2016 US Presidential Election Speculation

[Dong Zhou]

I know in modern day, national emergency is over used but think building wall and policy disagreement is not a national emergency. Not sure the legal position but wonder how Congress will try to claw back powers for future

[Shikanosuke]

I know in modern day, national emergency is over used but think building wall and policy disagreement is not a national emergency. Not sure the legal position but wonder how Congress will try to claw back powers for future

He'll have to make his case to the American people, Congress, and most likely multiple courts. From my understanding Congress does have avenues of reversing this kind of action, should it choose and be able to do so. I don't think it will go well, but we've been wrong about his efforts a lot at times. I'm not sure his move will be popular with either party, just with his base.

EDIT: Seems little worse than that. Presidents can pretty much declare anything a national emergency by simply drafting it, signing it, and publishing in federal registrar. Congress can attempt to reverse this by passing a concurrent resolution which...has to be signed by the president (good luck any congress). Then have to come back with a supermajority to override (good luck any congress). That said, he can declare anything an emergency an it definitely provides him a scary amount of powers, but diverting money from programs designated by Congress seems to be a area he'll overreach. Or so will be the argument.

[WeiWenDi]

I know in modern day, national emergency is over used but think building wall and policy disagreement is not a national emergency. Not sure the legal position but wonder how Congress will try to claw back powers for future

He'll have to make his case to the American people, Congress, and most likely multiple courts. From my understanding Congress does have avenues of reversing this kind of action, should it choose and be able to do so. I don't think it will go well, but we've been wrong about his efforts a lot at times. I'm not sure his move will be popular with either party, just with his base.

EDIT: Seems little worse than that. Presidents can pretty much declare anything a national emergency by simply drafting it, signing it, and publishing in federal registrar. Congress can attempt to reverse this by passing a concurrent resolution which...has to be signed by the president (good luck any congress). Then have to come back with a supermajority to override (good luck any congress). That said, he can declare anything an emergency an it definitely provides him a scary amount of powers, but diverting money from programs designated by Congress seems to be a area he'll overreach. Or so will be the argument.

I do wonder what it will take for Congress to start pushing back hard on executive overreach. Unfortunately I fear the partizan nature of our politics will result in Congress continuing to be ineffectual as a body in standing on its own rights. I was heartened to see that the War Powers Resolution was approved last week, but it sadly looks like the Dems are fumbling that even now.

Also, bit off-topic: should we consider perhaps making a separate thread for US Politics or 2020 US Presidential Election Speculation now? I'll go ahead and start thataone.

[Shikanosuke]

I know in modern day, national emergency is over used but think building wall and policy disagreement is not a national emergency. Not sure the legal position but wonder how Congress will try to claw back powers for future

He'll have to make his case to the American people, Congress, and most likely multiple courts. From my understanding Congress does have avenues of reversing this kind of action, should it choose and be able to do so. I don't think it will go well, but we've been wrong about his efforts a lot at times. I'm not sure his move will be popular with either party, just with his base.

EDIT: Seems little worse than that. Presidents can pretty much declare anything a national emergency by simply drafting it, signing it, and publishing in federal registrar. Congress can attempt to reverse this by passing a concurrent resolution which...has to be signed by the president (good luck any congress). Then have to come back with a supermajority to override (good luck any congress). That said, he can declare anything an emergency an it definitely provides him a scary amount of powers, but diverting money from programs designated by Congress seems to be a area he'll overreach. Or so will be the argument.

I do wonder what it will take for Congress to start pushing back hard on executive overreach. Unfortunately I fear the partizan nature of our politics will result in Congress continuing to be ineffectual as a body in standing on its own rights. I was heartened to see that the War Powers Resolution was approved last week, but it sadly looks like the Dems are fumbling that even now.

Also, bit off-topic: should we consider perhaps making a separate thread for US Politics or 2020 US Presidential Election Speculation now? I'll go ahead and start thataone.

Was fairly suprised Senate was able to muster the Republican votes to attempt to repeal his declaration of a national emergency. They obviously can't get a supermajority to override his veto, but still says something when the majority of Congress votes to rebuke your methods.

[agga]

Was fairly suprised Senate was able to muster the Republican votes to attempt to repeal his declaration of a national emergency. They obviously can't get a supermajority to override his veto, but still says something when the majority of Congress votes to rebuke your methods.

