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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On April 06 2017 04:32 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2017 04:13 Philoctetes wrote:
I am actually shocked at Trump denouncing a chemical weapons attack. And not even a remark that he knows it is ISIS, and not Assad, because 'he is like a very smart person'.
I wonder how much he had to be talked into doing that, though.
As for missiles intercepting missiles. I have never seen evidence that it is possible. The faster and the smaller they are, the more unlikely.
I have high doubts about Patriot. Even more about the absurd claims about Iron Dome. And hitting something that goes 7 km/s or faster, extremely unlikely. Its actually the faster and larger they are the more unlikly. You're talking about a really big launch vehicle for an ICBM and the common tactic for anti air missles is to blow up in front of the target and destroy the target through a clowd of shrapnel. This is thrown out the window with ICBM's due to its incredible speed and kinetic energy able to just plow through the shrapnel and keep going to the target. Anything large enough to knock it out and you get a problem of it picking up enough speed to reach the target and anything smaller isn't going to take the thing out. The star wars project was never going to get off the ground due to a lack of technology but it still remains the best idea we have so far for taking out these space fairing craft so far. God forbid what will happen with SCRAMJET aided craft in a decade or three.
And missiles can do so much more than that. Change trajectory to throw off missiles already launched. Deploy decoys. Deploy cluster munitions. There was one that sat in orbit until it orbited above its target (outlawed by treaty). And so on.
But we're not even at the point where we could reliably intercept one missile, one known launch site, one unknown target. Unless we can intercept it in the boost phase, that is. But the program is funded beautifully nonetheless.
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On April 06 2017 03:22 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Either something is about to blow up/leak, or Bannon pissed off Trump.
Didn't the story circulate back when Bannon was appointed and Trump got a lot of flak for it that Trump himself was not aware that he had appointed Bannon to the NSC?
Could be a simple consequence of that, assuming there was any truth in it.
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On April 06 2017 04:45 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2017 03:22 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Either something is about to blow up/leak, or Bannon pissed off Trump. Didn't the story circulate back when Bannon was appointed and Trump got a lot of flak for it that Trump himself was not aware that he had appointed Bannon to the NSC? Could be a simple consequence of that, assuming there was any truth in it.
I think it's been too long for that. More likely Bannon just didn't get along with people whom Trump needed more so he gets sort of sidelined for it.
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The growing number of allegations about President Trump’s links to Russia sounds really incriminating. But would any of them actually be illegal?
As the FBI probes possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow in the run-up to the 2016 election, an array of Trump associates find themselves in the crosshairs of federal and congressional investigators.
There’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, pushed out of the White House for lying about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the US. There’s Trump adviser Roger Stone, who has admitted to exchanging messages with a hacker thought to be a front for Russian intelligence. There's former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is accused of failing to publicly disclose taking millions of dollars from a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party and a Russian oligarch. There's Carter Page, Trump’s foreign policy adviser, who advised Russia’s state-controlled gas company Gazprom and was once unsuccessfully courted by Russian spies to become one himself. And that’s not close to an exhaustive list.
But there’s a difference between unseemly conduct and criminal conduct, and I spoke to legal experts to separate one from the other. What I learned is there are three main sets of laws that — at least given what we know now from news reports — could end up being the basis for criminal charges against Trump associates: violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, failing to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and making false statements to federal investigators. All of them are felonies and carry the potential penalty of prison time.
At the moment, we don’t know exactly what information the FBI has or if anything especially damning will come to light, and there’s no indication that Trump himself would be implicated in any charges related to cooperating with Russia during or immediately after the election. But if his closest aides end up being indicted for effectively working with a foreign power that the US doesn’t have friendly relations with in order to undermine the US electoral process, that would likely create a political crisis of Watergate proportions.
Source
Nice article that puts the Trump surrogates stuff into perspective. Seems that Flynn is very possibly criminally liable while the rest most likely acted improperly but not in a way that's going to lead to being charged. Though multiple possible felonies are there for the taking.
