US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8727

On September 14 2017 02:05 xDaunt wrote:

Surely you understand that there are logical differences between saying "X is true," "X is not true," and "X or Y may be true," right? All of my statements have been in line with the last of those. On the other hand, you are quite eager to say "X is not true" and (by implication if not expressly that "Y is true"). Now, I'm not exactly known for being shy with my opinions, so if I really thought that MLK would shit on the current iteration of the civil rights movement, you can bet that I would. However, I don't see the man as being as infallible as popular culture would have us believe, so I really wouldn't be surprised if he signed on with second-rate shysters like Al Sharpton Jesse Jackson or decided to adopt the radical identitarian politics of the modern left. What I do know is what MLK was fighting against in his time and by extension, what he was describing, in his speeches and in his writings. Those are very clearly different circumstances than what exist today, which I know that y'all hate to admit.

"Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: 'Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?' 'Why are you joining the voices of dissent?' 'Peace and civil rights don't mix,' they say. 'Aren't you hurting the cause of your people,' they ask?

And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.”

“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.”

Speech to SCLC Board, March 30, 1967

“I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic… [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive… but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” – Letter to Coretta Scott, July 18, 1952.

On September 14 2017 05:16 LegalLord wrote:

Calling it "Marxism" is a blatant attempt to draw a connection to badly perceived folk of communism; most people I know who use that phrase have an aggressively negative view of regular Marxism as well. Frankly, given how Marx' works are very much focused towards economics and political economy, it's kind of hard to apply cultural revisionism to it without being severely off base.

I wiki'd "cultural Marxism" and it chooses to use the term "Frankfurt school" instead. Which when read on its own, does not exactly seem to have any realistic overlap with what Marx was all about in any reasonable sense.

Judge Considers Defying Trump Over Arpaio Pardon

Although President Donald Trump has issued a full pardon to former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, and his lawyers have filed a motion seeking to have his conviction thrown out as a result, District Court Judge Susan Bolton has so far refused to grant the motion, and is in fact considering requests before her that she deny it.

In papers lodged with her last week, it was argued that “The president can’t use the pardon power to immunize lawless officials from consequences for violating people’s constitutional rights.” This contrasts with his lawyers’ arguments that “The president’s pardon moots the case, and it warrants an automatic vacatur of all opinions, judgments, and verdicts related to the criminal charge.”

The Justice Department supports his position, telling the judge on Monday that “the government agrees that the Court should vacate all orders and dismiss the case as moot.”

But although many commentators have argued that the President’s pardoning power is “unlimited,” and some have even worried that he might issue blanket pardons to all those being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to frustrate the investigation, she is reviewing contrary legal arguments.

These counter arguments contend that the president’s constitutional power to issue pardons “is limited by later-enacted amendments, starting with the Bill of Rights. For example, were a president to announce that he planned to pardon all white defendants convicted of a certain crime but not all black defendants, that would conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.”

Similarly, they argue, Trump cannot use pardons to undercut a court’s power to protect people from being denied their Due Process rights by immunizing otherwise unlawful acts like Arpaio’s. It contends that “the president cannot be allowed to weaponize the pardon power to circumvent the judiciary’s ability to enforce and protect constitutional rights.”

A brief amicus curiae filed on Monday contends that “the power of contempt for violating injunctions requiring government officers to cease their unconstitutional actions – or risk fine, imprisonment or both – is a vital means by which the judiciary enforces constitutional rights. If the President may employ his pardon power to relieve government officers of accountability and risk of penalty for defying injunctions imposed to enforce constitutional rights, that action will permanently impair the courts’ authority and ability to protect those inalienable rights. The result would be an executive branch freed from the judicial scrutiny required to assure compliance with the dictates of the Bill of Rights and other constitutional safeguards.”

While these legal arguments may initially sound like a reach with little chance of success under ordinary circumstances, they could prove effective under a new practice being called “Trumplaw.”

This judge’s actions to date, and several injunctions blocking a string of Trump’s actions on unusual if not unprecedented legal grounds, lends credence to this unusual suggestion.

Several scholars, including some who oppose him, suggested that some judges appear to be adopting a new jurisprudence called “Trumplaw” aimed uniquely at this President; a method of judging cases which is aimed specifically at countering some of the practices of President Trump, even if this development means creating new legal principles and/or overlooking (or at least minimizing) other established ones.

For example, a piece in the New York Times described this new method of deciding cases as “a set of restrictions on presidential action that only apply to Donald Trump. This president cannot do things that would be perfectly legal if any other president did them, under this standard, because the courts will rule against his past demagogy rather than the policies themselves.”

[...]

On September 14 2017 05:10 LegalLord wrote:
It is perhaps most relevant to modern discourse as political commentary though. "1984" is almost synonymous with a police state where independent thought isn't allowed, and that's perhaps where it falls short the most in terms of being a good story. The conceptual framework for how such a society would work is not at all prescient, and the specific policies for how that society is controlled are hardly relevant to the modern world. For a work focused so strongly on society, there is a notable dearth of characters that you can actually look at who are not one-dimensional; the only characters who were at all well-considered were O'Brien and Emmanuel Goldstein. And yet individuals call back to 1984 as if it were prescient rather than quite frankly farcical. Perhaps the head-scratching logic of Hillary's comparison as twitted on the last page best illustrates how pointless most of the crap in that book is as meaningful social commentary.

