That’s what I’m getting at. And to be honest, I’m surprised that was the actual answer. Hence why I’m confirming that I’m understanding correctly.
And yet…
See, it doesn’t really matter to you, because it’s a law you’d be OK with Trump breaking anyway. You should lead with that so that Max doesn’t waste his time with you in the future. “Max, I’m going to tell you up front, I don’t care if Trump broke this law. I just don’t care about it. Trump obeying this law is not important to me. If he wipes his ass with it, that’s fine by me. MAGA!”
It’s that easy.
This was, I believe, my original point. If President Trump had delayed the spending beyond Sept. 30, it seems like a clear-cut impoundment, but that didn’t happen. The hold was released weeks before the deadline and Congress extended the deadline anyways.
Ok, I think we probably agree then that just because we can’t lay our filthy little pleb fingers on a copy of obscure government documents like SecDef certifications (or apportionment letters) should not be taken as proof that they were never made, right?
Max S. extended this invitation to me: “I invite you to dissuade me from this position, contrary to your own.” I took him up on that invitation, even though I don’t agree with his position about the impeachability (or perhaps better-described as “impeachment-worthiness”) of an impoundment. What’s the problem with that?
HD, if Obama did exactly, precisely, what Trump did in the lead up to the 2016 election would you have supported his impeachment at that time? Exact same scenario and actions, only swap Obama for Trump. If your feelings change then you really should take a step back for some self reflection on what it is you are doing here and why you are defending what you are defending. America is about a lot more than your pet political preferences. Than any of ours. That’s how we need to be looking at this. The future of our democracy is not a football game and we are not fans cheering on our team, we are stewards of our country and the lives of those that come after us will be affected by what we all do right here and right now.
Most excellent post.
Take a look at this poll: public trust in government (that we citizens elect, by the way) is, and has been, at historic lows – and it’s been that way for the better part of the last decade with no end in sight.
It’s really important to understand what this means, because the message is profound - and ominous.
In the 1960s and 1970s, during the Johnson era, Nixon era, we lost faith in the people whom we had elected to serve us, but I don’t think it could be said that we had lost faith in each other to ultimately agree on a better choice down the road. We had hope - hope that we would have better choices in the future, hope that we could bridge whatever divisions we might have to figure out who that better choice might be.
Now? It’s a new dimension of cynicism. It’s not just the fact that we don’t trust the people whom we’ve sent to congress and the White House; it’s much, much worse than that. We don’t trust each other to bridge those divides and figure out who our better options might be.
Indeed, this new poll indicates that self-identified Democrats have now (probably feeling they have no choice) been pushed into a corner where they, like their republican counterparts, view compromise as not a necessary evil, but just a plain evil.
The reason why it is a crime to use other governments for American politics is because those governments are quite free to manufacture whatever the hell they want.
The CIA can, plausibly, create entire French people who never existed - passports, bank accounts, etc. and all the rest of it - to make that person into an entity who will check out and has a particular past that they want. But they didn’t ever actually exist.
Nation states can hire their best and give them insane budgets to create nuclear weapons or deep fake videos.
And if you tell them, “Create information about my political opponent that will be harmful to him or I’ll let Russia eat you.” Then they may well decide to do it and they’re also liable to help you maintain the lie. Ultimately, their objective is to not get eaten by Russia. Whichever path leads that direction, they’ll go down.
Anything they say about Biden can’t be trusted and anything they say about Trump can’t be trusted. They simply have too much on the line. It’s like walking into a room and being presented with a man who has had his nuts connected to a car battery for the last few hours, getting tortured, and the person who showed you in says, “Feel free to ask him anything you want about me. You will find that we are and always have been the best of friends.” If you expect a reliable answer to come out, you’re ignoring a whole lot of reality to get to that point.
Virtually everyone’s feelings would change if it were Obama instead of President Trump. Schiff and Pelosi and the MSM wouldn’t be pursuing this with the zeal that they currently are. They wouldn’t be waxing poetic about what a sad day for the country it is, but awww shucks, they’ve got a duty to do. They would, instead, be talking a lot like Lindsey Graham. Virtually every cable news commentators’ positions would do a 180 if it were Obama instead of President Trump. Should all of those people “take a step back for some self reflection”, or just me for some reason?
Instead of assuming you know what everybody else is thinking, why don’t you answer the question? How would you feel.
I’m comfortable with the response I gave, thanks anyways.
Can’t you just answer a question posed directly to you? I don’t care about everyone else. I asked you.