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On April 05 2017 11:36 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2017 11:21 zlefin wrote:On April 05 2017 10:09 Danglars wrote:On April 05 2017 09:40 Introvert wrote:On April 05 2017 09:32 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Dissent, from same reporter. + Show Spoiler + Rewriting statutes as they see fit. I'm glad we have one more on the Supreme Court willing to read statues as written. I haven't heard about gorsuch being approved, so it doesn't seem you have one more yet, unless I missed something. at any rate, I find the canard questionable; as if republicans actually favor textualism, they favor whatever serves their interest and beliefs and goals at the time. They don't actually favor straightforward literal interpretation of statues as written. like all (most) politicians, they favor whichever doctrine supports whatever they're trying to do. Do you favor the 7th circuits current interpretation of the civil rights act? Let me know when you have done so. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
ok, I read through it now. It raises a number of strong points, as well as some of mere moderate strength, and has a quite thorough selection of links backing up its various points. It does at times feel like there could be some strong rebuttals to some of them, though not many occur to me immediately; I don't know yet of a rebuttal article, it'd be interesting to read one.
one of those links (http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6105&context=law_lawreview)
raises some particular cases that seem reasonable that scalia did not follow originalism in many instances.
It and many other situations, bolster the case that originalism is more of a facade for judges deciding cases the way they want to, then finding a pretext for doing so. (and of course originalism has a large number practical problems with it as well, at least if used as too exclusive a doctrine)
It definitely seems worth a read if you're into this kind of thing.
vaguely related thoughts:
I don't recall anything in the constitution itself that says what rules of construction to use for evaluating the constitution; can anyone else think of one? some laws these days do have some specification on how they should be constructed, but i'm not sure how detailed those are in most cases.
The challenges and limitations of a very complex system reminds me of godel's incompleteness theorem and its brethren.
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On April 06 2017 05:15 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +The growing number of allegations about President Trump’s links to Russia sounds really incriminating. But would any of them actually be illegal?
As the FBI probes possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow in the run-up to the 2016 election, an array of Trump associates find themselves in the crosshairs of federal and congressional investigators.
There’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, pushed out of the White House for lying about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the US. There’s Trump adviser Roger Stone, who has admitted to exchanging messages with a hacker thought to be a front for Russian intelligence. There's former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is accused of failing to publicly disclose taking millions of dollars from a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party and a Russian oligarch. There's Carter Page, Trump’s foreign policy adviser, who advised Russia’s state-controlled gas company Gazprom and was once unsuccessfully courted by Russian spies to become one himself. And that’s not close to an exhaustive list.
But there’s a difference between unseemly conduct and criminal conduct, and I spoke to legal experts to separate one from the other. What I learned is there are three main sets of laws that — at least given what we know now from news reports — could end up being the basis for criminal charges against Trump associates: violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, failing to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and making false statements to federal investigators. All of them are felonies and carry the potential penalty of prison time.
At the moment, we don’t know exactly what information the FBI has or if anything especially damning will come to light, and there’s no indication that Trump himself would be implicated in any charges related to cooperating with Russia during or immediately after the election. But if his closest aides end up being indicted for effectively working with a foreign power that the US doesn’t have friendly relations with in order to undermine the US electoral process, that would likely create a political crisis of Watergate proportions. SourceNice article that puts the Trump surrogates stuff into perspective. Seems that Flynn is very possibly criminally liable while the rest most likely acted improperly but not in a way that's going to lead to being charged. Though multiple possible felonies are there for the taking.
I really hope that if Trump's goons are found to have coordinated or committed crimes, it reflects back on Trump too.
I also suspect that there's a lot more to the story that the FBI knows that we don't.
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Schumer well on track to prove that, yes, it's possible to be a worse Democratic minority leader than Harry Reid.
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Well we certainly know where Trump stands on this.
In an interview with The New York Times, Trump defended O'Reilly against new revelations that he, Fox News and parent company 21st Century Fox had paid a total of $13 million in settlements to five women who accused him of sexual harassment or verbal abuse.
"I think he's a person I know well — he is a good person," Trump told the Times. "I think he shouldn't have settled; personally I think he shouldn't have settled. Because you should have taken it all the way. I don't think Bill did anything wrong."
CNN
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On April 06 2017 06:20 LegalLord wrote:
Schumer well on track to prove that, yes, it's possible to be a worse Democratic minority leader than Harry Reid.
One theory was that Schumer was playing chicken with the GOP, thinking they wouldn't change the rule.
Now, as I and many other conservatives have said before, the party contains many squishes. But this is about as close to an open and shut case as the GOP can get. Nominee untouched by scandal with a great pedigree and endorsements, a win in the previous election that was, in large part, about this seat, and finally, the precedent of Harry Reid and the almost unprecedented nature of Democratic obstruction.
If they can't do this they can't do anything.
