Trump's America

[yovargas]

I don't like shutting the government down over a side issue, as important as it may be, but I'm not sure what choice they had under the circumstances.

How about voting for/against the bill because of the bill, instead of because of side issues?

[River]

The other problem with putting all the blame on the minority party (emphasis mine):

Even though Republicans control the House, Senate and White House, Democratic votes are needed in the Senate to close debate. Late Friday night, an effort to do just that went down, as the motion requiring 60 votes was rejected 50-49, with four Republicans voting no and five Democrats voting yes.

source

[Frelga]

Let's also keep in mind that the reason we are in this mess is that:

* Trump would not extend the existing executive order on the DACA despite popular bipartisan support

* Trump tied his support for a legislative solution to funding for the border wall despite bipartisan opposition

* Instead of renewing CHIPS, Republicans tied it to unrelated bills

Ted Lieu, a Democratic representative from California, tweeted

Dems in the House just offered a short term extension to Tuesday that would reopen government.

We were not even allowed to cast a vote on it. Why? Because #GOP control the floor. They control the agenda. They control the House, Senate & White House. They own the #TrumpShutdown.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

“Negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O,” said Schumer, who met Trump at the White House on Friday for a 90-minute meeting that had briefly raised hopes. “It’s impossible to negotiate with a constantly moving target.”

That says it all.

[Frelga]

Trump, in his own words.

IMG_20180121_084150.jpg (77.19 KiB) Viewed 7007 times

[Túrin Turambar]

I don't remember the details, but did the Republicans get anything out of their 2013 shut-down?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No, but in the 2014 mid-terms, they still managed to significantly increase their majority in the House and take back the Senate. As per Wikipedia:

Overall, the elections resulted in the largest Republican majority in the entire country in nearly a century, with 54 seats in the Senate, 247 (56.78%) in the House, 31 governorships (62%), and 68 state legislative chambers. Moreover, Republicans gained their largest majority in the House since 1928, the largest majority in Congress overall since 1928, and the largest majority of state legislatures since 1928.

[Primula Baggins]

What a depressing memory.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And there will be deal agreed to by the end of the weekend, or soon after, on another short-term spending bill, so that we can do this again in a few weeks.

And right on cue, Chuck Schumer just announced that the Democrats will vote to reopen the government today "to continue negotiating a global agreement with the commitment that if an agreement isn't reached by February 8, the Senate will immediately proceed to consideration of legislation dealing with DACA."

[Túrin Turambar]

No, but in the 2014 mid-terms, they still managed to significantly increase their majority in the House and take back the Senate. As per Wikipedia:

Overall, the elections resulted in the largest Republican majority in the entire country in nearly a century, with 54 seats in the Senate, 247 (56.78%) in the House, 31 governorships (62%), and 68 state legislative chambers. Moreover, Republicans gained their largest majority in the House since 1928, the largest majority in Congress overall since 1928, and the largest majority of state legislatures since 1928.

I'm not persuaded those things are related. After all, in a midterm election, particularly in a second presidential term, the opposition party usually gains. Politically, I suspect shutting down the government is one of those things which appeals to the base but doesn't actually translate into any practical benefit, either in terms of policy wins or electoral advantage. But I could be wrong.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

To be clear, I'm not saying that I think that the shutdown led to the gains that the GOP achieved in the following mid-term election (it is true that the opposition party usually does well, but this was an extreme case of doing well). I'm just saying that despite the fact that the GOP was overwhelmingly blamed for the 13-day pointless shutdown in 2013 by the time the mid-term elections came around the following year, it did not seem to hurt them politically.

[River]

So the doomsday clock is now at 2 minutes to midnight. My dad posted the corresponding Iron Maiden song to Facebook. I had no idea he even knew who Iron Maiden was.

[Sunsilver]

Very sad. This is the closest it's been to midnight in my lifetime, the Cuban Missile Crisis notwithstanding. It was last at 2 minutes to midnight the year I was born (1953).

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

Let's also keep in mind that the reason we are in this mess is that:

* Trump would not extend the existing executive order on the DACA despite popular bipartisan support

I'm told that it isn't really an executive order, but something that is the same thing but with a different name. An enforcement prioritization or some such. That isn't an important point though.

