←back to thread

US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

(www.bbc.com)
763 points tartoran | 1 comments | 23 Oct 25 14:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.199s | source
Show context
mikeyouse ◴[23 Oct 25 14:35 UTC] No.45682307[source]▶
> Tim Rieser, former senior aide to Senator Leahy who wrote the 2011 amendment mandating information gathering, told the BBC the gateway's removal meant the State Department was "clearly ignoring the law".

We're in a really bad place... with a servile congress, it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch. When everything relies on "independent IGs" for law enforcement inside executive branch departments, and the President can fire them all without consequence or oversight, then it turns out there is no law.

replies(21): >>45682323 #>>45682445 #>>45682511 #>>45682590 #>>45682838 #>>45682977 #>>45682980 #>>45683124 #>>45683225 #>>45683230 #>>45683339 #>>45683432 #>>45683533 #>>45683596 #>>45683626 #>>45683638 #>>45683774 #>>45683801 #>>45683853 #>>45683854 #>>45683942 #
wffurr ◴[23 Oct 25 14:46 UTC] No.45682445[source]▶
The answer is impeachment, but when Congress is stuffed with boot licking toadies, then there is no recourse.
replies(5): >>45682460 #>>45682691 #>>45682910 #>>45683177 #>>45684072 #
nerdsniper ◴[23 Oct 25 14:48 UTC] No.45682460[source]▶
* s/impeachment/“conviction by the Senate”

Impeachment by itself has been shown to accomplish nothing. There is no other mechanism except conviction by the Senate to address constitutional or legal violations made by the president.

Also no president has ever been impeached by a House which is controlled by a majority of the same party of the President. If Congress had a full Republican majority during Nixon’s years, he would not have been impeached. If Congress had a full Democratic majority during Clinton’s years, he would not have been impeached.

Edit: “Approval voting” is the appropriate escape hatch from 2-party politics. It lets you get rid of primaries entirely and run all the top-n candidates who have the greatest number of valid nomination signatures. Its advantage over range-voting/etc is that it is dead-simple to explain to voters: Put a checkmark next to any candidate that you're "okay" with. The candidate with the most checkmarks wins.

https://rangevoting.org/CompChart.html

replies(2): >>45682702 #>>45683003 #
LunaSea ◴[23 Oct 25 15:05 UTC] No.45682702[source]▶
This mostly shows that political parties are the problem themselves rather than the political mechanics of the system themselves.
replies(4): >>45682747 #>>45682753 #>>45682762 #>>45683338 #
1. microtonal ◴[23 Oct 25 15:11 UTC] No.45682762[source]▶
The political mechanics of the system result in a two-party system, because no other party ever stands a chance of getting seats. Coalition systems may be less stable, but when you need at least three parties to form a government, they tend to keep each other in check better.

Yes, I know that there are exceptions, but seats should be proportional to the vote. If you have 100 seats, that party only getting 5% of the votes should also have 5% of the seats.

In the country where I live, people do consider themselves leftist, centrists, or right-wing, but a vast majority only decides what specific party to vote during the campaign.

We have the opposite issue, since there is not electoral threshold, we now have a lot of small and middle-sized parties, making it harder to form a coalition. (Would be possible to address with an electoral threshold of 2-5%.)