Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/19/a-federal-judge-wants-to-determine-once-and-for-all-if-trumps-tweets-are-legally-binding.html
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I want to live in the alt earth where he was kicked off the platform five years ago for racist dishonesty.
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I want to live in a world where Twitter was kicked off the earth five years ago for the same reason.
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They’re essentially arguing that the official capacity of Drumpf’s tweets follow the same you-know-it-when-you-see-it criteria as pornography, which is, erm, kind of odd.
Considering that his tweets are all obvious BS to anyone with half a brain, it’s all they have. Unfortunately for them, proclamations by the occupant of the Oval Office have a much more destructive effect on the national interest than porn videos.
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Once again for the people in the back, we are on the most stupid of timelines.
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I want to live on the alt-Earth where there are still dinosaurs and they’ve eaten Trump, but yours is good too.
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A tiny, tiny wedge of accountability, perhaps, for one small facet of the deranged conduct of the executive branch these last four years.
4 years in and now a judge wants to know?
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And good for the judge for demanding an answer to the question now that he’s in a position to do so. This crap has become way too normalized.
Just because most people have taken to shrugging off this stuff as “Trump being Trump” doesn’t mean it’s too late to start pushing back.
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He is a senior partner at Keyword, Topic & Listicle LLP
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I really hope some new legislation is passed in the coming years (if there are any years to come…) that put restrictions on where and when the president can make official statements. It would also be nice if some legislation is passed making sure no future president is able to hold campaign rallies on government property (I know that’s technically not allowed now so maybe a new law with actual teeth is needed) or print their name and face on official government mailers etc. There are of course many more laws needed to restrict the wild-ass, illegal proclivities of presidents of the future but I can’t enumerate them all right here right now.
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I mean, hyeanas are pretty cool too. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
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We still have dinosaurs. Some of them spend a lot of time crapping on statues.
I’d be cool with one of these dinos eating him
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It’s tough to come up with a judge that would be better than Judge Walton to be handling this. He’s senior status, so he’s not ambitious, he does not play around, and he’s not interested in giving his imprimatur to bullshit.
Can we lock him in a cage with a cassowary? The pay-per-view receipts might cover the budget deficit.
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I want to live in the alt-Earth where all Trump tweets, and any other media he produces, are by default assumed pornographic and only available from distributors of other pornographic material.
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The thing is, we DO have a system for recording and keeping track of official statements of policy made by the president. They’re called executive orders. But Trump is allergic to “putting it in writing.” He wants to be able to deny that he ever said something if there are too many legal consequences to his statements. Keep in mind, he does have the authority to do this. The entire basis for the classification system used by the government is an executive order. Yes, regulations have been written and promulgated, but they are ultimately based on and authorized by Executive Orders.
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If they are not official documents which can not be orders to the Government then why does the Government act on them? (Looking at you Justice Department).
If they are official documents then Governor Whitmer is right.Trump encouraged those kidnappers with all the strength of the President behind it.
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Please don’t do that. What has the cassowary ever done to you. Sure the ripping apart will be fun, but the cassowary will die should it eat any of the toxic scraps.
How the statements are made isn’t the issue, it’s what the statements contain that’s the problem.
Our news reporting has completely failed us here. They’re still stuck on “whatever the president says is news because it’s the president”. Which on it’s own is true, but incomplete. From day one before the 2016 election, reporting should have never simply repeated what was said as “news” all on it’s own. Reporting needs to provide the context and how it relates to reality, otherwise its just stenography. It should always be “the president said X, which is a lie and completely false”. It’s not reporting if the second part is left out. Every time news repeats “Trump says he’s doing X” without also including “but no plan or action has actually been done besides this statement” or “and XYZ shows this occurring” they have failed us.
We need a law that gives someone standing to sue the president for making false statements.
Shareholders can sue company directors for making false statements about company performance. Why can’t citizens sue the president for making false statements about government.
Enforcement is the issue not the underlying restriction. Congress needs it’s own version of the justice department that is only concerned with laws that apply to the executive branch. The laws mean nothing when both the justice department and office of government ethics work for the people breaking the laws and hence can choose to ignore them. Clearly the executive branch cannot police itself and only having impeachment as the legislative recourse is to large a gap.
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