From my understanding, the Dreamers, those covered by the DACA order, are currently in violation of US law. I don't really like that law, but with a splash of cold water reality informs me that what I like doesn't matter and they are currently in violation of that law. The reason they are at risk of deportation is because they are in violation of US immigration law.

The immigration laws in question do not authorize the president to make exemptions to the law. Again, I differ in theory on this but my view is an extreme minority. Yet Obama made the exemption anyway, and Trump failed to renew the exemption.

There are three possible outcomes. One, the law is enforced as written. Two, the law is changed to conform to a better writing. Three, we authorize the president to carve out exemptions to existing laws, such as Bush's signing statements and Obama's DACA executive order.

I think Trump is getting too much flack for NOT asserting that he has the power to create exemptions.

Look at this. People here have actually got me defending something Trump did. What a mess.

[Eldy]

If Trump were to take a stance against sweeping executive orders and the so-called imperial presidency as a general concept then I might agree with him (though it feels really weird to type those words), but since the system has evolved the way it has and shows little sign of changing I think it's legitimate to criticize the President for specific instances of use (or nonuse) of the powers that have come to be associated with the office. Plus it's hardly unheard of for law enforcement to make selective decisions about which crimes to focus on and when to cut slack (and the particular concept of deferred action also predates the Obama administration), so I don't think DACA is an egregious example of Presidential overreach.

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

The concept of executive privilege is highly frowned upon in general. What I'm seeing is people who normally oppose it saying it is okay in this instance on this issue because of how they feel on this issue.

[yovargas]

The concept of executive privilege is highly frowned upon in general.

Is it though? I've seen people in general upset by how a President chooses to use or not use it, but I only recall libertarian types opposing the concept entirely. And I would put money on that including Trump himself - I would be shocked if he hadn't used it when it's for something he wants.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Executive orders and executive privilege are two completely different things. Executive privilege is something that asserted by administrative officials in order to avoid providing documents or information on the theory that the documents or information represents advice given to the president by other officials. For instance, Attorney General Sessions refused to answered some questions in his congressional testimony by stating that the administration might assert executive privilege regarding that information (which was completely ridiculous; either you assert executive privilege or your don't). Executive orders are actions taken by the president that are not authorized by Congress. The two things have nothing to do with each other.

[Eldy]

It's certainly not my intention to argue for boundless executive authority, but I'm not wholly opposed to executive orders. If anything, I think they have a firmer constitutional basis than the regulatory powers of independent federal agencies (cf. J. W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States); both exist in an interpretational gray area enabled by the relative lack of detail in the Constitution. At the end of the day, though, I think that both executive orders and independent agencies play an important role in the functioning of the modern federal government and I tend to believe in the idea of the living Constitution, although I don't think this means complete fair game for either Congress or the Presidency.

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

It doesn't take very long to lose a context. In my post, the privilege referred to the ability of a member of the executive branch to decline to enforce. Discretion would have been a better word.

My point of view is that the government was set up in a way to prevent enforcement of bad laws at every level. To me that includes the ability to decline to prosecute. However, my view is the minority view. When, in a much older discussion, I posited the belief that a police officer could decline to arrest, I was somehow in some way advocating that the officer could create laws out of whole cloth from nothing. I was advocating quite the opposite, but that doesn't matter.

I know that my position "the executive can decline to enforce" is definitely not a widely accepted view. It is definitely minority. But even then I take issue with the Executive Prioritization (wrongly called Executive Order) with regards to the Dreamers. If you're going to decline to enforce, you will fully decline to enforce. Don't create a group of people and set them above the law and enforce it on everyone else. As much as I don't like our immigration laws, I think Trump actually did the right thing by not setting some people as "more equal" than others. By rescinding the Executive Prioritization he threw the matter back to congress saying "fix this."

As I said, our three options are change the law, enforce the law, or ignore the law. But if you're going to choose the third, do it fully and evenly. Don't create privileged groups. Carving exemptions for privileged groups is the path of tyranny.