Reasoned Debate

[RetiredGySgt]

Fact, about 48 percent of the US Voting population disagree with Obama and his administration. We don't know how many non voting percentage there is.

Is it reasoned debate to claim your opponents are terrorists for legally and politically disagreeing with your political side?

Is it reasoned debate for a sitting President to use as a defense from a scandal " I did not know what my appointees were doing because the Government is to big?"

Is it reasoned debate to make a statement that the President and the Attorney General had no knowledge of a scandal but then claim executive Privilege to hide the documents that would either prove or disprove the statement? As I understand Executive Privilege it is to protect sensitive communications between the President and his appointees. If the claim is NO COMMUNICATION occurred how can the President use the Privilege?

 

[S.J.]

No, no, and no.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Fact, about 48 percent of the US Voting population disagree with Obama and his administration. We don't know how many non voting percentage there is.

Is it reasoned debate to claim your opponents are terrorists for legally and politically disagreeing with your political side?

Is it reasoned debate for a sitting President to use as a defense from a scandal " I did not know what my appointees were doing because the Government is to big?"

Is it reasoned debate to make a statement that the President and the Attorney General had no knowledge of a scandal but then claim executive Privilege to hide the documents that would either prove or disprove the statement? As I understand Executive Privilege it is to protect sensitive communications between the President and his appointees. If the claim is NO COMMUNICATION occurred how can the President use the Privilege?

Is it reasonable debate to accuse your opponent of wrongdoing absent any evidence?

Is it reasonable debate for enemies of the president to demand he prove his innocence when there is indeed no evidence of wrongdoing?

Is it reasonable debate to accuse the president of ‘hiding documents’ where no evidence exists anything is being ‘hidden,’ or indeed that such documents exist at all, and where there is no evidence of any ‘crime’?

Is it reasonable debate to fail to acknowledge the fact, or be critical of, a Bush Administration that invoked EP six times?

EP is an implied power of the Executive Branch, and it is recognized by the courts. It authorizes a given administration to withhold sensitive information in the public interest. In order for Congress or any other entity to make a claim a given administration is abusing EP in the context of alleged wrongdoing, evidence must exist of the alleged crime in order for a Federal court to compel the president to surrender the information being protected.

 

[S.J.]

EP has been abused more than any other privilege given to the president.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Fact, about 48 percent of the US Voting population disagree with Obama and his administration. We don't know how many non voting percentage there is.

Is it reasoned debate to claim your opponents are terrorists for legally and politically disagreeing with your political side?

Is it reasoned debate for a sitting President to use as a defense from a scandal " I did not know what my appointees were doing because the Government is to big?"

Is it reasoned debate to make a statement that the President and the Attorney General had no knowledge of a scandal but then claim executive Privilege to hide the documents that would either prove or disprove the statement? As I understand Executive Privilege it is to protect sensitive communications between the President and his appointees. If the claim is NO COMMUNICATION occurred how can the President use the Privilege?

Is it reasonable debate to accuse your opponent of wrongdoing absent any evidence?

Is it reasonable debate for enemies of the president to demand he prove his innocence when there is indeed no evidence of wrongdoing?

Is it reasonable debate to accuse the president of ‘hiding documents’ where no evidence exists anything is being ‘hidden,’ or indeed that such documents exist at all, and where there is no evidence of any ‘crime’?

Is it reasonable debate to fail to acknowledge the fact, or be critical of, a Bush Administration that invoked EP six times?

EP is an implied power of the Executive Branch, and it is recognized by the courts. It authorizes a given administration to withhold sensitive information in the public interest. In order for Congress or any other entity to make a claim a given administration is abusing EP in the context of alleged wrongdoing, evidence must exist of the alleged crime in order for a Federal court to compel the president to surrender the information being protected.

So explain slowly for me how a President can invoke EP if he claims no communication occurred on the matter in question? I have no problem with EP. I just find it unbelieveable that in the same breath the President insists no communication occurred BUT hey I am invoking EP.

As for hiding documents that is EXACTLY what EP does by definition.

The President is in charge of and solely responsible for the actions of his Executive Branch appointees and their departments. You have no problem with him using as his defense that he simply has no way to know what his appointees are doing, that he routinely allows his aides to shield him from damning information and that he is clueless about major actions by his attorney general his IRS chief, His Secretary of State and a 2 year program of systematically denying recognition of political opponents legal and justified requests?

And you haven't answered the question, is it acceptable for someone to claim a political opponent that opposes their policy is a Terrorist?

