A Deeply Fractured US

[brihard]

The use of institutional powers for purposes other than intended, and in particular to pursue political foes and to obtain electoral advantage, is profoundly corrosive to democratic institutions

Yes, which lies at the heart of a couple of the criminal probes both federally and in the state of Georgia.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Except for the fact that they could have started the "clock" much earlier, that is almost a counterpoint. Then there is the whole legal question, on which many commentators weighed in, over whether the courts would uphold an attempt by Congress to establish a benchmark for asserting a power to call former presidents on the carpet. (Most frequent answer: unlikely.)

The use of institutional powers for purposes other than intended, and in particular to pursue political foes and to obtain electoral advantage, is profoundly corrosive to democratic institutions - much more so than habitual lying about one's achievements or saying mean things about people.

Except Trump lead a big rally, encouraged all kinds of people to do some things to not certify election results, and then a mob stormed the capitol building threatening to hang people and ultimately resulted in 9 deaths.

 

[brihard]

Except Trump lead a big rally, encouraged all kinds of people to do some things to not certify election results, and then a mob stormed the capitol building threatening to hang people and ultimately resulted in 9 deaths.

Where are you getting 9? I’m aware of one criminal shot by police, and four more natural causes/drug overdose.

 

[PuckChaser]

Tying in 4 suicides from LEOs after the fact. Makes the number scarier.

 

[brihard]

Tying in 4 suicides from LEOs after the fact. Makes the number scarier.

On the one hand, I wouldn’t be very comfortable directly attributing. On the other hand, very conceivable that Jan 6th was a major contributor to a few and will be to more. I shudder to imagine being in the situations many of those cops found themselves in.

 

[PuckChaser]

On the one hand, I wouldn’t be very comfortable directly attributing. On the other hand, very conceivable that Jan 6th was a major contributor to a few and will be to more. I shudder to imagine being in the situations many of those cops found themselves in.

By that logic our official casualty count for Afghanistan should be way higher than 159. Or we can stop trying to skew data for partisan ends.

 

[brihard]

By that logic our official casualty count for Afghanistan should be way higher than 159. Or we can stop trying to skew data for partisan ends.

Maybe it should be. Our official stats still pretend that the only casualties of war are those who die immediately in theatre, or directly attributable to physical injuries suffered there. You and I both know that’s a ways short of the true human toll that particular war had on Canada. Why hide it? We issue the SM for sufficiently severe psychological injuries attributable to enemy actions, and we’ve issued the Memorial Cross to the survivors of members lost to suicide.

It may not make for convenient accounting, but it would be more honest.

/tangent

 

[Brad Sallows]

Except Trump lead a big rally, encouraged all kinds of people to do some things to not certify election results, and then a mob stormed the capitol building threatening to hang people and ultimately resulted in 9 deaths.

Overstating and misstating and writing about events in ways that invite mistaken conflation doesn't excuse partisan misuse of a congressional committee for political purposes.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Where are you getting 9? I’m aware of one criminal shot by police, and four more natural causes/drug overdose.

You could just say "Ashli Babbitt". People are fond of portraying her as a "criminal", although that doesn't seem to be her life's story. I don't recall reading anywhere that she was actually convicted; a lot of people seemed to be careful to mention that she was criminally charged.

 

[brihard]

You could just say "Ashli Babbitt". People are fond of portraying her as a "criminal", although that doesn't seem to be her life's story. I don't recall reading anywhere that she was actually convicted; a lot of people seemed to be careful to mention that she was criminally charged.

I’m content with my chosen wording. I’m speaking of the crimes she was killed in the act of committing.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Overstating and misstating and writing about events in ways that invite mistaken conflation doesn't excuse partisan misuse of a congressional committee for political purposes.

Holy word salad batman, I'm not sure what you are trying to say, but all congressional committees are used for politics (as are our committees).

It's not overstating it though; like if you hit someone with a car and they later die, it's still some kind of vehicular homicide. Similarly if someone drops dead of a heart attack during a robbery that's also homicide.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

The new Ways and Means Committee should subpoena the tax records of Pelosi, Schumer, Biden and Harris and a bunch of others. On reciept, release them to the public like they did with Trumps. The Dems opened a can of worms and are going to pay severely for their malice

 

[Eaglelord17]

Unless on their suicide note they directly attributed it to the events of Jan 6, I wouldn't say that it was caused by it. Could be completely different factors. Maybe their partner left them. Maybe all the anti-cop demonization got to them. Maybe they got harassed online by both sides after the fact. Maybe they were just depressed in general and had enough.

Same with drug overdoses, could just be a bad supply. I have heard of people locally getting fentanyl mixed in their weed, crappy way to go.

 

[Remius]

Unless on their suicide note they directly attributed it to the events of Jan 6, I wouldn't say that it was caused by it. Could be completely different factors. Maybe their partner left them. Maybe all the anti-cop demonization got to them. Maybe they got harassed online by both sides after the fact. Maybe they were just depressed in general and had enough.

Same with drug overdoses, could just be a bad supply. I have heard of people locally getting fentanyl mixed in their weed, crappy way to go.