On April 06 2017 06:27 Doodsmack wrote:
Love hearing conservatives use the word obstruction in relation to the Supreme Court...or anything, really.
I know you do, which is why I'm using it now. It's a fun word to use after hearing about it for so long!
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Love hearing conservatives use the word obstruction in relation to the Supreme Court...or anything, really.
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The filibuster is a powerful tool that is supposed to be used with rarely. Much like the rule that Presidents only served 2 terms, we had a long standing tradition of not abusing these tools to obstruct government. That tradition is pretty much dead and the government cannot function if even one of the parties is willing to use the filibuster to grind government to a halt.
If the Republicans keep the Senate majority in 2018, I expect that to be the last term of the legislative filibuster.
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On April 06 2017 06:31 Plansix wrote:
The filibuster is a powerful tool that is supposed to be used with rarely. Much like the rule that Presidents only served 2 terms, we had a long standing tradition of not abusing these tools to obstruct government. That tradition is pretty much dead and the government cannot function if even one of the parties is willing to use the filibuster to grind government to a halt.
If the Republicans keep the Senate majority in 2018, I expect that to be the last term of the legislative filibuster.
I don't think you appreciate the unique situation we are in right now. The legislative filibuster will almost certainly remain intact with no changes, though all things are possible.
Edit: if I were a betting man I'd bet that the party to kill it would be the Democrats the next time they take back the Senate.
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On April 06 2017 06:24 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2017 06:20 LegalLord wrote:
Schumer well on track to prove that, yes, it's possible to be a worse Democratic minority leader than Harry Reid. One theory was that Schumer was playing chicken with the GOP, thinking they wouldn't change the rule. Now, as I and many other conservatives have said before, the party contains many squishes. But this is about as close to an open and shut case as the GOP can get. Nominee untouched by scandal with a great pedigree and endorsements, a win in the previous election that was, in large part, about this seat, and finally, the precedent of Harry Reid and the almost unprecedented nature of Democratic obstruction. If they can't do this they can't do anything. Show nested quote +On April 06 2017 06:27 Doodsmack wrote:
Love hearing conservatives use the word obstruction in relation to the Supreme Court...or anything, really. I know you do, which is why I'm using it now. It's a fun word to use after hearing about it for so long!
if this is the closest they can get to an open and hsut case that's very sad; as the case is very very far from and open shut.
and pretending otherwise is only the domain of extremely partisan hacks showing a degree of bias bordering on insanity.
also laughable to not note the extreme Republican obstructionism.
not surprising the republicans would force it through of cdourse, they're bad people not interested in good government.
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It all comes down to whether or not the xDaunt confirmation efforts can siphon off a couple more traitors to prevent a filibuster. Either way he's going through which makes this a losing battle for the Democrats. But Schumer decided to pick this fight. So... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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If the GOP is willing to nuke the filibuster now, they'd be willing to nuke it later. Just force them to do it and stop pretending that it actually means anything. The GOP has been a minority party more often than not, and it's extremely unlikely they maintain a permanent majority in the senate.
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On April 06 2017 06:40 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2017 06:24 Introvert wrote:On April 06 2017 06:20 LegalLord wrote:
Schumer well on track to prove that, yes, it's possible to be a worse Democratic minority leader than Harry Reid. One theory was that Schumer was playing chicken with the GOP, thinking they wouldn't change the rule. Now, as I and many other conservatives have said before, the party contains many squishes. But this is about as close to an open and shut case as the GOP can get. Nominee untouched by scandal with a great pedigree and endorsements, a win in the previous election that was, in large part, about this seat, and finally, the precedent of Harry Reid and the almost unprecedented nature of Democratic obstruction. If they can't do this they can't do anything. On April 06 2017 06:27 Doodsmack wrote:
Love hearing conservatives use the word obstruction in relation to the Supreme Court...or anything, really. I know you do, which is why I'm using it now. It's a fun word to use after hearing about it for so long! if this is the closest they can get to an open and hsut case that's very sad; as the case is very very far from and open shut. and pretending otherwise is only the domain of extremely partisan hacks showing a degree of bias bordering on insanity. also laughable to not note the extreme Republican obstructionism. not surprising the republicans would force it through of cdourse, they're bad people not interested in good government.
ok, then what good reasons do they have for preventing this confirmation?
New challenge, you can't use the words "Merrick" or "Garland." To do so is to invoke the petty partisanship you are so opposed to.