On September 14 2017 05:24 Liquid`Drone wrote:


Frankfurt school is definitely a better, more meaningful and less tainted word than cultural marxism. I completely agree with you that it's a blatant attempt to draw a connotation towards marxism despite that connection being shoddy at best.

On September 14 2017 05:39 KwarK wrote:
If you would be willing to satisfy my curiousity xDaunt, in your opinion what was the year when specifically black political advocacy ceased to be justifiable? I'm making the assumption that you would presumably think that there were legitimate political causes that were divided on racial lines in, for example, the 1860s, but that you wouldn't agree that they still exist today (please let me know if that assumption is wrong, and if so why).

On September 14 2017 05:28 Nevuk wrote:

lawnewz.com
Long article, a bit too technical for me to understand but it might be interesting to the more legal minded. This whole thing seems very strange.

On September 14 2017 05:28 Nevuk wrote:

lawnewz.com
Long article, a bit too technical for me to understand but it might be interesting to the more legal minded. This whole thing seems very strange.

On September 14 2017 05:45 Liquid`Drone wrote:
So in theory, you're fine with terms like cultural Randism if a libertarian school of thought achieved influence on a similar level to the Frankfurt School?

On September 14 2017 05:39 KwarK wrote:
If you would be willing to satisfy my curiousity xDaunt, in your opinion what was the year when specifically black political advocacy ceased to be justifiable? I'm making the assumption that you would presumably think that there were legitimate political causes that were divided on racial lines in, for example, the 1860s, but that you wouldn't agree that they still exist today (please let me know if that assumption is wrong, and if so why).

On September 14 2017 05:45 zlefin wrote:

Aye, it is an interesting article indeed.
it is indeed a strange situation; the rest isn't that surprising though.
The notion that judges ever truly followed the law, rather than following their opinions and then finding a justification for it, has been questioned for some time. It's just a bit potentially clearer in soem of these cases than in the past (of course here there's often far more justification for having to do something extraordinary than there was in the past; exceptional circumstances can lead to exceptional rulings).
any particular strange point you want more thoughts on? if not that's fine.

Although the President allegedly has unfettered power to completely pardon anyone, Bolton has so far not taken action on Arpaio’s request that his conviction be thrown out based upon Trump’s pardon.

Rather that accede to this request, Bolton has directed both Arpaio and the Justice Department to file briefs on the legal issue of whether she should grant his request. This arguably flies in the face of a 1925 Supreme Court decision which unanimously upheld a presidential pardon for a criminal contempt of court sentence; exactly the unusual type of pardon involved here.

However, not granting Arpaio’s motion may provide the only way in which the President’s pardoning power – including his power to pardon those involved in the Mueller investigation to keep them from flipping – can be challenged in court, and possibly provoke a judicial ruling limiting its sweep.

Thus, constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky has suggested that one way the President’s seemingly unfettered pardon power might be challenged would be for her to refuse to fully recognize it.

He said “in theory, Judge Susan Bolton, the judge in the case, could say that, notwithstanding the pardon and notwithstanding Ex Parte Grossman [in 1925], she believes the law has changed sufficiently that she can go ahead and sentence Arpaio. Arpaio would appeal, and the Ninth Circuit could then affirm Judge Bolton.” In such a ruling, Bolton could cite a much later 1987 ruling in which the Court said “The ability to punish disobedience to judicial orders is regarded as essential to ensuring that the Judiciary has a means to vindicate its own authority without complete dependence on other Branches.”

In short, many judges, in addition to wanting to oppose much of what Trump does because they strongly object to him and his orders, may also be willing to bend and stretch the law – including venturing into uncharted waters such as his pardon power, or his power to fire prosecutors who do not comply with his priorities – because Trump has repeatedly attacked judges, by name as well as collectively.

It is likely that other judges strongly resent such attacks, both openly and perhaps even subconsciously, because judges are not ethically permitted to speak out and defend his own actions from attack, but also because an attack on several named judges is likely to be seen as an attack on all of them.

There may be little that Trump can do – short of an ultimate appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court where he may find a more sympathetic audience – if judges including Bolton decide that stopping some of what they may regard as his outrageous actions requires some obstruction – or at least manipulation – of justice.

If so, many may regard this as poetic justice for a runaway president, but it is not the way law is supposed to work.

On September 14 2017 05:50 xDaunt wrote:

I don't think that I am on board with the idea that black political advocacy has ceased being justifiable. There are clearly problems in the black community. Though these problems are not necessarily unique to the black community, they clearly are of a much larger magnitude there. Where I break with y'all on the left on these issues is whether racism is still the main problem. My answer to that is no, and for that reason, I believe that focusing on racism is not only misplaced but counterproductive.

On September 14 2017 05:45 Liquid`Drone wrote:
So in theory, you're fine with terms like cultural Randism if a libertarian school of thought achieved influence on a similar level to the Frankfurt School?