Trump has shown that confirming someone is not necessary to fill a position. Just appoint an interim and dare the Senate to do something about it.
Probably should go in the Mueller thread...but Stone gets 40 months. for at least the next few hours before the pardon is signed
Quote from Susan H at lawfare Basically this is another step in King Potus governing without Congress. i.e. despot
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/02/28/politics/mcgahn-testimony-ruling/index.html Appeals court rules Mcghan does not have to testify I assume the house can appeal. Oversight may be over. EDIT: should have said oversight of any republican administration is over.
That article sounds like they didn't overrule the lower court, they just declined to enforce its ruling? Presumably on the theory that the House is supposed to have its own resources for that? If they didn't hear the case, the lower court ruling stands, doesn't it?
After reading a bit more....as I understand it....this is a repudiation of Senate Republican’s position that courts should decide whether the executive branch refusing subpoena’s is even an issue to be decided by the court (the argument they made regarding obstruction was to wait for the courts to rule witnesses had to testify). The court is basically saying “******** you...don’t bring us into this shit...if you decide it’s obstruction impeach.” So in essence...Republicans have in essence neutered congress.
So have the courts, tho.. They've basically made it so that the Legislative branch can't investigate the Executive branch as long as the Executive branch has 34 Senators willing to support them.
See....I was trying to look on the bright side and you had to ******** it all up. can the house appeal?
However the capitol police or the bailiff can go get the guy and haul him in, can't he/they? And IIRC there's a cell in the basement...
Yeah, that's the remedy. I am not a constitutional lawyer, so I am not judging the rightness or wrongness of the decision. The practical impact is horrific. If you have a lawless president (check) there are now two options for Congress. Either enable the lawlessness, or massively escalate by locking up people like McGahn.
So I guess the next question is ...does an executive branch employee locked up by Congress have the right to challenge their incarceration in court?
So... Too soon to start up another impeachment investigation and trial? A previous tweet of this quote did not make it adequately clear that it is Trump who did not push for adequate testing, not Secretary of Health and Human Services Azar. Here is the whole quote for context. @ddiamond pic.twitter.com/ZZ2aPF53m6— Fresh Air (@nprfreshair) March 12, 2020
I haven't read the opinion in full yet, but the short answer is no. It looks like the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the courts shouldn't address this issue based on the "political question" doctrine.
McConnell is saying it now. The mainstream GOP position is that our poor Covid 19 response is due to impeachment. I wonder how well that will sell.
That requires trump to admit that our response has been poor. I don’t think Mitch has thought this through
Mitch said it. Not sure about others. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate...distracted-government-from-coronavirus-threat
Well.. They aren't wrong.. If Trump had been removed from office, Pence likely wouldn't have made the response all about him.
Reading that article, he isn't wrong, the entire government was completely engulfed in the impeachment proceedings. I can see using that as a scapegoat excuse to Trump's supporters. Problem is, with the elimination of the people that actually would have been dealing with the response years back, the ability to have a department working independent of the impeachment proceedings was reduced. If you want to attack the impeachment as an excuse, that is the angle I would take, in addition to continuously playing Trump's initial claims of covid-19 being "no big deal".
Definitely. It is hard to say that you could not respond quickly to an emergency because you were distracted when you (and I mean the global you for the GOP) were saying that the situation was a big nothing-burger to begin with. Step 1 of a proper response is believing that a proper response is necessary.
Yep. This wasn't a Congressional matter. We don't want Mitch and company devising coronavirus solutions. This task was for the appropriate federal authorities. But Trump de-professionalized them. The analogy with Katrina is fair, although W didn't gut federal professionalism anywhere near as much as Trump has done, with his rogue's gallery of Cabinet hacks.