59-41 did surprise me. I bet it's strategically high and that there are other Republicans that would have liked to have voted in favor of repeal, but it was decided that the costs of actually doing so (overriding the pres veto) would have been too catastrophic, so the leadership allowed it to get high enough to send a message and no higher...

[Dong Zhou]

Mueller report in (kinda), seems like a big win for Trump on collusion and his opponents are having to find other legal avenues to try to claw through and will have harder time persuading people about Trump?

[Jia Nanfeng]

Mueller report in (kinda), seems like a big win for Trump on collusion and his opponents are having to find other legal avenues to try to claw through and will have harder time persuading people about Trump?

They’re going to have a hard couple months getting people to believe anything the media says.

I say couple months because everyone will forget it and move on by then, just like everything else.

I’d be lying if I said I’m not feeling deep delight at the moment though. It’s always good news when the President, whoever it may be, is determined to have not committed a crime (in terms of collusion, obstruction remains to be seen but it’s awfully hard to make a case for obstruction when there’s no crime to obstruct). And I’m feeling schadenfreude for the outrage media machine being wrong about something. Again.

Also one of Trump’s most annoying critics, Avenatti, was just arrested. So all in all a decent weekend.

[Shikanosuke]

Mueller report in (kinda), seems like a big win for Trump on collusion and his opponents are having to find other legal avenues to try to claw through and will have harder time persuading people about Trump?

The Mueller report will be viewed as a big win by Trumpites/Trumpicans but I'm not sure it is that one way or the other. They're running around clamming "total vindication" when the report does not do that (on the collusion charge) and allegedly directly concluded the opposite (on the obstruction of justice charge). As such, his opponents will easily seize on that.

Trump's opponents will fight whichever individual initiatives in whichever appropriate ways, but at this point I'm not sure they will have to try any harder than before to convince anyone who has an opinion of Trump one way or the other.

I say couple months because everyone will forget it and move on by then, just like everything else.

Very possible. The investigation has not led to conclusions on the charges it originally set out on, but its also resulted in multiple indictments/convictions and the public testimony which at the best does not shed good light on Trump or his campaign.

I’d be lying if I said I’m not feeling deep delight at the moment though. It’s always good news when the President, whoever it may be, is determined to have not committed a crime (in terms of collusion, obstruction remains to be seen but it’s awfully hard to make a case for obstruction when there’s no crime to obstruct).
We don't disagree no one wants to be see their elected officials be convincted of a crime if they haven't committed it. We know very little of the report thus far, so I think it's not time to say he hasn't committed one of these crimes. What we can say is, from what I've read, the probe determined there wasn't sufficient evidence to conclude a crime had been committed and that the obstruction charge the probe had determined it simply wasn't going to reach a conclusion on. The former isn't exactly a declaration of innocence (seems new AG putting himself in interesting position here) and the latter is a punt at best.

Also one of Trump’s most annoying critics, Avenatti, was just arrested. So all in all a decent weekend.

I don't know much about this fellow, but I don't understand how a critic of the president alone being arrested is a good thing by itself. If the man is a criminal and he's been arrested, excellent right?


One of the most telling things to me about this is that now that the process has successfully concluded (something I think Americans should be proud of and satisfied with), our commander in chief continues to exacerbate the situation. On the one hand, he's demonized the process by deeming it a "witch-hunt" but now says Mueller is an honorable man. Not sure how those two are compatible. Now he says we need to make sure this never happens to another president. Scary to me, because this is people doing their jobs.

[DaoLunOfShiji]

I'd say I'm happy the investigation is over so we can actually get something else covered on the news other than "muh russians", but who am I kidding? They'll drive this into the ground and keep on looking like idiots. WMDs all over again.

[Shikanosuke]

I'd say I'm happy the investigation is over so we can actually get something else covered on the news other than "muh russians", but who am I kidding? They'll drive this into the ground and keep on looking like idiots. WMDs all over again.

Are you referring just to this specific investigation or are you complaining of hearing of Russia in general in the news? I guess I can understand the former (though there are plenty of legitimate answers still to be sought). Yet the latter is still a serious matter. We know about Russian attempts to sway our political process, and it exposes deep gaps in our technological security and our relationships with large media/tech companies, so I'd certainly still want that to be covered. We didn't find WMDs but we've certainly found evidence of meddling.