EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 1432
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Now that we have a new thread, 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 complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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Taelshin
Canada418 Posts
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Godwrath
Spain10126 Posts
On May 07 2019 09:47 Mohdoo wrote: Jeb looked favored at one point too. Biden has no charisma. His numbers will drop like a brick after the first debate. Genuine question because i am ignorant in american politics, how long can he avoid debates? | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28673 Posts
On May 07 2019 09:47 Mohdoo wrote: Jeb looked favored at one point too. Biden has no charisma. His numbers will drop like a brick after the first debate. Disagreed. There are multiple legit reasons to be opposed to Biden, but he's not like Jeb. He has a lot of energy when he speaks, and he does invoke response from his audience. You won't ever see him pull a 'please clap', because people do clap. I also think it's highly unlikely that any contending democrats will try launching slurry-speeched-groping-joe-monikers, however there's no doubt that the low energy jeb attack was very successful. (That and Christie's destruction of Rubio were the most well-targeted attacks during the republican debates.) I don't see the democratic debates devolve into whatever the republican debates were though, nobody like trump is running, and opposition to Trump is a stronger glue for all the candidates (not saying for all the voters) than the differences in political opinion are dissolving agents. | ||
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FueledUpAndReadyToGo
Netherlands30548 Posts
The Trump administration on Monday formally rejected demands by House Democrats to turn over the president’s tax returns, setting the stage for what’s likely to be a long legal battle. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said their demands raise “serious constitutional questions” and that lawmakers do not have a "legitimate" reason for seeking President Donald Trump’s filings. “The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution requires that Congressional information demands must reasonably serve a legitimate legislative purpose,” he wrote in a one-page letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass). “I have determined that the Committee’s request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose” and “the Department is therefore not authorized to disclose the requested returns.” | ||
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ZerOCoolSC2
8986 Posts
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ChristianS
United States3188 Posts
On May 07 2019 13:29 GreenHorizons wrote: I don't think it's even going to take a debate, from what I gather these recent polls showing biden surging (beyond what's typical for an announcement) we're really polling people over 50 which is about the split we'd expect and Biden's had for months. Good chance his polling of people under 50 is already plummeting, particularly when one considers he's been pretty universally shitcanned here. I hesitate to post this because I don’t like horse race coverage of elections, not least because people tend to intentionally or unintentionally use it as a cover for advocacy (e.g. instead of saying “I support Buttigieg” people say “Buttigieg sure is doing well in the polls, let’s talk about it”). So let me explicitly say I have no intention of voting for Biden in the primary. That said, I think you’re misreading the polls on Biden and Bernie somewhat. Nate Silver has written some about this and can defend the point better than I can (although he’s had some takes recently I’m more or less certain you’d hate), but the gist is Biden has consistently outperformed Bernie in the polls and most of the methodological criticisms people have for those polls (e.g. sample size or sampling bias) are off-base. We can certainly expect Biden’s numbers to drop in coming weeks, but not because recent polls were badly done - post-announcement polling bounces usually fade, that’s normal and to be expected. I think a lot of your prediction that Biden will fail is based more on your intuition than on the data; I won’t argue with your intuition there. But as far as the data is concerned, I have trouble seeing how you could look at Biden as anything other than a frontrunner right now. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13955 Posts
On May 07 2019 18:19 Godwrath wrote: Genuine question because i am ignorant in american politics, how long can he avoid debates? He doesn't actualy have to show up to them if he doesn't feel like it. But the first one is scheduled for june 26-27th. 2019 if that wasn't a given. | ||
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hunts
United States2113 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On May 08 2019 01:54 hunts wrote: So if house votes to hold barr in contempt, does he go to jail until he starts actually following the law? And can they do the same to mnuchin? You should just Google contempt of congress, honestly. But in short, no congress cannot throw political appointees in prison with a simple majority vote of the House. There is a process and jail time could happen(its super rare), but congress does not have the power to bring criminal charges on their own. They would need to refer it to the US attorney for DC. | ||
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hunts
United States2113 Posts
