US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7608

On May 23 2017 07:25 Danglars wrote:

Go bold and add Susan Rice to the list!

A review of the surveillance material flagged by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes shows no inappropriate action by Susan Rice or any other Obama administration official, Republican and Democratic Congressional aides who have been briefed on the matter told NBC News.

“You’ll just have to wait and watch. [Contempt is] certainly one of the avenues that we could pursue,” Burr told three reporters on Monday evening. “It does us no good to have people insist on pleading the Fifth if you’re out trying to get information. The only thing I can tell you is immunity is off the table.”

Burr said Flynn’s denial of his request is nonsensical.

“All I’ve asked him for is documents. I don’t know how you can plead the Fifth on a document request,” he said.

Burr and ranking Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia will make the decision in tandem. Warner told reporters they are keeping “all options on the table.”

“I want the Intelligence Committee to be successful,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). “Whatever they think is best — I'm going to follow their lead. Sometimes contempt is the right way to do it. Sometimes there's other ways to do it.”

On May 23 2017 08:57 JW_DTLA wrote:


I have been trying to decipher this whataboutism, but I can't even find a request for Susan Rice. All I found was this. If you want to play the whataboutism game, why not cite something plausible?



http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/susan-rice-did-nothing-wrong-say-both-dems-republicans-n747406

Okay now I found it. She wasn't invited by the ranking Democrat, just the Republican, and declined to testify. That is in no way equivalent to refusing a subpoena and taking the 5th. Also, Rice did nothing wrong and isn't the subject of the investigation. She has nothing to add as she isn't a principal in actually investigating anything. Flynn is actually going down for his improper payments and failure to report contacts with the Russians.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/why-wont-susan-rice-testify-to-congress/525393/

Once the resolution of contempt passes the full Senate, they technically have two options to pick from in deciding how to proceed with the case.

First, the Senate may instruct its sergeant-at-arms to arrest the individual and bring them before their presiding officer. The individual could be held in the Capitol jail, but this practice has not been used for more than 80 years.

A second, and more practical option, is for the Senate to refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for criminal contempt proceedings. The law then requires the U.S. Attorney to empanel a grand jury to consider indictments for criminal contempt.

2 U.S. Code § 194 provides, in part:

Whenever a witness summoned as mentioned in section 192 of this title fails to appear to testify or fails to produce any books, papers, rec­ords, or documents, as required … and the fact of such failure or failures is reported to either House while Congress is in session or when Congress is not in session, a statement of fact constituting such failure is reported to and filed with … the Speaker of the House, it shall be the duty of the said … Speaker of the House … to certify, and he shall so certify, the statement of facts aforesaid under the seal of … the House … to the appropriate United States attorney, whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action.

Despite the apparent mandatory language in the statute (shall), two recent high-profile contempt resolution referral cases essentially show the statute does not operate that way. As such, Congress has had great difficulty obtaining a contempt conviction in court.

The House voted in 2012 to find then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress and referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney, putting them in the position of having to bring a case against their boss. After a lengthy legal battle, a federal judge in 2014 declined to find Holder in contempt. However, the judge also ordered Holder to turn over certain documents at the heart of the contempt proceeding, so both sides arguably got what they ultimately wanted in the end.

In 2014, the House passed a resolution of contempt finding against former IRS official Lois Lerner. Lerner refused to testify when she was called before a Capitol Hill committee investigating the targeting of groups believed to be affiliated with the Tea Party movement. In 2015, the U.S. Attorney wrote a letter to then-Speaker of the House John Boehner, stating he would not move forward with a contempt case against Lerner. In the letter, the U.S. Attorney explained that he did not believe Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights by making an opening statement and then otherwise refusing to testify before a Congressional committee.

Senate rules also provide a third option, which involves bring a civil action in federal district court. The Senate could seek an injunction compelling Flynn to comply with Senate process. If the court issues an injunction and Flynn still refused, he could be held in contempt of court.

Flynn’s lawyers, however, contend that the former National Security Adviser is within his rights not to obey the subpoena. They said in their letter that turning over documents would, in itself, be a testimonial act, because it would confirm or deny the existence of documents that are responsive to the Committee’s request, so Flynn could therefore invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify. The attorneys cited case law that says that innocent people can use the Fifth Amendment to protect themselves from testifying in situations where they would have “reasonable cause to apprehend danger from a direct answer.”

The Supreme Court this morning, in Cooper v. Harris, struck down North Carolina’s Congressional map on the grounds that two districts (District 1 and District 12) were unconstitutionally based on race. The 5-3 opinion was written by Justice Kagan; Justice Thomas joined with the court’s liberals in the majority, while Justices Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy dissented in part. (Justice Gorsuch did not participate, as the case had already been argued, and one more vote would not change the outcome). Naturally, the media spin on this decision is knee-jerk characterizations of Republicans as racist, but the actual issues here are about the collision between two irreconcilable visions of district-drawing: (1) the prohibition on considering race in drawing district lines, and (2) the liberal view that the Voting Rights Act requires race to be considered in order to draw “majority-minority” districts. The decision illustrates the “heads I win, tails you lose” nature of the liberal attack on Republican – but only Republican – gerrymandering, as the Court had previously upheld similar actions taken by North Carolina Democrats.

