State of the Union

Axiel_sl said:

At least something entertaining happened

GoP congressmen threatens to murder reporter on live TV during State of the Union

Click to expand...

Wow, what a psychopath.

tad10_sl said:

Technically he does. All those little changes he's been making like dispensing with the Employer Mandate for a year? Yeah he's technically not allowed to do that. Technically his job is to 'enforce the laws' that are technically legislated by Congress and that he technically gets to sign in toto or technically pocket veto, he doesn't get to alter them after the fact, technically. But technically who cares right? That is until the next President is a Republican.

Click to expand...

First of all, he didn't - and second of all, yes it's allowed.

Administrative adjustment is allowed for the DHR to do based on any logistics their director finds necessary, and she's a breath away from him.

There's no "technically wrong" about it - it's misinformed idiots spewing bullshit as "data" and you taking it hook line and sinker because you're too stupid to see the patina of shit on the political feast they provide for you. And on "bill adjustments" he's done besides administrative adjustments (i.e. time tables) which ARE FUCKING ALLOWED UNDER GENERAL RULES FOR EVERY DEPARTMENT OF THE FED IN THE ARTICLES THAT SET UP EVERY SINGLE ONE if you can provide some proof I'd be happy to look it over.

But literally that's the entire reason every single department has a director - it's basically their only real function is to tweak rules on an administrative level by adjusting timeframes, doing small budget tweaks, and the like - they're not even real "management" that's an entirely different structure within each department.

You want the government to fail into anarchy or become even more costly quickly? Remove the ability for administrative adjustments to occur. Because without it the government loses almost all ability to be reactionary to anything. An oversight happens on a bill, can't do anything about it for months until a bill is fully drafted. A disaster happens? Months again. Riots start happening? Hope the normal police payroll is enough, because no administrative leeway means no emergency staffing money.

Ad nauseum.

tad10_sl said:

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things had to resign before he was tossed out of office.

See the trick is, the press used to do its job when Republicans were in office and kept them somewhat (not entirely) but somewhat honest. Not so when a Democrat is in office.

But it may not matter anymore. After Obama it will be all Imperial Presidency, all the time.

I, for one, welcome The Empire and spit on the Old Republic.

Click to expand...

There was a report a couple years back during the "pristine news coverage for Obama" days that actually tabulated the number of negative articles and pieces done on Obama compared to any other President in history - W was the next closest, and he was somewhere around HALF the critical coverage that Obama received.

So unless Obama is a Republican all of a sudden - nope.

When even MSNBC is critical of him sometimes you know you're just plain old smoking crack. And probably bad crack, must have gotten it around Dover or something.

fanaskin_sl said:

this is an old argument and the truth is the president doesn't technically have any implied powers, he has enumerated powers, It doesn't matter how many people violated it in the past, that's what the truth is.

Click to expand...

Directing the Cabinet which have those powers is in his portfolio of powers. They don't have to listen to him, they can act somewhat autonomously of him against his wishes - but it's enumerated to the Cabinet to do pass on those orders to the Director of the given agency who again can opt to tweak what they're told to, but have to follow the general letter of the request.

It's deeper Civics than most people are aware of I'm sure - but it can't be THAT unknown that the Directors are allowed flexibility in timeframes and other absolutes as they need to be adjusted to "work properly" as they deem the latter to be.

Maester Chuk_sl said:

never watched jersey shore, was it about people who are for small government?

Click to expand...

Who exactly is your version of small government? Tv characters don't count.

fanaskin_sl said:

technically they have to follow the law if the law says they have to do it by X date, they don't have the authority to selectively apply the law, they are required to enforce the law. that's a giant criticism of Reagan is that he selectively choose what laws to enforce. I believe the reason the executive branch gets away with it since before we where born is nobody has standing to sue the executive branch for failure to enforce laws.

Click to expand...

Incorrect - directors have had that power since the first Federal agencies were created. And the directors answer to the Cabinet that answer to the President. That's the only real purpose of the directors. Period.

