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

(www.bbc.com)
763 points tartoran | 2 comments | 23 Oct 25 14:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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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.

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softwaredoug ◴[23 Oct 25 15:47 UTC] No.45683230[source]▶
TBH The Right in the US has such a structural advantage, that Congress's silence becomes de-facto acceptance. Congress choosing to not do oversight becomes a de-facto repeal of the law.

The only other option is to find someone with standing being harmed and sue. And that will take time to wind through the courts, with not great chances at SCOTUS.

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fsckboy[dead post] ◴[23 Oct 25 16:07 UTC] No.45683504[source]▶
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zzzeek ◴[23 Oct 25 16:10 UTC] No.45683551[source]▶
a giant 147000 square mile space like Montana with 1.1 M people, 2.8% the size of California's population, gets 2 Senators regardless.

That is, the Senate gives representation to empty land.

That's pretty structural !

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revnode ◴[23 Oct 25 16:31 UTC] No.45683841[source]▶
Yeah, that's not how things work. Senate can't pass anything unless the House agrees and the House is representative of the population. Also, footnote, we've been structuring governments this way for thousands of years. Rome, etc.
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wahnfrieden ◴[23 Oct 25 16:35 UTC] No.45683886[source]▶
The house is similarly disproportionate
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1. revnode ◴[23 Oct 25 16:46 UTC] No.45684034[source]▶
How so?
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2. the_gastropod ◴[23 Oct 25 17:02 UTC] No.45684204[source]▶
The House is not as skewed as the Senate. But it still has a "rural" bias through two mechanisms: 1. gerrymandering, and 2. the 435 cap on the number of representatives.

Both parties do gerrymander. But there are more "red" states than blue, so it systemically favors one party.

The cap on reps also skews things. Nebraska, Wyoming, Alaska, and Vermont all have less than 1/435th of the U.S. population, so they're over-represented in the House. That over-representation comes at the expense of big states like California being under-represented.

You can see this effect by looking at the popular vote vs the representation in The House. In the 2016 election, Trump won the election with just 46.1% of the popular vote. Republicans maintained control of The House with 55.4% control. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden won 51.3% of the popular vote. And Democrats gained control with slightly less than that, 51.03% of The House. In the 2024 election, Trump won 49.81% of the popular vote, Republicans won 50.8% of seats in The House.