nsplayr

I'm confused by this, can you explain what you mean? What does someone look like who got hired out of merit? I kinda thought the idea was that merit was unrelated to what you looked like but maybe you have a different philosophy and I'd like to learn more about it.

#LipsThatGrip 😉

Gawd damn some of y’all are triggered rn 😂 Every comment telling an RPA pilot “yOu’Re NoT a ReAl PiLoT” makes your dick 1 inch shorter, that’s also a fact. Some of you may need to limit your comments to only a couple before you go into negative territory… In other news…what was this thread about again?

I mean I sign for the airplane, shake the stick, and pull the trigger…that’s real enough for me 🇺🇸 BQZip’s mom thought it felt real enough for her too…

You do know it’s very ironic to call yourself @Lord Ratner and claim to be a voice of “the plebes” right? I keed… I have lived 86% of my life in states that were once part of the Confederacy. The county that I currently live in voted literally 69% for Trump in the 2020 election. You’re not characterizing me very well my friend, I know the people you’re talking about! My other other reply to the rest of your post is this, nay to populism whether it’s from the bernie left or the trumpy right. Beyond that I’m ceasing buzzer:

Your post goes off in a million different directions, but just on this point alone…who do you think I am exactly? Because I’m a 30-something straight white male with a nuclear family who owns guns, attends church regularly, serves in uniform and lives in a exurb in a red state. #RealAmerica I am by no means some “elite” Gender Studies professor who is out of touch on my yacht eating caviar with my Yale buddies, nor can I take a quick vacay to Cancun when the power goes out. The reason I know I’m better than everyone else is because I also happen to be a pilot, yet what keep me so humble is that I used to be a Nav. 😅 I just maybe paid some semblance of attention in school (public school in the south mind you), and can point out common logical fallacies, like whataboutism. Drives me nuts. The problem at hand is that Trump had TS/SCI in his golf club back in January, failed to hand it all back when ordered to do so, and then the FBI paid a visit and found even more TS/SCI in early August! Seems bad! It’ll be especially bad for him if the DOJ listens to whatever esteemed BO.net dude it was that wants mishandling classified punished more harshly than murder 😬 Anyways, carry on, time to throw my phone in the ocean like I keep intending to do 🍻

This is a major philosophical difference I guess. I don’t think people are inherently bad, I don’t dislike/distrust most of our elected officials, and I don’t want to pre-judicially “lock up most of the assholes in Washington.” People make political and policy choices I don’t agree with all the time, but mostly because their either have different values or incentives than I do. Very, very few people think they’re the baddies. If you are an actual criminal then by all means let’s see justice served, otherwise let’s feel free to disagree with people without calling for them to be hanged. I for one also don’t endorse throwing the baby out with the bathwater and think we should always work to improve our institutional accountability and fairness. Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. But if you want to give up and just say “f it” and legalize or tacitly accept rampant corruption as the norm ok, good luck with that. It may feel natural to succumb to lots of diffeeent logical fallacies, but you by no means are required to live like that or accept bad reasoning from others 🤷‍♂️

Whelp, if I ever need the exact opposite of a lawyer, I now know who to call! 😄

Ummmm…yes, absolutely I am saying this.

I guess it seems political because it specifically targets Hillary alone. Are we going to investigate Bill for financial stuff? How amount GWB and Cheney over Abu Ghraib and GITMO? Should we investigate and charge Henry Kissinger? I say no to all. Primarily because the statute of limitations has passed. And yes, those statutes are different for different crimes for a reason. I am a fan of holding “elites” to the same laws and standards as us normies, let’s do that starting right now. If some NEW lawbreaking pops up, like having a bunch of boxes of TS/SCI in your golf club, let’s spend our time there.

So you want to go beyond the stature of limitations in a case where the DOJ decided not to files charges…for political reasons? That doesn’t seem like the right idea. That is politicizing the DOJ. I agree what Hillary did was wrong, and so did the FBI, and if appropriate charges would have been filed at the time I wouldn’t have been mad about it necessarily. But I mean listen to what you’re advocating for: an explicitly politically-driven reprisal investigation with the pretext that it must end in charges & I’m assuming conviction, all after the statute of limitations has passed. I vote no for that and that the FBI instead focus their time and effort on current investigations for potential crimes within the statute of limitations. Like former President Trump having boxes of TS/SCI docs at his Florida golf club 18 months after leaving office. Seems indefensible to me at least.