On May 08 2019 02:10 Plansix wrote: You should just Google contempt of congress, honestly. But in short, no congress cannot throw political appointees in prison with a simple majority vote of the House. There is a process and jail time could happen(its super rare), but congress does not have the power to bring criminal charges on their own. They would need to refer it to the US attorney for DC. Thanks, and you are right I should have googled that myself. I did want some discussion here on that, but asking such a simple question was not really the way to do it. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18004 Posts
On May 08 2019 02:10 Plansix wrote: You should just Google contempt of congress, honestly. But in short, no congress cannot throw political appointees in prison with a simple majority vote of the House. There is a process and jail time could happen(its super rare), but congress does not have the power to bring criminal charges on their own. They would need to refer it to the US attorney for DC. If the source I read is right, they could go for "inherent contempt" in which case they could act as jury themselves (weird shit starts happening here) and if found guilty, lock him up until the next congress is instated (at most; they can obviously release him earlier). They could lock him up anywhere they have the power to do so. E.g. a back room of congress, or a cooperative hotel. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
This is just a fight between Congress and the executive branch. The White House is saying that there is to “legislative purpose” to the requests and Congress is like “no shit, oversight the other half of our job.” No one is going to jail over a simple vote. But they withhold documents for to long or fail to appear before congress when summoned, it could get nasty. Especially over the tax returns, because there isn't much that says Congress can't have those | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On May 08 2019 02:45 Dangermousecatdog wrote: What would "get nasty" involve in this situation? From the sounds of it, there is not much Congress can do to enforce oversight. They will file a civil or criminal complaint at some point. Or start demanding testimony from staff members or other who not as keen to risk obstructing congress. They will find other means to limit the executive branch that I can't think of right now. Congress is not powerless. It just has been a while since they have used those powers in a really aggressive fashion. Edit: They also just instructed Don McGahn to not comply with a subpoena, arguing that the requested documents are part of executive privilege. I'm not sure that holds up since the documents were already provided to people outside of the White House, like the investigation. At some point, someone like Don McGahn won't want to run the risk of being charged with obstructing congress based on the the White House's very open interpenetration of executive privilege. Also, I’m not sure if those documents were ever the property of the White House. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23246 Posts
On May 07 2019 23:15 ChristianS wrote: I hesitate to post this because I don’t like horse race coverage of elections, not least because people tend to intentionally or unintentionally use it as a cover for advocacy (e.g. instead of saying “I support Buttigieg” people say “Buttigieg sure is doing well in the polls, let’s talk about it”). So let me explicitly say I have no intention of voting for Biden in the primary. That said, I think you’re misreading the polls on Biden and Bernie somewhat. Nate Silver has written some about this and can defend the point better than I can (although he’s had some takes recently I’m more or less certain you’d hate), but the gist is Biden has consistently outperformed Bernie in the polls and most of the methodological criticisms people have for those polls (e.g. sample size or sampling bias) are off-base. We can certainly expect Biden’s numbers to drop in coming weeks, but not because recent polls were badly done - post-announcement polling bounces usually fade, that’s normal and to be expected. I think a lot of your prediction that Biden will fail is based more on your intuition than on the data; I won’t argue with your intuition there. But as far as the data is concerned, I have trouble seeing how you could look at Biden as anything other than a frontrunner right now. It's worth noting Nate Silver has basically become what he came to fix. A pundit that opines sans the data. The easiest example is when he tiered the candidates. You can put Biden and Bernie together or Biden on top then Bernie, but you can't have Buttigieg and Harris with Sanders, let alone Harris over Sanders. Or at least he didn't provide any data to support his pushing of Harris. As far as Biden's polling he has consistently held a lead, I can't speak to every recent poll but the CNN one showing him "solidifying his frontrunner status" definitely didn't have a significant sample from people under 50. cdn.cnn.com If other recent ones showing his surge did I haven't seen it yet (could be, I just haven't seen it). | ||
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Introvert
United States4773 Posts
