source_id
int64 1
4.64M
| question
stringlengths 0
28.4k
| response
stringlengths 0
28.8k
| metadata
dict |
|---|---|---|---|
57,905 | The motivation behind this question is the US Vice Presidential debate, where Kamala Harris dodged Mike Pence's question : Are you and Joe Biden going to pack the court if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed? Are you going to pack the court? She dodged this question in a fairly obvious way. I understand that it's too risky to outright say either "yes" or "no". But she didn't even respond to the effect of "it's undecided" (or even even a Trump-esque "we are looking at all possible options"). I get the feeling that not admitting to uncertainty on one's political stance is part of a political strategy. Question : Why dodge a question about your party's position (e.g. Kamala Harris on "packing the court" during VP debate) instead of saying it's undecided? I ask this in the context of US politics; it may be different in other political contexts. | First off, Mike Pence was not the moderator. Rule number one in a political debate is not to let ones opponent take the offensive, and even more importantly, to not let ones opponent take on the role of the moderator. (Rule number two is to try to take the offensive, in a non offensive way, and to try to take on the role of the moderator.) Any answer to Pence's question would have been perceived by some as a reason to not vote, or even worse, to vote for the Trump-Pence ticket rather than the Biden-Harris ticket. So you don't answer that question. Period. All politicians of any merit have learned to try to ask opponents loaded questions during political debates. On the other hand, all politicians of any merit have learned to deflect loaded questions. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/57905",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/16767/"
]
} |
57,941 | I live in Iowa and have been inundated with a lot of political advertising everywhere (TV, mail, internet) as the 2020 US election approaches. It seems to me that most of the political advertising from all side mostly focus on characterizing opposing candidates as evil rather than pointing out positive attributes of the candidate the ad is promoting. Why do politicians and their campaigns do this? Is it more effective? If so, why is it more effective? | The United States system promotes a sharply divided two-party system. That's called Duverger's Law and like any such "laws" it is no ironclad automatism, merely a clearly observable trend. So anything which is bad for the others is automatically good for the own side. The disadvantage of being seen with smear tactics and of wasting the advertising budget without promoting yourself if compensated by the smut that sticks (see the answer by Beginner Biker). If there were three or four parties and two of them got into a smear battle, the votes might well go to one of the others. In my opinion, which is not directly part of the answer, the US had a great Constitution some 250 years ago, but it was so great that they got out of the habit of updating it when new developments came along, like the railway or the telegraph. They merely added patches on top of patches. There is a technique in fault analysis to ask "why" five times. Why are they slinging mud? Because it sticks. Why does it stick? Because there are just two candidates. Why are there just two candidates? Because of the majority vote. Why majority vote? Because individuals are running for separate offices, not political parties. Why pretend that there are no parties if they clearly do exist? | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/57941",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/27252/"
]
} |
59,023 | Many officeholders in the United States are required to take an oath of office. How would a mute person do this? | By whatever means that person communicates. ASL (sign language), sign a piece of paper with the words, write the words and sign them... The original law from the U.S. Constitution is for the president, Article II, Section 1 : Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:-"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." It does not say anything about speaking those words aloud. So in whichever way "he" is able to take the oath should suffice. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59023",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/30150/"
]
} |
59,049 | China, Cuba, Russia elected to UN Human Rights Council The UN General Assembly voted Tuesday to elect a new tranche of 15 Human Rights Council (HRC) members, including China, Cuba and Russia. The trio of countries won seats over objections from critics who challenge their rights records. Reads like an excerpt from The Onion, but unfortunately it is not. What reasons exist that would allow these kinds of countries to join the UNHRC? | If you want to have an organization that includes every country on Earth, you have to have standards that are acceptable to the lowest common denominator nations. Otherwise, they'd "take their ball and go home" and you'd have a multilateral organization that excludes lots of countries as isn't a global parliament including every country on Earth as the UN aspires to be. Absent global federalism (which the UN's founders aspired to, to some extent, but knew that they couldn't get agreement to), that's the reality. There are regional organizations like the Council of Europe, that have selective membership which permits them to impose more strict standards on their members through binding treaties. Their strategy is to get everyone on board while they support human rights and then to prevent them from sliding off the human rights wagon later on, and to potential impose sanctions collectively on non-member human rights violators. But, this isn't an option for the UN. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59049",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/8955/"
]
} |
59,089 | When Trump was impeached, the big issue was that he wanted to get dirt on his political opponent. He wanted dirt on Joe Biden's son and how he worked with an oil company and wanted to accuse Biden of nepotism. This was regarded by Democrats as unethical behavior. This is not about the fallout. But, what was the point of trying to get dirt on Hunter Biden if the Mueller report, for example, didn't change enough minds to mean anything? | Trump arguably won the 2016 election because of James Comey's last-minute, pre-election assertion that he might reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton. That had dramatic fallout in social media, and Clinton never effectively addressed it before the election; in my estimation it cost her enough votes to shift the tide. Hunter Biden and Burisma is "Hillary's emails" redux; the Trump campaign hopes it will have the same social media reaction and voter drain against Biden that happened against Hillary in 2016. My sense is it won't, for a number of reasons: The timing is off, and the issue is stale: Burisma has been in the public consciousness for so long that no one is likely to be shocked or surprised The Biden campaign is prepared for the gambit, having much more experience with Trump than Clinton did No one in Trump's orbit has the public credibility that Comey had — Trump has surrounded himself with partisans, and everyone is aware — and that decreases the impact But Trump has never had a problem throwing things at the wall to see what sticks; from his perspective it worked before, so it's worth trying again. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59089",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/29035/"
]
} |
59,127 | I saw on the news that people are protesting against Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett . I am not looking for any opinions, but would appreciate some background on these protests against her. | There are a number of reasons why people oppose Barrett, among them: Her stances on political issues: There is a fear that the bodily autonomy of women is under attack (see her stance on Roe v. Wade ), as well as the human rights of LGBT+ people (see her stance on the rights of trans people and marriage equality ), and that access to health care is in danger (see her stance on the ACA ). Trump and the GOP specifically choose justices for those reasons : The GOP platform said Trump’s Supreme Court appointments would “enable courts to begin to reverse the long line of activist decisions including Roe, Obergefell, and the Obamacare cases.” Some have the impression that this is essentially a "stolen" seat. Republicans have blocked appointments by Obama for the supreme court - as well as for lower courts - with the reason being that appointments shouldn't happen during an election year. South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, for example, said : "I want you to use my words against me," Graham said at the time. "If there's a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say, 'Lindsey Graham said let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.'" Trump has been very clear that he may not accept the election results and that he needs to seat a justice to successfully overturn the result of the election. Given Trump's authoritarian leanings, there is a fear of an anti-democratic coup. Barrett declined to commit to recuse herself from such a case. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59127",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/33033/"
]
} |
59,138 | It seems that both the Republican and Democratic parties look at the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice as a political move. Optimally, a judge has no part in politics. Their personal opinion should not come into play at all - instead it should simply be about what the law is in a particular case. Historically, when did the Supreme Court begin to be a political body? What makes a judge a Democrat or Republican? It can't just be their personal opinion - they have to be backed by the law. | How political parties view things is not necessarily commensurate with reality. After all, they have a political agenda to push. In this case the view of (federal) judges—Supreme Court Justices or otherwise—as dyed-in-the-wool partisans is not really borne out by the reality. The type of 5-4 split decisions that attract so much attention are in fact a small fraction of the decisions made by SCOTUS, most of which are unanimous or have only one or two dissents, and odd bedfellows of so-called "super liberal" Justices joining with "super conservatives". And it tends to be notoriously difficult to predict how a federal judge, a Justice in particular, is going to rule on things after their appointment. Justice David Souter was nominated by a Pro-Life Republican President (the first George Bush), was expected to be a solid conservative, and ended up being seen as one of the most liberal, Pro-Choice justices in recent history. And recently we had Justice Gorsuch, who had been touted by Trump as a sure thing for Conservatives, joining a ruling that sex discrimination statutes covered sexual orientation/identification, with the "but-for" test. Which is not to say that Gorsuch hasn't shown an apparent conservative-friendly lean on many cases, but it nevertheless was something of a surprise that the assumed 5-4 "conservative majority" at the time failed to coalesce on an issue that seemed so definitively a Conservative versus Liberal one. Some tout this as a positive feature of the lifetime appointments all federal judges (including SCOTUS Justices) receive, arguing that because they are freed of political and career pressures they can simply follow and apply the law and constitution in a pure, unobstructed way, unfettered by consequences. What Justices and (most) Judges do have is a judicial philosophy: a view of how the Constitution and laws are to be interpreted and applied. And certain judicial philosophies are more amenable to conservative or liberal politics. "Originalism" is, pretty much by definitions, quite agreeable to conservative politics, as it basically says "Let's keep doing things the way we used to and have already been doing them". And this sort of judicial philosophy became heavily popularized by the late Justice Scalia, and Trump appointees to SCOTUS have all had strong connections to this philosophy. Historically speaking, SCOTUS has pretty much always been viewed by Americans as the most apolitical, trustworthy, and ultimately-on-their-side-of-things Governmental institution or branch. Which is a little odd in some ways, because most attempts to measure how "liberal" or "conservative" a given SCOTUS is tends to come to the conclusion that most of them are heavily conservative, and the current Roberts court (pre Scalia's death) was actually a bit left of the historical norm, but still notably conservative. Modern perceptions are perhaps twisted by the lingering memories of the Warren court from the 50's and 60's, which is often considered the most liberal court in US history. But the entanglement of SCOTUS with politics was almost immediate. Early in the history the court seemed deeply wary of such entanglements, and mostly avoided doing anything significant that might rock the boat, for fear of endangering the young nation. President Washington tried almost immediately to get the Justices to offer him advisory legal opinions on potential laws and actions, and he was kindly turned down (on the basis of the "Cases or Controversies" clause, which the court considered to bar them from such opinions). Marbury v. Madison, in 1803, was the first time the court ruled on whether acts and actions of the other branches were "constitutional" or not, and in particular asserted that such determinations were a power belonging to it, and they could use it to nullify acts of Congress as well as compel certain members of the Executive to perform certain actions. Now this is quite significant, and the ruling ultimately a masterpiece in retaining that evasive "don't rock the boat" directive despite it being a ground breaking ruling. The evasion bit arises because, while it declared that a certain act of Congress was unconstitutional, and that the court had the power to compel certain members of the Executive branch to do things, it did not actually do either of those things. The law in question had already been repealed by Congress (though it was in force at the time of the issues at hand in the case), and the court used this Constitutional invalidity to declare itself lacking jurisdiction on the case, and so didn't order anyone to do anything on said technicality (but it did go out of its way to assert that it could, otherwise). And all of this was necessary because then-President Jefferson was very adversarial toward the court (as was Congress), and was of the opinion that the decision of what is and is not constitutional belonged to him, the President. A ruling which attempted to order him to do anything was, in all likelihood, going to be ignored, and we'd enter into a major constitutional crisis. By declaring they had these powers, but using a (somewhat contrived) technicality to avoid actually using them, SCOTUS robbed Jefferson and Congress of anything substantive to actually gripe about. For in fact Jefferson got what he wanted—to not be told by the court what he/his subordinates must do, especially when it concerned an act from the end of the preceding President's term—and Congress got what they wanted—to not have the courts invalidate one of their laws without their involvement. And SCOTUS got to walk away with powers that not everyone agreed they had before that point. For a more modern flash point, there is really no more important case to look at than Roe v. Wade, which occurred in 1973, under the Burger court that followed the Warren court. This decision took an issue—abortion—that had to that point been a strictly local, state-level one, and transformed it into a national one. Now the only way that those who disagreed with the ruling could do anything about it was to operate on the national stage, and they would have to go through one of two very difficult routes: amend the constitution or somehow reshape the court and get it to change its mind. National politics was dramatically changed as a result. And ever since, every single SCOTUS nominee has lived under the shadow of that ruling, and every hearing infected by it: Liberals want to know if a Justice will uphold it, and Conservatives want to know if a Justice will overturn it. Even Justices that got confirmed with massive majorities, like Ginsburg and Sotomayor, were grilled on their Roe v. Wade stance. They all generally avoided it. That the court, while often rolling it back inch-wise, never overturned it, despite acquisitions of Republican appointed Justices (such as Souter and O'Connor) and apparent "Conservative majorities", has become a major frustration to many conservatives. While there is more to Conservative vs. Liberal politics than just the issue of abortion, it's unquestionably a major force, and that Roe v. Wade resulted in a massive, national-scale transformation of politics, and overall outlook on SCOTUS. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59138",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/28333/"
]
} |
59,139 | I keep getting letters and postcards urging me to vote. It's not specifying why or for whom, just says "vote!" I keep asking myself - why are they (who?) interested in people going to vote? Why are they spending millions of dollars on these campaigns, what are they standing to gain? I'm going to vote, so that's not a question. Just trying to understand these groups who want people to vote. Even if some people don't vote, wouldn't the interests of the nation be properly (statistically) represented by the people who do get out and vote? | A democracy derives its legitimacy from voters. When elections are won by tiny margins, but huge numbers of people don't vote then there is a problem. US turnout is below 60% for presidential elections and has been since the 1960s. If even 1/10th of non voters showed up, they could be decisive in many states. While some organisations trying to drive election turnout are trying to win the elections for their side, organisations that declare themselves to be officially non-partisan such as ACLU also run these drives. Get out the Vote groups Low voter turn out is considered a problem in many countries. Particularly if that low turn out is driven by demographics. UK And it's also an attempt to oppose voter suppression tactics, such as those documented in Netflix's The Great Hack . | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59139",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/34546/"
]
} |
59,167 | Why has coronavirus become such a political topic?
What I mean by this - why are things such as mask wearing so political? Shouldn't we know whether or not wearing masks work? Why does the answer to that depend on if you are Republican or Democrat? | David Easton (a major figure in modern political science) defined governance as the 'authoritative allocation of values', meaning that a government decides what values the community it serves will hold as important, productive, and meaningful. Governance in this sense is the answer to the question: "How do we as a nation allocate our collective time and resources?" Should we send a rocket to the moon? Should we prioritize the fight against cancer? Should we guarantee food security or medical care for all? Should we focus on innovation and economic success? A government might even choose to invest heavily in the military or police, which is consistent with the more familiar aphorism (derived from sociology) that 'a government holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.' But again, 'force' in this context is not arbitrary ; force is applied by a government to ensure that certain values are upheld. We might disagree with the values being imposed, and thus disagree that such use of force is legitimate , but that merely reinforces the idea that the allocation of values is a central feature of government. With that in mind, a topic is political when it involves making decisions about how we will allocate the collective resources and efforts of the community. Tasks which require collective, community-wide involvement — be they as prosaic as building a highway between cities, or as esoteric as strengthening the foundations of the economy — necessarily invoke political question where different people might disagree about what course of action is best. Such political questions inevitably boil to discussions of what we value as a community. The use of prophylactic masks to control a pandemic was destined to be political issue. For masks to work as a preventative measure, everyone in the community has to agree to use them; there is a value to wearing masks that must be allocated authoritatively so that it applies universally and consistently. This exercise of authority may be as simple as public pleas from authority figures, or public education by medical professionals; or as extreme as lockdowns, quarantines, or legal penalties for non-compliance. Or authority could bend in the other direction, asserting that other values supersede the values of life and health (a value sometimes invoked to encourage military service, but which is rarely effective in other contexts). This first is the path that most nations of the world have followed, and citizens of other nations have generally complied, if grumblingly, because they have been convinced that not wearing masks will do harm to their friends, neighbors, and countries. The politics is still there; this is still an issue of the authoritative allocation of values. But there is such broad agreement with the value in question that the issue is not particularly contentious. Wearing masks is seen as a small price to pay for a potentially large reward to others in the nation, so most people buckle-down and do it. The US context is somewhat different. Over the past three or four decades the US has seen the rise of a strong nationalist 1 movement which resists most forms of authority except its own. This movement explicitly rejects most public intellectual/academic sources of reasoning — the sources that would normally be used to construct values in this situation — and aggressively counter and contradict any efforts to build public agreement on such values. There is a lot of history behind this — disputes over evolution, abortion, climate change and green technology; social critiques of slavery and race relations, the decimation of native Americans, or the wealth divide; rising cultural conflicts like feminism, globalization, LGBTQ issues... — which has given rise to a lot of frustrated anger within conservatives generally, and has motivated this nationalist movement in particular. Issues like 'mask wearing' — which are expressly political, but would normally be considered neutral and innocuous — become contentious here because they are interpreted as just one more way in which the government tries to impose unwanted values. It is a visceral, gut-level reaction against what they perceived as a persistent, oppressive pontification from 'intellectuals' on the left; The movement and its supporter reject wearing masks mainly because it's something they can control among a host of things they cannot (e.g., "I can't make gay marriages stop, but you can't make me wear this d*mned mask"). We could get into the roots of this nationalist movement — why it arose, who benefits from it, what the various issues are) — but that's not the meaningful point. The point is that there are a large number of conservatives in the US who are frustrated with progressives having political control over the allocation of national values — mainly in social policy — and this has culminated in an active movement which has turned to simple disruption to make its displeasure heard. It rejects scientific, academic, and intellectual authority not because it thinks such are wrong, but because it has come to hold that much of scientific and intellectual authority is merely a political tool used by the Left to push its agendas. And since this movement has risen to take control of many (if not most) of prominent leadership positions in the Conservative movement more broadly — not to mention into the White House and Cabinet — it has managed to become the dominant voice in conservatism. Masks have become a public symbol of political overreach in their minds: one that they wish to use for anti-Democrat messaging. 1 The term 'nationalist' follows George Orwell's " Notes on Nationalism ". He himself acknowledges that the word-choice isn't the best, but uses it because there isn't a better. The nutshell (tldr) is that nationalists are people who invest themselves in an idea so completely that the political success of that idea becomes their foremost concern. Often this idea is the idea of an actual nation (e.g., those overly preoccupied with asserting the greatness of their country), but it can just as easily be applied to a religion, political ideology, ethnic group, or any other abstract group that could be imagined to have its own sovereign status. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59167",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/28333/"
]
} |
59,189 | This BBC article quotes Trump suggesting he could quickly raise large amounts of campaign funds by offering things to CEOs. President Trump went on to describe a hypothetical conversation: "How are you doing? How's energy coming? When are you doing the exploration? Oh, you need a couple of permits?" "When I call the head of Exxon I say, 'You know, I'd love [for you] to send me $25m [£19m] for the campaign.' 'Absolutely sir,'" he added. A video of the part of the speech with Trump's statement is available on YouTube . Full transcript : Exxon part starts at 29:27. I am of course aware these conversations haven't happened, but the article does not cover the legality of such actions. Would offering permits or other business benefits in exchange for campaign funds be illegal? | Yes, this would be illegal. If you're a public official, you can't offer an official act (like permits) in exchange for anything of value (like campaign donations). See 18 U.S. Code § 201. Bribery of public officials and witnesses : Whoever [...] being a public official, former public official, or
person selected to be a public official, otherwise than as provided by
law for the proper discharge of official duty, directly or indirectly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally for or because of any official act performed or to be performed by such official or person [...] shall be
fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than two years, or
both. The Constitution is also clear that bribery is grounds for impeachment of the President. See U.S. Constitution Article Two, Section Four : The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United
States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and
Conviction of, Treason, Bribery , or other High crimes and
Misdemeanors. Bolding mine. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59189",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/18367/"
]
} |
59,204 | For a hypothetical world, how can I build a political system in which: People are represented by someone local to them. And: The number of representatives elected representing a movement in total remains proportional to the popular vote? Having the maps drawn by an independent 3rd party, or an algorithm, is not a solution as people tend to self-gerrymander . | Multiple, proportionally weighted, representatives per district. Gerrymandering is only an issue because a 50.001% majority for a precinct and an 80% majority are considered equivariant. We also consider 2 politicians as having equal vote on bills regardless of district size. In America; Montana has 994k people per congressman, Rhode island 1st district has 526k people . Those politicians have equal voices in congress despite one having twice the people as the other. We also have an issue where the "losing" party's members have no voice. Democrats in that Montana district (who make up at least 40% of the population) may not feel represented as there is only a single congressman, who is Republican. So - how do we fix this : Either merge adjacent districts into super districts, or put more seats in congress. You want at least 3 politicians per district, more if you expect to have lots of parties. I'm going to assume you have 3. If America follow the original US constitution you'd have one politician per 30,000 people, which is about 25 times as many as you have now. 10,000 members of congress might be a bit much. But 1 person per 750,000 is definitely too little. Use ranked-choice preferential voting within your districts, similar to what is used for Australian Senate elections. Your vote is preferential and you have multiple choices in how you vote, and you can vote for: A single party (with a single stroke of the pen), and take their default preference scheme. A ranked list of parties in your order of preference, taking the parties default ordering for their candidates within each party. Candidates by name in order of preference. Your votes follow as per normal preferential voting. If your first preference is the lowest scoring, your vote goes to your second preference. And so on and so on. Once there are the same number of politicians remaining as there are seats. They win. If there are 3 seats, there will be 3 who become the winners. Those 3 politicians get associated with how many votes they ended up with. The 3 politicians total scores combined will add to the population of the district - everyone's vote will end up somewhere. Over the next political term, each vote that politician casts is weighted by the number of votes they got. Your bills aren't decided 300 politician-votes to 130 politician-votes - they're decided 50 million voters-votes to 60 million voters-votes Now: Almost everyone has someone representing them in congress who was one of their first few preferences. The worst case for any one voter in a 3-politicians-per-district is you get your 3rd-to-bottom preference. I can't find the reference for this, but I saw a study of vote distributions after an Australian election and they calculated that in that election, only 8 voters per million would get this outcome. Everyone's representative is close to them - reasonably local. They ran in that district. Political party voting power is proportional to their vote count, not the number of politicians they have. Gerrymandering is useless - as a 50.01% win and an 80% win per district gives 50% and 80% voting power. There are no "swing states" anymore where politicians should focus their campaigns - A vote in rural outback has the same value as a city vote. Self-gerrymandering is also solved - democrats moving to cities and republicans move to country doesn't weight the power of each elector. Would also suggest: Get compulsory voting, Australian style or better. Not voting is a minor criminal offense. Criminals can vote from prison. No felon disenfranchisement. Matter of fact you should be able to get the death penalty removed as unconstitutional because killing someone deprives them of their vote. Downside: Politicians will focus more on the big cities - rural issues will be overlooked because they affect less people, and the representatives standing up for those people have less power because they represent less people. The Australian senate ballot paper is huge. One election it was over a meter wide but they still needed magnifying glasses for people with poor vision. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59204",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/34618/"
]
} |