You can hold everyone accountable, that’s fine. Where we disagree maybe is that I’m not a fan of going back years to re-litigate cases where no charges were brought. How far back do you go? To what end? ”Go back and run that bitch through the same ringer” is not a sound legal theory for equal justice under the law. And FWIW I don’t want to “run Trump through the ringer,” I want the law applied and the investigation to be thorough, no more and no less. If Hunter’s case is still pending, by all means investigate that to a logical conclusion. We agree that Hillary’s case wasn’t handled well, great. It is not defensible to have TS/SCI on her server, I haven’t defended that, nor is it defensible for Trump to have similarly classified docs (marked as such) in a random closet at his Florida golf club. Trump’s case is being investigated right now, let’s have the DOJ handle the case correctly.

My understanding is that it was. The archives wanted to know if the executive was claiming privilege over the documents, and the Biden WH, being the executive, said no. This is the textbook definition of the “whataboutism” that I mean. What about Hillary, what about Hunter… What about we focus on the case at hand? Is it defensible for trump to have documents marked TS/SCI at mar a lago? Hillary's case wasn’t handled well, and I feel that way probably for different reasons than you, but on that we agree. So should we handle trump’s case badly also? I’m curious what your desired endgame is for this current, relevant investigation. If it’s anything other than it should be handled fairly and any people who committed crimes should be held accountable, I would be surprised, because you and I both know that’s the only correct answer. No one is above the law. TBH I’m also ready to tap out here y’all…you know my position and we’ve covered the same ground quite a bit.

Didn’t the archives as the WH whether or not they wanted to assert privilege? Because trump wanted to do so, but since he’s no longer in office that opinion no longer matters for the docs in question. I will admit I am not as tied in to the right-wing outrage-o-sphere as you are, so I’m open to being not up to speed on some detail here, so long as you’re open to it being well short of tyranny when the FBI looks into someone having boxes and boxes of TS/SCI in their Florida gold club 🍻

Oh wow, he used the big font and even some ALL CAPS. A sure sign of winning the debate!

Maybe I don’t get it…the FBI wanted to look at documents collected by the archives in January (that were also marked classified, up to TS/SCI and SAPs!), and the archives officials wanted the executive branch to adjudicate on the question of Trump’s claim of executive privilege. The WH council, not Biden personally, said, “Yea go ahead FBI, we are the executive now and we assert no privilege over these documents.” That’s how I read it anyways. ps the NY Post website is an virtual bazar of ads and spam…please tell me you use reader view on there 😅

Also…do you know what money laundering actually is? Can you explain how military aid sent to Ukraine could possible be structured as a way to churn ill-begotten profits from an illegal enterprise through a legitimate business in order for that money to appear “clean” to tax authorities? Because that’s what money laundering is.

This is what the money is spent on, to knee-cap Vlad’s army and defend a free and independent people from unwarranted aggression. If we can’t even spend money to literally stop Russian tanks from streaming into a European capital, I mean… Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦

I’ve found the BBC to be pretty neutral when covering American news. In fact it’s the only TV news I can ever stand to watch on occasion.

I 1000% guarantee you that if Garland has gone to Biden ahead of time and Biden personally signed off on the FBI paying Trump a visit, the right wing media outlets would have absolutely lost their f-ing minds about how improper that all was and how Biden would have massive conflicts of interest and how he was a dictator going against his own written policy and long-standing norms. And ya know what, had that happened, they would be right! Like I can’t believe some of y’all are wishcasting for Dark Brandon, fresh off of big legislative victories, to personally direct the dark forces of The State against his chief political opponent 😂 I mean…if I were a Republican I would not want that but 🤷‍♂️

It’s not that the President doesn’t have sufficient authority to turn the DOJ into his personal vendetta police, it’s that he shouldn’t do that and all presidents, in writing, have agreed to limit comms between the WH and DOJ ahead of time in order to prevent even the appearance of impropriety. Maybe some of y’all are a lot younger than me or weren’t taught proper contemporary US history or IDK, but if you want to go back to a pre-Nixonian setup I mean ok, but that’s not a popular opinion among any stripe of expert nor IMHO a wise one. Nixon committed crimes, directed others to commit crimes, and when the crimes started coming to light he tried to order the DOJ to cover it all up. I would prefer for that not to be an option available to any American President, and since Nixon, other relevant authorities eg Congress and voters have largely felt the same way.