On April 06 2017 06:43 Nevuk wrote:
If the GOP is willing to nuke the filibuster now, they'd be willing to nuke it later. Just force them to do it and stop pretending that it actually means anything. The GOP has been a minority party more often than not, and it's extremely unlikely they maintain a permanent majority in the senate.
No, what Reid did in 2013 was what set the whole thing in motion. You couldn't get 50 Republicans to go any further. The distinctions between appointments and legislation are wide enough that I don't foresee any scenario where the latter is nuked by the GOP.
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On April 06 2017 06:43 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2017 06:40 zlefin wrote:On April 06 2017 06:24 Introvert wrote:On April 06 2017 06:20 LegalLord wrote:
Schumer well on track to prove that, yes, it's possible to be a worse Democratic minority leader than Harry Reid. One theory was that Schumer was playing chicken with the GOP, thinking they wouldn't change the rule. Now, as I and many other conservatives have said before, the party contains many squishes. But this is about as close to an open and shut case as the GOP can get. Nominee untouched by scandal with a great pedigree and endorsements, a win in the previous election that was, in large part, about this seat, and finally, the precedent of Harry Reid and the almost unprecedented nature of Democratic obstruction. If they can't do this they can't do anything. On April 06 2017 06:27 Doodsmack wrote:
Love hearing conservatives use the word obstruction in relation to the Supreme Court...or anything, really. I know you do, which is why I'm using it now. It's a fun word to use after hearing about it for so long! if this is the closest they can get to an open and hsut case that's very sad; as the case is very very far from and open shut. and pretending otherwise is only the domain of extremely partisan hacks showing a degree of bias bordering on insanity. also laughable to not note the extreme Republican obstructionism. not surprising the republicans would force it through of cdourse, they're bad people not interested in good government. ok, then what good reasons do they have for preventing this confirmation? New challenge, you can't use the words "Merrick" or "Garland." To do so is to invoke the petty partisanship you are so opposed to.
yes, you've proven your partisanship by asserting that a valid point is invalid with no sound basis.
congratulations. you lose. you are the partisan hack.
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On April 06 2017 06:43 Nevuk wrote:
If the GOP is willing to nuke the filibuster now, they'd be willing to nuke it later. Just force them to do it and stop pretending that it actually means anything. The GOP has been a minority party more often than not, and it's extremely unlikely they maintain a permanent majority in the senate.
If they wish to nuke they will need a valid reason to have gone for such a bold and convoluted gesture. The Supreme Court may very well be the only chance they get in a while. Because this isn't really as much about the filibuster as it is about that they absolutely care about getting their SCOTUS judge on the court enough that they are willing to do this.
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On April 06 2017 06:45 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2017 06:43 Introvert wrote:On April 06 2017 06:40 zlefin wrote:On April 06 2017 06:24 Introvert wrote:On April 06 2017 06:20 LegalLord wrote:
Schumer well on track to prove that, yes, it's possible to be a worse Democratic minority leader than Harry Reid. One theory was that Schumer was playing chicken with the GOP, thinking they wouldn't change the rule. Now, as I and many other conservatives have said before, the party contains many squishes. But this is about as close to an open and shut case as the GOP can get. Nominee untouched by scandal with a great pedigree and endorsements, a win in the previous election that was, in large part, about this seat, and finally, the precedent of Harry Reid and the almost unprecedented nature of Democratic obstruction. If they can't do this they can't do anything. On April 06 2017 06:27 Doodsmack wrote:
Love hearing conservatives use the word obstruction in relation to the Supreme Court...or anything, really. I know you do, which is why I'm using it now. It's a fun word to use after hearing about it for so long! if this is the closest they can get to an open and hsut case that's very sad; as the case is very very far from and open shut. and pretending otherwise is only the domain of extremely partisan hacks showing a degree of bias bordering on insanity. also laughable to not note the extreme Republican obstructionism. not surprising the republicans would force it through of cdourse, they're bad people not interested in good government. ok, then what good reasons do they have for preventing this confirmation? New challenge, you can't use the words "Merrick" or "Garland." To do so is to invoke the petty partisanship you are so opposed to. yes, you've proven your partisanship by asserting that a valid point is invalid with no sound basis. congratulations. you lose. you are the partisan hack.
But I provided three strong reasons. Citing Merrick Garland (who was not in the same position as Gorsuch is now) is entirely based on revenge. Unless you really think Trump should reappoint Garland, which is laughable.
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EPT