59,234 | Four years after the 2016 election, it hasn't changed that the majority of non-college-degree white people support Trump's re-election, while the majority of college-degree white people don't. Why does having a college degree make a difference among white Americans? High school also teaches similar topics to colleges, such as science, social science etc. I think most people, with or without a college degree, choose a president in the same reasonably understandable way: what policies benefit their daily lives the most. How does a college degree separate white Americans in the sense of which policies benefit them and which don't? | The experience of getting a degree exposes you to a wider circle of people. I'm white, male, and went to a school near where I grew up. The school and church had an intertwined population, and my social circle from the neighbourhood, school and church, all overlapped. There were a lot of people just like me, all white, all middle-lower class. Your friends-friends were just like you, while everybody didn't quite know everybody, the culture was pretty homogenous. My concerns weren't "selfish", but everyone I cared for was so similar to me that my own needs matched what I knew the country wanted. My needs were reasonably met by the politicians of the time, the needs of everyone I cared about were also reasonably met by politicians, so a conservative political leaning was ready to go. Small incremental changes to the status quo seemed like the correct style of government. However that all changed when I went to get a degree. People in my class weren't carbon copies of me anymore. The people I made friends with had first languages other than English, they were LGBT, they had different religious beliefs, they had different skin colours. By expanding my social circle to include a wider group and interacting with different people, I started to understand what it was like to be someone other than the carbon copies of me I'd grown up with. The people I met with were also having their social circles expanded at the same time, which went well beyond just fellow students, it became possible to see other social classes than white middle class suburbs because I got to know the friends my new friends had grown up with. Now my experience was Australian not American, however there are many parallels here. First friend with an Aboriginal identity I got an understanding of police racism and had a face to put on that problem. First non-binary friend I got an understanding of trans rights and now had a reason to vote that way. First lesbian friend I now had a reason to vote for gay marriage. First heart to heart with a domestic violence victim raped by her partner who had to make a tough choice and suddenly my Pro-Life upbringing melts away. Seeing a friend struggling to live on $40 a week and I want to raise the welfare payment. That experience changed my social circles into a social web, and the echo chamber of lower-middle class white clones of me became a melting pot of different experiences and different struggles. I always cared about the people around me - just the people I empathise with are more varied now, and struggling with things I wouldn't of otherwise been aware of. The awareness of those struggles motivates my left-wing leaning. Had I never gone to college I'd probably be a lot more politically conservative. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59234",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/4701/"
]
} |
59,249 | From what I understand, electors gather in special meetings at the Statehouses of each relevant State. Is this correct? What is the actual physical process for the College being convened and voting? | The experience of getting a degree exposes you to a wider circle of people. I'm white, male, and went to a school near where I grew up. The school and church had an intertwined population, and my social circle from the neighbourhood, school and church, all overlapped. There were a lot of people just like me, all white, all middle-lower class. Your friends-friends were just like you, while everybody didn't quite know everybody, the culture was pretty homogenous. My concerns weren't "selfish", but everyone I cared for was so similar to me that my own needs matched what I knew the country wanted. My needs were reasonably met by the politicians of the time, the needs of everyone I cared about were also reasonably met by politicians, so a conservative political leaning was ready to go. Small incremental changes to the status quo seemed like the correct style of government. However that all changed when I went to get a degree. People in my class weren't carbon copies of me anymore. The people I made friends with had first languages other than English, they were LGBT, they had different religious beliefs, they had different skin colours. By expanding my social circle to include a wider group and interacting with different people, I started to understand what it was like to be someone other than the carbon copies of me I'd grown up with. The people I met with were also having their social circles expanded at the same time, which went well beyond just fellow students, it became possible to see other social classes than white middle class suburbs because I got to know the friends my new friends had grown up with. Now my experience was Australian not American, however there are many parallels here. First friend with an Aboriginal identity I got an understanding of police racism and had a face to put on that problem. First non-binary friend I got an understanding of trans rights and now had a reason to vote that way. First lesbian friend I now had a reason to vote for gay marriage. First heart to heart with a domestic violence victim raped by her partner who had to make a tough choice and suddenly my Pro-Life upbringing melts away. Seeing a friend struggling to live on $40 a week and I want to raise the welfare payment. That experience changed my social circles into a social web, and the echo chamber of lower-middle class white clones of me became a melting pot of different experiences and different struggles. I always cared about the people around me - just the people I empathise with are more varied now, and struggling with things I wouldn't of otherwise been aware of. The awareness of those struggles motivates my left-wing leaning. Had I never gone to college I'd probably be a lot more politically conservative. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59249",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/18725/"
]
} |
59,324 | Famous rapper Kanye West is running for US president , but... West has qualified for ballot access in 12 states. Kanye West 2020 presidential campaign It appears theoretically impossible for him to become president via voting ("win" the election), and he has a realistic chance of getting no more than 1% of the vote in every state. However... ...the electoral college system admits the possibility of faithless electors who have the authority to ignore voting altogether. I'm interested in whether or not they could (theoretically) elect Kanye West, especially considering he's not even on the ballot in many states. Question : Is it still theoretically possible for Kanye West to become the US president in 2021? | Realistically no. The mechanism exists, but given who would ultimately pick the president (described below), even the theoretical possibility is far-fetched for Kanye. Theoretically as in is there a mechanism by which this could happen? Yes. The same is true even if he is not on the ballot anywhere. The mechanism is three things happen: At least one elector votes for him. It would help if it was from a state that does not have a faithless elector law otherwise there could be a challenge. So we’ll keep it simple. (edit: or just win a state would work too. Credit comment by @DJClayworth) No one get 270 electors. So the vote is 269-268-1. He must be in the top three to qualify for step 3. So if it is 268-267-2-1 with someone else having the two, he is out. The House then votes for him. Specifically, the majority of the Representatives from 26 states vote for him since each state gets one vote. Cite: Constitution of the United States, Amendment XII The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59324",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/16767/"
]
} |
59,355 | Recently, there was a huge backlash after the last presidential debate that Trump referred to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Congresswoman of 14th NY district as AOC . For example, look here , or here , and here . I can't understand why it is considered disrespectful. I mean Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez uses the acronym AOC in her Twitter account: https://twitter.com/AOC . But, why when other people use her famous acronym AOC does it becomes disrespectful suddenly? I would appreciate a well-sourced answer here. | Because it is not always appropriate to use someone's nickname when referring to them and I don't think it is a stretch to say a presidential debate is not a place for nicknames. There is also the question why some people get addressed with proper titles and names while others only get nicknames. When referring to fellow members of government in a setting like a debate they should be referred to in a formal manner which would normally be their title and last name not a nickname. From your first link her complaint is she is refereed to by a nickname while others get their title and proper name. "I wonder if Republicans understand how much they advertise their disrespect of women in debates when they consistently call women members of Congress by nicknames or first names while using titles & last names when referring to men of = stature," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. From your second source AOC is a name given to me by community & the people. Y’all can call me AOC. Government colleagues referring to each other in a public or professional context (aka who don’t know me like that) should refer to their peers as “Congresswoman,” “Representative,”etc. Basic respect 101 From your third source it is obvious he went even further by referring to some other congresswomen by referring to them as just numbers as part of a group Trump referred to Ocasio-Cortez as “AOC plus three,” referencing her and Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, also known as “The Squad.” It seems that Trump used the nickname because he didn't want to give her and some of her allies the same level of respect that he gives other members of congress. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59355",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/22857/"
]
} |
59,363 | I have seen numerous people say that Clinton lost because the polls convinced many of her supporters to not bother voting since she was guaranteed to win anyways. The argument is that in many districts, it was actually much closer than the polls suggested and that their laziness swung the election in Trump's favor. Is there any concrete evidence for this? Maybe post-election polling of Clinton supporters to see how many actually didn't vote? | Hillary Clinton lost due to a confluence of multiple factors, and this question as written suffers from the fallacy of the single cause . Clinton's loss was indeed partially caused by people who preferred Clinton over Trump but didn't vote because they thought Clinton's win was certain. However, this was probably not the primary cause of Clinton's loss. Here is a December 2016 poll of 4183 Americans ( full report PDF ) of which 3799 were registered voters, of which 407 (~10%) said they didn't vote. Among those 407, 15% of them marked "I was pretty sure I knew who would win" as one of the reasons why they didn't vote (page 39/41 of the PDF). Unfortunately, the follow-up question "Who did you think would win the election?" had an insufficient sample size to report results. Nonetheless, I think it's safe to assume, given 2016 pre-election polling, that most people who thought they knew who would win, were thinking that it would be Clinton. Based on this poll, that would translate as "most" of 15% of ~10%, or somewhere around 1% of registered voters who did this. In an election where three tipping-point states (WI, MI, and PA) went to Trump by less than 1%, a factor which explains the behavior of 1% of voters is important. However, it took 46% of voters voting for Trump (against 48% for Clinton) in order for Clinton to lose. This implies that there were many other important causes of Clinton's loss, particularly factors that caused 46% of voters to vote for Trump, and 6% to vote for others. Some of these other causes are explained in other answers. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59363",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/29527/"
]
} |
59,387 | The Economist model never showed Trump as a clear favorite. In 2020, it said he has had less than 10% chance of winning the electoral college. In October 2020 it said that his chances were particularly bad; 4% chance of winning the electoral college, and <1% chance of winning the popular vote. I am interested in the fundamentals of this model and why it was sure at that point of what qas happening. Is it the early voting, polls, a combination, or something else? | In comparison to the 538 model, the economist model uses less "fat tails". 538 uses a t-distribution to account for "black swan" events: things that, although they are unlikely, would have a big impact on the polls. This means that 538 assigns a small probability to some very unlikely outcomes (Trump wins California, or Biden wins Utah) The Economist model doesn't. It uses a normal distribution which has thinner tails, and so treats these kind of results as essentially impossible. Moreover the 538 model uses data back to 1936 to try to estimate how much polls can change between now and the Election. The Economist uses only more recent data. The effect of these modelling assumptions is to make extreme events more likely. For Trump to win now would require either a very significant failure in polling or a large swing in several states. The economist model essentially says "A swing like that has never happened, so I'll assume it won't" This results in about 95% chance for Biden. The 538 model says "Very large swings have occurred, if you look back to (for example) Truman v. Dewey. And sometimes something might happen that will completely change the course of the election (War was declared or a major scandal) and comes up with about 88% for Biden. The change from a few weeks ago to now is that Trump is running out of time to make a big change. Both models were set to wait till after the debate, to see if it could make a change. It didn't (much). The assumption is that the gap will narrow as you get towards polling day. But this narrowing hasn't happened. This leads to greater confidence in a Biden win. The difference is 538's "fat tails". | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59387",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/33713/"
]
} |
59,394 | The confirmation of Judge Barrett is quite controversial to say the least and puts as many as 7 Republican Senators at risk of losing their re-election campaign. So why not do a bait-and-switch? Declare that no nominee will be put in place until the election, pretending to follow precedent Wait for the election to be over Immediately nominate Judge Barrett into the Supreme Court If Trump wins the Presidential election, no one will oppose this move. If he doesn't, you still get to nominate your judge into the court while giving swing state Republicans a better chance at the election. There will surely be a lot of anger over this decision, but voters have a short memory and other concerns will take over by November 2022. So why act out in the open and nominate Barrett right now? | I have decided to address each of your steps individually, as no one seems to have done yet. I say that just so you understand the structure of my answer here. Declare that no nominee will be put in place until the election, pretending to follow precedent The key thing to recognize here is that Republicans don't see themselves as breaking precedent here in the first place. As Republican Senator Ted Cruz has said , for example (I have tried to keep the proper emphasis as the original, but I may have missed a thing or two, so I recon you could assume it's mine): “If the president and the Senate are of the same party, the Senate confirms the nominee. And if the president and the Senate are of different parties for a vacancy during a presidential election year, the Senate does not confirm the nominee. What does history show us? Of the 29 times this has happened, 19 of them, the president and Senate were of the same party, 19 times. The Senate confirmed the nominee 17 of those times. H istory is clear: You have a president and the Senate of the same party, that nominee’s getting confirmed, assuming they’re qualified .” "Pretending to follow precedent" would be a concession on that they are breaking precedent right now, which Republicans hold that they are not. Doing so would be a political defeat. Wait for the election to be over If they wait, they risk losing the election. If they were to lose the Senate after this election, they risk the nomination looking illegitimate. Some Democratic Senators have already called the nomination illegitimate . Doing so after a lost election will give their opponents more credibility in this allegation. That would just be shooting themselves in the foot. If the nomination is already going to get attacks from their political opponents anyway, why give them more room for attack? I am speculating here, but I'd imagine most Republicans figured they had nothing to lose anyway. So why risk it? Immediately nominate Judge Barrett into the Supreme Court As you have mentioned, if Republicans keep the Senate and the Executive (President), then obviously no harm done. On the other hand, if they lost either of those things in the election, they would have a much harder time going forward with the nomination and still appearing legitimate. Besides being a political defeat, this action would likely also anger their base, since Republicans had the Executive, who put forth a nomination, and had the votes in the Senate to confirm her, but chose to wait and lost because of that. Especially angering for the Republican base is that they wouldn't have had to wait (obviously). So, that's two things you don't want to do: lose a political battle and anger your base. I'm assuming that Republicans here weighed their options and figured this outcome wasn't worth the risk. So they decided to push forward with the nomination. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59394",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/7434/"
]
} |
59,399 | I know that Turkey has the second-largest army in NATO after the USA. Turkey also controls the Bosphorus strait. But, is Turkey an indispensable partner in NATO? Can NATO function properly without Turkey? How about Turkey joining the Russian pole? Does that concern NATO? | I like the answer by Kayndarr, but I think it can be put more succinct: NATO would have a reduced capability to project significant power in the Middle East and Caucasus trouble spots. With "significant power" I mean corps and mechanized divisions, not drones and IBCTs and fighter squadrons. NATO would have a reduced requirement to protect NATO territory near the Middle East and Caucasus trouble spots. Without Turkey, NATO would have a much harder time to handle e.g. an Iran regime change. There are some "hawks" in NATO capitals who want such a regime change, but few have the stomach to send ground troops to make it happen. The core mission of NATO, the protection of the remaining member territory, would not be significantly affected. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59399",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/32479/"
]
} |
59,444 | If we ask Alexa about a subject such as religion, e.g. "Do you believe in God?" we get a neutral reply "People all have their own views on religion." If we ask about party politics, "Alexa, should I vote Democrat or Republican", we get "You should vote for the party that best reflects your views." As an experiment I asked, "Alexa, do you support Black Lives Matter?" Here was the answer: Black lives matter. I believe in racial equality, I stand in
solidarity with the black community in the fight against systemic
racism and injustice. To learn how you can can take action I recommend
visiting blacklivesmatter.com ... While none of the opinions stated are particularly controversial for most people, I wonder how we should react to a non-sentient robot claiming to hold a particular set of beliefs and principles. Question Is there any existing or proposed legal restriction on voice assistants expressing views rather than merely reporting facts? Are there any studies to show how much influence voice-assistants have and whether users tend to believe them unthinkingly. Motivation This post does not pertain to my own political views. It does however concern me that there may be no clear line between opinion (however conventional, correct, or well-accepted) and fact when asking questions of a voice-assistant. Clearly black lives do matter but there is a difference for me between stating this and subscribing to a particular website that may or may not contain other political overtones. Note: Although I asked Alexa about the US Elections, I am British. | I wonder how we should react to a non-sentient robot claiming to hold a particular set of beliefs and principles. You should bear in mind that it is actually expressing the views of the controllers of the company that manufacturers it (or at least, the views they wish to publicly espouse), and act accordingly - i.e. with a heavy dose of healthy scepticism. This is, after all, nothing but marketing for the company. Is there any existing or proposed legal restriction on voice assistants expressing views rather than merely reporting facts? Not to my knowledge; the only regulations I'm aware of covering voice assistants (at least within the US and Europe) are focused on the consumer's privacy, rather than the content of the messages the assistants may be relaying. Such regulations wouldn't make much sense. The medium of transmission of those messages, I.E. audio, isn't really relevant. Putting the question to Alexa is not really any different to going to Amazon's website or social media and asking "Do you support black lives matter?", and you'll receive the same answer | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59444",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/23702/"
]
} |
59,482 | It's widely known that in most western countries, it's allowed to mock religion - because of freedom of speech. Does freedom of speech allow one to mock everything, or are there taboo subjects that cannot be mocked? | It is a bit more complicated. I live in Germany, and StGb §166 (StGb being "Strafgesetzbuch", the penal code) makes insults against religious groups illegal. There is also a paragraph in the constitution that says I enjoy free speech. Since this is at the face of it not compatible with each other, we have courts and judges that, when necessary, have to decide if the constitutional right (free spech) outweighs the provisions of the StGb. E.g.reproducing the Hebdo cartoons (or Grosz' " Christ with Gas Mask ") in a newspaper would certainly be legal, since that (I presume) would be considered social commentary rather than an outright attack against Islam ( or Christian religion for the Grosz example). Distributing a leaflet that states, "all muslims are terrorist" would come under a lot more legal scrutiny. So the crux of the matter is that there is no absolute law; I do not have an absolute right to free speech, but likewise no religion has an absolute right to be protected from other peoples opinions. What we have instead is a legal process that mediates between the affected groups. What makes this difficult especially in the context of religion is that religions usually do claim to have absolute laws, and are not necessarily content with following the legal process. So there is a host of things that is "tabooed" in the sense that they might lead to legal consequences (holocaust denial; insults against persons; discrimination based on gender/religion/race etc). But if any specific instance was egregious enough to warrant some sort of punishment has to be determined by the court, based not only on the word of the law but also on current social norms, the context in which the alleged insult happened and other factors. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59482",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/20263/"
]
} |
59,529 | The nations of the UK are independent nations that share resources with each other, and sometimes a feeling of oneness and fraternity is seen among the good people of that land. Emotions are subjective. Would the rest of the UK have anything "real" to lose if Scotland exits the UK? | The Scottish government's 2013 white paper on independence - Scotland's Future - sets out a number of tangible assets that, the paper argues, Scotland would be entitled to a proportion of based on population share. For example, an independent Scotland would seek to take ownership of a share of the United Kingdom's overseas properties, e.g. embassies & consulates: Scotland will be entitled to a fair share of the UK's extensive
overseas properties (or a share of their value) allowing us to use
existing premises for some overseas posts. For example, the Foreign
Office owns or leases almost 5,000 properties overseas [source] . The
estimated value of this estate is around £1.9 billion. Based on a
population share (our actual share will be a matter for negotiation)
Scotland would be entitled to around £150 million allowing us to
establish ourselves quickly and for little initial cost in our
priority countries. Chapter 6 - International Relations and Defence The paper also argues that Scotland would be entitled to £7.8 billion of the UK's existing defence assets - based on a population-share proportion of the 2007 valuation of ~£93 billion performed by the Ministry of Defence. It even splits out what particular assets Scotland would seek from the UK, including, amongst others, "one aviation unit operating six helicopters", "a Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) squadron incorporating a minimum of 12 Typhoon jets", "two frigates from the Royal Navy's current fleet" and so on. Other assets mentioned in the report that an independent Scotland would seek to inherit include BBC Scotland, "assets that are not related directly to particular services, such
as the UK’s public shareholdings in banks", "bespoke IT software", and so on. Page 21 of the report does mention that Scotland may choose to offset its share of national debt against these assets. There are also implications for the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent - Trident. The white paper makes clear that an independent Scotland would no longer accept Trident being based at the ports of Faslane & Coulport: The Scottish Government is committed to securing the complete
withdrawal of Trident from an independent Scotland as quickly as can
be both safely and responsibly achieved. As the rest of the UK has no bases outside of Scotland suitable for Trident, this would present a significant problem for the Westminster government. Indeed, it has been proposed more recently that Scotland should fund its defence by leasing the bases out while a replacement is constructed - something which would almost certainly prove to be extremely expensive for the UK taxpayer. In a worst case scenario, the loss of the UK's nuclear deterrent would lead to a further reduction in its international standing. For example, the UK would become the only permanent member of the UN Security Council without nuclear capabilities. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59529",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/34768/"
]
} |
59,535 | According to the FiveThirtyEight polling averages, the most competitive states Trump needs to push him over 270 electoral votes are: Florida - where Biden leads by +2 Arizona - Biden +3 Pennsylvania - Biden + 5 Pennsylvania alone has 20 electoral votes and winning without it seems unlikely. Given his weak polling numbers, one would expect Trump to spend all of his time campaigning in these crucial states to try and improve his numbers right before the election. Instead, with less than 100 hours to go, Trump is actually pulling his resources out of Florida and Both campaigns are flying directly to Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan this Friday. This move makes no sense to me, seeing that the polling averages have Biden up by +8 , +8.6 and +8.6 respectively. If the polls are actually correct, that seems like a insurmountable lead. In fact, the state of Minnesota has not even gone for the Republican since 1972 and would not be necessary for Trump to get to 270 electoral votes. The states of Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania are very necessary. So why are both campaigns spending crucial resources in these supposedly non-competitive states in the days right before election? | Campaigns have their own internal polling and it can show different results than public polling. In 2016 the Trump campaign polling was far more accurate than many publicly available polls. Pulling out of Florida would indicate that either Trump believes it's a lock for him, or his efforts aren't working so focusing on a different state will be more impactful. Clearly Trump and Biden believe that Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are in play. In 2016 the mid-west states going more for Trump was what cost Clinton the election, saying that they aren't worth it in this election seems naïve. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59535",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/27044/"
]
} |
59,581 | I was wondering about the abortion issue in the US which is a hot topic. Poland just banned abortion and people are protesting against it in the capital. I was wondering about whether or not this opposition to abortion applies to the European right as well. I have noticed many parallels such as immigration and anti-mask views. Does the European right at large oppose abortion? | Not in general. For example the Conservative party in the UK made no mention of it in their last election Manifesto, implying that they support the status quo (abortion permitted with the approval of two doctors until fetal viability = 24 weeks, or up to birth in extreme cases) And Conservative members voted to extend abortion rights to Northern Ireland. The Conservative party's membership is less pro-choice than Labour or the Lib-Dems, but would not be considered a "Pro-life" party. Similar things could be said about Angela Merkel's CDU (which has engaged on a reform of abortion law, that would generally leave the procedure legal). There are Pro-life parties, such as NI DUP. Also, conservative parties in generally Catholic countries tend to be pro-life, this is the case in Catholic Poland. Many countries in Europe have no constitutional protection of abortion rights, and right-wing parties have been in power in many countries. They have been in a position in which they could ban abortion, and haven't. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59581",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/33713/"
]
} |
59,686 | For the US presidential elections, the Associated Press announced winners for several states although a significant portion of the votes were uncounted. One example is Illinois where at the moment of writing (12:32 Central European Time) 80% of the votes are counted Mr. Biden received 55,1% or 2.881.554 votes Mr. Trump received 43% or 2.246.472 votes that sums up to 5.346.276 votes. If 80% of the votes are counted that would make that the total amount of votes is 5.346.276/0.8=6.682.845. That means that 6.682.845 - 5.346.276 = 1.336.569 votes are uncounted.
