Quote (Goomshill @ Aug 26 2022 08:20pm)
But again, all that is accomplished by such process is the formalization of the constitutional powers the president holds implicitly. That's the whole executive branch in a nutshell. The power derives from the president, all the bureaucracy and policies and executive orders and guidance memos, just serve to formalize his powers. That's a necessity when it comes to prosecuting anyone other than the president, but its a full paradox when it comes to prosecuting a president. No matter what bureaucracy exists, it cannot constrain the powers of the president from which it derives. If the president doesn't sign or proclaim anything, that's a valid defense in court for some random citizen to claim violates his constitutional protections under the 5th amendment, but its not grounds to form criminal liability for the president himself in court. We don't live in a nightmarish draconian system where you either declare your every action and abide every formality or else we imprison you. Nor does anyone have the authority to declare when a president has used his constitutional powers save the president, because any agency making a counterclaim is usurping that power from the president. He says he exerted his executive powers, they say he didn't, who's determination is final? He was elected president, they weren't. Just like we're not a system that criminalizes every shortcut or informality, we're not a system that criminalizes disputes over authority and jurisdiction. We resolve them civilly.
How is it a nightmarish draconian system to expect that if the president wants to declassify something, there needs to be some process to do so? That's just common sense, because there's consequences of declassifying something, there's laws to follow, so it's absurd to think that the president can simply hold a thought in his head about how he declassified something, and thus, it's declassified.
We're not even debating whether the process that Trump had dotted every i and crossed every t. Trump had no process at all, he simply claims he had a standing order, which there is no evidence of beyond a couple coup-plotters who back it up.
We're also ignoring the point that this is a post-hoc rationalization for Trump to avoid an indictment, which it took him months to come up with, lol. But the shills go along with it like the sheep they are.
Quote (Goomshill @ Aug 27 2022 03:14am)
I've contrasted how Biden is going after Trump against how Trump didn't go after Hillary. But there's another important distinction to make. We've seen Trump at his most desperate, and he was relatively toothless and when shit hit the fan he made notable efforts to end the chaos. Biden hasn't been put in a desperate situation. His administration's choice to proactively antagonize his predecessor wasn't born of necessity or the normal cynical political game. There's no impetus on Biden that says, 'you have to get Trump now, or else!' He's in the same secure spot Trump was for most of his term. And yet this has been his priority.
Most despots and tyrants and been motivated by paranoia and insecurity. When you're at constant risk of being dethroned, you get medieval in your methods. Biden's only risk right now is being remembered worse than Jimmy Carter.
Under the Biden administration, the DOJ has been independent, so the DOJ pursuing Trump for violating the law does not mean "Biden is going after Trump".
And were you asleep during the Ukraine scandal? Trump used the power of the US government to extort a foreign ally in order to dig up dirt on Biden. Lol. He also routinely lied about his predecessor, including the claim that Obama spied on his campaign.
Trump cultists constantly argue that the
reaction to Trump's criminality and abuses of power is norm breaking, but that's silly. The criminality and abuses of power are what violates norms, not the attempted accountability.
This post was edited by IceMage on Aug 27 2022 04:38am