Deleting tweets breaks which law, exactly?
Regards,
Shodan
And while you’re at it, what did Joe McCarthy actually do? All he did was make some speeches and hold some hearings - he didn’t actually arrest anyone, he didn’t actually steal anyone’s livelihoods, he didn’t actually write the blacklists used by Hollywood. It was all hot air – blah blah blah.
Right?
I think you’re conflating “reasonable” with “allowable.”
Look, elections have consequences.
I don’t think Obama’s executive orders were good ones, generally speaking, but I recognize that because he was elected President, he gets to write them. I support his ability to do that even as I dislike the ends to which he put those powers.
So I think a substantial portion of the populace is accepting Trump’s actions as within the ambit of the powers of the presidency.
I don’t think that this same swath of people accepts them and views them as reasonable.
Trump has done only a few thing things that I unreservedly support. One of them is named Gorsuch, and another is named “having a VP who can cast the deciding vote to nullify the class action rule promulgated by the CFPB.” But I regard most of Trump’s actions as being allowable, and I don’t regard my disagreement with Trump as a signal that Trump’s actions are not legitmate, any more than I thought Obama’s were.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Records_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States)
Am I understanding you? Your ire arises from the fact that Trump did lots of legal stuff that you thought was illegal?
Shouldn’t your ire be directed at yourself for your lack of understanding the legal framework in play here?
No, this is not the case.
If I were in your shoes, I think I’d say to myself, “Hmmmm… I have a long list of things I thought were illegal but aren’t. Perhaps, instead of advancing opinions like, ‘Just deleting the tweets that he has sent is probably illegal,’ I should recall my prior lack of success in determining legality and just ask, as oppose to opine.”
Your first link includes a link to another Wikipedia page:
If you had read the page more carefully, you would have perhaps been able to infer that the reason that a proposal was offered to amend the Presidential Records Act to preserve Twitter posts is . . . that right now, the Presidential Records Act does not include Twitter posts.
Right?
Nor does the Freedom of Information Act have anything that forbids deleting tweets.
Not, trump was shown ways, within the law, to accomplish things that presidents have not historically done.
No. It should be directed at the person who is pushing the envelope, and trying to make this behavior normal.
I am not the only one who thought so, and it is still an on going question, your humble opinion notwithstanding.
Good thing that you are not in my shoes, as that would be counterproductive. I still am going to call out trump when he abuses his power, even if a lawyer has determined that this way of abusing his power is legal. It was not my opinion that was advanced there, but the opinion of many other people with law degrees.
Much as the right would like it, I will not stop resisting the attempts at dismantling our democracy through gaslight. I would hope that you would have enough integrity to understand that.
If I get things wrong along the way, I will learn from them, but that doesn’t mean that I will stop fighting against the encroachment of tyranny upon our country.
The presidential records act says “governing the official records of Presidents and Vice Presidents created or received after January 20, 1981, and mandating the preservation of all presidential records”.
Note the “all” in there. It doesn’t say, “all, but tweets”, does it? What does “all” mean to you? Does it mean everything, except for some other things? Or does it mean all?
The covfefe amendment is to make that explicit, for people that can’t accept or understand the meaning of the word “all”.
ETA: and this is exactly the type of gaslighting I am talking about. The law clearly says “all”, and yet, the defenders of trump’s actions insist that it doesn’t really mean “all all”, but more like, “some all”.
When it comes down to it, I expect similar poor reading of other laws as he pushes the envelope further and further. And you will find more and more ways of making excuses, and trying to explain that the word “all” doesn’t mean “all”.
She’s bad and it reflects on donald, and you’re agreeing. This is progress.
I missed the part where I agreed that “she’s bad”. Did I do that somewhere (sincere question here, as I’m sleep deprived and genuinely may have forgotten writing something that indicated what you wrote)? I thought I made my opinions of her work clear when I wrote “I think she’s done a satisfactory job thus far”.
When you said that my milk came out of my nose, so I forgot.
Despite the fact you acknowledge your inaccurate understanding of other laws, and your disappointment upon learning that you were wrong, you remain confident about this one, huh?
OK.
It’s true that the words “all presidential records,” appears in the Wikipedia article discussing the Presidential Records Act.
But the Wikipedia article is not the actual law. The actual law is found at 44 USC § 2201 et seq.
Before I enter into a detailed discussion of the text of the law, a threshold question: do you agree a president has the right to comment, in his capacity as a private citizen, about the events of the nation and world? That is, the President has the same First Amendment rights to speak out as a private person does?
That seems like it’d be a rather memorable event, as opposed to a forgettable one, but ok. As long as we’re clear now, this is progress.
That is not how I would sum up what I said, but anyway…
Okay, you have
“The term “documentary material” means all books, correspondence, memoranda, documents, papers, pamphlets, works of art, models, pictures, photographs, plats, maps, films, and motion pictures, including, but not limited to, audio and visual records, or other electronic or mechanical recordations, whether in analog, digital, or any other form.”
And you have
“The term “personal records” means all documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion therof,[2] of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. Such term includes—”
Your argument is that tweets fall under the second, not the first?
As to your question, I do feel that a president may comment on matters as a private citizen, removing his opinion from the office, but I feel that that should be made clear, with at least an IMHO. Otherwise, it does come from the office of the presidency, and the office of the presidency does not, IMHO, “has[ve] the right to comment, in his capacity as a private citizen, about the events of the nation and world”, and that any comments that come from the office are official statements of position, if not policy, but the man that is serving as the president, sure, so long as he makes clear that policy is not effected by that.