Which means that theoretically Mr. Trump could still get 2.246.472 + 1.336.569 = 3.583.041 votes. And thus could still win the state, although Mr. Biden was already announced the winner. Although this is statistically unlikely it would not be impossible.
And this kind of bothers me, because I took an extreme example but one could imagine less extreme cases where the results could really change. It would seem reasonable that only if the total number of remaining/uncounted votes is less than the difference one could announce a winner, but apparently they use much more flexible criteria. What are the limits of probability applied when prematurely announcing winners before all votes are counted? Note that this question is not about the particular example, but about the general principle of officially announcing a winner while theoretically the other candidate could still win. EDIT based on the given answers the following part is not correct. Also one could consider possibilities of "legal" "fraud" where some of the votes, would just be counted later. Say During manual counting 10% of votes for Candidate A are put aside for later counting, or votes from particular regions with particular preferences are counted later. In such scenarios without really changing any vote from A to B election results could still be influenced just by postponing a selection of the votes. EDIT My previous understanding was that the states were called before all votes were counted and that they would not continue to count the remaining votes. But based on the answers this information was only a projection so all votes will still be counted, and there is no fraud except for the influence that preliminary results might have on the voting behavior in states where voting was still open, due to the time difference. | First things first: The projections made by the Associated Press, or by any other news organization, are not official. Those unofficial projections do not determine the makeup of the Electoral College. In Illinois, it is the State Board of Elections that proclaims the official results of elections for presidential electors. Other states do it differently, but it is always a state official / set of state officials who make the official proclamation, and it is usually days after the election. (It can take up to 21 days in Illinois.) What those unofficial projections made by news organizations can do, when they are wrong, is to reduce the standing of the organization that made the erroneous projection. The AP does not want a repeat of the 2000 election when they projected that Albert Gore would win Florida, but soon thereafter retracted that projection. That said, projecting Illinois a bit early was easy. The AP, along with other organizations, look not only at the outstanding vote, but also at where in the state those outstanding votes are. Illinois is a reliably blue (Democratic voting) state, and the outstanding votes were in the bluest parts of Illinois. Mr. Trump was never going to make up that 600000 vote deficit in Illinois. Similarly, Mr. Trump was projected to be the winner in Indiana and Kentucky well before the votes in those states were anywhere close to final. Mr. Biden could in theory have come from behind in Indiana and Kentucky. In practice, that would not have happened. In fact, the Associated Press called the election in several states including Illinois and Indiana, as soon as polls closed in those states. In other words, the AP called the election in some states with zero precincts reporting. Suppose their projection (a guess) in one of those states went the other way. The projections have no official bearing. The projections gone wrong with zero precincts reporting would have only served to make the AP look bad. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59686",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/34891/"
]
} |
59,712 | When looking at the popular vote for 2016, about 49% to 51%, and the current numbers for 2020, it's astonishing how close it is — how evenly the country is divided. Surely this is unexpected and anomalous? Have US elections typically been so close on such a scale, or is this as mathematically surprising as it seems? Does political science predict something like this in long-term two-party systems? | Imagine playing a "vote-getting" game. It's a two-player game, and you get votes by stating your positions on various policy matters. You and your opponent play a round, and let's say you lose with only 20% of the vote. Your goal is to win. You're not wedded to any particular policies; everything is negotiable. Because if you don't win then none of your policies can be implemented. So you start tweaking. Make adjustments with the goal of moving that 20% up to 50%. It's tricky, because these adjustments aren't monotone functions, and the levers you pull don't all move independently. But move them you can, and the results can be observed. Now imagine you and your opponent do this repeatedly. Each of you is trying to get to 50%, each of you feels free to adjust your policies to move the vote. Eventually you will both hover around 50%. In real life, political parties do have policy positions which are sacrosanct, but many can be adjusted. The media disseminates their messaging and debates it in the public forum, and polling organisations continuously check how voters feel. In the United States this information feedback loop is very well developed. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59712",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/13632/"
]
} |
59,718 | At the UK General Election in 2015, the constituency of Houghton & Sunderland South, declared its result in under 49 minutes, from close of polling. Polling stations at UK parliamentary elections always operate from 7.00am to 10.00pm. This proud winner, Bridget Phillipson M.P., displays the time at which her result was declared 48mins and 41seconds, from close of polling. It is the all-time record*. The 650 parliamentary constituencies have an average electorate of 60 to 70,000 people. The overall result, for the whole country, and which party is to form the next government, even in close contests is almost
always known by dawn. (In 2019 535 of the 650 constituencies had declared by 6.00am. However the unitary nature of the British electorate means that often with a dozen results in, the final overall state of the parties can easily be predicted - the swing being relatively consistent.) The idea of counters going home at 9.00pm, to recommence the next day, as apparently happened in some US states, would be unthinkable. And it is done entirely transparently under the view of representatives from all political parties, TV cameras etc. When all votes are counted the person in charge of the count - the Returning Officer - stands on a stage, flanked by all the candidates and declares the numbers of votes cast for each. There is no need, for a TV network to "call" a result. Everyone awaits the RO's declaration of the count. The following link gets you to videos of count declarations. Where the seat being declared is that of a senior member of the government or the opposition it regularly attracts a number of joke candidates, and candidates who want to obtain publicity for their cause. The UK has a number of parties with names like "The Monster Raving Looney Party", and characters like "Lord Buckethead". They add a bit of colour and fun to election night, and ensure we do not take ourselves too seriously. The link shows first a declaration involving former Prime Minister, Theresa May, and then one for current PM, Boris Johnson. Vote declarations Voting is manual with a pencil cross on a piece of paper. All counting is by hand. It is rare for there ever to be any suspicion of irregularity. This seems like quite a contrast to the much slower and more laborious process in parts of the US, particularly Pennsylvania. Where exactly does the problem lie in the US? I fully recognise that this is not a representative example. Because of its rivalry with neighbouring Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sunderland employed students who literally ran the ballot boxes from the taxis to the counters. However even in very close elections such as 1964, the two elections of 1974 and 2010 - the parliamentary numbers were almost precisely known by about 4.00am - six hours after closing time. In 2010 it then took several days to form a government because David Cameron was forced to take the Liberal Democrats into coalition. And prior to that there were abortive negotiations between the Lib Dems and Labour. | Mail-in voting and provisional ballots: In many states, mail-in votes are allowed to arrive well after election day, provided they are postmarked on or before election day. Voters who cast a provisional ballot on or before election day are also given an opportunity to "cure" it. In practice, this usually consists of going to the county registrar and showing their ID within the next few days after the election, but specific requirements vary by state. It is physically impossible to count ballots which have not arrived, and it is similarly impossible to get an accurate count of provisional ballots until you know which ones are valid. Because of the pandemic, 2020 has seen unprecedented mail-in voting compared to previous election cycles. However, nearly every election cycle sees a significant number of late ballots from members of the armed forces and Americans living abroad. Provisional ballots are a relatively recent development, but they are not unusual either. In most election cycles, these ballots are not sufficient to change the outcome, which is why (for example) 2016 was called so early compared to 2020. But 2016's results were not official on election day. For example, California formally ascertained its electoral college appointments (pursuant to 3 USC 6 ) on December 12, 2016, which is well over a month after election day (November 8). Of course, everyone already knew that Hillary Clinton had won the state, but it wasn't official until that document was filed. Sheer scale: 70,000 people is rather small by American standards. You might see a similar number of votes cast in a smaller suburban or exurban county. For the big counties that materially affect the outcome of the race, they typically have hundreds of thousands to millions of votes to count. Even with a large number of people, optical scanners, etc. working continuously around the clock, this process will take time. And then, of course, at some point you're going to want official results. To do that, the counties have to report upwards to the state, because electoral votes are allocated at the state level. The state has to wait for every single county to count and report every single vote. If the race is close, the state may then have to conduct a recanvass or recount, which takes even longer. State law variations: Florida, for example, counted its vote quite fast this year, reporting most of its unofficial results within hours of the polls closing. Pennsylvania, on the other hand, took much longer. This is in part because Florida law allows counties to begin processing mail-in ballots before election day, and Pennsylvania law does not. Complexity of ballots: In most countries, you vote for one or two things at a time. In the US, we routinely have all of the following on the ballot at once: US President, in 1/2 of (federal, two-year) election cycles. US Senate, in 2/3 of election cycles. Occasionally, two seats will be up at once (for a special election which coincides with the regular election), which is the case in Georgia this year. US House, in every election cycle. State Governor, in some election cycles (varies by state). State legislature, in some election cycles (varies by state). Bicameral in all states except Nebraska. Other state officials such as state Attorney General (varies by state and election cycle). One or more ballot initiatives, in states that allow them. Some states also have county and municipal ballot initiatives. Municipal officers such as mayors, sheriffs, city councilors, etc. Some states do state and municipal elections in "off-year" (odd-numbered) elections, which fall between federal election cycles. But most states don't . Differing priorities and budget: The target date for certification of final results in 2020 is December 8. This is the last day on which a state's electoral college votes will be presumed lawful (by Congress, which will count said votes in January), and so that is the date that most states shoot for. Trying to count millions of ballots faster than that would probably be doable, but it would cost more, and it's not clear how a faster count would materially benefit the residents of a given state. California routinely takes a month to count its ballots, but the residents don't seem particularly upset about that. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59718",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/6837/"
]
} |
59,724 | This CNN article , and others, reported that Trump asked for vote counting to stop, and threatening legal action to do so. I can (sort of) understand calls for a recount, but, if he was behind, what did he hope to gain by stopping counting? | The Trump campaign has launched a number of different lawsuits, some requesting that counting be stopped in certain states, others insisting that counting continue in other states. The CNN article you linked states: Trump's comments were especially remarkable since it appears that the President has a good chance of winning outstanding states in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan, which could hand him a second term. And the implication of his authoritarian remarks was that the President wants vote counting to stop in those states but to go on in Arizona, where he trails Biden. That suggests to me, at least, that the situation has moved on between Trump's comments and your reading the article and current vote counts. At the point of calling for the count to be stopped, Trump was winning those states. In addition, even if Trump is behind in those states, some of the suits they've filed include wanting to remove (or at least review with an option to remove) ballots that have been counted from the totals. Per this article by the Detroit Free Press : "We have filed suit today in the Michigan Court of Claims to halt counting until meaningful access has been granted. We also demand to review those ballots which were opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access. President Trump is committed to ensuring that all legal votes are counted in Michigan and everywhere else.” So your basic assumption is correct. He hopes to gain the electoral college votes of each state where he either wants counting to stop, or continue. And he hopes to gain those he's behind in by having the ballots already counted reviewed. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59724",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/9969/"
]
} |
59,727 | Per title. This criticism is the one levelled by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - that the incumbent president ought to be able to stop electoral fraud if it's there. Off the top of my head, every time I've seen electoral fraud alleged it has been the opposition alleging fraud. Trump has alleged there will be widespread fraud since before the 2020 election. Has Trump ever explained why he was unable stop it? | I think the obvious answer to this question is that Trump doesn't want the issue of voter fraud to have a solution ; he wants the issue to be a problem . If there were any evidence that widespread, significant voter fraud existed, then it would make sense to ask why Trump took no steps to stop it. One would expect a president to address a national crisis of that sort. But there is no evidence of large-scale voter fraud in the US — no legal evidence, no statistical evidence, nothing tangible at all — so asking this question is at best pointless. It’s on the same level as a UFOlogist asking why Trump (as incumbent) hasn’t taken steps to ward off an invasion by space aliens. And if we can’t answer the question without stepping into the fantasy world the question invokes, what we are left with is the suggestion that Trump has a different agenda in mind: he is not raising a real problem that needs to be solved; he's raising a fake problem for some other purpose entirely. I suppose we'll always have the question of whether Trump actually believes the world he's invoking — there are plenty of UFOlogists, flat-earthers, climate change deniers, QAnon supporters, etc, all of whom have swallowed a fantasy hook, line, and sinker — but that's mostly irrelevant. I prefer to think Trump is making a manipulative lie, not suffering a persistent delusion, out of respect to the man and the office. But I cannot abandon reality in order to give him the benefit of the doubt. The issue of voter fraud has been raised almost exclusively by Trump and his allies in the farther reaches of the Right. It is intrinsically linked to the 'Deep State' conspiracy theory , and within that conspiratorial model it cannot possibly be resolved by conventional political or legal means. Since the problem cannot be solved within that worldview, the only credible reason it would be raised would be to delegitimize the election process as intrinsically flawed, providing: an argument that Trump should remain in office whether or not he wins the popular vote or Electoral College, and/or... an opportunity save face by claiming he didn’t lose fair and square , but was cheated. see this Washington Post article (paywall) It's best to see this maneuver as sleight-of-hand, invoking a shadowy opponent which has corrupted the electoral system through mysterious, unspecified means — all without evidence — so that Trump can say he has to fight back to protect his rights. It provides a thin veneer of justification under which Trump and his supporters can dispute or contest even the clearest election loss. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59727",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/22967/"
]
} |
59,810 | I am French and therefore have understandably a hard time understanding the cultural aspects of indirect voting in the United States. I read the history of this approach and some of the main technical consequences (Wikipedia's United States presidential election article is quite informative there). While every country has its own way of electing representatives, there is usually a reason behind that (a cartel of main parties that want to keep the status quo for instance). What is the core reason for that indirect voting system in the US? is this because of Article 2 of the Constitution that cannot be changed? or because Democrats and Republicans agree that this is in their best interest to keep it like this? or because there is a strong attachment to the state-run elections of the population, ingrained in the culture, where each state sends their representatives in a "winner gets all" fashion? or something else? Our counting system in France is flawed as well (*) , but there is no particular will to change that - probably because people do not know much about other counting methods (such a as preferential voting - when I was in middle-school in the 80's we had an explanation of the voting systems, now it is not the curriculum anymore). On the other hand, the US system is so unusual (and you have direct voting for other representatives) that it stands out quite a bit. (*) the Frech one is flawed as almost any others - by making it difficult for some entities to have a presence in the Parliament despite popular support, the prime example being the Rassemblement National (a right wing party). Please note: I am not trying to start a war here, merely mentioning that their representative (Marine Le Pen) was one of the two final pretenders to the presidency (33% of the votes), but her party has only a handful of deputies (1%) | The people weren't trusted It'll take a bit to get to the titular statement, as we need to discuss the history leading up to the Constitution to understand and justify it. Between the war for independence and the ratification of the US Constitution was a span of several years. The states were organized into a nation under the Articles of Confederation for this span. It was a near-catastrophic failure. Perhaps the most important reason for this failure is that the Articles were designed to create an extremely weak federal government: there was no ability to enforce federal laws, no federal judiciary or courts, no ability to collect or levy taxes, no regulation of trade, and amendments needed unanimous consent from all of the states. This quickly led to problems as there arose national-scale problems that the federal government had literally no power to deal with, and states routinely subverted or outright disregarded federal laws and each other with impunity. The unanimous consent on amendments was a death knell, preventing the implementation of desperately needed changes. Things got so bad that a rebellion in Massachusetts arose , and there was nothing the government could do but sit back and cross its fingers. So the federal legislature authorized a convention to discuss and propose various amendments to the Articles of Confederation that could resolve the issues at hand. The members, however, came to the conclusion that the Articles were essentially impossible to save, and so they decided to just write an all new constitution. This ultimately gave us the Constitution we have today. The lessons learned from the Articles, and their great failure, guided the construction of the new one. They created a bicameral legislature that would create a form of degressive representation : the House would be proportional to population, and the new Senate would be a body representing each State equally, much as the Congress under the Articles had been, and each chamber was required to consent on legislation. Thus the complaints of insufficient representation of the people was addressed via the addition of the House, and the Senate retained the equality of the states, offering the smaller states a bulwark against the masses (who would primarily be in cities and heavily populated states, and so would have diverging interests from more rural or smaller states and peoples). However, this did not quite satisfy the Southern states, which were largely rural agrarian with low (white male) populations but lots of slaves. The states that depended on slavery could foresee the inevitable and quick death of the system under a system that was apportioned with respect to the free (white male) population, as it was clear they could not possibly force a direct protection of slavery into the constitution. This leads to the compromise covered in pjc50's answer: the basis for representation in the House would include three-fifths of the slave population. This elevated the amount of representation of the slave states enough that they could expect to readily subvert or block any attempts to weaken or directly abolish slavery. But this was still not enough. Remember, the federal government was extremely weak under the Articles of Confederation, and that was the primary problem they were working to fix. So the federal government was now going to be stronger, possibly even strong (how strong the federal government should be has always been a bone of political contention in the US, from day one to today). And there was going to be a President to run the whole thing and execute the laws. And the framers saw lots of problems in a direct popular vote for the President. The first problem—and the only one we need to go into to answer your question—is that the US at the time was mostly rural agrarian and sparsely populated. And there were no telegraphs, or telephones, or trains, or anything faster than horses. News as such traveled slowly, and the populace of each state was largely isolated from each other. And most of the people who could vote were only expected to be knowledgeable of local matters, and deeply preoccupied with time-consuming labors. So how could we trust all of these poorly-informed voters, with no time to spare to really delve into the political issues at stake, to pick someone to lead a whole nation? Their answer is that we couldn't. The people would really only know those people relevant to their own area and state, and the wants and needs of that area and state, and that would be disastrously divisive on a national scale. So they concocted the idea of the electors. Rather than have the people vote for a President directly, they would instead vote for electors, and the electors would vote for the President. These electors were envisioned as well-educated men, well-versed in national affairs, the greater national picture, and the Presidential candidates in particular. This would allow them to make the well-reasoned and informed decision on who should be President that the framers believed was necessary, while still being sourced by the wills and desires of the people themselves. This, then, is the answer to the question you ask: at the time the US Constitution was written, the people were not trusted to be able to make a collective, national-scale decision due to having insufficient exposure and time to put in the proper level of consideration of national issues. So instead we pick electors who do have the knowledge and time necessary, and who we have some trust in, to do the job for us (the people). As you can already guess, historical momentum has led the system to simply never correct for all of the Framers' assumptions being violated: the states and peoples are now deeply integrated, news travels in minutes to all corners of the nation (and world), the people as a whole are ridiculously well-informed and well-educated (compared to the standards at the time the Constitution was written), you can physically cross the entire country (which is now much larger than it was then) in a matter of hours, and party loyalty is the only qualifier for electors. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59810",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/11473/"
]
} |
59,859 | Has a recount ever changed the winner of a state during a presidential election? mentions that no recount was ever successful in transferring electoral votes to a different candidate. To expand the scope of that question a bit, was there ever a recount that successfully changed the winner of any major election in US history? The definition of major would be any election with at least 100k eligible voters. | There have been two that I've been able to find. In both cases, the initial margin of victory was under 300 votes, and the swing was less than 600 votes, out of a total of approximately 2.5 million votes each. First is the US Senate race in Minnesota in 2008 . On the initial count, Norm Coleman (R) led Al Franken (D) by 215 votes. In the recount, Franken led Coleman by 225 votes, and the certified result later had Franken defeat Coleman by 312 votes. Second is the Washington Gubernatorial race in 2004 . On the initial automated count, Dino Rossi (R) led Christine Gregoire (D) by 261 votes, and the automated recount reduced this lead to 42 votes. A subsequent manual recount resulted in Gregoire winning by 133 votes. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59859",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/7434/"
]
} |
59,918 | At around 07.11.2020, 16:30 UTC (one and half hours ago), it seems like many news outlets in the US decided to call the 2020 presidential election for Biden, which prompted celebration, congratulations, and so on.
This seems to root on the Associated Press and Edison Research deciding that a win for Biden now surpassed some magical threshold of certainty, in particular due to the projection that Biden won Pennsylvania (which would give him sufficient votes in the electoral college).
