Political Roundtable Part VIII

[nate33]

Two more findings reveal that this administration continues to violate federal law with impunity. It would be very helpful to our Republic’s future if Democrats would join Republicans and insist that our laws be faithfully executed. The precedent being set for executive branch lawlessness is a dangerous and destructive one.

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” in violation of federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the general public to support President Obama’s controversial rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.

The ruling by the Government Accountability Office, which opened its investigation after a report in The New York Times on the agency’s practices, served as a cautionary tale to federal agencies about the perils of getting too active in using social media to push a cause. Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda……

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/politics/epa-broke-the-law-by-using-social-media-to-push-water-rule-auditor-finds.html?_r=0


Washington (CNN)A House Armed Services Committee report set to be released Thursday accuses the Obama administration of misleading Congress and violating federal law during a controversial prisoner exchange.

The report compiled by the GOP majority charges that the administration did so when it bypassed Congress in negotiating the exchange of five Taliban prisoners for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was being held in Afghanistan. They suggested that the White House had put politics and expediency ahead of proper procedure in making the deal.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/taliban-5-bowe-bergdahl-congress-report/index.html

were you as outraged when Bush violated several international laws and started an illegal war that cost billions of dollars and killed thousands of people?

Not that I really want to defend Bush's Iraq War, but what international laws did he violate? The way I remember it, he got the U.N. to agree to the conditions by which we could go to war, and when the conditions were met, we had authority to fight. (This doesn't factor the whole lying about WMD's which is a murkier subject that depends on what you believe Bush knew at the time.)

[popper]

Two more findings reveal that this administration continues to violate federal law with impunity. It would be very helpful to our Republic’s future if Democrats would join Republicans and insist that our laws be faithfully executed. The precedent being set for executive branch lawlessness is a dangerous and destructive one.

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” in violation of federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the general public to support President Obama’s controversial rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.

The ruling by the Government Accountability Office, which opened its investigation after a report in The New York Times on the agency’s practices, served as a cautionary tale to federal agencies about the perils of getting too active in using social media to push a cause. Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda……

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/politics/epa-broke-the-law-by-using-social-media-to-push-water-rule-auditor-finds.html?_r=0


Washington (CNN)A House Armed Services Committee report set to be released Thursday accuses the Obama administration of misleading Congress and violating federal law during a controversial prisoner exchange.

The report compiled by the GOP majority charges that the administration did so when it bypassed Congress in negotiating the exchange of five Taliban prisoners for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was being held in Afghanistan. They suggested that the White House had put politics and expediency ahead of proper procedure in making the deal.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/taliban-5-bowe-bergdahl-congress-report/index.html

were you as outraged when Bush violated several international laws and started an illegal war that cost billions of dollars and killed thousands of people?

I was highly critical of Bush in his inept conduct of war. The lives and dollars sacrificed were tragic. Sadam was in violation of international law and was sanctioned by the security counsel. I believe all intelligence services of our European allies believed Sadam had WMD (same as ours). I'm not aware that Bush violated international or domestic law. I'm happy to consider your evidence though.

[TheSecretWeapon]

Two more findings reveal that this administration continues to violate federal law with impunity. It would be very helpful to our Republic’s future if Democrats would join Republicans and insist that our laws be faithfully executed. The precedent being set for executive branch lawlessness is a dangerous and destructive one.

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” in violation of federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the general public to support President Obama’s controversial rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.

The ruling by the Government Accountability Office, which opened its investigation after a report in The New York Times on the agency’s practices, served as a cautionary tale to federal agencies about the perils of getting too active in using social media to push a cause. Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda……

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/politics/epa-broke-the-law-by-using-social-media-to-push-water-rule-auditor-finds.html?_r=0


Washington (CNN)A House Armed Services Committee report set to be released Thursday accuses the Obama administration of misleading Congress and violating federal law during a controversial prisoner exchange.

The report compiled by the GOP majority charges that the administration did so when it bypassed Congress in negotiating the exchange of five Taliban prisoners for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was being held in Afghanistan. They suggested that the White House had put politics and expediency ahead of proper procedure in making the deal.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/taliban-5-bowe-bergdahl-congress-report/index.html

were you as outraged when Bush violated several international laws and started an illegal war that cost billions of dollars and killed thousands of people?

I was highly critical of Bush in his inept conduct of war. The lives and dollars sacrificed were tragic. Sadam was in violation of international law and was sanctioned by the security counsel. I believe all intelligence services of our European allies believed Sadam had WMD (same as ours). I'm not aware that Bush violated international or domestic law. I'm happy to consider your evidence though.