BLUF…except not up front 😅 Drone strike: Presidential authority -> delegated to a TF Commander -> JTAC used to conduct the operation -> pilot pulls the trigger, comms flow up and down throughout as required DOJ investigation: Presidential authority -> delegated to the Attorney General -> FBI used to conduct the operation -> individual agents do their jobs, comms flow up and down minus flowing all the way to POTUS; POTUS will not direct or stop any investigation, the AG is the top of the comms chain even if he/she is not the ultimate legal authority. The President explicitly agrees to this and set this as his policy.

Yea dude, I am a prestigious graduate of *the* Air Command and Staff College too 😆 All executive branch authority does indeed flow through the President, and like I said in my drone strike example, that authority is delegated down to, say, a TF Commander via pre-briefed policy memos and ROE, passed through the JTAC for practical purposes, and arrives in my lap in order to pull the trigger. I'm not a rogue unelected agent of the state and neither are FBI agents doing their jobs. In a similar way law enforcement authority is delegated down to the FBI agents working the Trump case. Biden ain't gonna be out there serving warrants just like he's not flying my plane, even while retaining ultimate responsibility for how each of those operations goes and the authority to conduct them in the first place. In the FBI investigation of Trump that's ongoing, the President, though retaining all executive branch powers, has also determined ahead of time that it's inappropriate to be personally informed of or involved in DOJ investigations, and has laid out that ROE in policy memos. I'm arguing this is normal, good, and is a practice that's been observed by all Presidents since Nixon more or less. Some other folks are saying that they want the President to be personally involved and I think that's incredibly bad and dangerous and should not happen no matter who is President or who is being investigated. Just like POTUS isn't always giving the yay/nay call on each individual drone strike, he has delegated DOJ investigation authority down to the AG and laid out specific rules about communications between the WH and DOJ. He also often delegates down strike authority to SECDEF, COCOM/CC, or TF/CC as needed, while choosing to not limit any communications up or down the chain in that case. While the President occasionally does approve specific airstrikes personally, he has determined that he never will approve of specific DOJ investigative actions before hand, just like every President before him since Nixon. So no, there's no law, no sentence in the Constitution that keeps the President from personally puppeteering the FBI to investigate all of his personal and political opponents and to block law enforcement agencies from investigating his allies. Our system of government is a bit dangerous in that the President is indeed clothed in immense power and can abuse it pretty readily compared to, say, a PM in a parliamentary system. But Presidents almost always do not do this and never should do this and in fact all since Nixon, including Trump, have put out policy memos detailing how they will not interfere or be informed about DOJ investigations in ways that would tip the scales of justice one way or the other.