On May 08 2019 02:27 Plansix wrote: Yeah. The House does not have a jail, or the ability to hold someone. There is no reason for them to do that and it would create a whole bunch of problems. That is a system from a bygone era of congress and there is no way they would ever try it. This is just a fight between Congress and the executive branch. The White House is saying that there is to “legislative purpose” to the requests and Congress is like “no shit, oversight the other half of our job.” No one is going to jail over a simple vote. But they withhold documents for to long or fail to appear before congress when summoned, it could get nasty. Especially over the tax returns, because there isn't much that says Congress can't have those It's really not quite so clear cut, here's an in progress paper about it. Sorry, hard to find relevant quotes on mobile. here's the abstract This Article examines whether congressional committees enjoy the unrestricted authority to demand a President’s tax returns. It concludes that they do not. Though a federal statute seemingly compels the IRS to furnish, on request, anyone’s tax returns to some congressional committees, a statute cannot transcend the constitutional limits on Congress’s investigative authority. Congress enjoys a near-automatic right to review a President’s tax returns only in the impeachment context. After analyzing the general constitutional principles, the Article briefly examines the House Ways & Means Committee’s disputed request for President Trump’s tax return information. That controversy remains ongoing, and subsequent events may affect the legitimacy of any congressional request for that information. However, the Article expresses doubt that the Committee’s request satisfies the relevant constitutional standard. The article itself is only 39 pg/ w footnotes, so it's short. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3381974 As to McGhan, the argument they will make, which is not a frivolous one, is that the Mueller investigation was an executive branch investigation, while Congressional subpoenas obv are not. Hard to say waiving privilege is the same in both circumstances when the first is not part of an inter-branch dispute. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3188 Posts
On May 08 2019 03:42 GreenHorizons wrote: It's worth noting Nate Silver has basically become what he came to fix. A pundit that opines sans the data. The easiest example is when he tiered the candidates. You can put Biden and Bernie together or Biden on top then Bernie, but you can't have Buttigieg and Harris with Sanders, let alone Harris over Sanders. Or at least he didn't provide any data to support his pushing of Harris. https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1116106327208747008 As far as Biden's polling he has consistently held a lead, I can't speak to every recent poll but the CNN one showing him "solidifying his frontrunner status" definitely didn't have a significant sample from people under 50. cdn.cnn.com If other recent ones showing his surge did I haven't seen it yet (could be, I just haven't seen it). Nate Silver is hit or miss for sure, imo. He has an obnoxious contrarian streak thst makes him say/do stuff seemingly just to get a rise out of people, and he likes to act self-aware about it, but he’s not self-aware enough to realize how that tendency toward “spicy” takes actually makes him more similar to a standard pundit; he thinks it sets him apart. On the polling, though, part of why I said something is because I think there’s a temptation to dig into methodology any time a poll suggests something you don’t like, and there’s been quite a bit of that among Sanders supporters recently. The algorithm: If(Supports my hypothesis) retweet uncritically Else quibble with methodology has an obvious confirmation bias to it when considered in those terms, but it’s very easy to fall into unintentionally. Speaking of Nate Silver, I think avoiding this kind of thinking is still one of his strengths as an analyst. Like I said, you tend to make pretty strong (that is, high certainty) predictions which seem more based on your intuition than any particular piece of data, and I wouldn’t know how to argue with you on that; if your intuition is that Bernie is the inevitable nominee, I don’t know what to say besides “we’ll see.” Personally I’m a bit scared that we’ll wind up with a contested convention scenario with no clear frontrunner; but I don’t have any particular evidence to support a prediction, so I wouldn’t know how to argue who’s right. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On May 08 2019 04:43 Introvert wrote: It's really not quite so clear cut, here's an in progress paper about it. Sorry, hard to find relevant quotes on mobile. here's the abstract The article itself is only 39 pg/ w footnotes, so it's short. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3381974 As to McGhan, the argument they will make, which is not a frivolous one, is that the Mueller investigation was an executive branch investigation, while Congressional subpoenas obv are not. Hard to say waiving privilege is the same in both circumstances when the first is not part of an inter-branch dispute. Investigations by the Justice Department and FBI are not covered by executive privilege. They are under the executive branch, but not part of the White House itself. Also, executive privilege must be invoked by the president directly. It does not exist unless the President invokes it. This sort of passive executive privilege that the Trump administration has created has never existed before now. And the law professor is very focused on the legislative purpose for the tax returns, which isn't the argument. It brushes over oversight several times, by claiming there is no constitutional reason why the congress would need the tax returns for oversight. It is a very odd claim, given that emoluments clause exists within the Constitution and the President’s tax returns and business records would be the only way to establish if that clause is being violated. He seems so keen to gloss over that subject that I find his arguments less than compelling on the subject. | ||
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Doodsmack
United States7224 Posts
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