Actually, there was considerable debate about the intelligence used by Cheney and the Bush administration to support the Iraq invasion even among the American intelligence agencies. The intel was presented as rock solid, but was far from it. Bush may not have been fully aware of how unsettled and flimsy the intelligence was because of the power he ceded to Cheney.

As far as violating international law, I'm not an expert, but it would seem that invading a sovereign nation on a pretext constructed from much-debated information might qualify.

[popper]

were you as outraged when Bush violated several international laws and started an illegal war that cost billions of dollars and killed thousands of people?

I was highly critical of Bush in his inept conduct of war. The lives and dollars sacrificed were tragic. Sadam was in violation of international law and was sanctioned by the security counsel. I believe all intelligence services of our European allies believed Sadam had WMD (same as ours). I'm not aware that Bush violated international or domestic law. I'm happy to consider your evidence though.

Actually, there was considerable debate about the intelligence used by Cheney and the Bush administration to support the Iraq invasion even among the American intelligence agencies. The intel was presented as rock solid, but was far from it. Bush may not have been fully aware of how unsettled and flimsy the intelligence was because of the power he ceded to Cheney.

As far as violating international law, I'm not an expert, but it would seem that invading a sovereign nation on a pretext constructed from much-debated information might qualify.

You make some good points but didn't he get Security Counsel approval before he invaded (I can't remember)? You may be right about Cheney's or Bush"s insider knowledge of questionable intelligence. I just don't know and haven't seen enough evidence to know for sure one way or the other. In any event, and in hindsight, the invasion and conduct of the war was a colossal mistake.

[popper]

As predicted, our negotiating team got taken to the cleaners again. The Iran deal guarantees war in the not too distant future.

Iran's Oct 10 missile test violated U.N. ban: expert panel
UNITED NATIONS | BY LOUIS CHARBONNEAU


The medium-range Emad rocket that Iran tested on Oct. 10 was a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, which makes it a violation of a United Nations Security Council resolution, a team of sanctions monitors said in a confidential new report.
The conclusion of the council's Panel of Experts on Iran will likely lead to calls for additional punitive measures against Tehran in Washington and some other Western capitals.

"On the basis of its analysis and findings the Panel concludes that Emad launch is a violation by Iran of paragraph 9 of Security Council resolution 1929," the panel said in its report…..

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-missiles-un-exclusive-idUSKBN0TY1T920151215

[I_Like_Dirt]

As for it being legal and being support by the Security Council, Kofi Annan, at least, didn't think so. click

The US made the claim that it was legal but most of the rest of the UN didn't think it was legal. There was nothing passed that authorized the use of force in Iraq by the UN in 2003. Any arguments would be made on an interpretation from a resolution passed which allowed the use of force from the 1990 invasion which was never officially closed.

It doesn't really show, though, where the flaw was. Colin Powell seemed to believe the flaw was in the intelligence system, which was somehow misdirected for whatever reason. Colin Powell definitely got hung out to dry a little, though.

[popper]

As for it being legal and being support by the Security Council, Kofi Annan, at least, didn't think so. click

The US made the claim that it was legal but most of the rest of the UN didn't think it was legal. There was nothing passed that authorized the use of force in Iraq by the UN in 2003. Any arguments would be made on an interpretation from a resolution passed which allowed the use of force from the 1990 invasion which was never officially closed.

It doesn't really show, though, where the flaw was. Colin Powell seemed to believe the flaw was in the intelligence system, which was somehow misdirected for whatever reason. Colin Powell definitely got hung out to dry a little, though.

Thanks for link. It appears there was more controversy about it than what I remember. The U.S. contends that they already had UN authority from the previous 1991 resolution related to the Gulf War. Many legal experts, including UN executives, believed otherwise. Wiki says "The UN Security Council, as outlined in Article 39 of the UN Charter, has the ability to rule on the legality of the war, but has yet not been asked by any UN member nation to do so."

Edit - Therefore there is no way for us to know if it was legal or illegal.

Edit - Whoops, didn't read your post closely enough so I repeated some of what you already laid out. My mistake.

[Zonkerbl]

There's no such thing as "legal" in international treaties anyway. They're as legal as we make them.

Using social media is a grey area. We just got a whole two hour training session on it the other day, they just recently passed a bunch of extremely convoluted guidelines about it.

I thought you guys would be discussing the "successful" climate change talks - that resulted in no binding actions to be taken by anybody. Yay, "success"!