I mean I think there might be a conflict of interest either way, which is why the FBI & DOJ definitely should not personally involve the President or anyone at the White House in their investigations. What if the case was iffy, and the DOJ was inclined to not pursue the case against Trump. But Garland takes the issue to Biden and Biden says, "FUCK YEA investigate Trump! I order you to pursue this warrant, and if you can get him in cuffs on camera even better!" Trump is not only a former political opponent but is also a likely future political opponent for Biden, and there absolutely is a conflict of interest there if Biden is hands-on directing an investigation against him. I would not support that - I'm interested to hear if you would, with the remedy being that Biden could be voted out in 2 years time. That seems like a long time for some authoritarian BS to just be locked-in because of prior election. In this case, the top of the food chain is the AG, who signed off. There are pre-briefed ROEs that no one from the WH will be involved in DOJ investigations. Per above, it would be a scandal precisely if Biden did get personally involved and either approved of or waived off an investigation. Play by your ROEs at all times, even if your organization has violated them in the past. Military operations are completely different, as the pre-brief ROE is that the CINC has final say unless delegated, and in fact the targeting process for all high-level or sensitive targets will explicitly state the level of strike approval authority, from say TF Commander up through POTUS himself as required. Again, play by your ROEs. I'm not sure exactly who you are talking about (Comey? Wray? Biden? Trump? Barr? Garland?), but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree overall. Comey was fired, McCabe was shown an early retirement, there were congressional investigations, a different President was elected at the next cycle and control of the Senate also changed hands. Seems like the system of accountability you're looking for is working. I am an unelected government official, and yet with the approval of the JTAC (via the CC with appropriate delegated authority) I can squeeze a trigger and kill people. That's pretty powerful if you ask me. And based on existing law and ROE, the system is operating exactly as intended. The same types of laws, policy memos and chains of command that govern my drone strike exist for DOJ/FBI investigations, even if you're not super familiar with them. Just because you disagree with the results of a particular FBI investigation (as you may disagree with the results of my drone strike), that doesn't mean the system isn't doing exactly what it was intended to do by the exact rules of accountability and authority baked into ahead of time, which can of course be updated as time goes on and/or new administrations or operational-level leaders take over. That doesn't mean crews have never shot without clearance, it doesn't mean the FBI has never lied to a judge to get a warrant (or wiretapped MLK Jr. 😬), but at least to me, our current form of government isn't some kind of radically out-of-check maniacal force that should be corrected via dictatorship.

The entire executive branch is accountable to the President, who is accountable to Congress, term limits and the American voters, but he does not control the entire executive branch. Nor should he! Nor can he! I've tried to EILI5 w/ comparisons to the Air Force but maybe that's not working. Does the IG run every investigation by the CC first? Do you think they should? I mean, the CC is ultimately responsible, right? Why shouldn't they personally direct and shape the outcome of every IG investigation into anyone within his/her scope of command? Every security forces action on base? Every OSI investigation on base? Hell maybe the CC should jump up on the flight deck and personally land the plane on every sortie! The answers here seem self-evident to me. On top of the analogy to a bureaucracy we're all more used to, there were specific rules put into place after Watergate designed to limit the President's direct personal involvement in DOJ affairs, for reasons you can imagine if you're familiar with what happened in Watergate. I'm not a DOJ/constitutional law expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night and found this article by Jack Goldsmith, who most certainly is. And he's also a conservative Republican FWIW so this isn't some kind of anti-GOP partisan opinion. Perhaps you're a big believer in the "unitary executive theory" and therefore basically a President can do whatever he wants so long as he isn't voted out, term-limited, or impeached by Congress. I don't subscribe to that theory, and neither does Goldsmith. The DOJ and in turn the FBI can both be independent and accountable, are so at present, and have been pretty explicitly so under both Democrats and Republicans since Nixon resigned. Hell, even President Trump's administration (if not the man himself...) believed it was proper to limit communications between the White House and DOJ. You can read the WH Counsel Don McGahn's memo on the subject here. Trump didn't follow or care about those rules, but that's another story. Here is the Biden Admin's memo, written by AG Garland, about communications with the White House that's largely the same as McGahn's memo linked above. This isn't some made up bullshit by some guy online, there are actual policy memos from both of the last two administrations laying out how they will operate; independently but with accountability. Maybe if these guidelines were in the Federalist Papers, which were written as (effective!) propaganda to "sell" the need for the Constitution 234 years ago, you'd think that they were ok 🤷‍♂️ Let's flip the current situation on it's head. The FBI intents to raid Hunter Biden's home seeking evidence of crimes after obtaining a warrant. Being politically sensitive, though not required, they seek and gain the approval to proceed from AG Garland. Would you like Garland to brief President Biden ahead of time about the raid? Should President Biden be able to stop the raid if he wishes? I mean, the President is head of the executive branch, elected by the voters, "...clothed in immense power," why shouldn't he be able to stop this "unwarranted harassment of his innocent son by unelected bureaucrats, ones who work for him in the first place!?!?" My emphatic answers to the above hypotheticals are not only no but hell no, and I bet yours are too.