For instance, if trump tweeted, “When journalists say these things about me, well, imho, they should be locked up, but our country stands for freedom of speech, so I, as president, will respect that.” then he is making a comment as a citizen, not announcing a position of the office of the president. When he tweets, (paraphrased 'cuase I’m in a bit of a rush) “We should look into the FCC licenses of these networks”, that is announcing a position of the Executive branch of the United States that they are going to look into shutting down these voices that are saying things they don’t feel “appropriate”.
To be fair, I actually could not give you an opinion under which “Covfefe” falls.
In any case, I didn’t expect him to be impeached over the deletion of tweets, just told that he should stop doing that, as it is a violation of the records act.
How about: Tweets that come from the Twitter handle @POTUS, used by a President before Trump and destined to be used by presidents after Trump, are official Presidential communications, and constitute records.
Tweets that come from the Twitter handle @realDonaldTrump, an account Trump created and used as a private citizen before he became President, and will use after he leaves the presidency, are expressions he offers up as a private citizen.
If it helps, you can mentally tag “IMHO,” in front of each and every realDonaldTrump tweet.
So far as I can determine, it is actually not, and in order for this statement to become true, the legislation I mentioned above would need to pass and explicitly cover all uses of Twitter.
Well it was more like an intrusion of fact on fiction. A higher truth called out to me. It fails as a mnemonic device.
Tweets and moronic statements are not “attempts at dismantling our democracy through gaslight”
If he introduced legislation to actually do something, then yeah, you’d have a point.
I am free to criticize policies and laugh at statements from the President. But they are mostly just empty bluster that do not mean anything.
When the President starts to introduce legislation to remove licenses (whatever that means), or imprison reporters, then yeah, I would be concerned. Talking nonsense about things that can’t possibly come to pass? I’m not too concerned about it.
And on another note, what are you doing exactly to fight against the encroachment of tyranny upon our country?
Out of curiosity, why would you want the class action rule promulgated by the CFPB nullified?
Well, if you remember, my suggestion before the inauguration was to say that we should ignore anything he says that is not official presidenting business. I believe you offered me a pony.
If he could keep that straight, then I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But he does make announcements about things that the country will do over the @realdonaldtrump handle, he does make announcements to the public as the potus, not as a random commenter using that handle.
Tell you what, send that advice over to him, and if he follows it, then I will agree that the things that are said on his personal account can be ignored.
[/quote]
Quite possibly, but that statement came after my argument that it is a violation, so if you like, you can append “if it is illegal” to the beginning of it, my point was only that a violation, if there were a violation, of this act shouldn’t be an impeachable offense, just a “stop doing that” offense (of course, if he doesn’t stop doing that after being told to by congress or the courts, then he is disobeying the other branches of gov’t, and that has separate consequences). I don’t see a form of public communication between the president and millions of followers, in which he makes very specific statements about policies and plans as president as falling under the non-public or private definition of the act. But, there are lawsuits in the works to determine that one way or another. I am willing to wait to see how they settle out.
He is telling us what he plans on doing. You feel that we should wait until he is actually doing it to criticize?
Well, right here, right now, I am asking others to remain vigilant, to take this seriously, to not accept these things as normal. I would ask that you convince others to also remain vigilant against steps towards a tyranny, as when it becomes obvious that it is a tyranny it is too late, then we have to go to that other thread…
Turn this around, Bricker likes to chide me for my ignorance, so we’ll go with that. I am ignorant about the law and the constitution. There are more laws and case laws relating to constitutional principles then I could ever hope to read in my entire life, so that ignorance will continue, and it is shared by anyone who is mortal. I can try to alleviate it, but I will never know everything.
So, in my ignorance, I assumed that there were checks against a president abusing his powers for personal gain. I thought that there were checks against the president using his position in the bully pulpit to criticise the freedom of expression of others. I thought there were checks against members of his staff to use their positions to endorse commercial products. I thought that there were checks against the president using his staff to undermine and bully the press into no longer asking questions of officials.
I have found out that there are no checks. Every step he has taken towards fascism has been met on the right by, “Yeah, he can do that, that’s not illegal.” So yes, I am concerned about my continued ignorance. I am concerned that the next step will be met by acquiescence and justification, and the next and the next after that. Bricker says that he would be against jailing journalists, unless trump finds a way of legally doing it, and as long as there is enough cover that it isn’t really obvious (to him) that that is what he is doing, then it will be declared perfectly legal.
Just because we become a fascist state through legal means does not make it okay.
Maybe he really is a 27 dimensional chess player, and has discovered Godel’s Flaw in the Constitution.
SMH, whatever. I’m whitey white stock. My parents did the 22 and me, and were quite pleased to find they actually have no black ancestry (they were really quite pleased about that, very) all european (mostly german) stock. When the fascists come marching down the street, I can step right into their ranks, and as long as I cut my hair, they’re gonna accept me as one of them, they’ll probably even make me a leader. I have options. I would probably do better under a fascist regime. And if that is what we want, if that is what america wants to be now, then I suppose I may get tired of being the only one against it. If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em, right? And I cannot beat them by myself.
There have been a number of statements by Trump and his staff that the President feels Twitter is the way to get his message directly to the American people - since he primarily uses the ‘realDonaldTrump’ handle to issue thesee proclomations, they are clearly intended by him (and his staff) to be part of the Presidential record. Further, Spicer said on the record that these tweets were ‘official’.
Maintaining said tweets therefore falls under whatever regulations pertain to maintaining said records -