What will GOP do when Trump lifts Sanctions off of Russia?

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   My Esotericposted 6 years ago

   http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/16/politics/ … index.html is an article about the "war within the GOP" regarding sanctions.  It is so bad it may scuttle Trump's choice for Sec State.
   
   The fact is, because Congress could not govern, Obama used executive orders to institute sanctions against Russia to supplement some Congress passed in the past. 
   
   Trump is Seriously thinking about lifting those sanctions and Forgiving Putin for all his past transgressions against Ukraine, Europe, NATO, and America.
   
   The very sad fact is, that because of Trump, a full 35% of Trump Voters now have a Favorable Opinion of Putin and not the murderous tyrant he is.
   
   https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/1 … er-russia/
   
   In 2013 Wikileaks had a NEGATIVE 47 opinion of Wikileaks, to day it is a POSITIVE 27
   
   
   
   How do you think this will play out.  (Obviously, I don't think any good will come of it and probably great harm.)

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      wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      You seem to have posted the wrong link (first one).  That one is about nothing more than the burning curiosity of some (mostly Democrat) electors about CIA activities and the strong desire to find excuses, rational or ethical or not, to violate their written word (and the law) on where their vote will go. 
      
      Nothing to do with sanctions put onto Russia by Obama, legal or otherwise.  Certainly nothing to do with GOP reaction to removal of those sanctions.  Just about the unethical behavior of some electors

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         My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Damn, you're right.  It should have been http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/16/politics/ … y-tension/
         
         As to the electors, those who tried to vote their conscience is in line with the 12th Amendment.  I presume the states replacing electors will be taken to court which must find their laws of forcing electors to vote a certain way is unconstitutional. 
         
         Also, those laws have Hamilton, Jay, and Madison rolling in their graves as their predictions of a demagogue-led public making a big mistake comes true.

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            GA Andersonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Well here's another damn... I almost agree with you. Up to the part about the prediction.
            
            I'm not so sure about Madison, but Hamilton would surely be spinning. The historical record is very clear that you are right about the "demagogue" concept being a foundation block of the EC's construction.
            
            But...that block had two parts. One concerning being misled by a demagogue, the other concerning an uninformed voting public. I agree with the purpose of both parts, but there is a large segment of folks that say those protections are no longer needed. They say the public's easy access to available public medias have eliminated the uniformed voter motive, and that our society has become too sophisticated to fall for a demagogue. I say they are wrong.
            
            So consider this: Many of the Left consider Trump to be that demagogue, so they don't think those 2016 Faithless electors were wrong. The Right considers them traitors.
            
            Now consider how much of a political earthquake Trump's victory was. I doubt either side would debate that it was just that, and I think his election might be the test and the proof that the EC worked as planned. A few Electors, (give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment), saw Trump as the exact demagogue the Founders worried about. Those Faithless of pure heart, really would be doing just the duty our Constitution asked of them. This time it was around twenty Electors, not enough to alter the results. But enough to prove the EC's purpose.
            
            Just as an extreme, farfetched, and non-Trump example;
            
            What if 100, or even 200 Electors saw the same black-souled scoundrel behind the public mask of an election's winner. And what if they truly were right,  wouldn't those EC's Electors be nation savers?
            
            Or would Popular-Vote advocates just say to hell with consequences, go with the votes!
            
            Of course there is ...the other hand; maybe we have reached a point where those two EC functions are outdated. It seems hard to argue the reality that our current information access is light-years beyond that of the Founder's time, and that same information access just might imply that if we elect a demagogue, in this day and age - it is our just deserts.
            
            GA

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               My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               Well said, GA. 
               
               Actually, those who had suffrage in Hamilton's period were pretty well informed.  While they didn't have the Internet, radio, or TV, they did have newspapers, broadsides (posters), taverns where people did argue politics, and other means of getting the message out.  In those days, however, newspapers were mostly owned or controlled by or clearly in bed with one faction or another (they didn't have formal Parties yet. 
               
               In my research, I was surprised to find some states allowed free-blacks and women vote.  After Andrew Jackson, however, no states did.

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                  GA Andersonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  And there is a point that deserves its own thread... the media of the times.
                  
                  I have a less positive view of its role informing voters. My readings have painted the newspapers and broadsides of the times, primarily, as either propaganda organs of the powerful, or soapboxes of the radical - as you also noted. Taverns on the other hand probably played a more useful role than newspapers or posters.
                  
                  After the early 1800s, (when suffrage expanded), I am not so sure the 'average' voter of times was "pretty well informed"  at all.
                  
                  GA

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                     My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                     Didn't have to be, lol.  So much booze was flowing at rallies that they couldn't read anything anyway.  I think the only period where voters were somewhat informed was between WW II and 1980.  After 1980, they stopped teaching government, civics, and the like in our schools and it just kept getting worse after that.

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            wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Unfortunately, there is not a single word in the Constitution barring states from requiring electors to vote the popular vote.  Not a one.
            
            And no, reneging on their promise is also not addressed in the 12th amendment.  You're forgetting that tiny little detail; that their contract with the state includes a pledge as to how to cast their vote.