Again the President is RESPONSIBLE for the actions of his appointees and his Executive Branch Departments, if they commit crimes he can when he finds out take action, but he can not cover up for them, he can not promote them, he can not claim he has no knowledge of what his departments are doing. And he sure as heck can not claim that his aides protected him by refusing to advice him on those actions and NOT fire those aides.

 

[Intense]

In fairness it sounds like both the President and His Administration are playing both sides in that first, they state what they think their supporters want to hear, to score points, second, they use Executive Privilege or the 5th Amendment Protections when scrutinized further. It is what it is. I suspect a long hot summer.

 

[Polk]

Are these questions strawmen? Yes!

 

[OnePercenter]

To be fully 'fair and balanced'

Politifact: Republicans More Dishonest Than Democrats » Dispatches from the Culture Wars

 

[Mertex]

To be fully 'fair and balanced'

Politifact: Republicans More Dishonest Than Democrats » Dispatches from the Culture Wars

That seems to sum it up!

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Is it reasonable debate to accuse your opponent of wrongdoing absent any evidence?

Like when you accuse the Tea Party of being racist? Or perhaps when you accuse people who have reasonable questions about the social repercussions of same sex marriage of being homophobes?

Is it reasonable debate for enemies of the president to demand he prove his innocence when there is indeed no evidence of wrongdoing?

Is it reasonable to blame Bush for the lack economic growth when we are 5 years into Obama's economic policies? Is it reasonable to accuse others of accusing Obama of wrongdoing when we ask why the IRS did something?

Is it reasonable debate to accuse the president of ‘hiding documents’ where no evidence exists anything is being ‘hidden,’ or indeed that such documents exist at all, and where there is no evidence of any ‘crime’?

Excuse me, but Obama has evoked executive privilege more than once over subpoenas from Congress. I think that counts as evidence that 1) documents exist and 2) that he is hiding them. Since that is demonstrably true, is it reasonable to totally misrepresent facts?

Is it reasonable debate to fail to acknowledge the fact, or be critical of, a Bush Administration that invoked EP six times?

Is it reasonable to criticize others for not being critical of Bush when you are not critical of Obama?

EP is an implied power of the Executive Branch, and it is recognized by the courts. It authorizes a given administration to withhold sensitive information in the public interest. In order for Congress or any other entity to make a claim a given administration is abusing EP in the context of alleged wrongdoing, evidence must exist of the alleged crime in order for a Federal court to compel the president to surrender the information being protected.

Not true. Congress has an implied power to subpoenas that allows them to request any documents they wish from the administration. The administration can respond by claiming 1) presidential communications privilege; 2) deliberative process privilege; 3) national security, foreign relations or military affairs, and 4) an ongoing law enforcement investigation. None of these require that anyone actually produce evidence of a crime in order to challenge the validity of the claim.

 

[PaulS1950]

That poll looks like it was done by asking only democrats the questions.

With all the lying and evading Obama has done in just the last year they say that he is more honest than Romney? What exactly is that based on? He lied about his stand on guns, he lied about fixing education, he lied about help for blacks, he lied about why an ambasador and his staff was killed, he lied about scanning public communications, he lied about killing innocents with drones, --- wait - it might be easier to list the things he has honestly completed as he said he would..... give me a minute...

Yep that about sums it up.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Is it reasonable debate to accuse your opponent of wrongdoing absent any evidence?

Is it reasonable debate for enemies of the president to demand he prove his innocence when there is indeed no evidence of wrongdoing?

Is it reasonable debate to accuse the president of ‘hiding documents’ where no evidence exists anything is being ‘hidden,’ or indeed that such documents exist at all, and where there is no evidence of any ‘crime’?

It was when GWB was in office.

In order for Congress or any other entity to make a claim a given administration is abusing EP in the context of alleged wrongdoing, evidence must exist of the alleged crime in order for a Federal court to compel the president to surrender the information being protected.

So... it was OK for Cheney to claim EP when discussing particulars about the administration's energy policy behind closed doors.

 

[martybegan]

To be fully 'fair and balanced'

Politifact: Republicans More Dishonest Than Democrats » Dispatches from the Culture Wars

That seems to sum it up!

You do know that since the chart in question is not based on EVERY statement made by both sides during the time period, there is selection bias at play?

Meaningless chart is meaningless.

 

[Mertex]

To be fully 'fair and balanced'

Politifact: Republicans More Dishonest Than Democrats » Dispatches from the Culture Wars

That seems to sum it up!

You do know that since the chart in question is not based on EVERY statement made by both sides during the time period, there is selection bias at play?

Meaningless chart is meaningless.

Of course, only the charts that favor Republicans are meaningful!

