this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
260 points (96.4% liked)

politics

19107 readers
2746 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Many of Trump’s proposals for his second term are surprisingly extreme, draconian, and weird, even for him. Here’s a running list of his most unhinged plans.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] livus@kbin.social 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ok that escalated. Starts with usual giving himself powers stuff but ends up with Federal "freedom cities" and flying cars.

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Freedom to do what, murder LGBTQ+, lefties, people of color, and so forth? Because that's what I have to assume he means by "Freedom."

[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 16 points 1 year ago

Given the libertarian influences, I'd assume they're supposed to be hyper-privatized free trade zones or special economic zones. That means low or no taxes, hardly any regulations, unhinged capitalism for everything.

It's the same bullshit libertarians have been praising for decades now and that's been tried and failed again and again. Remember that crypto cruise ship?

Freedom to have every facet of your existence regulated to a homogenized set of conservative social values while also being totally free of any corporate oversight at all.

Not sure who wants to actually live there. Conservatives like two places: cities that exist because educated, largely liberal, people create jobs she money, or the country where they can leach off the cities to fund their infrastructure without any of the social costs that come with it.

[–] livus@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Probably freedom to just sit there empty. He wants to build them from scratch.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

This sounds oddly familiar to other stories we've heard before.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Freedom cities sound like freedom fries.

I remember back after 9/11 and France called us on the bullshit… the state legislature voted to call them freedom fries in the capital cafeteria. (I was in highschool and lobbying for some environmental stuff. My former math teacher was our rep, so, we went to lunch and talked about things.)

In any case, those fries were not free, and they weren’t fried. (Orida frozen… stuffed in a microwave…)

Also? As a side note, the reason flying cars are not a thing is because nobody has found a way to make free energy yet- anything that flies has to expend energy to counter gravity- on airplanes, the wings push air down and it moves forward. In things that hover it’s either the rotors/fans/jet engines pushing air.

That expenditure just doesn’t exist on normal ground vehicles.

[–] livus@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

@FuglyDuck that's so funny, I was literally telling people the freedom fries thing was real earlier today! Someone younger than us had thought it was just a myth or satire.

(Over here - sorry not sure how to link it via your instance but you get the picture).

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah. I remember being incredulous when I saw the menu, me and the other highschool kid. The Rep explained that they actually passed a bill for that to be renamed; in this tone of voice dripping with sarcasm. I'm not sure if it happened federally or in other states, but it happened here- it only applied to the state capital cafeterias, though.

[–] livus@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wikipedia seems to think it happened in many places. I don't think people realize how bizarre some of that stuff was.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Yeah.

It was bizarre. The US lost it’s damn mind and went full on crazy. I remember asking what Iraq did and getting called a traitor. (They were mostly Saudis? And Saudis funded?)

I also remember bejng asked why I wasn’t joining up… like, dude, let me graduate highschool first…

[–] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Knowing now that Bin-Laden had been in Pakistan and we kinda knew almost where for a long time really makes the Iraq invasion so much worse.

I went and protested it in Copley Square the night before we invaded Iraq. I’m glad I did it, but it seemed to do fuck all. Possibly lead to Barack Obama’s presidency, which I’m happy about, but that in turn may have lead Trump’s as well.

I can’t help wonder how different the world would have been with Gore as president. Even social media may have been regulated differently with a moderately (or even slightly) tech savvy administration, though that’s probably a stretch.

Edit: Wft autocorrect; Batak Obamass? Really?

[–] spaceghoti@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

I can’t help wonder how different the world would have been with Gore as president. Even social media may have been regulated differently with a moderately (or even slightly) tech savvy administration, though that’s probably a stretch.

It's not a stretch. The antitrust lawsuits brought by nine states and the Justice Department against Microsoft was made to simply go away under the Bush administration. Our technology would probably look very different today without Microsoft's monopoly, and without that who knows what the rest of the map would look like?

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] tacomama@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago

Wikipedia is correct. I was 34 on 9/11. There was so much of this crazy bs. The freedom fries thing was rampant. I lived a few blocks from a mosque, and sadly there were several threats, picketers and vandalism for several years.

[–] braxy29@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

just checked with one of my teenagers, confirmed they didn't know freedom fries. which makes sense of course, but i took it for granted they must have heard - it was such a bizarre thing to me at the time!

[–] livus@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

In NZ we have these things called Afghans (an iced biscuit/cookie with cocoa and coconut) and we would joke that if the US had them they'd have to rename them.

[–] voracitude@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Trump is already disqualified from holding any office, let alone that of the President, under section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4591133

Page 17:

V. The persons who framed Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment regarded the President of the United States as an officer of the United States

The President of the United States was among the officials who took the oath to the Constitution that under Section Three triggered disqualification for participating in an insurrection. As noted in the previous section, the persons responsible for the Fourteenth Amendment sought to bar from present and future office all persons who betrayed their constitutional oath. “All of us understanding the meaning of the third section,” Senator John Sherman of Ohio stated, “those men who have once taken an oath of office to support the Constitution of the United States and have Fourteenth Amendment distinguished between the presidential oath mandated by Article II and violated that oath in spirit by taking up arms against the Government of the United States are to be deprived for a time at least of holding office.” No member of the Congress that drafted the the oath of office for other federal and state officers mandated by Article VI. Both were oaths to support the Constitution. Senator Garrett Davis of Kentucky saw no legal difference between the constitutional requirement that “all officers, both Federal and State, should take an oath to support” the Constitution and the constitutional requirement that the president “take an oath, to the best of his ability to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.” Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin declared that Congress need not pass laws requiring presidents to swear to support the Constitution because that “oath is specified in the constitution.”

In fact, the exact question of whether the disqualification from public office covered the Presidency came up at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was being drafted: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/lsb/lsb10569

Specifically:

One scholar notes that the drafting history of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment suggests that the office of the President is covered:

During the debate on Section Three, one Senator asked why ex-Confederates “may be elected President or Vice President of the United States, and why did you all omit to exclude them? I do not understand them to be excluded from the privilege of holding the two highest offices in the gift of the nation.” Another Senator replied that the lack of specific language on the Presidency and Vice- Presidency was irrelevant: “Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States.’”

I’ll highlight that last bit again:

Another Senator replied that the lack of specific language on the Presidency and Vice- Presidency was irrelevant: “Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States.’”

That is from this paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3748639

Some people seem to have a lot of trouble with figuring out what "or" means, in a list of things.

[–] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (26 children)

That doesn't EXPLICITLY say they can't be President. - a Judge in Colorado who probably would also rule the framers PROBABLY meant AR15s in the Second Amendment despite it not being explicitly said.

[–] voracitude@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Yes, actually, that's exactly what it means. He broke his oath of office. He is not fit to hold any public office including that of the President, and he is barred from holding office by the Constitution of the United States. Period dot, and of story.

[–] Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The courts, so far, don't agree. Unfortunately.

[–] voracitude@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Incorrect. The judge in Colorado ruled he broke his oath of office and engaged in an insurrection, which is what makes the ruling so coo-coo bananapants.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (25 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›