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               My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               As I said, it will have to go to the Supreme Court.  It as once, which found it constitutional for a state to require an elector to "Pledge" to vote a certain way, but not to actually vote that way in a 5-2 decision in Ray v Blair (1952). 
               
               The ruling only held that requiring a pledge, not a vote, was constitutional and Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Douglas, wrote in his dissent, "no one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated what is implicit in its text – that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices."[9] More recent legal scholars believe "a state law that would thwart a federal elector’s discretion at an extraordinary time when it reasonably must be exercised would clearly violate Article II and the Twelfth Amendment."[10]
               
               So, as I said, the States with such laws are certainly going against the "Intent" of Article II and the 12th Amendment, so now it is up to a very conservative Supreme Court to determine if the the writers knew what they wanted.

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                  wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  If it is ever challenged, yes, it will have to go to SCOTUS.  If they will even hear it; as there is no verbiage indicating anything like what you say was intent, they may very well refuse to hear any arguments and leave it to states just as the Constitution does.
                  
                  It is one thing to take the word of a handful of the "elite" of the time as indicative of what the constitution means or demands, it is quite another to declare that the majority of signers/writers mean that.

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                     My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                     Try reading the Federalist Papers or Madison's Notes on the Constitutional Convention.

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                        wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                        That's what I said: the opinions of a couple of the elite are not necessarily those of the majority of the writers.  Couple that with a total lack of guidance in the Constitution and SCOTUS may refuse to hear any case concerning state's rights to choose or control electors.
                        
                        Neither Hamilton (writing the Federalist Papers) nor Madisons notes are the Constitution; they are only their opinion on what should be.

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                           My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                           The writers of the Constitution were all aristocrats of one form or another.

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                              Live to Learnposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                              You might want to brush up on the definition of aristocracy and the background of the writers and signers of the document.

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                                 My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                                 Don't need to, I read a lot about that period.

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                              wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                              Your point being that there was no discord in that group of 56 men?  They all agreed on all points, and the document took 2 hours to construct as a result?

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                                 My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                                 How do you come to that conclusion out of "The writers of the Constitution were all aristocrats of one form or another."?

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                                    wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                                    I mention that we heard from only a couple of VIP's at the time; you countered with them all being aristocrats.  Unless you intended that statement (being aristocrats) to indicate that they all thought the same (all agreed with Hamilton and Madison) I'm kind of at a loss as to the purpose you had for saying it.  Was there something else?

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                                       My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                                       No, aristocrats does "not indicate that they all thought the same".  It does indicate elitism, landed, rich people.
                                       
                                       That was what Hamilton and Madison were and so were their friends who wrote the Constitution ... most, but not all (George Mason being one) agreed with the authors of the Federalist Papers and campaigned for the ratification of the Constitution.
                                       
                                       You said "That's what I said: the opinions of a couple of the elite are not necessarily those of the majority of the writers." implying the rest of Convention were not "elite"; when in fact they were.

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                                          wildernessposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                                          Ah.  So neither of use understood the other.  Or at least we both put meanings into the other's post that wasn't intended.
                                          
                                          For I would certainly agree that those people were of the elite class; as you point out, landed, wealthy people.  They just didn't all agree with the other writers - those writers also being of the elite.

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      Don Wposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I predict that Trump's downfall will either be related to a conflict of interest, or Russia, or both.
      
      He's already made a grave mistake in setting himself up against the intelligence community. These people are purveyors of secrets. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some "leak" of information about Trump or his administration. Probably not now, but at a time when it's most politically damaging. The FSB is not the only security service that can hack a computer and leak information from it, and it's inconceivable that the intelligence community doesn't already have human and/or electronic intelligence capabilities being brought to bear on Moscow.
      
      Moreover, a US that's cosy with Russia is a nightmare scenario for the EU. Merkel and Hollande already called for more sanctions on Russia, which Trump is unlikely to respond to due to his budding bromance with Putin. So I don't think many western European countries (and their security services) would be too concerned about allowing information damaging to Trump to be "leaked", if it meant removing him as a destabilizing influence on the geopolitical stage.

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         My Esotericposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I think the fastest thing to bring Trump down will be is war on trade; it will have the most immediate negative impact on our economy.
         
         Hell, he is already conducting foreign policy by telling the world he will impose huge tariffs by Executive Order, which he can do.  The last time that happened was the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act Hoover got passed to protect American farmers and industry at the beginning of the Great Depression ... it made a very bad depression into the worst ever.

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      Prayerhubposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      If Trump will make friends with Russia and bring about  peace ,let him go on, let those who are opposed to peace remain silent. Whar profit does it give America, Russia and the whole world if the two strong nations go about bombing other nations in the name of bringing peace to bear in those areas, when they are not eating  comfortably on the same table. They are hipo.

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   PhoenixVposted 6 years ago

   It's just a hunch but I'm starting to think that Hillary Clinton didn't forward her emails to WikiLeaks after all. Perhaps Trump should consider building a cyber wall around America sort of like China. A free and open Society should not be free and open. The entire news, media and entertainment industry should not just have the fix in for Hillary Clinton. It should just restrict itself to state news in general.

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