I take a different approach. Benefit of the doubt should be given when there is an uptick or death by suicide after traumatic events.

If the qualifier is a note that directly attributes a suicide to something specific then that opens up up a very disappointing precedent. I’m sure insurance companies love that idea when it comes to service related suicides.

 

[Remius]

The new Ways and Means Committee should subpoena the tax records of Pelosi, Schumer, Biden and Harris and a bunch of others. On reciept, release them to the public like they did with Trumps. The Dems opened a can of worms and are going to pay severely for their malice

Why would they need to do that? Biden and Harris have already disclosed their tax records. It’s public record.

Pelosi and Schumer aren’t running for president. And although not required to, they filled out and signed a financial disclosure form.

Why subpoena things they already can see and have access to?

 

[quadrapiper]

I take a different approach. Benefit of the doubt should be given when there is an uptick or death by suicide after traumatic events.

If the qualifier is a note that directly attributes a suicide to something specific then that opens up up a very disappointing precedent. I’m sure insurance companies love that idea when it comes to service related suicides.

And it additionally doesn't seem unreasonable to attribute that uptick to a specifically unprecedented traumatic event unlike anything the group in question has dealt with (or, likely, even drilled for with any expectation of occurrence).

 

[brihard]

The new Ways and Means Committee should subpoena the tax records of Pelosi, Schumer, Biden and Harris and a bunch of others. On reciept, release them to the public like they did with Trumps. The Dems opened a can of worms and are going to pay severely for their malice

Here’s a White House press release about Biden and Harris’ 2021 tax returns including links to the returns themselves: The President and Vice President release their 2021 tax returns | The White House


Various observations and highlights from Trump’s taxes here, for those interested: Trump's taxes: Takeaways from release of long-sought returns

 

[Brad Sallows]

Holy word salad batman, I'm not sure what you are trying to say, but all congressional committees are used for politics (as are our committees).

The main reason Congress has powers to investigate and bring people in to talk is to make legislation better. There aren't any safeguards to prevent misuse, though, just "custom" - we won't go after them while we're in power, so that they don't go after us while they're in power. Stable as long as the participants can restrain themselves. A fundamental understanding of democracy is that going after political opponents using government powers while you control them is a dumbfuck thing to do and works at cross purposes to the ideal of "peaceful transfer of power".

A committee struck to investigate a couple of things - security shortcomings, and weak points in the certification process - might have been useful. But the former would land mostly on the Speaker's doorstep, and the latter would be too diffuse to attack Republicans, and Trump in particular. The proposed Electoral Count Reform Act which arose through other streams was a good piece of work and had bipartisan support; unfortunately, Democrats didn't seem to want it to get across the line until it could be buried in something else (the recent omnibus appropriations bill). Meanwhile, the J6 Committee set itself up to be a carefully orchestrated made-for-TV production, and proceeded along those lines.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The new Ways and Means Committee should subpoena the tax records of Pelosi, Schumer, Biden and Harris and a bunch of others. On reciept, release them to the public like they did with Trumps. The Dems opened a can of worms and are going to pay severely for their malice

Unlikely that much tax evasion would be found, just more examples of (legitimate) tax avoidance. Few media would be interested in rooting through details for examples of deductions-for-rich-people without Trump's name to attach to them. Politicians' tax returns aren't ordinarily newsworthy despite the amount of tax avoidance they achieve. The exception is tax returns of Republican presidential candidates, which are always dug through in order to highlight apparently egregious examples of tax avoidance.

If Trump has criminally evaded taxes, that information was already available to investigators and didn't require public exposure.

In order to punish legitimate tax avoidance by Trump, the rules would have to be changed, and that would punish a lot more people. I suppose that would constitute a kind of unwanted blow-back for a short-sighted decision to blast examples of applications of the US tax code all across the media. It'd be awesome to see, though. I can imagine a lot of jaws dropping in DC if "the people" became incensed enough to successfully press for tax reform which terminated a hockey sock of deductions.

 

[brihard]

Unlikely that much tax evasion would be found, just more examples of (legitimate) tax avoidance. Few media would be interested in rooting through details for examples of deductions-for-rich-people without Trump's name to attach to them. Politicians' tax returns aren't ordinarily newsworthy despite the amount of tax avoidance they achieve. The exception is tax returns of Republican presidential candidates, which are always dug through in order to highlight apparently egregious examples of tax avoidance.

If Trump has criminally evaded taxes, that information was already available to investigators and didn't require public exposure.

In order to punish legitimate tax avoidance by Trump, the rules would have to be changed, and that would punish a lot more people. I suppose that would constitute a kind of unwanted blow-back for a short-sighted decision to blast examples of applications of the US tax code all across the media. It'd be awesome to see, though. I can imagine a lot of jaws dropping in DC if "the people" became incensed enough to successfully press for tax reform which terminated a hockey sock of deductions.

The extent to which rich people can avoid taxes is truly disgusting. Trump provides a convenient ‘everything in one place’ example, but it’s by no means limited to only him or his political party. The fact that anyone on those circles could have negligible of even zero taxes in a given year is just appalling. Talk about a game being rigged.