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U.S. Politics / bounced checks and negative balances


DireWolfSpirit

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It's pretty hard for me to have faith in our system of divided "but equal" branches when I see no checks to the Executive branch, and neither the Justice nor Legislative branch apparently up to the task of checking the fascists now or in the future?

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10 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

It's pretty hard for me to have faith in our system of divided "but equal" branches when I see no checks to the Executive branch, and neither the Justice nor Legislative branch apparently up to the task of checking the fascists now or in the future?

So, let’s create checks for the Executive Branch.  Formalize controls and limit the power of the President.

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10 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, let’s create checks for the Executive Branch.  Formalize controls and limit the power of the President.

How would that change anything? The checks we have in place will not be exercised if it goes against one’s party. You can have all the checks in the world but if the legislative and judicial branches will not exercise them they mean nothing

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22 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, let’s create checks for the Executive Branch.  Formalize controls and limit the power of the President.

Sure! Let's also solve climate change, inequality, and racism!

Everything's super easy to do when you can't do it. 

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1 minute ago, Kaligator said:

Sure! Let's also solve climate change, inequality, and racism!

Everything's super easy to do when you can't do it. 

How is throwing your hands up and saying difficult problems are impossible to fix helpful?  If you make no effort to fix the problems they certainly will not get better.  That doesn’t make solutions simple or easy but it means attempting to correct better than doing nothing.

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1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How is throwing your hands up and saying difficult problems are impossible to fix helpful?

Because it isn't a difficult problem to fix; it is impossible to fix. 

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

 If you make no effort to fix the problems they certainly will not get better.  That doesn’t make solutions simple or easy but it means attempting to correct better than doing nothing.

I'm fine with the notion of trying to fix it; what I'm not fine with is the notion of trying to fix things by assuming the things are working right now. For instance, if your proposal to fix things is to pass laws you are asking an impossible ask and you will fail. 

I'm interested in doing things that have a chance of succeeding. Relying on Republicans to pass laws that punish Republicans is not going to happen, and stating it that way makes it abundantly clear that it would never happen. 

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How is throwing your hands up and saying difficult problems are impossible to fix helpful?  If you make no effort to fix the problems they certainly will not get better.  That doesn’t make solutions simple or easy but it means attempting to correct better than doing nothing.

The way to solve this problem is clear. Most of the people who would organize and lead such an effort have already committed federal crimes, either related to Jan 6. or to the 2016 election. Indict, arrest, and prosecute them all.

Sure you'll still have feckless fucks like Rubio and Hawley out there, that likely haven't committed any crimes yet. But they are less likely to act in the future in this scenario because 1) Trumpworld won't be able to edge them on, and 2) They'll see that there are real consequences to future lawbreaking, including potentially to members of Congress; like Gosar, who probably is a criminal.

The judicial system can be preventative as well as punitive under the right circumstances; now's the time to use it. And if it doesn't work out, well, at least Democrats could honestly say they tried their best.

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7 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

@Mlle. Zabzie

From the last thread:

Those are some serious rose-colored glasses right there.

 I mean, sure, it would work perfectly provided we have perfect AI and no one acts corruptly.

The IRS audits recipients of the EITC at higher rates than billionaires because the billionaires pay people like you to shield them from shit like this - that’s precisely *why* EITC recipients are audited at those high rates.

Are we really expected to believe that the billionaires controlling the companies who are the primary drivers of the AI you suggest will stop paying for lawyers to shield them from these new IRS powers?

No, here’s precisely what will happen: with the dollar amount so low, they’ll pursue the low-hanging fruit, just like happens now.

No, these are not rose colored glasses.  This is 20 years of experience actually doing this $h!t for a living.

The EITC thing is a known scandal.  I COMPLETELY agree that it shouldn’t be an audit target.  Actually, I would go further and get the Service out of the business of administering the EITC and put it on the shoulders of the SSA, where it belongs, and stop having people file returns to get it.  The technology and information exist do do this, but we lack the will and the infrastructure.  But I digress, because the latter suggestion WOULD be rose colored glasses.  To digress one more moment, my suggestion above to improve training for audit agents is also critical.  Frankly, the Service is outmatched right now.  There are some great audit teams out there, but there aren’t enough of them, and often are very focused on the leaves of the trees (which are campaign issues, or specific things they received training on) to the extent that they miss forests.  I don’t practice in the controversy area, but that I say understanding from my colleagues.  

In any event, better payments reporting, together with a correctly written AI, would vastly improve KYC capability, payment tracking, and the ability to detect financial crimes (beyond tax avoidance).  Could it be abused?  You betcha.  So can a lot of tools.  An ice pick famously murdered Trotsky.  But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be looking for ways to improve transparency in payments flows, fraud reduction, and audit tools.

 

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21 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The Democratic Party has a majority in both houses and holds the White House.  If not now when?

So let's go through this.

You are expecting the Democratic party to:

  • abolish the filibuster for at least these laws
  • Come up with laws that all 50 senators and Biden and the House will support
  • And vote them into law

Is that your proposal? That you somehow get Manchin and Sinema to both abolish the filibuster (along with the other 48 senators, and I don't think that's a great chance either) and they'll vote for this?

And then when Republicans control power, they can simply also remove it the same way, right? 

 

 

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Trying to get a hold on this checks and balances discussion, it seems there are two issues.  The first is getting Steve Bannon to comply.  In that case, the House is moving swiftly to vote on a contempt report.  After that, it is right to be cynical about both the DOJ's reticence to prosecute such citations (this goes back decades) and the ridiculous slowness of the courts if the House pursues a civil suit.