[Zonkerbl]

Yesterday's debate started out as a contest to see who could out-fascist the other but kind of ended on a wistful note as the candidates seemed to having an in-public brainstorming session about what to do about global terrorism. They all seem to faced with the extremely unpleasant question: If what Obama is doing is wrong, what are you going to do differently? You can't really fight terrorism, because terrorism isn't an enemy, it's a statistical phenomenon, outliers of hate, with no actual leader or strategy or reason for existing at all except to perpetuate a meaningless chain of adolescent revenge fantasies, loosely associated with Islam.

I particularly enjoyed the "Aha!" moment Trump seemed to have when Paul Ryan (I think, unless it was Rubio) explained to him that you have to have Muslim friends to fight ISIS so you can't just be an indiscriminate ahole to all Muslims. I don't think anyone has the nuts to argue with the Don to his face and this is likely the first time he has actually had this explained to him out loud.

Honestly I think Trump could go either way. He could (continue to) surround himself with yes men and be the worst president ever. But I imagine Congress at least will stand up to him and explain certain things, like how the constitution works, and he's a smart guy and will listen. He's not a bad guy at heart, just enormously ignorant of how the government actually works (like most of America, I guess). Well, and he likes to mix it up verbally with people, and he doesn't really understand the true impact of his blatantly racist/sexist insults (again, like most of America). He honestly believes he's a good guy and can't understand why everyone gets so upset at what he says. That's kind of the definition of ignorant. But ignorant doesn't mean stupid - ignorance implies the opportunity to learn and improve, and I think Trump is capable of that. And he's going to have to if he wants to be POTUS.

[nate33]

Honestly I think Trump could go either way. He could (continue to) surround himself with yes men and be the worst president ever. But I imagine Congress at least will stand up to him and explain certain things, like how the constitution works, and he's a smart guy and will listen. He's not a bad guy at heart, just enormously ignorant of how the government actually works (like most of America, I guess). Well, and he likes to mix it up verbally with people, and he doesn't really understand the true impact of his blatantly racist/sexist insults (again, like most of America). He honestly believes he's a good guy and can't understand why everyone gets so upset at what he says. That's kind of the definition of ignorant. But ignorant doesn't mean stupid - ignorance implies the opportunity to learn and improve, and I think Trump is capable of that. And he's going to have to if he wants to be POTUS.

I think this is a fair assessment.

I do think Trump would definitely avoid surrounding himself with yes men. He'd probably actually prefer "no" men with the conviction to stand up to him. His track record in building his businesses back that up. He gets good managers and delegates.

I'm starting to think that Rand Paul would be the perfect choice for him as Trump's VP. Paul has an insider's experience but is still a bit of outsider with respect to issues like the Fed and foreign policy. I think Paul's understanding of the Constitution and of Capital Hill would be a good counterbalance to Trump. Paul's foreign policy is probably closer to Trump's than any of the other candidates. Their biggest policy difference used to be immigration, but it seems as though Paul is starting to come around to Trump's immigration stance. Paul was actually the first to talk about temporarily restricting immigration from Muslim nations. He was talking about it back in July after the Chattanooga shooting.

[fishercob]

Chris Christie recommending the start of World War III was pretty impressive.

[Zonkerbl]

Chris Christie recommending the start of World War III was pretty impressive.

You don't understand... We're already in World War III!

[I_Like_Dirt]

There's no such thing as "legal" in international treaties anyway. They're as legal as we make them.

I'd say this is fair, although this type of logic would apply in basically all law, international or otherwise. There are things like international criminal courts and the UN. They just aren't nearly as strong as national institutions so international institutions tend to only go as far as they happen to coincide with any countries national goals. Nothing is illegal until an authority somewhere decides to try and make it illegal. Countries abide by international law until they don't want to at a particular time and then they dare others to try and do something about it - not unlike any individual who decides they're going to break the law either by stealing something, killing somebody, or some sort of tax fraud.

[Zonkerbl]

There's no such thing as "legal" in international treaties anyway. They're as legal as we make them.

I'd say this is fair, although this type of logic would apply in basically all law, international or otherwise. There are things like international criminal courts and the UN. They just aren't nearly as strong as national institutions so international institutions tend to only go as far as they happen to coincide with any countries national goals. Nothing is illegal until an authority somewhere decides to try and make it illegal. Countries abide by international law until they don't want to at a particular time and then they dare others to try and do something about it - not unlike any individual who decides they're going to break the law either by stealing something, killing somebody, or some sort of tax fraud.

I guess what I mean is, if you break a U.S. law, a police officer with a gun can come after you, ask you to come quietly, and shoot you if you resist. There's no believable threat of police action backing up international law. The only penalty for breaking an international treaty is losing political capital.

