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[TempAcc]

Its really easy to artificialy inflate most online petition platforms since a good deal of them don't even actualy check the user's IP, so technically, one computer could sign the same petition several times just by using a valid postal code and/or UK email accounts.

[Lord Shonus]

Senate does have to approve of Supreme Court nominees. And while they might be willing to give Trump a bit of leeway in some regards, I'd expect even his own party to balk at something too ridiculous for a position as important and long lasting as Supreme Court Justice.

With all the Trump grandstanding and attention getting lately, what HAS Congress been doing?

H.R. 586: Sanctity of Human Life Act

H.R. 7: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2017
H.R. 175: ObamaCare Repeal Act
H.R. 193: American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017
S. 65: Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act of 2017
H.R. 170: Protect and Grow American Jobs Act
H.R. 21: Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2017


Just a small selection there to take a look at of stuff that... should be noted is not actually law yet and much of it stands little chance.

The  American Sovereignty Restoration Act has been proposed by the same person every year since 1997. Much like the regular attempts to repeal the Presidential Term Limit amendment, it is little more than a symbolic act.

[smjjames]

Its really easy to artificialy inflate most online petition platforms since a good deal of them don't even actualy check the user's IP, so technically, one computer could sign the same petition several times just by using a valid postal code and/or UK email accounts.

And it's pretty hard to validate postal codes unless you use some sort of personal information that can be electronically validated. Case in point: Sheb used the Buckingham Palace address.

Even without the petition, the whole thing was already roiling the British political scene (as I could see on The Guardian's live blog), heck, the petition would be a good excuse to bring discussion to the Parliament floor (yeah I know, you technically have two 'floors', House of Commons (House of Representatives equivalent) and House of Lords (Senate Equivalent)) without seeming overtly political.

Anyways, back to American Politics..... infofar as it's intertwined with everything atm.

[Helgoland]

Much like the regular attempts to repeal the Presidential Term Limit amendment

Wait, what?

[scriver]

EU president Donald Tusk condemns the first executive actions of Trump as 'a danger to the European Union', and compares the 'worrisome statements' from Washington with the aggressive policies of Russia and China, the terrorism of IS, and with the violence in the Middle East and Africa.

This remarkable sneer at the US, the EU's main ally, is written in a letter that Tusk will discuss with the 28 European heads of government, coming friday.
Tusk calls upon the leaders to 'show European pride'.
"Today, we need to stand firm for our dignity, the dignity of a united Europe, regardless whether we speak with Russia, China, the US or Turkey."

He writes that the EU has entered the most dangerous time of it's history. According to him, the EU is besieged from 3 sides.
The first threat is external: Russia, China, IS and the Trump administration. The outside world has never been as anti-European, or, at best, eurosceptic.
"Especially the change in Washington puts the EU in a difficult position, with a new government that appears to question the last 70 years of US foreign policy".
He reminds Trump of the old motto: 'United we stand, divided we fall".

The second threat to the EU is internal: the rise of anti-European, nationalist parties. Tusk blames European federalists for estranging the public from them, with their federalist dreams, and with that, helping parties like PVV and Front National gain momentum.

As a third threat he points at the traditional pro-European parties, whom, in their effort to appease the voters, are forgetting their European ideals.

"In a world of tensions and conflict, courage, dedication and political solidarity is required for Europeans.", Tusk writes. Next month, when celebrating the 60th birthday of the Treaty of Rome, leaders will need to reconfirm their faith in European cooperation. "If we don't believe in ourselves, believe in the nescessity of integration, who will?"
According to Tusk we have all the reasons to be proud. "We turned our continent into the best place on earth".

Further cooperation between EU-countries is the only way forward, says Tusk. "We need to make absolutely clear that unraveling of the EU does not lead to a mythical return of complete sovereignty of the member states, but instead leads to a complete dependence on superstates like the US, China and Russia. Only together can we be independent".

Tusk pleads for 'impressive' steps to be taken by member states to reinvigorate the European feeling with the citizens. To accomplish this the EU will need to guard her outer borders more strictly, it's intelligence agencies need to cooperate more, defense budgets need to be increased, and last but not least, member states should start speaking more as one, in diplomatic discussions.
http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/eu-president-plaatst-verontrustend-beleid-trump-op-een-lijn-met-china-rusland-en-is~a4455961/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/donald-tusk-donald-trump-existential-threat-europe-brexit-eu-theresa-may-a7555061.html

So what he wants instead of nationalism is nothing but pan-European nationalism.

[smjjames]

Why calling it the "Monday Night massacre" is overblown, or, "Why this situation and the Sunday Night massacre of Nixon aren't even the same situation". Which is my opinion as well. As concerning as his action is, calling it a Monday Night massacre is overboard because the two situations aren't even close to the same.

The Guardian's blog bit on it

[TempAcc]

Ye, I mean, if she truly disagreed with the thing altogether and wanted to have nothing to do with it, she could've just resigned, or actualy tried to make trump change his mind, which by itself would put her in a much brighter light and call the people's attention anyway, instead she blew the whole thing apart by forcing trump to fire her, not because of her opinion on the policy, but because of insubordination. She just did a terrible, terrible job trying to paint herself as some sort of martyr.