That being said, I frankly don't care all that much.  Let's stop acting like Steve Bannon is Sammy Gravano.  His testimony - or lack thereof - is very unlikely to change anything one way or the other.

Then, this complaint seemed to jump to prosecuting Trump.  Which, first, this complaint is pretty damn late.  It was very clear when Garland was nominated he would be reticent to aggressively pursue such action - I lamented that at the time.  (Ironically, the news of Garland's nomination broke the morning of January 6.)  Moreover, Biden rather quickly signaled he was not interested in such aggressive prosecution either.

However, let's not act like if only we had a more aggressive AG this could be a cakewalk.  First, actually convicting him of a federal crime would be an arduous battle.  And then there's be the appeals battle which would probably go to SCOTUS.  Most importantly, assuming super-AG can withstand all that, I'm still not sure it's the right move politically. 

While I'm NOT saying they are similar situations, the Gingrich Congress infamously lost seats in the 1998 midterms because the public was sick and tired of them trying to prosecute the president - and that president was still in office. 

Prosecuting Trump may galvanize the base, but does it help you win elections?  Hell, back in July, 51% of voters said the indictment of Trump's CFO was politically motivated rather than prosecutors uncovering criminal behavior.  I think if Biden/the DOJ struck while the iron was hot and initiated prosecution nine months ago that'd be one thing, but I suspect most voters are inclined to think that ship has sailed.  Bottomline, the only way the Dems stop these fascists is by winning elections, and it's quite dubious an aggressive prosecution would help at this point.

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16 minutes ago, DMC said:

Stuff

I mostly agree with this. And talk about prosecution is moot anyway because Garland won't do it an Biden won't fire Garland. But I'm saying what should've happened is Biden nominate a firebreather AG, and that AG announces the day of her/his confirmation that warrants were being issued for basically everyone in the Trump organization over financial crimes related to the Trump Hotel plus Trump himself for Jan. 6. With additional arrests in the following months as the investigations continued.

Ideally, Senate Democrats would also rush to get the AG through too in this scenario. Garland wasn't confirmed until March, but if they played hardball on getting the committees operating properly they could've gotten in January like Austin and Yellen were.

Alas, it didn't happen, and I worry Democrats will deeply regret it in a few years.

ETA: Also, even if it is too late for Trump, it's not too late for the various advisors that must people haven't heard of. If folks like Eastman saw consequences for their actions, I think it would have a deterrence effect. Whereas right now, every would be-fascist sees what's going on as a freebie. If their overthrow of democracy works out great, and if not they continue on like nothing happened.

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1 minute ago, Fez said:

Ideally, Senate Democrats would also rush to get the AG through too in this scenario. Garland wasn't confirmed until March, but if they played hardball on getting the committees operating properly they could've gotten in January like Austin and Yellen were.

Another part of the issue there was how late Biden nominated an AG in the first place.  Anyway, like I said, if Biden/the DOJ pursued this immediately, that's one thing.  But yeah, that argument is moot.

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40 minutes ago, Fez said:

Ideally, Senate Democrats would also rush to get the AG through too in this scenario. Garland wasn't confirmed until March, but if they played hardball on getting the committees operating properly they could've gotten in January like Austin and Yellen were.

Do we know if there would actually be the votes to get this hypothetical AG nominee through the Senate? I agree Biden should have gone with an aggressive AG ready to play in the grey areas and lay down the law, but I'm not sure such a nominee would get confirmed. 

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I agree Biden should have gone with an aggressive AG ready to play in the grey areas and lay down the law, but I'm not sure such a nominee would get confirmed. 

Doug Jones would have gotten confirmed and I definitely could see him being much more aggressive than Garland.  In fact, his nomination rather than Garland would have been a signal that Biden/the administration were much more serious about aggressive prosecution - which of course would be a prerequisite no matter who was nominated.

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19 minutes ago, DMC said:

Doug Jones would have gotten confirmed and I definitely could see him being much more aggressive than Garland.  In fact, his nomination rather than Garland would have been a signal that Biden/the administration were much more serious about aggressive prosecution - which of course would be a prerequisite no matter who was nominated.

Yeah, Jones would have had the votes, but I didn't get the impression he'd want to bring the hammer down either. He would have been more aggressive than Garland, but then again, wouldn't basically any other likely pick have been as well?

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Jones would have had the votes, but I didn't get the impression he'd want to bring the hammer down either.

I think he would have if it was encouraged by Biden and the administration.

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24 minutes ago, DMC said:

I think he would have if it was encouraged by Biden and the administration.

Sure, but that was never going to be the case.

On Garland, I had MSNBC on in the background while working out and they went through a rundown of everything he's done or proposed so far. I'd normally say it feels like he's bring a knife to a gun fight, but it feels more like he's bring cookies to a bake sale while Republicans are bringing Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman chili.

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Sure, but that was never going to be the case.

That's my point.  No matter who he nominated, it would take the encouragement of the White House - tacit or otherwise - for an AG to go ahead with aggressive prosecution.  With Garland, even that might not have done the trick.  With Jones, pretty sure it would have.

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57 minutes ago, DMC said:

That's my point.  No matter who he nominated, it would take the encouragement of the White House - tacit or otherwise - for an AG to go ahead with aggressive prosecution.  With Garland, even that might not have done the trick.  With Jones, pretty sure it would have.

Fair. It's just frustrating that many Democrats don't seem to see obvious flaws in their plans. I swear with some of them you wouldn't even have to cover the hole with leaves to get them to fall into the punji pit.

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