(Like the ones that showed Romney was going to win. )

 

[martybegan]

That seems to sum it up!

You do know that since the chart in question is not based on EVERY statement made by both sides during the time period, there is selection bias at play?

Meaningless chart is meaningless.

Of course, only the charts that favor Republicans are meaningful!

(Like the ones that showed Romney was going to win. )

You didnt answer the question because you dont like the answer.

Nice attempted dodge.

 

[flacaltenn]

To be fully 'fair and balanced'

Politifact: Republicans More Dishonest Than Democrats » Dispatches from the Culture Wars

That seems to sum it up!

You do know that since the chart in question is not based on EVERY statement made by both sides during the time period, there is selection bias at play?

Meaningless chart is meaningless.

No.. The odds are he/she doesn't know how to parse a poll like that. Almost certainty..

 

[Circe]

Is it reasoned debate to claim your opponents are terrorists for legally and politically disagreeing with your political side?

Is it reasoned debate for a sitting President to use as a defense from a scandal " I did not know what my appointees were doing because the Government is to big?"

Is it reasoned debate to make a statement that the President and the Attorney General had no knowledge of a scandal but then claim executive Privilege to hide the documents that would either prove or disprove the statement? As I understand Executive Privilege it is to protect sensitive communications between the President and his appointees. If the claim is NO COMMUNICATION occurred how can the President use the Privilege?

I don't understand this term "reasoned debate." Seems to me the issue is whether something is true or not.

Somebody called somebody they don't like terrorists? The question is, is that true. Terrorists bomb and kill lots of people, or try to, so that should be easy to answer. If it's not true, it's slander under the law, not that anyone cares about the law anymore.

If the president says he didn't know about something because the government is too big -- probably that wild IRS woman director in Cincinnati -- I would guess he's telling the truth. How could he know about such a thing? It may or may not be that his aides found out about it before he did, but that's no big surprise. It's a scandal, all right, and needs to be fixed, but there's no reason to suppose the president ordered the IRS to harass the Tea Party groups.

As for Executive Privilege, it doesn't matter if people want to go through every private Oval Office communication to see if there was information or wasn't information, they aren't allowed to do that. That's the point. People cannot investigate every private conversation the president has, or he can't work. I agree with Executive Privilege, for all presidents and everyone else, though the rest of us have to expect the NSA and CIA and FBI have records of everything we ever said or keyed in, of course. But privacy of communication is a nice idea, all the same.

 

[The Rabbi]

One basic question is, How can Obama both invoke Executive Privelege to cover communications AND claim there were no communications? Either there were communications on the matter or there weren't.

The second question is why libs deflect to: Republicans lie more. Boosh! Cheney! And other red herrings. We aren't discussing those things. We are discussing the actions of this president. There doesn't need to be "proof" here. There needs to be reasonable inference. The reasonable inference of a claim of EP is that there is communication to be covered. The reasonable inference of the WH saying there was no communication is that there is no need for EP. The reasonable inference of the WH claiming both things simulataneously is that someone is lying about one of those things.

 

[Circe]

One basic question is, How can Obama both invoke Executive Privelege to cover communications AND claim there were no communications? Either there were communications on the matter or there weren't.

The second question is why libs deflect to: Republicans lie more. Boosh! Cheney! And other red herrings. We aren't discussing those things. We are discussing the actions of this president. There doesn't need to be "proof" here. There needs to be reasonable inference. The reasonable inference of a claim of EP is that there is communication to be covered. The reasonable inference of the WH saying there was no communication is that there is no need for EP. The reasonable inference of the WH claiming both things simulataneously is that someone is lying about one of those things.

The question is, do the president's enemies get to sort through all his communications in the Oval Office?

Doesn't matter if they are sorting through everything because he says there was "no" communication or some communication. The issue is, do the president's enemies get to go through all his communications on whatever ground they can think up next?

Executive Privilege says, no, they don't. That's private. I agree.

 

[Sallow]

Fact, about 48 percent of the US Voting population disagree with Obama and his administration. We don't know how many non voting percentage there is.

Is it reasoned debate to claim your opponents are terrorists for legally and politically disagreeing with your political side?

Is it reasoned debate for a sitting President to use as a defense from a scandal " I did not know what my appointees were doing because the Government is to big?"

Is it reasoned debate to make a statement that the President and the Attorney General had no knowledge of a scandal but then claim executive Privilege to hide the documents that would either prove or disprove the statement? As I understand Executive Privilege it is to protect sensitive communications between the President and his appointees. If the claim is NO COMMUNICATION occurred how can the President use the Privilege?

Most of this is Malarkey.