So far, I get this. But what new data caused this change? Again, going by many major news outlets, the situation in Pennsylvania looks pretty much the same as 24 hours earlier, with about 5% of the votes left to be counted and Biden having a lead of 0.5 percentage points or about 30.000 votes on Trump. None of the reports I have seen so far mention data about another bunch of votes coming in or similar. So this seems to come pretty much out of the blue (at least on a short time scale). | On the FiveThirtyEight live blog , Nate Silver had a discussion at Nov 7, 9:39am EST ("So, When Will We Get A Projected Winner?") about when networks will project a winner. He quote that the Associated Press will not call a race if the margin is within the mandatory recount range for that state, and that for Pennsylvania, the recount threshold is 0.5% . Indeed, many networks called the Pennsylvania race (and thus the election) at around when Biden's lead in Pennsylvania hit 0.5%. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59918",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/1641/"
]
} |
59,932 | Since swing states are often the deciding factor in US presidential elections, why don't Democrat or Republican partisans register and vote in swing states? Or perhaps they are already doing so and it's already part of the US election traditions? Looking at https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx#Details ( mirror ), it seems one can simply use one's passport when voting, and looking at one example of vote registration form (I took New Jersey as an example), one is supposed to have only stay in the state 30 days ( mirror ) before the registration and I'm not even sure whether it is really checked since it seems SSN is enough to register ( mirror ). Staying somewhere a few weeks (or perhaps less) in a swing state to vote there sounds like something some Democrat or Republican partisans could do. Or did I miss something? | Simply put, because it is a crime. It is not allowed (e.g. in Minnesota ) to move somewhere for a month to vote there. Plus, most people can't afford such a disruption to their life. When I registered to vote in Minnesota, I got a letter from my old state asking to confirm I'm no longer resident there (and reminded me if I had indeed moved, it was illegal to vote in my old state). So states do talk to each other, and would probably notice if I re-registered multiple times within a few months. Yes, you could probably get away with it in some states. But to swing a state, you would have to convince thousands of people to commit a crime in order to most likely not affect the outcome. You could not openly organize thousands of people to move somewhere temporarily in order to swing a state because, again, it's a crime. Finally, if you do move just to vote, that means you don't get to vote locally. In many cases, giving up your right to vote in the actual town/county/district you actually live in is not worth faking living somewhere for a month to commit a crime. There was a website put up after the 2016 election that helped you find the closest swing district to you, so you could maybe move and flip a House rep, but I can't find that tool any more. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59932",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/2231/"
]
} |
59,945 | This quote from the Voice of America suggests that it is not usual: Some Trump supporters expressed frustration with foreign leaders. “These early calls by foreign leaders congratulating Biden are deliberate election interference,” tweeted Kyle Shideler, an analyst at the Center for Security Policy, a pro-Trump policy organization in Washington. “It is beyond inappropriate for these leaders to weigh in at this time." | It is conventional for foreign leaders to congratulate a newly elected leader soon after victory becomes obvious. Like most diplomacy, this is a somewhat fussy matter of form. Congratulate too early, and one might raise the ire of the other candidate while s'he still has a chance to win, inviting diplomatic problems down the line. Delay too long and it might appear as disapproval or disdain, which would be interpreted by the incoming administration as the foreign nation positioning itself as an adversary. Consequently, foreign leaders generally try to send their messages as soon as a victor becomes clear, to set the proper tone with the incoming (or continuing) administration. In most cases those congratulations begin arriving early on the day after the election. Unfortunately, there are no proper diplomatic protocols for this unprecedented situation. Historically, every losing presidential candidate has formally conceded to their opponent since the tradition began (in 1896, when William Jennings Bryan sent a short telegram acknowledging William McKinley's win). This graceful concession is typically used to signal to both the US citizenry and foreign governments that there will be a smooth transition of power, and usually serves as a trigger for these diplomatic niceties. The vote tallies in this case are clear—Biden has been projected as the winner on the numbers, leaving Trump only a remote chance of overturning vote-counts through the courts—but Trump is unwilling to concede, and will likely refuse to concede for the foreseeable future. It seems that many foreign leaders have calculated the odds, and prefer to risk insulting Trump by congratulating Biden, and not risk insulting the president-elect by remaining silent. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59945",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/6890/"
]
} |
59,981 | Obviously there's a big divide between the opinion that no voter fraud happened in the 2020 Presidential Election, and that such widespread voter fraud happened in enough states so as to swing the election in multiple states. Realistically it seems obvious to me that a non-zero amount of people attempted to commit voter fraud, and a non-zero amount of clerical errors were made in the process of counting votes. Leading me to conclude that an unknown, but probably negligible amount of fraudulent votes would have been counted. Using the most plausible sounding allegation I've read about for example: mail-in votes from deceased registered voters. Some obvious possibilities are either individuals acting alone and mailing in the extra ballots they'd received in the post - then the counters not properly verifying the voter details, or simply a clerical error having marked of the wrong person as having voted. If fraud is found, it allows for the system to be improved to prevent the same issue in future - given how long was spent investigating allegations of foreign interference in the 2016 election this seems like it's an issue for the Democrats as well. If no fraud is found then it solidifies the legitimacy of the new Democrat Administration, and the public confidence in the system. If a small amount of fraud is found, but would not have affected the outcome then the system can be improved so that it's not possible next election. In the worst case (highly unlikely) scenario for the Democrats - widespread voter fraud occurred undetected by officials, but somehow is detectable after the fact - it would be impossible to determine with certainty which side had committed the fraud - so the only course of action would be to rerun the election. If managed well to the effect of "we believe so strongly in the Democratic process, and in the legitimacy of this election vote that we support the investigation because we know we're the legitimate winners" - wouldn't the Democrats be in a situation where no matter the outcome of the investigation they'd be positively impacted?
Or would it be simply perceived as too dangerous a political move to cooperate with the Republicans and risk it being interpreted by the public as a confession of guilt? | I'm going to pull out Kant's categorical imperative, here: It is our duty to act in such a manner that we would want everyone
else to act in a similar manner in similar circumstances towards all
other people. just to show how quickly the premises of this question dissolve into absolute absurdity. Let's assume for the moment that we were to make the request embedded in this question a standard, universal practice in the US. In other words, any time some US citizen made a public claim and demanded an investigation — without regard to the claim's credibility, with or without any evidence suggesting the claim is meaningful, without considering the sanity or ulterior motives of the person making the demand — we would follow through with a full-scale public investigation. Forget about voter fraud: UFOlogists would demand that Area 51 be torn apart to reveal its space aliens; flat-earthers would demand access to rockets to prove that the world isn't round; The FBI would have to open cases looking for Elvis, Tupac, and other ostensibly 'dead' celebrities, because some people insist they are alive and well in hiding. We'd open investigations into every psychotic delusion, crack-addled paranoid fantasy, and every child's complaint about a boogeyman. And that's just the 'honest' nonsense: how many people would start accusing their ex-spouses, hated neighbors, mean bosses, etc, of being drug addicts, pedophiles, serial killers, members of the Illuminati, demons, Martians, whatever, just so the police will come in and tear apart the lives of people the accuser dislikes. Remember, an investigation isn't a neutral act, despite what many like to assert. Investigations are expensive, invasive, destructive; they ruin reputations, create distrust, destroy lives and livelihoods, and expend countless man-hours of people doing nothing except digging through other people's dirty laundry, looking for dirt. This is why US courts (and most courts in Liberal democracies) insist on the principle of Corpus Delicti : that the evidentiary body of a case must first prove that an act contrary to law has actually occurred , before the case can advance. Where there is no evidence that a crime has been committed, the courts assume no crime has occurred and do not pursue prosecution. Even police and federal investigators are stymied, because without some evidence of an act contrary to law they cannot get search or arrest warrants, or in other ways investigate. In general, Democrats are fine with the idea of investigations into voter fraud, and investigations of that sort go on all the time. There's no sense referring to bipartisanism here; non-partisan agencies handle the investigative work, and occasionally (though rarely) find and prosecute cases. Recall the arrest of Leslie Dowless Jr., who organized a ballot harvesting scheme in North Carolina for Republican Mark Harris a year or so back. There's no sense fixing that process, because it isn't broken. What Democrats object to is the idea that we should open an investigation into massive voter fraud with absolutely no corpus delicti : no evidence that fraud on such a massive scale exists. Again, an investigation of this sort is not neutral . it will damage and delegitimize the institution of voting, even if no voting fraud is ultimately found. It will cost tremendous amounts of time and money; it will increase acrimony between the parties; the whole investigation would be sullied by the inescapable impression that it is a product of Trump's malicious anger at having lost, and not founded in any criminal act. Trump and his supporters don't seem to care if they damage the institution of voting (or perhaps they don't understand the consequences of it all), but Democrats do care, because Democrats want this country to remain a democratic republic, and that requires respect for the institution of voting. I think it would be a good idea for Congress to sit down and review voting safeguards; that certainly can't hurt. But an untimely investigation based on a conspiracy theory with no body of evidence and crystal clear self-serving motivations... That's an offense against the principles of law and justice this nation was built on. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/59981",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/31968/"
]
} |
60,063 | Many countries apply different forms of nighttime restrictions during pandemic: curfews, early restaurant closings. What is the reasoning behind that? Intuitively it seems to me that people are less likely to crowd up during nighttime. | The spread of the pandemic can be reduced by reducing contacts between infected and uninfected people. Since many infected are unaware of their infection, the goal is to reduce contacts between people in general. (Few countries have enough testing capacity to reliably identify the infected part of their population.) The maximum reduction of contacts would be to order everyone to stay at home for a couple of weeks. But the side effects of such an order would be severe. So the goal of many governments is to reduce unnecessary contacts while they maintain necessary contacts at the minimum level to avoid the worst side effects. What are necessary contacts? That's a highly controversial question in most countries. Medical services for sure. The food supply, certainly. There are doctors who argue that careful outdoor sports is better for the overall public health than ordering people not to do sports, so perhaps solo jogging or walking the dog. The manufacturing industry, to supply shops which have to stay open and for the economy. Schools, perhaps, because remote digital education doesn't work as well as face-to-face contacts, and also because closing schools greatly affects parents in vital sectors of the economy. For other businesses, it becomes a tradeoff between their infection risk and economic importance. (When Germany reopened after the first not-quite-lockdown, car dealers were rather early. They move a lot of money per contact.) What are unnecessary contacts? Again a highly controversial question in most countries. Unfortunately for the restaurant industry, they are rated as less vital than supermarkets and manufacturing, so they get closed. Same for theaters, cinemas, nail studios, ... (As a contributing factor, many people go out to a restaurant or bar to get drunk, and as they get drunk their hygiene discipline suffers. They get closer to each other. They touch. That's really bad for the sober restaurant-goers, but they're caught by the blanket curfew.) Lockdown measures are working with a very broad brush: daytime = work = good less bad, nighttime = leisure = bad. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60063",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35042/"
]
} |
60,101 | Mitch McConnell, discussing the 2020 US presidential election, was quoted as follows: On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican
in Congress, said that Trump is "within his rights" to challenge the
outcome, and criticized Democrats for expecting the president to
concede. “President Trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of
irregularities and weigh his legal options,” McConnell said. “Let’s
not have any lectures about how the president should immediately,
cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same
characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity
of the last election.” What was he referring to by "spent four years refusing to accept the validity
of the last election"? e.g., has he, or other officials previously made statements to that effect in more detail? Political opponents of President Trump (i.e., Democrats) obviously were displeased by the 2016 election, and some of that might have come from the fact that Trump "lost" the popular vote even while winning the Electoral College. However, displeasure doesn't automatically rise to the level of "refusing to accept" the election results, so I assume the senator is referring to something more specific? | I wondered the same thing as you on seeing the quote from Mitch McConnell. I don't think there's a way to know for certain who he might have been referring to, but I found this article from the Washington Post regarding a September 2019 CBS interview with Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an “illegitimate president” and suggested that “he knows” that he stole the 2016 presidential election in a CBS News interview to be aired Sunday. As you noted in the question, I don't know that this comes to the level of "refusing to accept the validity of the last election", but for political posturing this met my close enough litmus test to give the statement a pass. I don't believe it runs to the same level as the current events in terms of non-acceptance, but it appears that for partisan purposes these two actions, declaring a presidency illegitimate (Clinton), and launching multiple lawsuits to overturn an election result(Trump) are a question of degree rather than kind. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60101",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/23493/"
]
} |
60,110 | My initial judgement is that a "computer rescan" would have less chance of being biased and less change of making mistakes than a "hand recount", and so the "hand recount" can only introduce more uncertainty and a worse quality result. Is there any reason I should think otherwise? And if the result is not qualitatively better, then what? 2 out of 3? | This article covers the details of how Georgia handles this process, and what Georgia law says about hand recounts. In particular, it says Georgia law only provides for recounts by hand if a certain number of machines are unavailable or a court order is granted. In Georgia, a candidate can request a recount if the margin of the race is within .5 percent. To my knowledge, none of those requirements, other than the .5 percent threshold to request a recount, is met to date, meaning that the recount would not be done by hand. I have heard nothing indicating there are any problems with the machines, though part of their vote verification process includes an audit to make sure the machines are, in fact, functioning properly. So we'd have to wait for that to know what situation their machines are actually in. A court order is hard to predict. Many of the litigation claims being made in the current nationwide debacle have been thrown out as unsubstantiated already, but there's no telling how a court might interpret the particulars of the situation in Georgia. But Georgia's Secretary of State appears to be invoking the power to conduct a "risk-limiting audit". Normally such an audit is done on a random selection of ballots to verify the machines are producing appropriate results, and is a normal part of the vote counting process. The SoS seems to have broad authority on the audit by statute, and in this case he is going so far as to insist the audit be a hand recount of every ballot cast in the state. He has stated this as necessary due to the close margin of the vote and the great national importance of the vote. Moreover, he has stated his opinion that Trump could still request and receive a recount after the audit is completed, if he still trails by at most .5% after the audit completes, since the "audit" is legally distinguishable from a "recount". Such a recount would be done with the scanning machines. So, beyond that... First and foremost, people still trust people more than computers. While true that computers and machines, when used and designed properly, are much more reliable at almost any task they can do in reasonable timescales (and are frequently faster to boot), the public perception remains concerned about major errors that result from the inevitable involvement of humans. This is not without reason: someone (multiple someones, usually) had to build and design the machine, program the computer, feed in the ballots at some stage, etc. If someone does those steps incorrectly—almost always by accident, or having been given poor instructions, but politicians like to claim there's some nefarious partisan with a cartoonish plot to foil—systemic errors, potentially very large ones, are introduced. So there is a feeling that you can't just trust the machines and computers alone, you have to perform some independent checks. Which are already done during the normal vote counts, but again the popular perception is that if a recount is being done then you have to go above and beyond to make sure the machines aren't messing with us. Second, and related to the first, there is the "observability" factor: people believe they can stand by and independently verify that everything is being done correctly and accurately if they can see it all happening before them, in human timescales. That we can in principle independently verify the mathematical and technical unassailability of the machines and computers is, again, not something the common person has much trust in. In the cases where the counting machines are proprietary commercial bits of tech this can be justified, as the company may actively prevent us from such a verification in order to protect their product. What verification we do have of it is still pretty strong, however, as these vote counts are all run with multiple failsafes at every level. Nevertheless, it seems easy to sow distrust in any process that doesn't involve a bunch of observable humans doing things out in the open. Third, this falls into the apparent Trump/Republican strategy of trying to slow down the vote results and sow distrust in the vote to give them more time to produce a narrative to "explain" Trump's loss (as being totally not his fault, and totally not related to his behavior and actions and failures) and undercut a Biden presidency, and hype his accomplishments; or worse yet try to enable some sort of legal shenanigans whereby the vote results are ignored (because they aren't certified and submitted in time) and Trump gets installed for another term. While there is nothing I am aware of to suggest this is a motivating factor here by those making the decision—other than what we know of and from Trump and his campaign and administration and the general obeisance of Republicans to Trump—it is assuredly not unwelcome to those attempting to execute, or hoping for the success of, such a strategy. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60110",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/12003/"
]
} |
60,111 | On Election Day 2020, both US Senate seats for Georgia were up for election. However, no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, and so both races go to a second round. This runoff election will be on January 5th, 2021. My question is: why this date? The new US congress gets sworn in on January 3th, so having the runoff election two days after that seems a little late? | What is the reason for the date of the Georgia runoff elections for the US Senate? Law. Georgia Code Title 21. Elections § 21-2-501 (3) In the case of a runoff from a general election for a federal office or a runoff from a special primary or special election for a federal office held in conjunction with a general election, the runoff shall be held on the Tuesday of the ninth week following such general election. November 3, 2020 to January 5, 2021 (a Tuesday) is nine weeks. One of the runoffs is from a "general election for a federal office". The other is from a "special election for a federal office held in conjunction with a general election". Background leading to the "ninth week" choice In 2009, Congress approved the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. One of the provisions of the MOVE act is a 45-day period to allow certain voters to receive and return ballots for elections. States are required to transmit a validly requested absentee ballot to an absent
uniformed services voter or overseas voter no later than 45 days before an
election if the request is received at least 45 days before the election. A state can
seek a hardship waiver from the requirement under certain circumstances. The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act: Overview and Issues While states, including Georgia, passed legislation to come into compliance regarding the time between primaries and elections, Georgia did not change its law regarding runoffs, which were less than 45 days. In 2012, the Department of Justice sued Georgia . The United States of America ("United States") and the State of Georgia ("Georgia") now disagree as to how federal law should be interpreted and applied to Georgia's efforts with regard to the timing and methodology of Georgia's runoff absentee voting scheme. The disagreement was over the meaning of "election" as it relates to a "runoff" in the context of the MOVE Act. The United States prevailed at District Court. Georgia appealed. The Appeals Courts upheld the District Court. Georgia changed its law. At the time of the suit, Georgia was using 21 days for primary and special elections, with 28 days for general elections, to set the date of a runoff. Under the rules of the MOVE Act, Georgia could use any date at least 45 days after any election. For a runoff to occur on Tuesday and using seven weeks after the general election would mean that the runoff could occur on Christmas Day; eight weeks could be New Years Day. Nine weeks was chosen. Georgia could have complied with the MOVE Act by changing to plurality rather than majority to decide the election, that would have eliminated the runoff. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60111",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/34555/"
]
} |
60,190 | How is North Korea, which is officially called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", democratic, if there's only one party with one ideology? Is this a moving box in a non-movable box? | North Korea is far from the only example. Wikipedia lists a couple of other countries which claim to be democratic but are not, according to 'Western' standards: Many countries that use the term "democratic republic" in their official names (such as Algeria, Congo-Kinshasa, Ethiopia, North Korea, Laos, and Nepal) are considered undemocratic "hybrid regimes" or "authoritarian regimes" by the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index and "not free" by the U.S.-based, U.S.-government-funded non-governmental organization Freedom House. Countries are allowed their own interpretation of the word 'democratic', and nobody outside of North Korea thinks it's a democracy, even if they do claim to hold elections . The party's candidate is always chosen with almost 100% of the votes. In my native language (Dutch) this has led to the phrase Noord-Koreaanse uitslag , lit. North-Korean results , which means an election with such an overwhelming result that it must have been rigged. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60190",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35103/"
]
} |
60,208 | In multiple news articles such as ones here and here , they mention Donald Trump running for president in 2024 because it is projected Joe Biden will be president starting 2021. I thought the 22nd amendment which said no person can run for president twice nonconsecutively (emphasis mine): No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once So I have two questions regarding this: Can Donald Trump run as president in 2024 and become president? If not (which seems the case because of the 22nd amendment), why do these news sources not mention that Donald Trump cannot legally do that without an amendment between now and 2024? Edit: so I understand Grover Cleveland served 2 non-consecutive terms as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, but my question pertains to modern day politics since the 22nd amendment didn't get ratified until 1951. | The bolded part doesn't apply to President Trump. Specifically, it includes the following: of a term to which some other person was elected President President Trump is only serving in the term to which he was elected. If, in addition to the current term where he has been elected president, he had also served over two years of a term to which someone else was elected, then the term limit would apply. So yes, President Trump can run again in 2024 (or any future election until the term limit does kick in) because the term limit doesn't apply (assuming a different president assumes office in 2021). | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60208",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35112/"
]
} |
60,230 | According to this article there seem to be serious downsides to heavily usage of money (cash) bails (emphasis mine): In effect, the cash bail system criminalizes poverty , as people
who are unable to afford bail are detained while they await trial for
weeks or even months. Cash bail perpetuates inequities in the
justice system that are disproportionately felt by communities of
color and those experiencing poverty. Spending even a few days in jail can result in people losing their
job, housing, and even custody of their children. Studies show that
pretrial detention can actually increase a person’s likelihood of
rearrest upon release , perpetuating an endless cycle of arrest and
incarceration. What is more, the cash bail system often leads to the
detention of people who do not pose a threat to public safety. This PolitiFact article explains the uniqueness of US bailing system: "only the U.S. and Philippines have a cash bail system that is
dominated by commercial bail bondsmen." This makes a difference
because a commercial bail industry has a financial stake in the
system. Money bails are also used in other countries , but it seems to be less systematic than in US or at least in a way that does not make it so unfavorable for the poor: In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, bail is more likely to
consist of a set of restrictions that the suspect will have to abide
by for a set period of time. Under this usage, bail can be given both
before and after charge. I am wondering why does the US still use this type of bail system despite its apparent drawbacks? | Bails are a big industry which lobbies legislators to protect their business model. It is traditional, and there is widespread belief in American Exceptionalism -- a refusal to consider that the US might learn anything from other countries. The US is unusual in the degree to which it disenfranchises convicted felons, and also to the degree in which it blackmails suspects into plea bargains, so people who run into the system can't vote against it any more. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60230",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/11278/"
]
} |
60,269 | As a foreign spectator it seems likely to me that Trump won't leave the White House voluntarily. Losing his immunity appears to be a driving factor in why he is clinging to the position of power he currently holds. That said, I wondered why Trump hasn't been offered immunity, or something amounting to a pardon of the pending litigation against him, in exchange for conceding that Biden won. Q: Has Biden's campaign or any Democrats so far voiced publicly if they would be willing to consider something like this? Note: the emphasis in "something like this" is meant to stress that I don't care as much about what kind of legal device would be used. I only care about the effect it would have. Note: I've seen the idea floated that Trump could pardon himself before leaving office and losing immunity. That's how the above question came to be. Reasoning of why Biden or the Democrats may consider it (this was asked in the comments a few times): commentators in the media have tirelessly pointed out, not only since this last election, that the peaceful transition of power and a timely concession by whoever loses is important to avoid damaging the democratic process. Given that importance it would seem to me that, perhaps, any options avoiding damage to the democratic may be on the table. | In May of 2020, Biden committed not to pardon Trump or otherwise interfere with any investigations that the Justice Department may or may not carry out: Democratic candidate Joe Biden said that if he wins the presidency he would not use his power to pardon Donald Trump or stop any investigations of Trump and his associates. “It is not something the president is entitled to do, to direct a prosecution or decide to drop a case,” Biden said Thursday on MSNBC. “It’s a dereliction of duty.” The former vice president made his statement in response to a voter who asked him on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show, “The Last Word,” whether he would “commit to not pulling a Gerald Ford in giving Donald Trump a pardon under the pretense of healing the nation.” Biden responded, “I commit,” before offering a more lengthy explanation of his view that the president must allow the Justice Department to operate without interference. Biden says he would not pardon Trump or block investigations - AP, May 15, 2020 Recently, though, Biden has expressed more hesitancy about aggressive Federal investigations of Trump. NBC reports that he has told his advisors that he worries that such investigations would be overly divisive and keep the focus on Trump, rather than his own Presidency: President-elect Joe Biden has privately told advisers that he doesn't want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor, according to five people familiar with the discussions, despite pressure from some Democrats who want inquiries into President Donald Trump, his policies and members of his administration. Biden has raised concerns that investigations would further divide a country he is trying to unite and risk making every day of his presidency about Trump, said the sources, who spoke on background to offer details of private conversations. Still, least for now, this desire seems to be taking the form of a hands-off approach to the actions of the Justice department: As Biden tries to balance his own inclinations with pressures from within his party, his advisers stressed that he is seeking to reset the dynamic between the White House and the Justice Department from what it has been under Trump. Biden wants his Justice Department to function independently from the White House, aides said, and Biden isn't going to tell federal law enforcement officials whom or what to investigate or not to investigate. "His overarching view is that we need to move the country forward," an adviser said. "But the most important thing on this is that he will not interfere with his Justice Department and not politicize his Justice Department." "He can set a tone about what he thinks should be done," a Biden adviser said. But, the adviser said, "he's not going to be a president who directs the Justice Department one way or the other." Biden hopes to avoid divisive Trump investigations, preferring unity - NBC News, Nov 17, 2020 This does not contradict his previous statements, and a pardon would be politically impossible, and wouldn't protect Trump from ongoing State investigations anyway, but it's certainly possible that Biden would prefer to see any investigations of Trump happen at the State level. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60269",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/1477/"
