-debunking-if-youve-got-nothing-to-hide-argument.shtml
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/the-data-trust-blog/2009/02/debunking-a-myth-if-you-have-n.html

There are a significant number of people who respond to any revelation that government is violating the law (yes, the Constitution is part of the law) with a shrug and "I've got nothing to hide". These people are selfish fools at best. They are not looking at the bigger picture and/or aren't considering other people. Plus, they probably aren't paying attention to the fact that everyone in America is currently a criminal, that everyone violates a law with serious penalties at some point, whether you know it or not. (And the fact that that is the case is another problem, but that's outside the scope of my point here.)

Even Biden and Obama railed against what they are themselves supporting now, before they were in power. That alone should be enough to make you stop and think about what having that kind of power available can do to people.

telemann.livejournal.com

Comic Dave Chappelle's sketch on pleading the 5th before Congress is a classic, and it's a timely one too, because this week IRS official Lois Lerner (or as Colbert described her, Superman's former girlfriend) gave an opening statement to Congress, and refused to participate in the House investigation, and pleaded the fifth.

Personally, the only time I have ever seen someone plead the 5th was usually old footage of mobsters testifying before Congress (and duplicated in some of the Godfather movies), and usually the connotation always was "someone is obviously so guilty, who are they kidding, so that's the real reason they're going silent." And some of that was already kicking in when I initially saw Ms. Lerner's statement on the news, my heart sank and I thought "Wait, so what's she hiding!?"

We all hear a lot in the news and discussions about the really 3rd rail issues with the 1st and 2nd amendment, but the 5th certainly isn't considered a red button issue for many. And it's certainly not one a polarizing one. Yesterday on MSNBC The Spin Cycle's guest spot, Prof. James Duane from Regent University (a private conservative university / law school operated by Pat Robertson in Virginia Beach, Virginia) had a pretty interesting collequim on explaining what the 5th is, and how its one of the most misunderstood but in today's "over-criminalized" society, one of the most vitally important for a citizen because there are tens of thousands of statues and federal regulations that a person can break and not even know it.

Ms. Lerner's refusal to co-operate certainly raised the ire of Darryl Issa (the chairman of the House Committee, and a guy who knows the very important difference between acts of terror and terrorist attacks) believes that because Ms. Lerner gave an opening statement, she's lost her immunity to testify (i.e. plead the 5th). While Rep. Issa is a strong defender of the Bill of Rights and (every car owner to own one of his car alarms), he has no training in the law and apparently doesn't know how the 5th works, or Supreme Court decisions about what the 5th means for all of us.

Prof Duane explains all of this quite elegantly and isn't dry-as-toast-boring as you would expect any explanation of the law; and thought Ms. Lerner's example provided a great learning opportunity for most Americans. For my part, I learned that the 5th isn't limited to just criminal trials or Congressional hearings, but can be used at any level, even one on one with a police officer or any government official. And as Prof. Duane points out, seeing an official of the IRS invoke the 5th is richly ironic, considering the grief and fear they've caused ordinary citizens all the time. When conservative S.E. Cupp asked about a charge of perjury being brought against Ms. Lerner, Prof. Duane's answer may surprise you.

The video is behind this cut. And if it doesn't embed properly, click here for a direct link.

luvdovz.livejournal.com

Viktor Orban, it seems, is a guy who never takes a "No" for an answer. No matter if it comes from the EU, from major international organizations or from the Constitutional court of his own country. The Hungarian prime-minister is unshakably convinced that he knows what's best for his people (which, surprise-surprise, is exactly what's best for his own party), and he'd stop at nothing to achieve it. I'm sure the constitutional amendments that he made last week will make his job even easier in this respect. And very soon Hungary will have to be characterized by just one word: Viktatorship.

Within less than a week the PM did so many crazy things: he changed the Constitution for the 4th time (in order to tame the Constitutional court, one of the very few institutions that still dared defy him); he took control of the Central Bank of Hungary by hand-picking his former Minister of the Economy (and close party buddy) to chair it; then he vowed that at least 50% of the banking sector would pass into Hungarian hands, as it was "unhealthy" if most of it was owned by foreign capital (a brave populist move, and yet utterly failing to comply with the reality that there's hardly nearly enough investor potential within Hungary itself to make this happen); he then attacked the court for its "scandalous" decision to repeal the unilateral government decision to suppress the gas prices in defiance of all market principles (another populist move that, however, earned him extra points among the populace); and for the umpteenth time he resorted to using rhetoric that described Hungary as a country besieged by hostile forces. The result of all that was that the markets got so nervous that last week the Hungarian currency sank to a 9-month low. And those guys in Brussels probably abandoned all hope that Orban could swiftly and efficiently steer the country back on course.

( Read more... )

ddstory.livejournal.com

Most people on top state positions don't seem to have a habit of relinquishing their post voluntarily, much less due to health reasons. There's no lack of such examples in US history either. A classical example is Woodrow Wilson. In 1919 he suffered a massive stroke, after which he in principle should have remained in hospital. But his doc and his closest aides managed to conceal the fact that Wilson was rendered incapable of following his duties. And for more than a year, his wife Edith was the de facto head of state of the US.

Further, FDR was permanently sick from 1940 onwards. But the conspiracy of silence and the orders he gave the US censorship service, allowed him to win re-election in 1944. Later in Yalta, where Stalin and Churchill were bargaining about the post-war world order, the US president was already heavily marked by his impending death:

http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/images_6/yalta1.jpg

( Read more... )

ddstory.livejournal.com

The terms 'Constitution' and 'crowdsourcing' may not usually appear often in one and the same sentence. But if you put them in a Google search today, you'd instantly get a suggestion for adding a third word: "Iceland". Because Iceland has become the first country in the world to venture asking its own citizens how they want their basic law to look like. And so far the results haven't been bad at all.

My tiny rock in the North Atlantic may've just given a new meaning to one of the fundamental principles of democracy: that all power originates from the people. And even if the Icelandic experiment may look inapplicable to most other places (for various reasons; size and homogeneity being cited most often), and even though the Icelandic model may not be a universal scenario for closing the widening gap between power elites and society at large... at least it does provide a curious, if not even exotic example.

( Take our country back, you say? So here's how we wrote our own Constitution... )

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National Identity in an Age of Mass Migration

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"The NATO charter clearly says that any attack on a NATO member shall be treated, by all members, as an attack against all. So that means that, if we attack Greenland, we'll be obligated to go to war against ... ourselves! Gee, that's scary. You really don't want to go to war with the United States. They're insane!"

(edelsont)

March 2026

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Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Entries tagged with constitution

A bit on the 14th Amendment

The whole impeachment v.2.0 thing

The slowest Coup D'Etat in recent memory...

US democracy doesn't make much sense

Is the Electoral College a threat to democracy?

Seeking refuge for a homeless democracy

Mueller fanfic! (No, not that kind.)

Turkey votes

Wow

Born in the USA

"The President's New Groove"

"The Executive Orders of America: Why Obama Has No Excuses, But To EXECUTE"

The hunt for power

Revolting.

(no subject)

I plead the Fif! I plead the Fif!

The road to Viktatorship

The sick presidents

What We-The-People truly means

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March 2026

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