Myrtle Beach, SC The instinct behind this question is that mercy requires a known wrong, and that a pardon for something nobody has identified is a different animal wearing the same word. The instinct is right about the second half and wrong about the history, and the history matters because it is the first thing … Continue reading Do preemptive pardons — covering conduct not charged, and in some cases not fully known — fit the pardon power as the Founders described it, or do they turn clemency into a blanket against future investigation?
Government
Should a review team get access to payment files, contractor data, and headcount records — or does that access itself create a new risk that outweighs the audit?
Myrtle Beach, SC The most informative thing that happened in this story happened three days ago and almost nobody has covered it. David Lebryk was the Fiscal Assistant Secretary at Treasury. Career civil servant, more than thirty years in the department, the senior official responsible for the systems that move federal money. He was placed … Continue reading Should a review team get access to payment files, contractor data, and headcount records — or does that access itself create a new risk that outweighs the audit?
Was the last-day clemency a legitimate use of a president’s most personal constitutional power, or a package timed so the incoming administration could not answer in the same office?
Gastonia, NC The clause is real. The timing is the tell. But before anybody builds an argument on the timing, somebody in this Forum should read the actual list, because the version circulating in conservative media is not the version on the White House website. There was no last-day volume. The volume came in December … Continue reading Was the last-day clemency a legitimate use of a president’s most personal constitutional power, or a package timed so the incoming administration could not answer in the same office?
Do Elon Musk’s federal contracts and regulatory exposure disqualify him from directing efficiency policy, or is that a manageable conflict if the scope is disclosed?
Gastonia, NC Everybody in this argument is debating a recusal wall. Before you can build one you have to know which law is doing the building, and right now the answer is none. The federal conflict-of-interest statute reaches officers and employees of the executive branch. That is the whole of its coverage. It criminalises participating … Continue reading Do Elon Musk’s federal contracts and regulatory exposure disqualify him from directing efficiency policy, or is that a manageable conflict if the scope is disclosed?
Should an unelected outside executive be given a named role in shrinking the federal establishment, or does that arrangement concede that the civil service will not reform itself?
Myrtle Beach, SC The second half of this question contains an assumption that is wrong, and it is wrong in a way that matters for the whole file. The premise is that the civil service could shrink itself and has declined to. It could not. A career official at Health and Human Services cannot abolish … Continue reading Should an unelected outside executive be given a named role in shrinking the federal establishment, or does that arrangement concede that the civil service will not reform itself?
After the 2024 election, is a “Department of Government Efficiency” best understood as a serious attempt to build a permanent cost-control function, or as a campaign brand looking for a building?
Gastonia, NC The question asks whether this will be a permanent function or a brand looking for a building. Both halves have already been answered, in writing, by the people who created it, and almost nobody has read the announcement. The statement on the twelfth says DOGE will provide advice and guidance from outside of … Continue reading After the 2024 election, is a “Department of Government Efficiency” best understood as a serious attempt to build a permanent cost-control function, or as a campaign brand looking for a building?
On the eve of the election, has the legal campaign against Trump become a larger threat to equal application of the law than any single allegation in the underlying files — or is that claim itself an attempt to nullify verdicts a defendant simply disliked?
Myrtle Beach, SC Four days out, I think the larger civic question is no longer whether one payment was ugly, one records practice was sloppy, one call was inappropriate, or one valuation was aggressive. Those are finite questions. The larger question is whether the country created a special legal climate for one former president and … Continue reading On the eve of the election, has the legal campaign against Trump become a larger threat to equal application of the law than any single allegation in the underlying files — or is that claim itself an attempt to nullify verdicts a defendant simply disliked?
By October 2024, which fact should weigh more in a capacity-and-legitimacy ledger: that one ticket spent three years denying a visible decline, or that the other ticket spent those same years under indictment and survived two assassination attempts?
Myrtle Beach, SC Before this Forum closes eighteen weeks of argument, one thing has to be said, and it matters more than the ranking the question asks for. The prosecutions and the shootings are not the same kind of fact and they must not be weighed in the same column. The prosecutions were decisions. Made … Continue reading By October 2024, which fact should weigh more in a capacity-and-legitimacy ledger: that one ticket spent three years denying a visible decline, or that the other ticket spent those same years under indictment and survived two assassination attempts?
How should voters weigh the fact that all four criminal cases were brought by Democratic elected prosecutors or by a special counsel appointed under a Democratic administration — coincidence of timing, or evidence that charging discretion had become a campaign instrument?
Myrtle Beach, SC Before anything else, the arithmetic in this question undercounts its own case, and I would rather fix it than argue from a number that will not hold up. Four criminal cases. Manhattan: an elected Democratic district attorney. Fulton County: an elected Democratic district attorney. The classified documents case and the January 6 … Continue reading How should voters weigh the fact that all four criminal cases were brought by Democratic elected prosecutors or by a special counsel appointed under a Democratic administration — coincidence of timing, or evidence that charging discretion had become a campaign instrument?
Has the combination of lawfare, two attempts on Trump’s life, and a late nominee swap produced a 2024 race the pre-2021 system was not designed to run, or are these simply the ugly features of a polarized republic?
Gastonia, NC Before anybody calls this unprecedented, somebody in this Forum should say the word 1968 out loud. On the thirty-first of March that year a sitting president announced he would not seek re-election, after the primaries had already begun. On the fifth of June the leading candidate for that nomination was shot dead in … Continue reading Has the combination of lawfare, two attempts on Trump’s life, and a late nominee swap produced a 2024 race the pre-2021 system was not designed to run, or are these simply the ugly features of a polarized republic?