]
} |
60,345 | The article Informed Consent (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) lists some main arguments for informed consent. They are: "protection", "autonomy", "prevention of abusive conduct", "trust", "self-ownership", "non-domination", and "personal integrity". The article goes on to present counterarguments for it, and it seems to me that the justifications for informed consent are largely challenged, if not foundered. (A summary of this article is available in my website ). Anyway, the article seems to conclude that informed consent is not a natural right, but just a legal right. Here is the explanation: One reason to take non-naturalistic approaches to the status of informed consent seriously is that not all natural rights are legally enforceable. Therefore, a moral informed consent right that is legally enforceable (as that right is usually taken to be in at least some institutional settings) may stand in need of additional moral justification, even if a natural right has been established. That additional, inescapable moral justification may then turn out to justify informed consent regulations even absent natural informed consent rights, say as trust-building measures. In particular, recall that many bioethicists ground informed consent in duties to treat rational, autonomous persons respectfully. Some such duties are clearly non-enforceable. For example, the moral duty not to lie to persons in breach of their autonomous decision-making is seldom legitimately enforceable. It is not the business of third parties to prevent me from disrespectfully and immorally lying to my friends. Thus, additional justification would be needed, beyond simple appeal to respect for autonomy, in order to establish an enforceable informed consent requirement. That inescapable additional moral justification may turn out, if successful, to justify informed consent regulations and the surrounding ethos in full. It may do so even if the project of grounding informed consent in autonomy, and all other attempts to justify natural informed consent rights, founder. However, I don't understand this much, besides a vague understanding that there is an inescapable additional justification that makes informed consent a legal requirement. Can you help me explain (or re-explain) why that inescapable additional justification exists? Note that this justification cannot be one of the above arguments, because they are challenged already. Meta: Why is the question about informed consent downvoted? | First of all, politics is not about philosophy. Politics is about finding rules for society which are practical and which work for everyone, or at least for those who are in power. You can provide as many philosophical arguments as you want for why a certain rule is unethical. If the rule serves its purpose and there is no tangible benefit which justifies the effort to change it, then politics will be completely unimpressed by them. So why does the rule of informed consent exist in the medical field? It's in the interest of the majority. There are more people who are occasionally in need of medical care (pretty much everyone) than there are people working in the medical field. People generally like having rights. If you ask people in a democracy: "Do you want to vote the people who want to take away your right to make decisions about your own body or those who want to give you the right to decide what happens to you", the answer is pretty obvious. It's questionable if it would even be in the interest of the medical lobby to abolish it. Medical professionals make life or death decisions every day, and occasionally they make the wrong decisions. This potentially puts a huge liability on them. Politics might be able to take the legal liability away from them, but they can not make the psychological liability disappear. When doctors have the right to ignore consent of their patients, then only they are responsible for what happens to the patient. With informed consent, they can get out of that responsibility by saying "I explained the risks and rewards to the patient, and then just did what they told me to do". Historically, there were cases where governments gave medical professionals the permission to ignore informed consent, and medical professionals abused that right to perform experiments which were shocking violations of human rights. The concentration camp experiments performed by the Nazis are often mentioned, but other governments like the United States are not innocent in this regard either . Requiring informed consent without exception (at least for research purpose) appears like a useful legal safeguard against scandals like that. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60345",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/16430/"
]
} |
60,475 | In Georgia, the state government must "certify" the election results before the parties can request a recount . What does it mean to recount after certification is complete, and why is that materially different from recounting before (were the laws to allow a recount before)? All of the sources I have found so far talk about the laws requiring certification before recounting, but I haven't found anything as to why that order of operations was put in place. | In Georgia recounts can occur in two ways: An election official or the Georgia Secretary of State might request an audit or recount before certification, if there is some reason to suspect inaccuracies in the results. A candidate or party may request a recount after certification, if it wants to dispute the results. If a recount were to change the outcome of the election, then Georgia law authorizes the Secretary of State and relevant election officials to void the previous certification and paperwork and recertify the election. Generally speaking, it would make no sense for a candidate or party to request a recount before the results are certified: certification determines the outcome, and neither party has lost or won until certification occurs. It would also make no sense for Georgia officials to request a recount after certification: certification means that Georgia officials have already done their due diligence, and produced what they believe to be the correct results. In this election cycle a recount is apparently going to happen twice, first because the chief Georgia election official requested one immediately after the votes were tallied (in an overabundance of caution, I suppose), and second because the Trump administration requested one, despite the fact that the first recount did not change the outcome. See: Georgia election recount laws and Georgia election legal code | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60475",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/8315/"
]
} |
60,484 | There is a county in Michigan called Wayne County. It holds Detroit. It has consistently given Democrats majorities of its vote since 1932. Why has this county been voting Democrat for so long? Was it the union support? Was it that Detroit (or Wayne County) came up with the concept of being strong partisans on a mass scale before anyone else? I think it is ideological. But that doesn't make much sense because ideology and party weren't so linked until the 80s or 90s or so. I say so because from 1896 to 1928, Republicans won the county, or at least got more votes than the Democrat. The wins from 1904 to 1924 were huge. This was following the explosion of people moving there for jobs in the then new automobile industry. Why did Wayne County support Democrats for so long, even during Republican landslides like 1972? | Detroit was (and still is) one of the strongest heavy industry and port cities in the US: shipping, steel works, auto industries, etc. Because of that, Detroit also has some of the strongest union affiliations of any US city. Industrial unions have leaned Democrat since FDR and the New Deal in the 1930s. Combine union activity and the heavy African American presence in the city, and it would be shocking to see conservatives gain traction in Detroit. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60484",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/29035/"
]
} |
60,488 | Trump campaign asks for another Georgia recount I understand that Georgia law required an audit , and that it although they counted all votes again it was not a recount . Given that Campaign-requested recounts involve rescanning paper ballots, which would not address Trump’s call to “include signature matching.” The statewide audit did not verify signatures because once outer envelope signatures are verified before votes are originally tallied, they are separated from the ballots inside to maintain voter secrecy. What does Trump hope to gain? Is it as simple as hoping to gain time and then "something something something" electoral college? I realize that this is sounding opinion based, which is a big no-no on most S.E sites, so, could someone please give a concrete example of how this could profit the soon to be ex-president? Given that the votes for president have already been (re)counted by hand once (after having been counted by machine) ... | It is highly unlikely that a recount will give Trump a chance to win the election. Recounts just don't move number of votes enough to change an election where Biden had such a raw lead over Trump. It's entirely possible that Trump is going to fight any way he can, even if there are slim odds of the fight winning, to not give up presidency. That is not entirely out of keeping with his personality. However, there is one way he does gain a concrete benefit, if rather cynical, for continuing the fight. Trump has been sending requests to supports asking for them to donate money to help him pay to continue to make legal challenges for recounts. However, if one reads the fine print of these e-mails one sees in fact around 60% of the money can, and is, spent not on fighting for recounts but on paying off campaign debts . Paying off these debts benefits Trump, and there have also been some claims that Trump could use other tricks to help ensure that 60% trickles down to his pockets (how valid these later claims are I'm frankly not informed enough to speculate on). The point is as long as people are paying into this fund Trump benefits via the 60% that goes to paying off his debts. People only contribute to this fund thinking they are helping Trump's chance of overturning state election counts and becoming president. Thus for Trump to continue to get support, and donations, he needs to be seen to visibly be making an effort to overturn election results. So in effect even if the recount doesn't change who won the state's election it could motivate his backers to continue donating to the fund and Trump could, in turn, benefit from utilizing fund money to pay off campaign debts. As I said this is a highly cynical motivation and I can't know how much, if at all, it plays a role in Trump's decision. However, you asked for what he can hope to benefit and rather or not this is Trump's primary motivation it is one concrete benefit he likely would gain from continuing legal battles. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60488",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/9969/"
]
} |
60,490 | There are 470,000 results on Google Search for "owned by taxpayers". Some excerpts: RBS remains 62% owned by taxpayers after a 45 billion pound bailout in the 2008 financial crisis. ( Reuters ) Maternity hospital 'will be owned by taxpayers'. ( The Times ) In 2015, 85% of Greece’s debt will be owned by European taxpayers. ( Elena Panaritis ) I can understand how something can be the property of a government, but how does "owned by taxpayers" work? How does this ownership model make a distinction between citizens who pay taxes vs. those who don't (maybe they are dependent without their own income, or operate primarily in the informal economy)? Does it mean that citizens who pay more taxes own a larger share than those who pay less taxes? | I'm afraid that in all the cases I know of, that is a figurative rather than literal statement. Specifically, in the case of RBS, it is "owned" by NatWest group (as subsidiary company) which is majority owned by UK Government Investments which is owned (at arm's length) by Her Majesty's Treasury . The implication writers are making is that government holdings are then owned by the taxpayer, as a principle source of funding. This isn't true in any legal sense, although since any of RBS's debt is ultimately underwritten by the Treasury, and governments tend to look after their credit rating, it does impact on likely future tax and spending plans (to a smaller degree than many other things). A key distinction is that it is not "government run", in that there are several walls of insulation between the Natwest Group's day to day management and political decision makers. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60490",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/130/"
]
} |
60,520 | As I understand it, one of the points of contention in the conflict between the government of Ethiopia and the Tigray region are contested regional elections in September at 2020. These have been declared illegal by the Ethiopian government, as the holding of elections had been prohibited due to COVID-19. My question is how such a chain of events could unfold. I understand that there are deeper origins to the animosity of which this is a minor and recent part. But, beyond "the parties wanted to annoy each other", what is the political background to the decision to hold these elections? For example , did the Tigrayan election authorities go into the election knowing that elections had been prohibited? Were the elections already scheduled for September (for example by constitution) in advance of the prohibition of elections? Did the politics of Tigray enter into the decision to prohibit elections (ostensibly due to COVID-19)? Did internal events within Tigray or Ethiopia make the holding of the regional election politically irresistible? | I'm afraid that in all the cases I know of, that is a figurative rather than literal statement. Specifically, in the case of RBS, it is "owned" by NatWest group (as subsidiary company) which is majority owned by UK Government Investments which is owned (at arm's length) by Her Majesty's Treasury . The implication writers are making is that government holdings are then owned by the taxpayer, as a principle source of funding. This isn't true in any legal sense, although since any of RBS's debt is ultimately underwritten by the Treasury, and governments tend to look after their credit rating, it does impact on likely future tax and spending plans (to a smaller degree than many other things). A key distinction is that it is not "government run", in that there are several walls of insulation between the Natwest Group's day to day management and political decision makers. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60520",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/25643/"
]
} |
60,538 | I appreciate that the USA has a larger population and more layers to it system of governance, but I don't understand how the UK can transition between governments practically overnight and the USA takes two months. The UK might not be the flawless in its execution of the transition but they managed to maintain a reasonable continuation of government, but spending 5% of a term with a lame duck president seems very damaging to a country. So just how does the UK manage to transition leadership so quickly compared to the USA? Why are there so many appointments to fill compared to the UK? (I appreciate that other countries, especially in the EU, waste large amounts of time trying to form governments but it's the transition time that I'm specifically asking about) (This question is not a duplicate of do any other countries take as long as the us to transfer government power that question is asked and answered more broadly, and the answers around Prime Minsters are largely looking at countries which have a caretaker system in place) | Two factors in the UK allow a very quick change of government when an election delivers a decisive result: There is a permanent government-in-waiting in the form of the Official Opposition . Typically, the Leader of the Opposition becomes Prime Minister, and then tends to appoint shadow ministers to the positions that they were previously shadowing (though not always, and the LotO has more-or-less a free hand to appoint whomever they want from available MPs and peers, with the option of appointing more peers to fill other jobs). The number of appointed roles is tiny compared to the US - a little over 100, compared to many thousands in the US. In addition, there's no equivalent to Senate confirmation. As a result, a new PM can be in place the day after the election, with the most important roles filled soon after. More junior posts tend to take a few more days to be appointed. ( My own answer to a related question goes into a bit more detail, with sources, on the numbers in the UK vs the US.) | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60538",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/9783/"
]
} |
60,597 | I think by now, everyone has seen the pictures of Trump sitting at a tiny table bearing the presidential seal: I am tempted to ask many things, like who thought that would be a good idea. But my actual question is, given that that table bears a presidential seal - has any other president ever used it? | That's known as a "signing table" . Trump himself has used it before in 2017, and even joked about it himself. Or at least the audience laughed at his comments. While the seal seems to be a more recent addition, there's a very similarly looking table being used by Reagan ... well, to actually sign documents. President Reagan, Tom Lantos, Annette Lantos and Nina Lagergren at the signing ceremony in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden for S.J. Resolution 65 "The Wallenberg Resolution" proclaiming Raoul Wallenberg a Swedish national to be an honorary citizen of the United States. 10/05/1981. Also indoors President Reagan signing Voting Rights Act legislation with Bob Dole, Orrin Hatch, Bob Michel, Howard Baker, George Bush, William French Smith, Joseph Biden, Charles Mathias, Melvin Bradley and Thelma Duggin in East Room. 06/29/1982. Reagan's "virtual library" index of signing ceremonies has more photos with Reagan using it for the same purpose. One thing I've noticed in some (if not most) of the Reagan photos is that there's nearby lectern from which to give speeches afterwards. I guess the less usual thing in the Trump setups is giving speeches and/or press interviews from that table itself. G. W. Bush can also be seen using the table to sign a NATO accession protocol for some Eastern European countries. In that photo, the table has gained the seal. ( Video of the ceremony also shows a nearby lectern.) Interestingly, there are actually multiple copies of that table or at least very similarly looking ones at the White House, you can see two of them being used by Trump and Liu He , side-by-side. Bill Clinton and Obama also used them (in individual ceremonies, at least). And also Jimmy Carter (1977) : But I could not find evidence of Nixon or LBJ using that exact table (top) design, although they did use other tables of roughly the same size for signing ceremonies. (LBJ signing Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and Nixon signing Older American Act Amendments of 1969.) Hat tip to Darrel Hoffman for pointing out in a comment that Gerald Ford (who became president after Nixon resigned in 1974) did use the present design of the signing table. This is at a 1976 event . Earlier signing ceremonies of Ford, e.g. one from 1974 have him using a different design though. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60597",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/9969/"
]
} |
60,735 | Why can the US invade Iraq for weapons of mass destruction but not North Korea who have confirmed nuclear weapons? Are they more scared of NK? | Because there's no oil in NK. And there's the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty , which would make a war with NK a (nuclear?) war with China. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60735",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35366/"
]
} |
60,771 | This last American election gave me the impression that Texas voters were awfully close to electing a liberal, which is something to me that would be incredible. Apparently Biden got 46% of the vote which seems a stellar performance in Texas. So my question is, have Texas voters ever selected a Democrat for president and, if not, how close was this last election to being the first time? | Yes, in fact from Wikipedia's article on "United States presidential elections in Texas" , we can see that Texas has elected a Democrat for president twenty-two times since 1876, most recently electing Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election . Republican candidates have only been elected fifteen times. The highest percentage vote that a Democratic candidate received was in 1932, when FDR achieved 88.06% of the state's vote compared to Herbert Hoover's 11.35%. Bear in mind that part of the reason for this historical inconsistency, despite the modern Republican party's relatively strong standing in Texas, is that the Republican and Democratic parties have 'switched sides' ideologically throughout their history - see this related question - and the Democratic Party of a century ago is not particularly comparable to the Democratic Party of today. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60771",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/13345/"
]
} |
60,804 | In the United States Senate, if there is a tie in a vote, the vice president breaks that tie. According to the senate.gov website, the vice president cannot vote except when breaking a tie. Is there any practical difference between this system, and a system where the vice president just gets a single vote like each senator does? If a vote ends up 50 "for" and 50 "against", and the VP breaks the tie by voting "for", is that any different than if the VP just voted normally, and the vote ends up 51 for and 50 against? To put in in another perspective, after the VP breaks the tie and you have a vote of 51 "for" and 50 "against", couldn't any one of those 51 "for" votes be said to be the tie-breaking vote? In another situation, if the vote is 40 "for" and 60 "against", then the VP doesn't have a tie to break so they don't vote. But even if they did vote normally, it would just be 41 "for" and 60 "against", so the results would be the same. Is there a situation where there is a meaningful difference between the VP breaking a tie, and the VP getting a vote? Or is it simply a matter of procedure/process; not wasting the VP's time by voting except when a tie-breaker is needed? | Under normal circumstances, there is no difference. However, the Senate is not always full - Senators die or resign, or simply fail to make it to a vote. These were even more common situations when the Constitution was written. In situations where the number of voting Senators is not an even number, then granting the VP a full normal vote could produce a tie when there wouldn't have been one without it (50 to 49+1, for example). What do you do when your tie breaker causes a tie instead of resolving it? Much simpler to just not involve the VP unless it becomes necessary. As @apnorton points out in a comment, it's also relevant to determining whether the 2/3 supermajority needed in a few specific cases (such as overriding a veto or removing an impeached person from office) has been reached. If the vote is at 66+VP for/34 against, that's a failed vote, since 67 is passing. If the VP voted normally, it'd still require a 2/3 majority, just out of a slightly larger pool. With the current size of the Senate, it requires 67 votes for such a majority regardless of whether there are 100 or 101 votes cast. (At 102, it'd require 68.) That said, the VP was originally intended to preside over the Senate, and thus have influence on the result even without an actual vote. Day-to-day, that responsibility is delegated to a President pro tempore , who in turn delegates it to another Senator under most circumstances. Modern Senate rules also don't provide the VP an opportunity to speak during a debate, further limiting this role, but it does Constitutionally exist. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60804",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/23460/"
]
} |
60,819 | It has come to my attention that there were many US states, being led by Texas , that are suing multiple key battleground states such as Michigan and Georgia for the way that they conduct their elections. I don't know the full details but it does seem like a way to make Trump get 270 electoral votes because if you flip those states into Trump's column they add up to 290 votes for Trump. How is this legal for a state to do this? And has this ever happened before, especially on this scale? This is not a partisan question. How is a US state allowed to sue others in order to try to change the outcome of an election? | The suit isn't really about fraud. They are arguing that the four defendant states violated their own constitutions and the US Constitution with how they changed their election laws. The suit argues that all four changed their election laws via executive edict or court ruling, not via the state legislature like the US Constitution requires. The suit argues that they have standing to sue because these unconstitutional changes may decide who the Vice President will be, and since the VP settles ties in the Senate and the Senate represents the States, then Texas has been injured. States do have the right to sue each other, how else would they settle their differences? Usually the stakes aren't this high, but it does happen. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60819",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/33713/"
]
} |
60,824 | An election is a kind of vote. A referendum is a vote, but is not an election. Therefore we infer not all votes are elections. What are the essential characteristics of an election then? Does an election necessarily involve selection? For example: the European Commission is voted for (or against) by the European Parliament. This could be said to be an election, but there is no selection element. No alternatives (other than rejection) are proposed. It is certainly a vote. Is this kind of vote an election? | The suit isn't really about fraud. They are arguing that the four defendant states violated their own constitutions and the US Constitution with how they changed their election laws. The suit argues that all four changed their election laws via executive edict or court ruling, not via the state legislature like the US Constitution requires. The suit argues that they have standing to sue because these unconstitutional changes may decide who the Vice President will be, and since the VP settles ties in the Senate and the Senate represents the States, then Texas has been injured. States do have the right to sue each other, how else would they settle their differences? Usually the stakes aren't this high, but it does happen. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60824",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/6116/"
]
} |
60,835 | Due to the fact that most parliamentary systems prefer having Members of Parliament as Ministers, how do Ministers make up for their lack of relevant experience when running a ministry? For example, a Minister of Defence without prior military experience might have issues getting a handle on the whole institution. Similarly, a Minister of Health without any knowledge in the medical field might run into a similar issue. How do different countries deal with this issue? | o.m. has made some nice points for how it could/should work out, but one answer that shouldn't be missing here is the following: Very often, they don't. The crux of a parlamentary system, which by its nature is very party-oriented, is that there is a lot of internal party-politics going, which results in cabinet positions often not being assigned based on qualification, but on the merit of rewarding a loyal ally/friend, pleasing donors/lobbies or for some other strategic reason. Obviously they have to worry about political backlash when someone unqualified they appointed screws up big way, but it still happens quite often. I am quite sure, everyone here can think of countless examples in their respective country. I am german and I could cry you a river about of our secretaries of defense and the state of our military, but will refrain from doing so... And just to be fair: It isn't that different in presidential systems as well. To my knowledge, the U.S. president, being elected independently from the legislature, has theoretically more freedoms in picking their cabinet, but you still will find enough loyalist/special-interest picks there as well. The biggest stabilizing factor in both systems is that the underlying bureaucracy doesn't change: Ministries/departments are filled to the brink with administrative personal that has been there for a long time, isn't switched out after elections and usually knows how things are running there for better or worse. If a department head is willing and capable to work around that, they can easily compensate for a lack of knowledge in the respective field, but as I have mentioned before, quite often it doesn't work out very well in pratice... | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60835",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/28067/"
]
} |
60,857 | This question seems fairly straightforward. I believe it must have been answered somewhere, or I'm missing something very trivial. Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin asking that they be blocked from participating in the Electoral College. Quoting Wikipedia , but all sources cite it in a similar way (highlight mine): Filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on December 8, 2020, it alleges that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin violated the US Constitution by changing their election procedures in the run-up to the election. The suit seeks to temporarily withhold the certified vote count from these four states prior to the United States Electoral College vote on December 14, 2020. The election results are: 306 vs. 232 electoral votes, total 538, 50%=269, 270-to-win. Biden wins. The lawsuit seeks for removing 62 presidential electors, namely: Georgia=16, Michigan=16, Pennsylvania=20, and Wisconsin=10, total=62 electoral votes, so the result they are supposedly seeking for would be: 244 vs. 232 electoral votes, total 476, 50%=238, 239-to-win. Biden (still) wins. Question: What's the catch? How invalidating (only) 62 presidential electors is supposed to reverse the election? Or are they assuming a different math? | You're also missing something deeper in the Texas suit. They request various temporary measures, but then say: As permanent relief, Texas asks this Court
to remand the allocation of electors to the legislatures of Defendant States pursuant
to the statutory and constitutional backstop for this scenario: “Whenever any State
has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a
choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent
day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may direct.” 3 U.S.C. § 2
(emphasis added); U.S. CONST. art. II, § 1, cl. 2. Significantly, State legislatures retain the authority to appoint electors under
the federal Electors Clause, even if state laws or constitutions provide otherwise.
McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 35 (1892); accord Bush I, 531 U.S. at 76-77; Bush
II, 531 U.S at 104. For its part, Congress could move the December 14 date set for the
electoral college’s vote, as it has done before when faced with contested elections. Ch.
37, 19 Stat. 227 (1877). Alternatively, the electoral college could vote on December 14
without Defendant States’ electors, with the presidential election going to the House
of Representatives under the Twelfth Amendment if no candidate wins the required
270-vote majority. So, they want the Republican-controlled legislatures in those 4 states to appoint the electors... presumably in favor of Trump. They also envisage that Congress could move the date when the College vote takes place, to allow these new electors to vote (for Trump). And failing that, they expect Congress to go into a contingent election , which (barring any unrequested developments, like SCOTUS--of its own accord--also invalidating some House races as well, ) would also favor Trump because in a contingent election: If no candidate for president receives an absolute majority of the electoral votes, pursuant to the 12th Amendment, the House of Representatives is required to go into session immediately to choose a president from among the three candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each state's delegation votes en bloc, with each having a single vote. The most up-to-date maths on the latter I found in a Dec 9 article: In the new Congress that will convene next January, Republicans will hold the majority in 27 state delegations, Democrats just 19. Three states (Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania) will have evenly divided delegations that would be unable to cast votes at all), and Iowa may join them when an undecided House race is finally resolved. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60857",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/2984/"
]
} |
60,887 | Reading the news after four people were stabbed in protester-counterprotester clashes in Washington, DC — this image from npr.org — I came across this potentially offensive picture: (Hover over to view) It's pretty clear that these are very far-left protesters. "Black Lives Matter," and the more radical "Ch**** la Migra," "Defund the Police," and "We keep us safe" signs make that pretty obvious. However, what I'm confused about is the center sign — "Jews will replace you." I'm not familiar with that phrase, but it sounds (at least to me, a non-Jewish person) very, very antisemitic. It seems more in tune with the Proud Boys and other groups on the opposing side, bringing to mind all those crazy conspiracy theories of Zionism and George Soros and Jews controlling the world. I… guess it can be interpreted as radically anti -antisemitic, but it really doesn't sound like that. Although the person holding the shield is clearly a counterprotester, and antisemitism is not really what they're famous for. Is this is the latter interpretation then? But what I'm asking here is what that expression usually means. Is this exact phrase used often, or was it invented with that painted shield? If the former, is it used more often in an antisemitic context or is it meant to strongly oppose antisemitism ? Why would an ostensibly far-left counterprotester show it when many of the far-right protesters they are countering (especially the Proud Boys, various other groups, and anyone seen with a "white power" gesture) believe in exactly that? I realize I'm dealing with an especially delicate subject here. Please tell me if there is anything even remotely offensive with this post, or even if there are any awful grammar issues here, and correct them. Thank you in advance. | It's a taunt, based on the chant "Jews will not replace us" famous for being used by far right groups at Charlottesville . The intent is almost certainly to incite a reaction, not to make an actual statement for or against the Jewish faith. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60887",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/34126/"
]
} |
60,894 | According to the question about chairman West's phrase: Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution Is it constitutionally possible to have some above-state organization/structure inside the US? | It's a taunt, based on the chant "Jews will not replace us" famous for being used by far right groups at Charlottesville . The intent is almost certainly to incite a reaction, not to make an actual statement for or against the Jewish faith. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60894",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/20263/"
]
} |
60,903 | According to Wiki : A thirteenth salary, or end-of-year bonus, is an extra payment given
to employees at the end of December. Although the amount of the
payment depends on a number of factors, it usually matches an
employee's monthly salary and can be paid in one or more installments
(depending on country). But why do governments officially mandate this in some countries? How is this system better than simply paying out an equal amount each month? | Sometimes, it is just a weird accounting practice. Here it Germany, it is common for union-negotiated salaries to include one or two extra sums, for Christmas and possibly for the summer vacation. These are not performance bonuses, they just mean an uneven distribution of the total payment across the year. At times, the lump sum had to be repaid proportionally if the employee resigned before next spring. Why? Tradition! For centuries, employers would give employees gifts for Christmas. In the mid 20th century, unions demanded to "regularize" the practice and to make it more predictable and fair, so those payments went into the union salary agreement. There is some paternalism in the practice, the assumption that the poor dumb proletariat cannot be expected to manage their finances over the year and set money back for year-end celebrations and skiing vacations. Not all employees get these non-discretionary payments. It depends on the strength of the union (stronger unions can get them) and the strength or weakness of the employee (individuals who negotiate for themselves tend to bargain either over the annual total, and not worry about 12 or 13 or 14 parts, or over the the hourly rate, and not worry about months or years). Why is it better? As mentioned, the extra payments are timed just before the summer and winter vacation seasons. It is really convenient to do a monthly household budget and to treat those extras as vacation funds. But not everybody can afford an expensive vacation, and not everybody goes at the same time. And the government? There are cases where the German government can declare a wage agreement between unions and employers' associations to be allgemeinverbindlich , generally binding. This can happen to "avoid economic mis-developments" or when an overwhelming number of employers has agreed and just a few "black sheep" remain. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60903",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/7434/"
]
} |
60,923 | I saw a tweet saying that every state that Biden won, there was a larger difference in people voting for Biden and Trump than Clinton and Trump. It said this held true even in the three states that had statistically significant shifts away from Biden, though two out of those three states shifted significantly towards the Democrats in 2020 in their statewide House votes compared to 2016. Is this tweet accurate, now that everything's certified? Note: he won 5 states Clinton lost. This still seems to hold true here but this is dealing with negative numbers. And, based on the context, it means was BIDEN - TRUMP greater than CLINTON - TRUMP in each state carried by Biden? | Yes, though it's not a meaningful statement. According to the results by state on wikipedia ( 2016 results and 2020 results ), Biden received more votes than Clinton in every state, not just the ones he won. Of course, Trump received more votes in every state in 2020 than he did in 2016 too – turnout was just really high across the board. Slightly more significant is the fact that Biden also received a larger percentage of the vote than Clinton in every state except for Kentucky. Due to the low levels of third-party voting (1.44% in 2020 vs 4.35% in 2016), however, Trump also received a larger percentage of the vote in 27 states (though usually by a small margin), including several that flipped from Trump to Biden in 2020: FL, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, UT, VT, WA, WV, WI, and WY | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60923",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
} |
60,960 | In following the ongoing Brexit negotiations, I notice that fishing rights in UK waters is a sticking point, e.g. But the two sides have yet to narrow gaps on two of the thorniest issues: fishing rights in British waters and the level playing field. An EU official told Reuters the bloc had rejected Britain’s offer of phased access to its waters over three years by EU fishing vessels and the sides were "an ocean apart" on the issue. Source This is surprising, because there is an obvious solution: both sides agree to only fish in their territorial waters. What is wrong with this obvious solution? | A bunch of issues: Under EU rules, there could be foreign-owned ships registered under the UK flag. UK fishermen sold their quotas in the 1990s, which was legal back then. These rights should not simply be expropriated without fair compensation. While the UK was in the EU, ships from the EU27 could fish in UK waters and fish could be sold all across the EU27 and UK. Now the UK wants an agreement which lets them sell the fish in the EU27, without prohibitive tariff barriers, and the EU27 wants to continue fishing in the UK EEZ. Fish migrate . Many are born in one EEZ and caught in another. It is not as if they live in just one nation's waters. Yet fish should not be caught before they are fully mature. Coordination and quotas are necessary. To me it looks as if the UK has some case to "get their fishing back," but it isn't all that clear-cut. What can be done? Grandfathering the existing ships? Quota buybacks? Some compromise? | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60960",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/22967/"
]
} |
60,992 | I get the distinct impression that many dictators bear the military rank of colonel - for example, Muammar Gadaffi held the rank of colonel while ruling Libya (and is indeed more commonly known in the West as 'Colonel Gadaffi' than by his actual first name), and Georgios Papadopoulos was a colonel while heading the Greek military junta. My question is: why colonels ? Colonel is not the highest army rank - above them are various grades of generals, and (depending on the country and the era) quite possibly higher ranks still, usually including the word 'Marshall' somewhere. Even if a dictator sees no need to appoint themselves to ludicrous new ranks like 'Most Supreme Marshal' or 'Eternal General of the People' or something like that, I don't understand why Gadaffi, Papadopoulos and others did not at least take on the highest available grade of general - when not doing so presumably resulted in them, as head of state, giving orders to military officers of higher rank than themselves. EDIT: to clarify, I am aware that many dictators with a formal military rank are actually generals or marshals of some sort, and that the colonels I described are in the minority. My question wasn't why this practice is universal (because it's not), but why it exists at all. | It is not necessary. The army generals are OK taking orders from "Colonel X", because he is the head of state, whether or not he is a higher rank. (If they weren't, the Colonel wouldn't be head of state). Generals are used to taking orders from civilians outside the military chain of command. A dictator's power doesn't depend on his rank. Arbitrary promotions show contempt for the military. Making yourself head of state is one thing. The Army is probably OK with that, or it wouldn't have happened. But giving yourself a military rank higher than the people who have earned it on merit? That's going to annoy the army. Dictators who annoy the army don't usually survive long. Ranks are permanent, government is temporary. A head of government
is no longer in command when he stops being head of government.
Generals get to keep commanding even after the reason for their
promotion is done. The military probably prefers that the new
dictator doesn't give himself a title that will live forever. It's also not clear that "Colonel" is the norm. Only two examples of dictators using the title "Colonel" have been presented. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60992",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/17158/"
]
} |
60,999 | The Vice President, being the President of the Senate, presides over the counting of the Electoral College votes during a joint session of Congress. Following the count, the VP then officially declares the winner of the presidential election. The media has occasionally described incumbent VP Mike Pence's role as an "awkward" one . The role of the vice president as presiding officer is often an awkward one, as it will be for Pence, who will be charged with announcing Biden’s victory — and his own defeat — once the electoral votes are counted. It will be especially tense for the former Indiana congressman as his boss, Trump, has refused to concede. So, does the Constitution mandate that the Vice President must be the presiding officer during the Electoral College count? If not, who else can take up the role? | Well, the Constitution says (Article II, Section 1) The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and
House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes
shall then be counted. while Article I, Section 3 defines the President of the Senate as the Vice President The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the
Senate So it is clearly intended that the Vice President presides. It's reasonably common for the sitting Vice President to preside over an Electoral College vote count that sees him defeated. While it is probably awkward to do so, it would almost certainly be more awkward for the Vice President to avoid the session. That said, Article I, Section 3 also specifies that the Senate will choose a President pro tempore that acts in the absence of the VP The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro
tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall
exercise the Office of President of the United States. I would assume that if the Vice President claimed that he was going to be unavoidably absent that the President pro tempore (currently Sen. Grassley (R-IA)) would preside. I'm not sure that any Vice President has ever been absent for the opening of the Electoral College ballots to test this. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/60999",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/9638/"
]
} |
61,038 | In the late 2020 news, it was said that then still-president Trump could have invoked martial law in order to help him overturn the 2020 election ( CNN , Business Insider ) Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden In what way would that have helped him? Would it have been possible to do that legally? Would that have been likely to succeed? | Mobilizing the army to change the outcome of an election is an established practice that has a long history across the world. It is called a coup. During a coup it is common practice to "modify" the courts, which subsequently rule that the actions were indeed legal. At this point there is a 0% chance of success of such a coup, and about a 0% chance of it being attempted. Because the accusations of election fraud are transparent lies*, and some of the elections in question were run by Republicans, attempting to overthrow the election with a military coup would likely spilt the Republicans into multiple factions, at which point they would be far too weak to succeed at taking and maintaining power by force. And to revisit the question of legality: Coups that fail are ruled illegal by courts. Instead, the threat of a military coup, worded in a way that still allows for plausible deniability, serves to further polarize the country, which is in line with many similar such actions throughout Trump's term in office. *The accusations of widespread voter fraud to steal the election from Trump and give it to Biden have been established as false by a multitude of fact checkers , courts and the government of the United States of America . If you know that this is incorrect, don't write a comment just claiming that evidence exists. Please provide a link to the actual evidence of widespread voter fraud to steal the election. Then send it to the White House because they are desperately looking for evidence to support their claims. Related: Russel's teapot . | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61038",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/4988/"
]
} |
61,096 | There are currently lorries queueing in their thousands in the south east of England as France has closed its border due to the fear of spreading the mutated strain of COVID-19. If the UK was still in the EU*, is this something France and other EU countries would have been allowed to do given the EU tenet of free trade and movement? *The UK left the EU on the 31st of January 2020. It is currently in a “transition period” until the end of the year at which point the existing EU/UK agreement will end. | Yes, Directive 2004/38/EC , the directive passed in 2004 to consolidate freedom of movement legislation, contains a number of provisions which allow restrictions to be placed on this right. Particularly, Chapter VI, Article 27, states: Subject to the provisions of this Chapter, Member States may restrict the freedom of movement and residence of Union citizens and
their family members, irrespective of nationality, on grounds of
public policy, public security or public health . These grounds shall
not be invoked to serve economic ends. Article 29 states: 1. The only diseases justifying measures restricting freedom of movement shall be the diseases with epidemic potential as defined by
the relevant instruments of the World Health Organisation and other
infectious diseases or contagious parasitic diseases if they are the
subject of protection provisions applying to nationals of the host
Member State. As Covid-19 qualifies by this criterion, France, or any EU member, can restrict EU citizens' freedom of movement by closing the border to freight. It's worth bearing in mind that until the end of the Brexit transition period, UK citizens still enjoy the same freedom of movement rights as EU citizens. Note also that unmanned freight is not being blocked; according to Boris Johnson's press release on December 21st ; the current restriction is purely a freedom of movement issue and not an explicit restriction on trade: And it is vital first to stress that these delays – which are only
occurring at Dover – only affect human-handled freight, and that is
only 20 per cent of the total arriving from or departing to the
European continent | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61096",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/25641/"
]
} |
61,109 | According to Reuters : Trump said he wants Congress to increase the amount in the stimulus checks to $2,000 for individuals or $4,000 for couples, instead of the “ridiculously low” $600 for individuals that is in the bill. OK, this sounds reasonable-ish/arguable... for Democrats. I thought the Reps had been holding out on covid bills before because the relief measures supposedly made it more lucrative to be Covid-furloughed than working (though a certain breed of free marketer/libertarian might argue that it would be better to hand out lotsa money without much costly oversight to consumers rather than play favorites with - and invite lobbying on - which industries most deserve bailouts in the midst of a massive systemic restructuring). Did I totally misunderstand previous positions? From USA Today in July Democrats have argued for an extension of the benefits. Though President Donald Trump and some Republicans worry that extending the supplement will disincentivize unemployed Americans to return to work because they were earning more through unemployment than their job. “We had something where ... it gave you a disincentive to work last time,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business earlier this month. “We want to create a very great incentive to work." | Trump had supported (higher) stimulus checks to individuals before, but he wanted them as a separate law. Back in October, Trump (via Mnuchin) had also proposed a $1.8T stimulus. The plan would mark an increase from the $1.6 trillion the Trump administration previously proposed. House Democrats passed a $2.2 trillion bill earlier this month, and the sides have struggled to find a consensus in between those figures. [...] In a tweet before the meeting [of Pelosi and Mnuchin], Trump urged negotiators to “Go Big!” Trump later added more confusion to a chaotic week of discussions over aid. “I would like to see a bigger stimulus package frankly than either the Democrats or Republicans are offering,” he told radio host Rush Limbaugh, hours after apparently signing off on the offer that costs $400 billion less than the Democrats’ [$2.2T] plan. I could not find out immediately what that $1.8T plan entailed in terms of direct checks (i.e. if it included that $1200 figure for checks or another.) But it seems that the $1.8T Trump plan died due to it being neither supported by Democrats who wanted more, nor by Senate Republicans who wanted less, according to a CNN on October 16: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly, and explicitly, shot down the idea any deal at or above $1.8 trillion would ever reach the Senate floor. In other words, he has no interest in anything Pelosi and Mnuchin are even discussing. Instead, he will put a pared back $500 billion Covid relief proposal on the Senate floor next week. Asked back home in Kentucky if the proposal lined up with what Trump was pushing for, McConnell chuckled. "Actually, no," he said.
