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This was from last year, but Toobin already could foresee what would be a big problem.
Trump’s willful misunderstanding of the obligations of an Attorney General reflects a larger flaw in his Presidency and in his character—his apparent belief that his appointees owe their loyalty to him personally, rather than to the nation’s Constitution and its laws, and, more broadly, to the American people.
Every President has wide latitude in directing his appointees to implement the policy goals on which he campaigned, and no member of the Cabinet has worked more assiduously to advance Trump’s agenda than Sessions. He has reversed the Obama Administration’s commitment to voting rights, which had been reflected in Justice Department lawsuits against voter-suppression laws in North Carolina and Texas. He has changed an Obama-era directive to federal prosecutors to seek reasonable, as opposed to maximum, prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. Similarly, he has revived a discredited approach to civil forfeiture, which will subject innocent people to the loss of their property. He has also backed away from the effort, championed by his predecessors Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, to rein in and reform police departments, like the one in Ferguson, Missouri, that have discriminated against African-Americans...
All these initiatives are unwise, unjust, and counterproductive, but they nevertheless represent the kind of change that tends to occur when an Administration of one political party takes over from the other. Elections, it is often noted, have consequences. President Trump’s behavior, however, represents a different kind of change—one that threatens the basic norms underlying our system of government. No President in recent history has treated his Attorney General solely as a political, or even as a personal, functionary. When Alberto Gonzales, who served as the Attorney General under George W. Bush, fired U.S. Attorneys for failing to do the bidding of the Republican Party, Gonzales, quite properly, lost his job, too. He had violated a principle that, until now, seemed inviolate: that the Attorney General serves the public, not the political interests of the President who appoints him.
trump nor his minions are not one bit interested in a rational discussion of the basics of governance.
You mean like Article 1, Section 1 of the US Constitution:
" All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States...."
Under President Obama, that was scrapped. For example, marijuana remained illegal under federal law, but Attorney General Holder cut a deal with several state governors to allow states to supersede federal law. So 'legislative powers' were thus transferred to the executive branch.
Under President Trump, this has continued to some extent, but who can blame him? If Democrats are going to revise things via the imperial presidency, Republicans have to be able to revise back when they win election.
I find the criticism by Toobin to be in the category of vague and nebulous. Sessions has gone off the reservation several times, yet Trump has allowed him to remain. If the comments by Toobin were strictly accurate, Sessions would have been gone.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,327 posts, read 54,350,985 times
Reputation: 40731
Quote:
Originally Posted by stburr91
You lost the election because of your bad policies, now the country is heading in a new direction.
A recent poll shows more people approve of the direction the country is heading in than in any time of the last 14 years.
No, Trump won because of the antiquated, unnecessary Electoral College that exists for no good reason.
And no, nothing to do with Trump, I thought it was a silly system since I was in high school in the late '60s.
As it stands, eleven states could elect a POTUS.
As it stands, in 48 states, even if the margin between two candidates is one vote, the one with that one gets all the electoral votes and the votes against count for nothing.
Those are good things because?
And no, Trump winning does not make them good things.
No, Trump won because of the antiquated, unnecessary Electoral College that exists for no good reason.
And no, nothing to do with Trump, I thought it was a silly system since I was in high school in the late '60s.
As it stands, eleven states could elect a POTUS.
As it stands, in 48 states, even if the margin between two candidates is one vote, the one with that one gets all the electoral votes and the votes against count for nothing.
Those are good things because?
And no, Trump winning does not make them good things.
The EC exists for very good reason--to prevent high population centers from lording it over low population, rural states. And it works, as anyone who glances at the 2016 red-blue map can see.
Would you also say that the 2 US Senator per state rule is 'silly.' That is the same principle. Should senate seats be proportional like house seats are?
No, Trump won because of the antiquated, unnecessary Electoral College that exists for no good reason.
And no, nothing to do with Trump, I thought it was a silly system since I was in high school in the late '60s.
As it stands, eleven states could elect a POTUS.
As it stands, in 48 states, even if the margin between two candidates is one vote, the one with that one gets all the electoral votes and the votes against count for nothing.
Those are good things because?
And no, Trump winning does not make them good things.
In my opinion, Trump won because
1. for some reason the Republicans couldn't come up with a good, experienced, sane, well-liked candidate
2. Russia may have sufficiently warped the judgment of too many Republicans
3. Trump tapped into a Republican mean-spiritedness/greed/bigotry that many of us didn't know existed
I suppose Loretta Lynch failed to get that memo. I believe Trump is doing is a reflection of what he believes the Obama administration was doing before him. Whether it be the IRS going after conservative groups or Loretta Lynch meeting with Clinton on the plane or directing Comey to call the Clinton Investigation something else. Obama was slicker at not getting his hands dirty. Trump is a little more obvious. But the results are the same.
Our two-party system is corrupt whether it be Trump and Sessions or Obama and Lynch or before her Holder. Let's recall fast and furious.
When one looks through leftist or Trumpet glasses they think its the other side totally at fault.
Both are. We need strong 3rd parties. I really believe that is the only solution at this point.
You lost the election because of your bad policies, now the country is heading in a new direction.
A recent poll shows more people approve of the direction the country is heading in than in any time of the last 14 years.
I guess that poll's result was as viable as a drop of water on a hot griddle...
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