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No kidding. This current situation goes beyond simple policy disagreements, but goes right to the heart of whether the US president is above the law or not. As
by davidw 7y ago
No kidding. This current situation goes beyond simple policy disagreements, but goes right to the heart of whether the US president is above the law or not. As a consequence, are there any checks on his interference in our elections? How's democracy going to work out if there aren't?
I'd like my kids to grow up in a democracy, and this deterioration is really f'ing stressful.
(If you're one of those "but it's a Republic, not a Democracy!" people - save it)
- Cuuugi 7y agoI feel like you didn't "read" the study, but were studied...
- zaroth 7y agoUnfortunately HN isn’t the place to be able to ask the basic question of how we can spend 3 years working with foreign governments to investigate Trump for something which was never found to be true, but Hunter Biden actually does walk away with millions of dollars from Ukraine and flies out of China on Air Force Two with billions from Bank of China, and asking them to investigate why Joe (by his own admission) extorted them into firing the prosecutor — that is literally treason?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 7y agoMaybe both of these things are bad if true? It's just that hyper-partisanship and making the senior levels of the justice system into political appointments have made it impossible to hold the powerful to account.
- zaroth 7y agoWell I think it’s definitely questionable to go on a fishing expedition without any evidence. But I don’t think it can be bad to ask someone to investigate if a known extortionate action was undertaken for a corrupt cause when we have direct evidence that there was a large personal financial benefit received.
- maxerickson 7y agowhy Joe (by his own admission) extorted them into firing the prosecutor https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/trump-called-this-ex-ukrainian-prosecutor-very-good-but-he-resigned-in-disgrace/2019/09/25/d1410aa2-dfb1-11e9-be7f-4cc85017c36f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/trump-called-thi... Please reconcile your post with WaPo story. Or something. I'd quote something from the article, but it's right there in the slug! (Biden can just go away for all I care, I just wonder where you are getting your analysis from…)
- blackflame7000 7y agoSo how many other corrupt prosecutors did Biden get fired or even investigated if he was so worried about corruption among foreign governments prosecutorial staff? Actually, why was he so worried about it at all? shouldn’t it be Ukraine’s problem to solve? We know how much we didn’t like Russia interfering here
- maxerickson 7y agoLike I implied above, I don't care about defending Biden. My point is that the narrative that Biden personally got that particular prosecutor fired is false. Especially if you want to cast the firing as improper.
- blackflame7000 7y agoMy point is that Biden said he personally did, so not sure why you’re choosing to dispute that. https://youtu.be/UXA--dj2-CY https://youtu.be/UXA--dj2-CY
- maxerickson 7y agoYes, he delivered the message. This is different than him having a stranglehold on US government policy.
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- Jeema101 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- zaroth 7y agoI fail to see what about my response was what about ism. The OP asked if the President is above the law. Democrats are currently trying to impeach the President for asking Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. I think we are talking about the exact topic at hand, not some unrelated “what about”.
- chrisco255 7y agoYou realize that Joe Biden got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired by threatening to revoke $1 billion in funding, right?
- pjc50 7y agoDid he? When? Why are we only hearing about this now?
- chrisco255 7y agoHere's the video footage of Biden admitting it: https://youtu.be/UXA--dj2-CY https://youtu.be/UXA--dj2-CY The prosecutor was investigating Biden's son.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoCynically, because the people yelling about Trump are the ones who have the microphone right now.
- MaupitiBlue 7y agoTake a deep breath. Despite what you may see on TV, it’s not the end of the world. “whether the US president is above the law or not” Think of the situation as a poorly defined edge case. The Constitution does not say that laws don’t apply to the president. However, the president has constitutional duties and powers that the other branches have no power to interfere with. So, in some situations the net result may be that the president IS effectively above the law. But don’t get too upset yet. The real check on power is the ballot box. Presidents only get 4 year terms. And in emergency situations Congress can impeach. Let the system work itself out, and don’t become overly emotional. It’s not something important like baseball or whether your kid can read, it’s just politics.
- gnusty_gnurc 7y agoEven though you're getting downvoted it's worth expressing this over and over. But we're dealing with an entire cross-cutting section of society that magnifies every problem into a crisis, so it'll almost never be received well. The constitutional checks and balances are definitely relevant and vital here, but it's worth noting how distorted they've become. Presidential power has been elevated in practice, but it's also been mythologized. Most people have idealized the role beyond it's traditional standing, and this lends itself to degrading the rules and scope of the role itself. Congress is supposed to be a body of deliberation, but due to party politics has devolved into a purely political sphere of battle. So Congress is complicit with enabling the president to act beyond the circumscribed boundaries that are constitutionally defined.
- gnusty_gnurc 7y agoBut the same people complaining about the current abuses were very much complicit with elevating the presidency to demigod status (congress giving up war powers was the most important elevation of presidential power imo).
- bigYahnz 7y agoI feel the same but am on the opposite end. Hopefully your side is stupid enough to actually go for the gun grab. We can get it all over with shortly one way or another.