"He's talking about a much larger amount than I can sell to my members." You should also note that Trump also complained about various things included in the non-Covid-stimulus part of the 2021 appropriations bill(s). He said: "This bill contains $85.5m for assistance to Cambodia, $134m to Burma, $1.3bn for Egypt and the Egyptian military, which will go out and buy almost exclusively Russian military equipment, $25m for democracy and gender programmes in Pakistan, $505m to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama." The president questioned why the Kennedy Center, a performing arts complex in Washington DC, was set to receive $40m when it is not open, and more than $1bn has been allocated to museums and galleries in the capital. Mr Trump concluded: "Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests, while sending the bare minimum to the American people who need it. It wasn't their fault. It was China's fault. "I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple. "I'm also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation and to send me a suitable bill, or else the next administration will have to deliver a Covid relief package." So he now says he wants both a reduction in other spending and an increase in stimulus checks. Democrats seem quite willing to go for the latter, but probably not the former (or at least they haven't made high-profile comments about cuts). In a tweet, Pelosi said, "at last the president has agreed to $2,000 — Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent." Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said more was needed for American citizens, but opposing Republicans blocked it. "We spent months trying to secure $2,000 checks but Republicans blocked it[.] Trump needs to sign the bill to help people and keep the government open," tweeted Schumer. Reuters also noted that Trump's strong opposition came a bit as surprise because he was silent for months on the topic. Trump also said a two-year tax break for corporate meal expenses was “not enough” to help struggling restaurants. The White House did not signal any objections to the legislation before it passed and gave every expectation that Trump would sign it. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was involved in the negotiations over the bill. This last claim seems to be correct, as NPR (see 1st link) noted on Dec 8: Separately, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin released a statement Tuesday evening saying that he presented a proposal for a $916 billion package to Pelosi, which included both money for state and local governments and liability protections. Mnuchin said he reviewed that proposal with McConnell, the president and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. But maybe Mnuchin didn't clear it with Trump? Who knows... I mean before Trump suddenly (?) objected Mnuchin had even declared on Dec 21: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday that he expects Americans will start receiving stimulus checks as early as next week from the COVID-19 relief package that Congress is poised to approve. "The president wanted direct payments, so we will be sending out next week direct deposit," Mnuchin said on CNBC. "I expect we'll get the money out by the beginning of next week." Some in the press (e.g. the Hill ) have also raised this point of whether Mnuchin’s position had diverged from Trump's. Alas, it seems Trump won't talk to the Democratic leadership anymore, so Mnuchin is the only conduit of the administration for negotiation on the matter with the House. Trump’s opposition to the bill has frustrated members on both sides of the aisle in the wake of Mnuchin’s assurances he would sign it. There's now skepticism about whether Mnuchin is speaking on behalf of the president. Yet the bad blood between Pelosi and Trump is so severe that the pair haven't spoken directly in over a year. And [Steny] Hoyer said Thursday that Democrats have no other choice but to trust that the Treasury secretary is acting as Trump's proxy. I'm not sure how much Trump was influenced by this, but Fox News (which has seems to have fully lined up behind Trump's point on this) invited Chip Roy to speak in one of their shows, and he said that his Freedom Caucus group sent Trump a letter asking him to veto the legislation. However, others in the GOP said basically they felt betrayed by Trump on this: The $600 stimulus checks, which Trump now complains are too small, were first floated to Democratic leaders by Mnuchin in a Dec. 8 phone call. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told his GOP colleagues in a Wednesday call that he felt “Trump threw us under the bus.” “The president was updated on this bill every step of the way by the GOP leadership. The COVID supplemental is a good compromise and the president should take it,” Bacon said in a public statement after the call, standing by his comments. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61109",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/21531/"
]
} |
61,145 | A Washington Post article that describes President Trump's pardons over the last few days says the following: The move sparked blowback, mostly from Democrats, who accused him of wielding his executive authority to shield himself from possible criminal investigation. How would Trump's pardoning of other people protect himself from any potential criminal investigation in the future? People who have been pardoned could still be subpoenaed in a future investigation. Wouldn't the only way for Trump to protect himself be to pardon himself, which he has not done yet? | As best I can tell, these pardons are meant as rewards for being loyal to Trump, not as protections. They don't actually protect Trump in any way: the contrary, in fact, since pardoning someone implies they can no longer invoke fifth amendment rights, meaning they can be compelled to testify against Trump in the future. But Trump has — as others have pointed out — a mob-boss attitude in which demonstrations of personal loyalty to himself personally must be rewarded and demonstrations of disloyalty punished. This is amplified by the fact that Trump has been trying to overturn the US election almost entirely as a loyalty test: trying to get judges he appointed, GOP governors and state legislators he supported, GOP congresspeople he campaigned for, and his own base to somehow push him into a second term merely because he asks it. These pardons are a signal to everyone that this is what they can expect if they do the loyal thing and install him as president; those who stand by him will be protected. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61145",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/10132/"
]
} |
61,190 | The recently passed stimulus bill is said to be 5,593 pages long, and allocates $900 billion in funds. It's no surprise that there was no chance to read or amend the bill. The logistics of revising a 5,593-page document must be nearly overwhelming. I am curious how many people are involved in coordinating the document. I can only guess that the various parts of the documents are written by various parties, and then collated into a longer document. Is it known who wrote the various parts of it? Is there a person who has read the entire document? | Teamwork and Staff No single representative reads all those pages, but the various committee members look at the parts which are their area of expertise. And then a representative on the Armed Services committee (from either side of the aisle) trusts that his or her party's representatives on the Agriculture committee got the agricultural matters right, and he or she trusts the budget committee people that they got as many concessions as possible out of the other side. Various draft texts get debated in the run-up to a compromise, deals are made ("you vote for this aircraft carrier and we vote for that tax cut"), and staff assembles the parts of the compromise into one bill. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61190",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/14403/"
]
} |
61,202 | From a Bloomberg article on December 28, 2020: The House is set to vote Monday to replace the $600 stimulus payments
in the newly enacted pandemic relief law with the $2,000 President
Donald Trump demanded [...] The bill would need two-thirds support to
clear the House under the procedure being used for the vote ... Several other news sources referred to this required 2/3 vote, without explaining it. What procedure requires this? | Under normal procedures, a bill in the House or Senate would work its way through various committees (which work on their own schedules and have their own priorities), and then go through preliminary debates and qualifying votes before being brought up for the actual vote. It's a time-consuming process, but one that gives ample space for deliberation, modification, and dissemination of information. Expedited processes bypass or truncate many of those stages in order to bring a bill to vote quickly. Such bills go through far less scrutiny, and so congressional rules require a supermajority to keep a majority party from ramming through legislation without the typical debate or consensus-forming periods. See “Fast-Track” or Expedited Procedures ... | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61202",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35629/"
]
} |
61,203 | According to the Twitter of Andrej Babiš (Czech prime minister): This evening I have asked the EC President @vonderleyen
to explore and approve together with @EMA_News
as soon as possible the possibility of using a Pfizer ampule for six doses instead of five. It would mean 360 million doses instead of 300 million doses of Pfizer vaccine for the EU. I strongly hope that the EC President will find a solution shortly. But why is EU approval required in the first place? Couldn't the Czech government unilaterally mandate that all six doses are used instead of five? Is there anything in EU rules that precludes such experimentation? | Under normal procedures, a bill in the House or Senate would work its way through various committees (which work on their own schedules and have their own priorities), and then go through preliminary debates and qualifying votes before being brought up for the actual vote. It's a time-consuming process, but one that gives ample space for deliberation, modification, and dissemination of information. Expedited processes bypass or truncate many of those stages in order to bring a bill to vote quickly. Such bills go through far less scrutiny, and so congressional rules require a supermajority to keep a majority party from ramming through legislation without the typical debate or consensus-forming periods. See “Fast-Track” or Expedited Procedures ... | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61203",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/7434/"
]
} |
61,229 | For example, Republicans are for tax cuts, and Democrats are against them. On the other hand, Democrats are for stimulus checks and Republicans against. But the net effect of both seems to be the same, namely, a higher deficit and more money in people's pockets. So what's the difference and why do the parties come out opposites on it? | Discounting the surrounding flora, your question seems to be fairly clear: what's the difference between tax breaks and stimulus checks? (It becomes less clear when introducing the word "philosophical," but let's give it a try.) If the tax breaks are provided for the same time frame and specifically targeted to the identical people, as the stimulus checks, there may be very little difference. In such a case the main differences would be practical and administrative. But tax measures rarely target the same people as direct payments, and advocates rarely want tax breaks to be for a limited time. Direct payments may reach people who are not immediately visible to the tax system because, for example, they may have been stay-at-home parents who are not required to file a return. "Philosophically" there are also different schools of thought in economics on this subject with some making the case that direct payments are always better than tax measures because direct payments are unambiguous in their costs. This school would do away with all "tax breaks" and convert them into direct payments fully visible to all taxpayers. So for example, in stead of getting a subsidy through tax breaks to build certain cars, the manufacturer would duly receive a government cheque. This school not only makes the case that it is much easier for taxpayers to fully understand the costs of direct payments, but they also avoid clever tricks to manipulate tax provisions in ways they were not intended. On the other hand there are those who believe using tax breaks is a superior approach because not collecting the dollar in the first place means the government doesn't have to do all the accounting and administration associated with collecting a dollar that is simply going to be returned. There is a current that also believes tax breaks serve a greater philosophical purpose in "starving" government of money. Their real objective is to shrink the range of options available to all governments because they fundamentally believe government is a bad thing that needs to be squeezed to its barest necessity. These are just some of the considerations in your question and I don't want to suggest that it is a complete consideration. If you have further specific questions I'm happy to try to answer them. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61229",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35646/"
]
} |
61,243 | Why does the Chinese government rule the country not phenomenally, but better than one would expect from unelected authorities? I think it's supposed to work the following way: the officials try to work well so that they are not kicked out next election, like in Europe. Otherwise, we get Russia where the government messes up everything (in my view) but still keeps its grip on power. China, on the other hand, seems to be governed not as bad after all. For example, they managed the COVID epidemic quite well (aside from their initial attempts to shoot the messenger), they managed to dramatically increase incomes and reduce poverty in the last few decades, and so on. So my question is: what are incentives for the authorities to do a good job other than regular and fair elections ? Answers should include the ones that lead the undemocratic and repressive Chinese government to occasionally make good decisions which benefit the public. | The CCP is in a strange position. They are nominally Communist, but they've largely jettisoned its economic prescriptions (because they don't work). They're a one-party state (more or less dictatorial depending on your viewpoint). So they're in power but don't have Marxism to really fall back to as an ideology. They're also unable to rally people around a religion like Iran. Their best bet to remain in power are thus: appealing to nationalism delivering some level of prosperity to most people. Really badly managed, a la Venezuela, they'd have to use considerable coercion to remain in power. With their level of success in delivering material improvements, by encouraging nationalism, and by limiting access to information, they can convince most (Han) people, most of the time, to avoid making waves to get rid of the CCP. That's also a big part of the reason Xi's reign started off with a big anti-corruption drive, again you want to remove reasons for political resentment (another is that it allowed Xi to sideline his political rivals ). So the incentive for them to manage competently is to avoid repeats of events like Tiananmen . When that fails to work, there's always the fallback to more coercive methods - ask Tibetans or Uighurs - but competence or its appearance is a big part of their appeal. On the international stage, assuming they want China to be a world power - and remember, "selling" China's success to the Chinese people is also in their game plan - they also have every incentive to manage their economy and technology as efficiently as possible. Prevailing against the US and Western democracies requires that, as the USSR found out to its detriment. China's leadership is reportedly extremely sensitive to the outcome of Perestroika in the USSR and wants no repeat of it but also know they can't compete by autarky or using military means alone. If you assume that the CCP leadership are not just in it to steal from the state (unlike say Papa Doc in Haiti or Marcos in the Philippines), then other motivations come into play. They may either want to be admired as leaders, they want their political system to succeed or they have a vision for the country. In that case, running the country competently, if it is in their capacity seems better than just running it into the ground. Plenty of dictators desire success at some level, not just lining their own pockets. Ceaușescu or Mussolini for example. Doesn't mean it's pleasant to live under them. Or that they run things well. China is also starting out with considerable advantages, being a huge market and country, with a tradition of education and of looking up to central government (as well as a miserable period in the early 20th century without a functioning central government). The same methods, used in a different country with a smaller economic potential, less homogenous population or a different culture, may not work as well. As far as Covid goes, they have managed it rather well. If Western countries had the power to impose mass quarantines on short notice or throw people in jail for not following medical guidance (and if we had uniformly competent political leadership wrt medical issues), I'm sure we'd be doing better too. Thing is, when Covid's over, we will be as we usually are, but China will still be a dictatorship. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61243",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/30327/"
]
} |
61,265 | I'm curious what kind of arguments one could give to justify to someone without a college education that they would have to pay for someone else's education that they themselves never received. With majors where it's expected that people will be more capable of producing value than without such as with STEM majors the argument is that long term, they will be able to pay more taxes allowing the original taxpayer to retire more comfortably. But that's less of an argument when its about a major that has no guarantee of a high paying position as a result of it. In fact you are losing out on tax revenue that they could have paid if they spent the same time working. So how would one convince someone to pay for a less profitable major for someone else? | After one generation, you would have lots of engineers and lawyers and few, if any, teachers. After two generations, you would have neither engineers nor teachers. Our culture is more than just engineering. It might be possible to ignore that on the short term, but not for long. So one could say that we're systematically underpaying kindergarten teachers and art historians, and you want to add insult to injury by defunding their departments? Follow-Up: There have been debates in the comments and also some actual comments about me mixing teachers and art historians. The former are seen as useful by some commenters in producing the next generation of STEM graduates, the latter are seen as useless. But I stand by my belief that culture is more than just engineering. To clarify, I firmly believe that any society which abandons non-applied science will be diminished on the long run. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61265",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/29677/"
]
} |
61,268 | Saudi and Iran have long fought each other through proxy wars throughout the Middle East. However when Iran started its nuclear program, how come Saudi didn’t do it in response? | After one generation, you would have lots of engineers and lawyers and few, if any, teachers. After two generations, you would have neither engineers nor teachers. Our culture is more than just engineering. It might be possible to ignore that on the short term, but not for long. So one could say that we're systematically underpaying kindergarten teachers and art historians, and you want to add insult to injury by defunding their departments? Follow-Up: There have been debates in the comments and also some actual comments about me mixing teachers and art historians. The former are seen as useful by some commenters in producing the next generation of STEM graduates, the latter are seen as useless. But I stand by my belief that culture is more than just engineering. To clarify, I firmly believe that any society which abandons non-applied science will be diminished on the long run. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61268",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35613/"
]
} |
61,305 | I keep seeing this image on the internet, of President-elect Biden standing at a lectern that looks a bit like the president's. I saw this picture of President-elect Biden in the USA Today, and the caption said: President-elect Joe Biden delivers remarks at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 9, 2020. I do notice that he has a second American flag to fill the space of the absent flag of the presidency, and a gold seal in lieu of the presidential seal. It strikes me as a new development that before taking office he should have constructed an office in the theaters that he visits, from which to address the press. When we say "the Office of the President” I suppose that we mean not a room containing office furniture but rather the role of the president, the collection of powers and responsibilities of the president as defined in the Constitution, by comparison to which there isn't really an "Office of the President-elect." Has any previous politician done this? | According to Wikipedia: Office of the President-Elect logos first began to be used by the Obama transition team in 2008 And Trump apparently also used one (same source): N.B. while that logo lacks the words "office of", there's a photo of Trump in front of a larger thingy that has the words too: And (to answer a comment), the same source has a similar photo for Obama | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61305",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/20944/"
]
} |
61,351 | At the end of the Second World War many Japanese generals such as Tojo and Yamashita were tried and executed, but Hirohito wasn't tried and even continued as emperor. Why wasn't he tried while he was involved in WWII and also in the second Sino-Japanese war? | It was partially MacArthur 's idea. I suspect that, aside from considerations regarding internal Japanese stability the swiftly developing Cold War (things soured as soon as Germany surrendered) motivated the idea to not rock the boat overmuch. Remember that there was a sizable Japanese Communist Party in the 30s. Also Japan really has had, as odd as it may seem to us, the notion of absolute-power, divine, figurehead emperors. Prior to the Tokugawas, the emperor would not really rule until he abdicated to let his son take over. At that point he would assume real power, over a decentralized feudal system, while his son performed rituals. From wikipedia : The role of the Emperor of Japan has historically alternated between a largely ceremonial symbolic role and that of an actual imperial ruler. Since the establishment of the first shogunate in 1199, the Emperors of Japan have rarely taken on a role as supreme battlefield commander, unlike many Western monarchs. Japanese emperors have nearly always been controlled by external political forces, to varying degrees. Later on, the Shogunate took over and put the emperor even more on the back burner while he was nominally in charge. If I recall correctly, in later Shogunate, the Shogun himself became a figurehead while there was another influential group doing the real work. Not sure how the 1868 Meiji Restoration modified things, but certainly the military ruled the governmental roost, having a defacto veto over cabinets. So while it was a convenient and calculated whitewash not to get rid of Hirohito, the idea of him not totally having been in charge isn't merely a fiction and the extent of his actual decision and control is still being debated. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61351",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
} |
61,354 | As a recent example, the recent $2.3 trillion stimulus bill contained not just provisions related to supporting the American people, but also a requirement to produce a report on UFOs : Federal agencies have been asked to publish a report on unidentified
flying objects (UFOs) in less than 180 days, thanks to an act included
in the $2.3 trillion stimulus and government spending bill signed by
President Donald Trump on Sunday. A report by the Select Committee on Intelligence attached to the The
Intelligence Authorization Act for 2021 states that the Director of
National Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense and the heads of other
relevant agencies submit a report to the congressional intelligence
and armed services committees on "unidentified aerial phenomena (also
known as "anomalous aerial vehicles''), including observed airborne
objects that have not been identified." They are asked to do this 180
days after the act is enacted. Are there countries where a proposed law may only focus on one single topic? | Depending on how one defines "one single topic", the rule applies in the UK. Erskine May - the bible of parliamentary procedure in the UK - has this to say on the scope of a bill : Any amendment (or new clause or new schedule) proposed to a bill must be within its scope. The scope of a bill represents the reasonable limits of its collective purposes, as defined by its existing clauses and schedules. In particular cases, difficult questions of judgment may arise. The scope of a bill, particularly of a bill with several purposes, may be wider than its long title, although the long title may help to determine the scope. In other words, a bill's long title is intended to summarise the scope of the bill. Any amendment which is outside that scope is likely to be ruled out of order . Admittedly, that's not quite the same as saying that a bill must only contain matters pertaining to a single subject ; but that is the effect, and so omnibus bills are unknown in the UK (at least nowadays). Note that this does make riders ("an additional provision added to a bill [...], having little connection with the subject matter of the bill.") all but impossible; and amendments relating to money can only be made by the government. It's less clear what happens if any content in the original bill (before any amendments are made) fails to match the long title. It may be that amendments are made either to remove the offending clauses, or to amend the long title to reflect the actual contents of the bill. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61354",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/7434/"
]
} |
61,390 | Nancy Pelosi has just been re-elected to the Speakership in the US House of Representatives, and will be serving her fourth and final term as Speaker there from now until, presumably, the third of January 2023. She was sworn in as Speaker, then administered the oath of office en masse to the Members-Elect . Given that Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5 of the Constitution states "The House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment," and that, being members-elect, they aren't yet members and thus aren't part of the House of Representatives, why is it they can on vote and elect the Speaker? | They are already Representatives before they take the oath. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, ... ...the terms of Senators and Representatives [end] at noon on the 3d day of January, ... and the terms of their successors shall then begin. There is nothing in Section 1 about "members-elect".
There is nothing about oaths (except that senators take an oath when sitting in impeachment trials). So Members are already Members from noon on the third. Article 6 requires: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution So they have to take an oath, though no particular form of words is defined. It is clear from precedent and practices over 200 years that members take the oath before they can begin any external matter, such as creating new laws. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61390",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35447/"
]
} |
61,411 | The President of the US Senate (who is the Vice-President ) is responsible for presiding over the electoral college's votes formally in a Joint Session of Congress. However, what if the Vice-President dies before doing so? I would imagine the President would nominate a new Vice-President, who would have to be approved by the current US Senate. But, what if hypothetically, the Senate (maybe controlled by the party of the president) just stalls on the vice-presidential nomination and the day of the current president's term ends and the new president is to be sworn in swings around? | As you've mentioned, the 12th amendment to the Constitution, enshrined in statute in 3 U.S.C. §15 grants the role of presiding over the counting of the electoral votes in Congress to the President of the Senate, not explicitly the Vice President. As a result, the same provisions apply as would in any other circumstances when the VP is absent or unable to attend; as defined by the Constitution: Article I, Section 3, Clause 5: The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro
tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall
exercise the Office of President of the United States. This would not be without precedent; although an absence, rather than a death. After the 1968 election, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was absent at the counting of the vote. The process was overseen instead by Richard Russell, a Senator from Georgia. The House of Representatives' website has a nice article on this: When Congress gathered to count the Electoral College in a Joint
Meeting on January 6, 1969, Vice President Humphrey was overseas
attending the funeral of Trygve Lie, the United Nation’s first
secretary general. In Humphrey’s absence, Senator Richard Russell of
Georgia, the president pro tempore of the Senate, oversaw the
proceedings. Two mahogany boxes containing the Electoral College
certificates from all 50 states and the District of Columbia sat in
front of him on the House rostrum. Source: Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives As President pro tempore of the Senate, Senator Richard Russell announced Richard M. Nixon the winner of the 1968 presidential election, after the House and Senate debated the objection of a North Carolina elector’s vote. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61411",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/28683/"
]
} |
61,448 | According to Wikipedia : Filibuster is a tactic used in the United States Senate to prevent a measure from being brought to a vote by means of obstruction. The most common form occurs when one or more senators attempt to delay or block a vote on a bill by extending debate on the measure. The Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish, and on any topic they choose, unless "three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn" (currently 60 out of 100) vote to bring the debate to a close by invoking cloture under Senate Rule XXII. Assuming that 60 out of 100 senators will never agree on the same thing, won't new legislation proposed by the Democrats be blocked in the senate by Republicans? If so, what is the point of gaining control of the senate? | In the Senate, there is the so-called "Nuclear Option" that permits the rules of the Senate to be changed with a simple majority. These rules include the 60-vote rule to close debate, which functionally ends a filibuster. In recent memory the Nuclear Option was employed to end filibusters of judicial appointments of the Democrat controlled Senate in 2013 and the Supreme Court nomination of the Republican controlled Senate in 2017. With control of 50 Senate seats, and a tie-breaking vote cast by future Vice President Harris, Democrats theoretically have the 51 votes necessary to employ the Nuclear Option and shut down filibusters. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61448",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35760/"
]
} |
61,472 | After the attack on the US Capitol by pro-Trump groups, the DC National Guard was eventually called in to restore order. Strangely, it is being reported that Vice President Mike Pence was the one who approved the orders , not President Trump: Defense and administration officials said it was Vice President Mike Pence, not President Trump, who approved the order to deploy the D.C. National Guard. It was unclear why the president, who incited his supporters to storm the Capitol and who is still the commander in chief, did not give the order. President Trump initially rebuffed and resisted requests to mobilize the National Guard, according to a person with knowledge of the events. It required intervention from the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, among other officials, the person familiar with the events said. Mr. Miller [the acting defense secretary] said on Wednesday afternoon that he had spoken with Mr. Pence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, and Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland about the situation at the Capitol. He notably did not mention Mr. Trump in his statement. Since, so far as anyone knows, President Trump has not been incapacitated or removed from office, how was the Vice President able to command the National Guard, without approval from the President? | What authority does the Vice President have to mobilize the National Guard? Apparently, none. However, the acting defense secretary does. Because the District is not a state, the D.C. Guard answers to the president, but he has delegated authority to command the capital’s guardsmen to Miller and McCarthy — two of the top officials at the Pentagon. — Bennington Banner also Washington Post (paywall) Statement by Acting Secretary Miller on Full Activation of D.C. National Guard , January 6, 2021 Chairman Milley and I just spoke separately with the Vice President and with Speaker Pelosi, Leader McConnell, Senator Schumer and Representative Hoyer about the situation at the U.S. Capitol. We have fully activated the D.C. National Guard to assist federal and local law enforcement as they work to peacefully address the situation. We are prepared to provide additional support as necessary and appropriate as requested by local authorities. Our people are sworn to defend the constitution and our democratic form of government and they will act accordingly. [Chairman Milley refers to U.S Army General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.] From the January 7, 2021, New York Times newsletter — Trump initially rebuffed requests to send the National Guard to the Capitol. Pence eventually approved the order. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61472",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/19301/"
]
} |