Axiel_sl said:

At least something entertaining happened

GoP congressmen threatens to murder reporter on live TV during State of the Union

Click to expand...

Wow. Over/Under on his resignation?

wormie_sl said:

I must have missed something. What did Obama do that is upsetting garglechimp10 so much?

Click to expand...

The fact that the timeframe for employer penalties starting got adjusted by the Director of Health Services has got his goat as being "unconstitutional" because it's not a Presidential ability verbatim.

But since he gives orders to the people that give orders to the director - he can say "Do this" and most of the time it will happen per how the executive is supposed to operate. And the directors are allowed to adjust such things, just like a store manager is allowed some flexibility in what they do for customers to make things work it's just braindead parroting Malkin-style shit that really is loosely accurate, but factually completely fucking wrong how it's presented. You know, recent Republicanism 101.

moontayle_sl said:

Wow. Over/Under on his resignation?

Click to expand...

I think we just found the candidate that's gonna win the GOP Primary with how they've been recently.

Section (b) of the top of what you're fucking quoting covers it you illiterate neanderthal and it's repeated in a bunch of other sections as well all over the place

(b) Specific Federal legislation
Individuals enrolled as volunteers for periods of full-time service, or,as the Director deems appropriate in accordance with regulations, for periods of part-time service of not less than 20 hours per week for not less than 26 consecutive weeks, under subchapter I of this chapter shall, with respect to such service or training

Click to expand...

Every single place the Directors are mentioned in any law is written similarly - every single one - their entire job description is to determine how things actually go into place and adjust them on the fly to make sure they work efficiently.

So essentially the director of the CIA determines
A What groups and regions pose the greatest threat to America.
B Allocates intelligence assets to gather information about them.
C Reports the status of those threats, once intelligence has been gathered, to the President of the US so that the President can make the appropriate decisions to mitigate the risk to the American people.

Click to expand...

All the other agencies have similar baliwicks for how their Director (or Commissioner in some cases) operates under - their job is to make small tweaks (i.e. timetables, minor funding adjustments) and make suggestions on big ones.

Note in bills this is why they'll almost always (and the Employer Mandate included) dated with a "SCHEDULED DATE" not an absolute date. They're scheduled because they're in pencil until the department finalizes them - nine times out of ten scheduled dates don't actually get met because of the logistics involved in getting something started. [Every piece of FDA legislation has run about 2-3 months behind theirs that I'm aware of]

The one department that frequently does meet it's scheduled dates though is the IRS, which this issue falls somewhat under - so it's unusual for this one to slide, they tend to not delay things - but it's a two department issue so it's possible they were good with it at IRS and got overridden by HHS.

PS - If you're going to attempt to dispute it further, please tell me what you think the Directors/Commisioners actually do. I bet what you think they do is for people below their paygrade. The Director and his personal staff are almost entirely divorced from direct operations stuff.

There comes a point where it's just angst and manufactured outrage.

What the fuck do you think he's actually going to do without the discretion of Congress? I mean what the fuck do you ACTUALLY think he's going to do?

Quasi-legally spy on our allies? Congress already funds that. Quasi-legally spy on his citizenry? Congress already funds that. Start an unpopular and self destructive war? Congress already funds THAT, and would be happy to fund MORE (as long as the right people get their cut).

I mean what the fuck do you think he's actually going to be able to DO without Congressional involvement? Do you think he's going to proclaim guns are illegal? Do you think he's going to mandate queer marriage? Do you think anybody besides Obama's kids would pay any fucking attention if he did?

I mean what the fuck. Stop being angry just for the sake of being angry.

There are better reasons to get rid of this guy than because he didn't happen to cross his T on form 24G,like the founders obviously intended.

But it's 2 more years, and that would take at least 1 of them, and even if you did... you think President Biden would do it any differently?

Whatever he can get away with -- that is his power. Same as fuckin anybody.