Now, let’s be blunt: in gerrymandering cases, nearly nobody cares about anything but advancing their party’s odds of winning elections. Justice Thomas has been virtually alone in taking the principled line, regardless of whose partisan ox is being gored or what the Court has done previously, that racial gerrymandering is virtually always unconstitutional. Specifically, Thomas’ longstanding view is that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause imposes “strict scrutiny” (a standard that is nearly impossible to satisfy) when districts are drawn with race primarily in mind, and that this includes districts drawn to create “majority-minority” districts (Thomas believes that the VRA does not require any such thing). The Court’s opinion doesn’t go that far, but it does advance the judicial grounds for throwing out racial gerrymanders, and it effectively overturns a 2001 decision, known as Cromartie II, that had upheld nearly the same District 12. Because Thomas thought Cromartie II was wrong at the time, and because the result in Cooper would be the same as the dissent in Cromartie II (i.e., deferring to what the trial court decided), he had no qualms joining the majority and staying consistent.

But the Court’s approach telegraphs its intention to preserve racial gerrymandering when Democrats do it, just not Republicans. The Court has been hearing challenges to North Carolina’s district borders every decade since the 1980s, so some history is in order. In Cromartie I, in 1999, the Court first faced a challenge to District 12, which had been created by the Democrat-controlled state legislature and was defended in court by Democratic Governor Jim Hunt. The Democrats defended District 12 on the grounds that they had been motivated by partisanship, not race; the Court, in an opinion by Justice Thomas, concluded that the Democrats’ evidence that black North Carolinians tended to vote Democrat was enough to require a trial on the factual question of whether race was the predominant motive, rather than partisanship:

On May 22 2017 23:03 Plansix wrote:

If I had to guess which states had the most underfunded Courts, it would be New Hampshire and Mississippi in that order.

On May 23 2017 09:52 Plansix wrote:
This only furthers the evidence that we nee to become a modern nation and not let sitting politicians draw districts. It will always lead to endless court challenges. It should be done by an appointed, non-partisan with clear guidelines. But sadly, like voting on the weekend, that won't happen in the near future.

On May 23 2017 09:49 Wegandi wrote:


NH is one of the best places and states to live in, in the country. I think they're doing just fine.

On May 23 2017 09:50 KwarK wrote:

In a case talking about the deliberate disenfranchisement of African Americans that statement says more about the author than it does about the case.

On May 23 2017 09:56 Introvert wrote:


You seem to have missed the point, which involves the inconsistency of courts in this particular matter.

And I think it's painfully obvious that Thomas is right, redistricting is about winning elections, for both parties.

On May 23 2017 01:50 Logo wrote:


It's worth noting that government grant directed system does not necessarily alleviate this burden either, it's still easier on the academic side of things if you're going after the trendy areas of life sciences (like cancer). Basically it just seems flat out important for someone to be continuously introducing incentives to go after areas of research that are less lucrative (either directly with money or by prestige) but important to society.

In general I encourage people to learn a lot about smaller biotech companies and stuff; I think there's often a tendency for people to just like overestimate the ease and health of these companies. The problems with the industry run deeper than people having to pay way too much for medicine.

On May 23 2017 09:56 Introvert wrote:


You seem to have missed the point, which involves the inconsistency of courts in this particular matter.

And I think it's painfully obvious that Thomas is right, redistricting is about winning elections, for both parties.

On May 23 2017 09:54 Plansix wrote:

As someone who lives south of them, I never said otherwise. But their sheriffs and judicial system are chronically underfunded and their docket shows that. It can take 2 months for a ruling on a district court motion the higher up in the state you go. One court gets a judge 7 buisness days out of the month.

On May 23 2017 09:59 Plansix wrote:

And he is telling the Republicans to find a better excuse that doesn't violate the 14th amendment. I don't see a problem here beyond the Republican hand wringing. For a party that has run on the "By any means necessary" platform, this is right in the wheel house. Losing is hard, but sometimes you need to be better at the game. NC needs to focus on repressing the votes of all democrats, not just the black democrats.

On May 23 2017 10:03 KwarK wrote:

When one party says that they're redistricting to limit minority representation so that they can win elections it is impossible for the other party to take a moral stance against that kind of racist attack on the franchise without being accused of having an ulterior motive. It's a zero sum game, one side seeks to profit at the expense of the other, whatever the moral stance is, you'll just accuse whoever advocates the opposing side of being no better.

Hell, if you're going to play this game you might as well take it to the logical conclusion and say that both a mugger and his victim are equally bad. The mugger is trying to take the property out of greed, the victim is trying to retain the property out of greed, they're both as bad as each other.

The fact that Democrats would benefit if Republicans would let minorities vote does not mean that both parties are just in it to themselves. That is a morally and intellectually bankrupt argument.

At the time, the Court’s liberal wing was very solicitous of protecting the Democrats’ right to pack District 12 with black voters for partisan purposes; today, it announces what in practice is a very different standard, jettisoning the requirement that the challenging party “must show” an alternative path to the same partisan ends in order to overturn a map on grounds that the partisan motive was really mainly about race:

'[I]t does not matter in this case, where the plaintiffs’ introduction of mostly direct and some circumstantial evidence—
documents issued in the redistricting process, testimony of government officials, expert analysis of demographic
patterns—gave the District Court a sufficient basis, sans any map, to resolve the race-or-politics question. A plaintiff ’s
task, in other words, is simply to persuade the trial court—without any special evidentiary prerequisite—that race (not
politics) was the “predominant consideration in deciding to place a significant number of voters within or without a
particular district.”…[A] plaintiff will sometimes need an alternative map, as a practical matter, to make his case. But in
no area of our equal protection law have we forced plaintiffs to submit one particular form of proof to prevail.'

Justice Alito’s dissent on this point called this “a stunning about-face” and fumed, “[a] precedent of this Court should not be treated like a disposable household item—say, a paper plate or napkin— to be used once and then tossed in the trash. But that is what the Court does today…”