61,489 | As part of yesterday's insurrection response, VA Governor Northam sent his National Guard into D.C. : Virginia is sending reinforcements to help law enforcement in Washington, D.C. Gov. Ralph Northam announced on Wednesday afternoon that he is mobilizing members of the Virginia National Guard, as well as 200 Virginia state troopers. This sounds odd to me because the National Guard in D.C. is under the President's command . How does this work in practice? Could a state governor order their National Guard troops into another district/state, and because those orders have been given they stay in effect, or when the NG unit crosses the administrative border, are they subject to the local civilian commander in that region? | The Governor of Virginia sent VA National Guard members to assist in handling the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the request of the Mayor of the District of Columbia . The DC Mayor was authorized to make this request and the VA Governor was authorized to honor this request thanks to the Emergency Management Assistance Compact . The state of Maryland also provided support, again under the auspices of the EMCA, and again at the request of the DC Mayor, but this was delayed because Maryland's governor was under the impression that approval from the US Department of Defense was needed . | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61489",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/15044/"
]
} |
61,500 | Under the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and Future Relationship, Northern Ireland is in a very advantageous position where it has full access to the EU for goods, and can also send goods to (but not from) mainland UK without checks/tariffs. Despite the Brexit deal resulting in trade without tariffs/quotas, a lot of small businesses in the UK have complained about the costs of submitting Rules-of-origin and Product compliance forms, which can add up to £20,000. To mitigate against this, some businesses have set up manufacturing/business distribution centers in Eastern Europe. Instead, could the UK SMEs set up manufacturing/distribution centers in Northern Ireland, where they can have the best of both worlds: Full access to the EU, and Full access to the rest of UK ? | The Governor of Virginia sent VA National Guard members to assist in handling the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the request of the Mayor of the District of Columbia . The DC Mayor was authorized to make this request and the VA Governor was authorized to honor this request thanks to the Emergency Management Assistance Compact . The state of Maryland also provided support, again under the auspices of the EMCA, and again at the request of the DC Mayor, but this was delayed because Maryland's governor was under the impression that approval from the US Department of Defense was needed . | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61500",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/32431/"
]
} |
61,514 | So, suppose a US president whose term is scheduled to end, schedule a long flight on board US Air Force One on the same day that the new president is to be swore in - is he allowed to do that, and if not - who is supposed to prevent this? The question arises from my understanding that Air Force One is the mobile command center of the head of the US armed forces and thus must always be accessible to the US president in case of a surprise attack. If the exiting president is using the plane in a far away place when the new president takes control of the armed forces - one may surmise that would be problem if Air Force One is several flight hours away. | Air Force One isn't an airplane, it's the callsign for whatever US Air Force airplane the President happens to be flying in. Currently, the airplane most often used as Air Force One is a VC-25A , and the US Air Force has two of them in service. (If the President flies in a military aircraft from a different branch then the callsign would reflect that branch. For example, helicopter transport is usually provided by the Marines, with a callsign of "Marine One", while if the President flies in a commercial aircraft then the callsign would be "Executive One".) So no, an outgoing president can't prevent the incoming president from using Air Force One, because at noon on January 20, the airplane the now ex-president is flying in will no longer be Air Force One. As an actual case of this happening, the VC-137C carrying Nixon changed its callsign in mid-flight from Air Force One to SAM 27000 when Nixon's resignation took effect and Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the new president. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61514",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35783/"
]
} |
61,528 | There is current news of several of Trump's cabinet members resigning with Trump only having 13 days left in his presidency. Question: If Mike Pence were to resign his vice presidency, with such a small amount of time left in Trump's presidency, what significance would that have on the probability of the invocation of the 25th Amendment ? Why, context, sub-questions, or whatever you want to call it... Since Pelosi and Schumer are threatening another impeachment and even called Pence but put on hold for 25 minutes and told Pence would not come to the phone, it makes me wonder what this would mean if Pence steps down next. Would that mean Pelosi becomes vice president or does that mean Trump get's to pick anyone else to fill in that spot which he chooses or does that spot stay vacant for the remainder of the term. Would there even be enough time to go through the normal process to properly fill this position per protocol. Would this mean less leverage for Trump to dissuade his own picked cabinet members from invoking it. | As a practical matter, if Pence were to resign, the already slim probability of invoking the 25th amendment would decrease to almost zero. If Pence resigned, the Vice Presidency would be vacant and it would be up to the President to nominate and both houses of Congress to confirm a new Vice President. Theoretically, this could be done quite quickly if the President, the Senate majority leader, and the Speaker of the House wanted to fill the vacancy. But if that happened today, it is unlikely that either side would be particularly eager to get a replacement in office for the final 2 weeks of Trump's term. Trump would be under no obligation to immediately nominate a replacement while Schumer and Pelosi would have no obligation to rush a confirmation process. If the Vice Presidency is vacant, invoking the 25th amendment gets much more complicated. The 25th amendment requires the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet to declare that the President is unable to discharge the duties of the office. One could argue that if the Vice Presidency is vacant, it would fall to the next in line under the Presidential Succession Act (Speaker Pelosi) to make such a declaration. But that is not obviously correct - nothing in the Presidential Succession Act explicitly covers vice presidential succession. You could also argue that, in the absence of a VP, the 25th amendment allows a majority of the cabinet to remove the President, but that is also not obviously correct. So attempting to invoke the 25th amendment without a sitting VP would produce a serious Constitutional question. Assuming that Trump chose to argue that whichever theory of invocation of the 25th amendment was invalid (which he almost certainly would), you would have two people making plausible claims that they hold the office of President which would generally be a terrible result that would lead to vastly more chaos until the inauguration. If you make the "Speaker of the House as acting VP" argument, it would involve the Democratic Speaker of the House trying to remove a Republican President, which would be more politically fraught than if a Republican VP and cabinet attempted to do the same thing. Plus, if Pelosi wanted to argue that the Presidential Succession Act allowed her to act as the VP, she would have to resign her seat in the House (the Constitution prohibits an individual from holding a seat in Congress and holding an executive branch office at the same time). It is unlikely that she would be willing to give up being Speaker (at least until California holds its next election to re-elect her to her vacant seat, and the House holds a new election for Speaker) in order to be a disputed caretaker President for a few days. Given that there are less than 2 weeks until Biden is inaugurated, it is highly unlikely that anyone would want to open a can of worms by doing a "creative" invocation of the 25th amendment that would inevitably require Supreme Court intervention. If the sitting VP and a majority of the non-acting members of the cabinet (scholars disagree about whether acting cabinet secretaries count for purposes of removing a President under the 25th amendment) were to agree to remove Trump, that would be politically plausible (though unlikely). Anything less than that at this point in time would be decidedly less plausible. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61528",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/7229/"
]
} |
61,583 | For example, if the president ordered the military to launch nukes to attack a country that poses no real threat, assuming its legal, can the military refuse to follow through on it on the grounds that it is immoral? | The Uniform Code of Military Justice (articles 90-92) state that a service member will be subject to court martial if he or she "willfully disobeys a lawful command of that person’s superior commissioned officer." The operative word is here is 'lawful' which must be explicitly interpreted during court martial proceedings. Any service member who has a reason to believe that an order is given against the interests of the United States, in violation of military rules, oaths, or procedures, or otherwise improper or illegal, maintains the right to refuse to comply. It's a risk that a soldier might take on conscience, and like all risks of conscience it may result in prosecution. But that's what courts are for: to determine whether actions are lawful and legitimate. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61583",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35790/"
]
} |
61,673 | In my country, there have been more than a few attempts at a coup d'etat, auto-coup , etc. We have legislation in place to prevent insurrectionists and their immediate family from running for president ever again as the children of the insurrectionists are often complicit in
the criminal acts of their father/mother. Assuming that Trump is impeached and convicted... Is there anything in place in the US legal code to deal with this type of situation? Can his children be prevented from running for Federal office? ...shameless self-promotion See on EL&U,SE: Are there any publications which would indicate that American Journalists understand the concept of self-coup i.e. auto-golpe ? See Timothy Snyder 's answer. | No, and it is arguably prohibited by the Constitution. First, it specifies quite clearly what the punishment for impeachment can include. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to
removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office
of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party
convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment,
Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. This all clearly applies only to the person convicted. As noted in the comments, Congress does not generally have the power to impose punishments, except when the Constitution says otherwise: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed. A law punishing anyone other than the impeached official could be considered as an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder. Second, although not directly applicable to impeachment, there is another clause that would likely be taken into account in any dispute: The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason,
but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or
forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. Corruption of blood is the punishment of the heirs of someone for their actions, preventing them from inheriting titles or estates. While this does not have direct bearing on impeachment, if Congress tried to impose a penalty on the children or relatives of an impeached official in defiance of the previous clause, the judiciary would probably consider this clause to offer some insight into the constitutional position of such an action. As a side note, you have mentioned some of the advantages of corruption of blood, but consider also the disadvantages: a person is barred completely from certain occupations because of the crimes that another person committed, which could include young children who never knew their family or adults who have no contact with them. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61673",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
} |
61,718 | In the recent US presidential election, there were several states which looked almost certain wins for Donald Trump until the postal votes were counted, after which there was a huge swing towards Joe Biden. But why is this? I know Trump raised concerns before the election that postal voting would somehow allow fraud. But why would this mean that his supporters would avoid voting by post? And furthermore is it known whether this damaged his chances? i.e. that some of his supporters were so worried about the potential fraud that he alleged, but didn't make it to the polling station for whatever reason, that they did not vote at all? Or is it simply that they made the extra effort to make it to the polling station? (or that less of Biden's supporters went to the polling station, being fully confident in the validity of postal voting) | The Democrats strongly supported voting by mail due to Covid-19, to avoid risk of infection, while Trump downplayed the pandemic. ScienceDaily: COVID-19 opens a partisan gap on voting by mail This is a case in Texas where Democrats attempted to extend mail voting: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/coronavirus-supreme-court-rejects-universal-vote-by-mail-in-texas.html | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61718",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/10425/"
]
} |
61,740 | Often you hear politicians say, "I cannot comment on individual cases". I could understand if it is in court proceedings already so that politicians should avoid influencing the result, but even if it is not, they still say the same. So what's stopping them from giving out comments? Or should I ask, why does the public accept this as a valid response? You don't hear news reporters pressing on to ask "Why can't you comment on it?", as though it's common sense that individual cases are not to be commented on. | There is usually no legal reason why a politician can't comment, but there are a number of very logical reasons why it is going to be a bad idea: The politician may not have been briefed on the specific details of the case, so trying to wing it is likely to backfire. Even if they have been briefed, they can't be 100% certain that some junior staffer hasn't exaggerated something somewhere down the line. The politician is theoretically responsible for the case, so admitting that a mistake was made, even if they didn't personally make it, is going to impact their credibility. If the question isn't blocked, the interviewer is likely to present only one side of the case. This puts the politician in a defensive position, wrangling about small details of that case rather than letting them put forward their own ideas. Giving a specific ruling on that case in public is going to set a precedent which may well cause problems down the line. Even if the politician feels happy to comment on one case, the interviewer might move on to another where the politician feels on less solid ground. Then refusing to comment on the second case raises the question of what is different. An important question you didn't ask is "why did the interviewer raise this case?" Political interviews are combative affairs: the interviewer wants an interesting programme so that people keep watching, while the politician wants to look smart, knowledgeable and with good ideas for how to run the country. These goals are incompatible so political interviews rather resemble a chess game; there are standard openings, one of which is "What about the case of Mrs Trellis of North Wales who ...", and standard counter-moves , such as "I can't comment on individual cases, but [policy statement]". This playbook has been honed over decades, and every word in it has been written in some politician's blood. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61740",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/23626/"
]
} |
61,748 | I just read a transcript of Trump's January 6 speech. It's mostly about election fraud and people that betrayed or supported him. This could cause people to become angry, but is hardly an incitement to commit violence. There are a few places where he does talk to and about the crowd though, and while he does ask the crowd to march to the Capitol, what he says is: "marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard". Where are people finding evidence of insurrection and incitement to violence in this speech ? | The article of impeachment introduced by Democrats in the House on January 11th specifically mentions parts of President Trump's January 6th speech (emphasis mine): Shortly before the Joint Session commenced, President Trump, addressed
a crowd at the Ellipse in Washington, DC. There, he reiterated false
claims that "we won this election, and we won it by a landslide" . He
also willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged - and
foreseeably resulted in - lawless action at the Capitol, such as: "if
you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore" .
Thus incited by President Trump, members of the crowd he had
addressed, in an attempt to, among other objectives, interfere with
the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify the results
of the 2020 Presidential election, unlawfully breached and vandalized
the Capitol, injured and killed law enforcement personnel, menaced
Members of Congress, the Vice President, and Congressional personnel,
and engaged in other violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts. The wider context of this quote, and the transcript of Trump's speech in full, can be found here : Our brightest days are before us, our greatest achievements still
wait. I think one of our great achievements will be election security
because nobody until I came along, had any idea how corrupt our
elections were. And again, most people would stand there at 9:00 in
the evening and say, “I want to thank you very much,” and they go off
to some other life, but I said, “Something’s wrong here. Something’s
really wrong. Can’t have happened.” And we fight. We fight like Hell
and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country
anymore. As far as the allegations by House Democrats of incitement of insurrection go, this extract from his speech seems to be the main focus, although the article of impeachment is not solely in response to his speech on Jan 6th, and also mentions his prior conduct such as his phone call with the Georgia Secretary of State on January 2nd. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61748",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/27691/"
]
} |
61,773 | My question is inspired by the hypothetical actions of some of the recent insurectionists, one of whom was pictured below: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/zip-cuffs-capitol-riots/ At least 2 men raiding the Capitol bought restraints with them, as if they were preparing to take hostages. Now this didn't eventuate, and we wont know their motivations for a while, if ever (they may have wanted some human shields, they may have been planning executions, or worse unspeakable things). But combining this with what was happening on the floor and Trump's rhetoric at the time, a crazy plan seems to emerge where they weren't hoping to just delay Biden's confirmation, but actually hold politicians hostage until they made Trump president. Now this seems like something out of a bad action movie, but I also understand that the US constitution and procedural laws formalised many of these processes - x must occur on day y by process z - leaving little room for "we need to retake the vote because half to room was under duress" style concerns. So if this insurrection plan succeeded, far fetched as it was, and they got everyone to say the right words to make Trump "win", how would that mess be cleaned up politically / legally? How do you invalidate a congressional decision due to duress? (If there is a "undo last action" ability of Congress, or "person A was out of position, therefore everything was invalid" ability, that sounds like it could be abused in the course of normal politics. Trump still has allies in Congress so such corrective action wouldn't be unanimous - some politicians would object to reverting the outcome) | The simple fact is that there is a ghost in the machine. It is common to see questions on this forum discussing the working of the Constitution in some extreme condition. Perhaps because many people here have a connection to software engineering, the Constitution is viewed like a computer program, and the government is the hardware which runs that program. And like a computer, the government is assumed in each state to read the constitution, and if a clause matches the current state then execute that clause, and repeat. A computer follows rules it doesn't ever think about them. But if the government is a machine, it is a machine composed of hundreds of thinking, intelligent agents. And in extreme conditions, the Constitution doesn't give a clear rule for getting from that state to the next. A vote taken under duress is not a vote at all. There is no combination of "right words" that could make the vote a vote. If clarity was needed, a simple resolution would suffice. "The House refutes all actions taken in this chamber while members were bound and gagged". So, yes, this would be a mess, but it is a mess that could be sorted out by the people upholding the Constitution, not following it mindlessly. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61773",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/34231/"
]
} |
61,781 | According to CNBC , Angela Merkel (via her chief spokesman) criticized Donald Trump's ban on Twitter. “The right to freedom of opinion is of fundamental importance,”
Steffen Seibert, Merkel’s chief spokesman, told reporters in Berlin on
Monday, according to Reuters. “Given that, the chancellor considers it problematic that the
president’s accounts have been permanently suspended.” The same article mentions that this is quite surprising due to not so good relations between Donald Trump and Angela Merkel: Her apparent alignment with the president against the decision by
Twitter to remove him comes as a surprise. The German leader, who
doesn’t herself have a Twitter account, has often clashed with Trump
over the years, while diplomatic relations between Washington and
Berlin have been on the wane. Also, the decision to ban Donald Trump seems to be more related to breaking the platforms' terms and conditions rather than an arbitrary limitation of freedom of speech. Why criticize this? | While Germany does promote free speech, same as the USA does, their free speech means something different: False information is not an object worthy of protection from the
viewpoint of freedom of opinion (54 BVerfGE 208, 219). The deliberate
assertion of untrue facts is not protected by article 5, paragraph 1
of the Basic Law; Merkel did not say Trump should be allowed to spread his messages - the kind of speech Trump disseminated on Twitter would have landed him in court many times in Germany. Instead, in Germany it's seen as problematic when a private company decides what speech is and is not deemed acceptable, because that's a matter to be fairly decided by laws and courts*. Twitter is an international company that does have a presence in Germany, so I interpret Merkel's statement as "don't try to pull that kind of stuff over here". *Reality is more complicated and counter-examples do exist. Yet in general in Germany the state is far more aggressive in limiting offensive/dangerous speech, and also more protective of citizens' online rights. **The controversial German Network Enforcement Act from 2017 ( NetzDG ) demonstrates the massive difference between the German and the US approach. It doesn't simply give private companies powers to decide what speech is and isn't acceptable, it legally requires private companies to make judgments about what speech is and isn't acceptable, provides regulation for how they must go about deletions, bans, and preservations of evidence, and demands transparent published rules. The private company still decides, but it's a power that is deputized to the company by the state, with limits, boundaries and oversight. Please don't ask me which approach is better, because I have no idea. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61781",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/11278/"
]
} |
61,786 | South Africa recently introduced new legislation that means many citizens working abroad that were previously exempt from paying income tax are now required to do so. It is also common knowledge that citizens of the United States are required to pay tax to the US government even if they do not live or work in the US. Many countries have a huge diaspora due to bad governance, discrimination against specific ethnic groups or general corruption. The members of the diaspora would typically be seen as being hostile towards the government, so implementing policies that disaffect them would not be a problem for said government. Many of the diaspora would also reside in countries that have tenuous, even hostile, relationships with the home country. So what prevents this government from suddenly claiming income tax from these citizens? They would increase their coffers at little expense, disaffect a part of their population that they don't care much about anyway (this may even improve their standing with their remaining electorate), and as a bonus redirect valuable capital from another country into their own coffers. Even if only a fraction of the diaspora comply with the law in order to maintain their good legal standing at home, it would still seem to be a profitable strategy. Why do we not see this happening more often? | What prevents this in general is the practical ability to collect. The US can collect on its citizens living abroad in part because (even foreign) banks really don't want to end up on the bad side of the US government, so they try to obey FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). Few foreign banks would probably give a hoot if the Iranian government imposes some sanctions on them. Furthermore, in an extreme case, the host country could pass legislation or regulations that practically nullify such foreign tax claims, although I'm not aware of specific instances (there might be some related to wars). | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61786",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/35900/"
]
} |
61,835 | In general, a person in the United States has the right to vote. As far as I can tell, this vote is private—no one else knows who you voted for. Why are the votes in congress public? Wouldn't it help the representatives and senators to vote with a secret ballot—they could then vote with integrity if they so chose to? | Because Congress is accountable to their constituents. You are only accountable to yourself. If how they vote is secret, there's no way of holding them to the promises they made. They could just say "someone else voted it down, sorry" at the next election and you couldn't know that was a lie. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61835",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/28333/"
]
} |
61,846 | The Wikipedia article for Donald Trump states that he is the only federal officeholder to be impeached twice. What about officeholders in other jurisdictions of the United States? Has any state, territorial, or local official ever been impeached more than once? | There have been 2 governors who were impeached twice. From this Research Response 1 published by the Illinois General Assembly , Governors Henry Johnston of Oklahoma and Harrison Reed of Florida were both impeached twice. Johnston was acquitted in 1928 but convicted in 1929 while Reed was acquitted both times in 1868 and in 1872. 1 This document was published in July 2008. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61846",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/21921/"
]
} |
61,855 | https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/34470 is too abstruse — the history and religion conflicts are too complicated. I'm seeking answers written for a 10 y.o. Every week, I see a new article on the SNP or Nicola Sturgeon demanding a referendum to stay or leave the U.K. Why isn't Northern Ireland doing same? Deliberately I'm asking just about staying or leaving the U.K., not whether Northern Ireland will become an independent nation state or reunite with Republic of Ireland — don't hesitate to address both possibilities. This doesn't duplicate Why isn't Northern Ireland demanding a referendum on joining Ireland, similar to the one in Scotland? , which was answered on Apr 10 2019, because the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement with 1246 pages was agreed on Dec. 26 2020. | Scotland In Scotland, the SNP wants to hold a referendum and change people's minds to their side. In Scotland we don't know who would win a referendum now. Perhaps the SNP would convince a majority to vote for independence. Perhaps the Conservative and Labour parties would win. The SNP wants a referendum because they think they might win. The other parties don't want a referendum because they fear they might lose. Northern Ireland In Northern Ireland, the division is much deeper. The Protestant people want to remain part of the UK. We know that the Protestant people would vote to stay. Catholic people want to leave the UK. The Catholic people would vote to leave. And just like people don't often change their religion, it is very rare for people to change their mind about leaving or not leaving the UK. And because there are more Protestant people than Catholic people, we know the outcome of the referendum. So the parties that want to leave the UK don't want a referendum because they know they would lose. And the parties that want to stay in the UK don't need a referendum because they have nothing to gain. This means that nobody wants a referendum. The background is that there were centuries of violence in Northern Ireland, starting in the 12th century and escalating in recent decades, culminating in The Troubles between the 1960's and 1990's. There were bombs and murders. In 1998 the main paramilitary organisations promised to give up their bombs and guns in return for the promise of self-determination. Both sides fear that a referendum now would cause a return to violence. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61855",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
]
} |
61,916 | The current outgoing USA President will not attend the ceremony for the inauguration of the new president. Apparently also the outgoing First Lady will not be present. Is the presence of both Presidents on Inauguration Day something regulated by the law or is it left to the common sense of each person involved? | Only two people are legally required to be present when a President is sworn in: The person being sworn in as President The person administering the Oath (be it the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or someone else) Past Presidents have attended the inauguration of their immediate successors out of courtesy, but they were not legally required to do so. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61916",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/22350/"
]
} |
61,963 | A couple of recent headlines: Pompeo labels China's treatment of Uighurs 'genocide' - The Hill US accuses China of 'genocide' of Uyghurs in Xinjiang - CNN It seems reasonable to expect that this kind of labeling would mean something, but looking at the excerpts from the above articles it doesn't seem to really have to entail anything at all. CNN talks about keeping pressure on the issue: The incoming Biden administration, if elected, would likely keep up US pressure on the issue. The President-elect's campaign has already issued a statement saying it considers China's actions in the region "genocide," while the Trump administration was still debating the term earlier this year. And The Hill basically says too little too late: “This decision is good and right, but it’s late. The United States isn’t taking the Uyghur genocide seriously. A lot of folks in the Trump Administration wanted to talk about China primarily in terms of a trade deficit, and a lot of folks in the Biden Administration want to talk about China as merely a competitor," Sasse said in a statement. Is the labeling of "genocide" just an empty gesture? | The USA has signed (in 1948) and ratified (in 1988) the UN Convention on Genocide - one of the founding declarations of the UN in 1948. The convention commits its signatories to the following obligations (among others): Obligation not to commit genocide (Article I as interpreted by the ICJ) Obligation to prevent genocide (Article I) which, according to the ICJ, has an extraterritorial scope; Obligation to punish genocide (Article I); So once the a signatory declares that they believe genocide is occurring they have a legal obligation to try and prevent it and to punish the perpetrators. (Incidentally, China also signed (1949) and ratified (1983) the convention, for what that's worth here). Consequently, states tend to be very reluctant to declare that something is genocide, to avoid the responsibility to have to do anything about it. The Rwandan genocide in 1994 is a prime example of this: pretty much all nations knew pretty well what was going on, but avoided calling it genocide because they didn't wish to get involved. Likewise with the Uighurs. Nothing new has happened or come to light recently that changes anything with regards to what is actually happening. The US could plausibly have called it genocide at any point in the last several years. As could any number of other countries (such as the whole of the EU - I can't remember any of them actually doing so). The outgoing Trump administration can safely do so now though because 24 hours later it isn't going to be their problem: Trump will no longer be president and Biden will. So the suspicion has to be that this is a farewell hand-grenade from the outgoing administration to try and create an extremely awkward situation for the new administration, by forcing them to either become more confrontational with China than they'd like, or by quite openly sweeping the accusation of genocide under the rug and continuing to do nothing about it. | {
"source": [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61963",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/8955/"
]
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.