[misko27]

Much like the regular attempts to repeal the Presidential Term Limit amendment

Wait, what?

It's like how the President maintains that the War Powers Act is an unconstitutional infringement on the right of the President's rights as Commander-in-Chief. Every single President since it was signed has maintained this stance, and I strongly doubt Trump will break on this (although he might not be aware of it). The President also recognizes that the law is the law and follows it anyway, as to avoid a constitutional crisis, but, well, yeah.

[Sheb]

The EU citizen's initiative got a more thorough system. It's been ages since I filled on in, but they actually check with the Member State that the information checks out. They also got a more sensible threshold (1.000.000 signatures spread over a given number of countries, not 10.000 like the UK which is ridiculously easy to reach).

[LoSboccacc]

so basically they learned nothing from this, keep blaming everyone but their own shortcomings for the Europe crysis? they gonna have a rough wake up call when everyone goes *xit

[sluissa]

Much like the regular attempts to repeal the Presidential Term Limit amendment

Wait, what?

It's like how the President maintains that the War Powers Act is an unconstitutional infringement on the right of the President's rights as Commander-in-Chief. Every single President since it was signed has maintained this stance, and I strongly doubt Trump will break on this (although he might not be aware of it). The President also recognizes that the law is the law and follows it anyway, as to avoid a constitutional crisis, but, well, yeah.

It's very easy to find examples where both Bushes, Clinton and Obama allegedly violated the War Powers Act.

If you think presidents are following the law then you aren't paying attention.

[martinuzz]

In response to Trump's immigration decree, Dutch government decided to abort the negotiations which had been nearly completed, about allowing US customs officers jurisdiction to check airplane passengers on Schiphol Airport, instead of on arrival in the US.

[misko27]

It's very easy to find examples where both Bushes, Clinton and Obama allegedly violated the War Powers Act.

If you think presidents are following the law then you aren't paying attention.

Key word here is allegedly. They are testing the waters in a way, but doing so carefully. If you think the President gets to do whatever they want, then you aren't paying attention.

If the President were to brazenly violate the act, and Congress were to call him out on it, it would initiate an immediate constitutaional crisis, which could only be resolved by the courts. If the President wins, that fine; they get their way both now and in the future. But if the President lost that fight, the result wouldn't be "curtailment of executive power", it would be "The President has violated the law and the Consitution." No "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s. Forget not getting re-elected, that's impeachment material right there. And since the Supreme Court has signaled they aren't interested in debating it, the only scenario where they would is if they were forced to by a crisis. So the President can't challenge the law without playing a game which can easily lose them their office. Of course, as long as no one calls the President on what they do, it's fine; so the President has to be very careful to make sure they don't call him on it (which he does by making a show of adhering to the law), because if they do, he'll be forced to back down or go all-in on a very uncertain outcome. So the President doesn't want to follow the law to the letter, but they cannot afford to be challenged on it, because either they back down (and have to back down on claiming it is unconstitutional) or they don't, and risk everything.

So don't be so rude. Things aren't so obvious as they appear.

[Frumple]

So I've seen a few hysterical people across the internet freaking out about Trump firing the acting-Attorney General, saying that he's tearing down the separation of powers, the checks and balances, etc.

Am I mistaken in thinking that the AG is answerable to the executive branch, not the judicial branch? I thought the Supreme Court was the one to watch as far as judicial went, not the AG.

Nah, that's pretty much it. AG's just the head of the DoJ, which is an executive branch department and by extension mostly under the president's jurisdiction. Doesn't strictly speaking have anything to do with judiciary anything, nor much to do with checks and balances.*

Probably just folks getting confused by the name of the title and assuming it's not executive branch stuff, tbh.

*E: Well, save the extent that one's supposed to refuse any unlawful/unconstitutional directives given by the president. Not quite what happened regarding this, near as I can tell. Unlawful and unconstitutional are the metrics, not monumental stupidity or what have you.

[LoSboccacc]

So I've seen a few hysterical people across the internet freaking out about Trump firing the acting-Attorney General, saying that he's tearing down the separation of powers, the checks and balances, etc.

Am I mistaken in thinking that the AG is answerable to the executive branch, not the judicial branch? I thought the Supreme Court was the one to watch as far as judicial went, not the AG.

Nah, that's pretty much it. AG's just the head of the DoJ, which is an executive branch department and by extension mostly under the president's jurisdiction. Doesn't strictly speaking have anything to do with judiciary anything, nor much to do with checks and balances.

Probably just folks getting confused by the name of the title and assuming it's not executive branch stuff, tbh.

various new sources are also pushing the message that this is extremely negative, e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-firing-of-the-acting-attorney-general-sets-a-dangerous-precedent/2017/01/31/7e085fa0-e7bd-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html  conveniently ignoring she was already given her notice and had a replacement lined up in Jeff Session.

probably she decided to go with a bang stirring more controversy with the complacent press to get herself a career boost, not that people aren't fast at jumping at the first occasion to stir up a mess if Trump is involved...