[I_Like_Dirt]

There is definitely less of a threat for international law. But Iraq was accused of breaking international law and the US invaded and left a vacuum of authority that allowed ISIS to take hold. If that isn't a threat, I don't know what is. The threat is a lot less for stronger, wealthier countries, though, because laws tend to only apply to those who lose wars internationally. On the national scale, you're right, the threat is more immediate, but it sort of depends on what type of crime you're talking about, and which country.

[Zonkerbl]

There is definitely less of a threat for international law. But Iraq was accused of breaking international law and the US invaded and left a vacuum of authority that allowed ISIS to take hold. If that isn't a threat, I don't know what is. The threat is a lot less for stronger, wealthier countries, though, because laws tend to only apply to those who lose wars internationally. On the national scale, you're right, the threat is more immediate, but it sort of depends on what type of crime you're talking about, and which country.

That's what people mean when they talk about the US being the world's policeman. The advantage is everyone else gets to sit back and watch us take care of all their problems. The disadvantage is we are only going to intervene in stuff that directly affects us. We care about what happens in Iraq, less about what happens in Rwanda.

From our perspective, why should we have to pay for the privilege of solving France's problems? Let them handle it. The EU is always like, oh we're a bunch of hippie pacifists and you murricans are a bunch of psychotic warmongers! And then when the crap hits the fan they turn to us to bail them out. Just once I'd like us to say, look, time to move out of your mom's basement. Deal with this problem yourself.

[nate33]

From our perspective, why should we have to pay for the privilege of solving France's problems? Let them handle it. The EU is always like, oh we're a bunch of hippie pacifists and you murricans are a bunch of psychotic warmongers! And then when the crap hits the fan they turn to us to bail them out. Just once I'd like us to say, look, time to move out of your mom's basement. Deal with this problem yourself.

Geez, Zonker. You're starting to sound like me!

[Zonkerbl]

From our perspective, why should we have to pay for the privilege of solving France's problems? Let them handle it. The EU is always like, oh we're a bunch of hippie pacifists and you murricans are a bunch of psychotic warmongers! And then when the crap hits the fan they turn to us to bail them out. Just once I'd like us to say, look, time to move out of your mom's basement. Deal with this problem yourself.

Geez, Zonker. You're starting to sound like me!

Well, your libertarian isolationism is my pacifist anti-military-adventurism I guess. lol.

[I_Like_Dirt]

That's what people mean when they talk about the US being the world's policeman. The advantage is everyone else gets to sit back and watch us take care of all their problems. The disadvantage is we are only going to intervene in stuff that directly affects us. We care about what happens in Iraq, less about what happens in Rwanda.

From our perspective, why should we have to pay for the privilege of solving France's problems? Let them handle it. The EU is always like, oh we're a bunch of hippie pacifists and you murricans are a bunch of psychotic warmongers! And then when the crap hits the fan they turn to us to bail them out. Just once I'd like us to say, look, time to move out of your mom's basement. Deal with this problem yourself.

Agreed about the US being the world's policeman. Things become a lot muddier internationally without a policeman, though, and policemen aren't always unbiased, just like anybody else. I can only imagine the frustration of the German population when it comes to some of the other economies in the EU.

[nate33]

Congressional Black Caucus member is skeptical about Omnibus bill because it admits too many low skill immigrants

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), a CBC member, said Thursday that he's leaning toward supporting the omnibus bill. But he predicted a large number of CBC members will oppose the spending package.

"They're adamantly opposed and trying to encourage me [to join them]," Clay said.

Clay said he doesn't have a problem with ending the crude oil export ban, a provision that's been a lightening rod of criticism from most Democrats.

"I am one who favors, at this point, lifting the export ban on crude oil. It's been in existence for 42 years. I think that's long enough," Clay said. "We have to be responsible, too, to continue to fund the government."

But he criticized a provision increasing the number of visas for foreign workers, warning that such an expansion "could wreak havoc on our job market, especially with unemployment being so high among African Americans."

"We don't need cheap labor to come in," he said, adding that, "I have not made a definitive decision yet."

I'm telling you, Trump is going to get a much larger percentage of the black vote than most anticipate. Blacks won't be voting 94% for Hillary over Trump like they did Obama over Romney. In Bush's best year, he received 11% of the black vote. I wouldn't be surprised to see Trump get 13-14%. I don't know if it will have a meaningful impact on the electoral votes though. I suspect that Trump's black vote will come mostly from the South, from states he was going to win anyhow.

Likewise, Trump will do worse among Hispanics than Bush or Romney, but there will be little electoral impact, unless it decides Florida.