←back to thread

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
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 #
rayiner ◴[23 Oct 25 15:39 UTC] No.45683124[source]▶
Your comment reflects a common, but fundamentally mistaken, understanding of the constitution. You're thinking of the government like an operating system with a microkernel that is trusted to neutrally enforce the "law," with the three branches of government running in userspace.

That's not the system the founders created! They understood that everyone is political, and no one can be trusted. The founders understood the "who watches the watchers" problem and created a system without any such single point of failure. The ultimate backstop in our political system is not the law, but instead frequent elections. Congress writes the law, the President enforces the law, and the Judiciary interprets the law. If the President does a bad job of enforcing the law, the recourse is elections (or, as a last resort, impeachment).

replies(7): >>45683442 #>>45683982 #>>45684007 #>>45684104 #>>45684189 #>>45684260 #>>45690195 #
1. deathanatos ◴[23 Oct 25 17:07 UTC] No.45684260[source]▶
You should look at what gerrymandering has done / is doing. For example, the entire city of Nashville, TN, has been utterly and obviously gerrymandered out of existence, and the city has no representation in the House. (They used to be TN's 5th.)

This of course does not apply to Presidential elections. The President has multiple times indicated disdain for elections, his party has used "third term and beyond", his supporters have openly floated the idea of repealing the 22A, he's called himself "king" and "dictator".

The VRA is quite literally before SCOTUS right now.

> or, as a last resort, impeachment

"a servile congress" — they understand impeachment. If an attempted coup doesn't get impeachment, nothing will. Regardless, the GOP is going along with the president, so impeachment isn't something that's going to happen.

replies(1): >>45684951 #
2. rayiner ◴[23 Oct 25 18:10 UTC] No.45684951[source]▶
> You should look at what gerrymandering has done / is doing.

What has it done? In 2024, Republicans got 50.5% of the seats and 51.3% of the two-party Congressional popular vote. The delta between a party’s share of the popular vote and its share of House seats is much smaller since 2000 than it was for most of the 20th century: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Po...

> The VRA is quite literally before SCOTUS right now

The VRA requires racially discriminatory gerrymandering and is probably unconstitutional in that respect. The VRA is the product of an era where white democrats would discriminate against black democrats even though they shared a party. Today, gerrymandering is based on political party, not race. If black people voted 80% republican, red states would happily gerrymander out affluent college-educated whites in their favor.