ETA: I guess not. Well it was a very enlightening answer, but I don’t think you’d like what it shed light on. Thanks anyway.
For what it’s worth, my taxes went *up *as a result of Trump’s “tax cut”, because I live in a state with high income and property taxes, and the new tax plan caps the amount that those are deductible.
But that’s just me. (And about 80 million of our fellow Americans who live in similar states.)
It “shed light on” the fact that I’m pretty similar to most politically-involved people, at least in this regard. I don’t particularly like nor dislike that fact.
Said states, I’m guessing, not ones that voted for trump?
80 million people’s taxes did not go up. NYT - Face it: You (Probably) Got a Tax Cut
Well, you are mostly right. Apportionment (literally, to “divide”) refers to OMB’s plan for the expenditure of funds appropriated by Congress. OMB apportions (plans for the expenditure of) so much funding to each agency, usually by quarters and projects.
Now, I have a good reason to suspect OMB had not apportioned the second $125 million way back in October of 2018, or even by the end of August 2019. That reason is that OMB placed the hold. One does not plan to suddenly put a hold on $125,000,000.00 of military aid to a country. That would be absurd, especially considering how the entire diplomatic corps was blindsided, and how the Department of Defense is supposed to coordinate this all with the Department of State.
Mr. Taylor testified as to hearing an OMB staffer announce the hold on security assistance to Ukraine on July 18. You can read it from the transcript of his opening statement before the HPSIC on October 22 (page 27 here). The Washington Post reported that Mr. Trump personally ordered the July-September hold in a September 23 piece, based on three anonymous senior officials. The webpage just linked to also includes a September 24 video of Mr. Trump himself explaining why he blocked aid to Ukraine. I don’t think anybody is disputing that aid was “withheld”, for a time.
Neither the President nor the Office of Management and Budget have the raw power to put a sudden hold on already appropriated and apportioned funds. To do so is to “impound” funds, even if only temporarily. That triggers the Impoundment Control Act of 1974: 2 U.S.C. § 683 if the hold is intended to go beyond the end of the fiscal year; 2 U.S.C. § 684 if not. Both of these sections require the President to send a request to Congress, because quite simply he does not have the power to unilaterally impound Congressionally appropriated funds, not even temporarily.
I think you are relying on the wrong clause. 31 U.S.C. § 1513 (b)(1) refers to the deadline the agencies have to get information to the President (to OMB). 31 U.S.C. § 1513 (b)(2) is the deadline for the President (OMB) to actually apportion funds to executive agencies. The deadline is the later of 30 days after the law is enacted, or 20 days before the fiscal year starts.
But to your core point, yes, an apportionment made within thirty days from the passage of the law satisfies the Anti-Deficiency Act. It is the Impoundment Control Act under 2 U.S.C. § 684 that I believe is actually violated here; I mentioned the Anti-Deficiency Act to make the point that under normal circumstances, appropriation will not take more than 30 days. Here we have a 103 day gap between the certification and the release of funds. The normal appropriation process could not have taken up all that time, so we are left categorizing the hold as a deferral under 2 U.S.C. § 684.
You are free to think that, and if it turns out that no letter was sent I’ll join you in condemning ex-President Obama even if he cannot be impeached anymore. But I agree with the expert in the PolitiFact article you linked, I think it is highly plausible that the Obama administration thought the provision of lethal weapons would escalate the situation and threaten our and our allies’ national security interests.
These letters aren’t the sort of thing that are normally published, either. Were it not for the current scandal, I doubt we would see the present certification letter on NPR. The letter itself may be classified, but its existence should not be and that’s why I think a FOIA request or letter to your representative would eventually resolve the issue. Nonetheless, I strive to hold Mr. Obama to the same standard as I do Mr. Trump. To do otherwise is antithetical to my motivations in this thread.
~Max
It shed light on the fact that you think everyone around you is devoid of principles, and therefore you don’t need to reflect on your own.
It’s not true, of course, that everyone around you is devoid of principles, but there you go.
“Mr. President, this new tax plan is brilliant. Except that it totally screws over residents of California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts…”
How many nanoseconds do you think Trump hesitated before he said "fuck ‘em!’?
HD: gee, I guess my refund got lost in the mail.
I doubt it. You’re probably one of the 6%. That you might have been one of the unlucky few who saw a tax increase does not change the fact that most people got a tax cut. I don’t know what to tell you other than I guess you probably don’t want to vote for President Trump next time.