The USA could be a dictatorship if Trump were just slightly smarter.
Edit: nobody has an answer? It seems a very important question. Like if you say “spreading fake news”, you are saying Twitter should act as an authority of truth. Since they can’t possibly be that, where does that leave us?
"I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!"
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13469127807005777...
It is a fact that that this election is over, and Biden won fair and square. 60 losses in State and Federal courts proves that. And yet Trump continues to incite his supporters by spreading falsehoods - the election was stolen, the other side committed fraud, patriots need to #stopthesteal and so on. Even yesterday he promised never to concede.
But sure, selectively look at the text where says “remain peaceful”. What a joke people like you are.
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>Be There. Will Be Wild!
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a supporter misspelled the word “cavalry” in tweeting that “The calvary is coming, Mr. President!”
Mr. Trump responded: “A great honor!”
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But first came the remarks of the President, delivered on the Ellipse, just south of the White House.
“We will never give up,” he said. “We will never concede. It will never happen. You don’t concede when there’s death involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore.”
However, it's a private site & they don't need to justify their giving service or not.
The official Twitter account of the POTUS is @POTUS, not @realdonaldtrump.
That’s true in the sense that Twitter’s rules change specifically motivated by Trump’s violation of their pre-existing rules applied globally, not just in the US, and enabled and was seized on by similarly-oriented leaders elsewhere, as well.
Those laws are a mistake, because sooner or later, you elect a man who revels in being above the law, and who will act accordingly. Yesterday, such a man started a coup, in order to retain power. A few days before that, he was committing election fraud in Georgia. These are serious crimes, the consequences of which he is shielded from.
It's just a modern version of the divine right of kings.
These laws exist for a reason. And just because Trump is Trump doesn't mean it doesn't work well most of the time. Remember this is the same man chanting "lock her up" and promised to change libel laws so he could sue everyone and their mother. Do you think he wouldn't have gone after elected officials with lawsuits?
And for most countries these laws are very far from absolute, and/or come with escape hatches.
If you are a DA, yes. Private citizens can't file criminal charges. A judge would throw your case out, and you'd probably be disbarred, though. Those are the checks and balances inside our legal system.
If you can't see the difference between POTUS committing a clearly defined crime (Say, election fraud... Or sedition.) and the legal 'theories' of the sovereign citizen movement, I don't know what to say.
> Or charge MPs for libel or slander for saying their opinion about something?
1. You can already do that. Libel and slander are civil cases, and you can sue anyone you want in civil court, for any reason whatsoever, including POTUS.
2. If the courts find it to actually be libel or slander, why the hell not? If an elected official knowingly spreads lies and falsehoods that cause you material harm, you should be entitled to restitution.
> These laws exist for a reason.
Yes, elected officials passed them to protect themselves from legal consequences for their actions.
> And just because Trump is Trump doesn't mean it doesn't work well most of the time.
No, it doesn't work well most of the time. There's a very clear lack of equality under the law in this country - with the executive, its minions, and its friends being very clearly above the law.
> Remember this is the same man chanting "lock her up" and promised to change libel laws so he could sue everyone and their mother.
So, hold on, let's break this down.
We currently have laws that protect the executive from criminal prosecution.
This protection, at the moment, only applies to the current executive, not someone who might become part of the executive in the future.
And you are concerned that weakening these laws will let the current executive attack their future opposition.
... That doesn't make a lick of sense. Prior to getting elected, Trump had no power to 'lock her up'. After Trump got elected, Hillary was no longer protected, because she was not part of the executive.
How exactly is making the sitting president immune to criminal prosecution protect their political opponents from his vindictive behaviour? If anything, it empowers his vindictive behaviour. He is using these laws to protect himself, as he attack his opposition, and prevents a peaceful transfer of power.
And yes, I'm aware that impeachment exists. The impeachment process is a kangaroo court, the impartiality of which would make a Soviet judge blush.
I'm not really interested about a conversation about various details; especially not if your response is just a flat unnuanced "elected officials passed them to protect themselves from legal consequences". I'm not even talking about the US specifically. The world is larger than the US, and the US doesn't even have MPs. I don't even know the specifics of the US laws on this.
The only reason they’re acting now is that their excuse is about to expire. If they found another good excuse, Trump would stay.
What’s happening this week isn’t new, it’s been happening for years.
He will probably not leave politics entirely, though. That would mean being forced to admit that he lost which is beyond his ego.
(1) https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/worldlead...
The smart move is to bide their time slowly backing him down without angering him until January 20th when he no longer has any power to use any lever of power.
A furious Trump issuing a blanket pardon to anyone on Parler after being kicked off twitter could be a real result.
EDIT: What I specifically doubt is that Trump can just write out a pardon for "anyone on Parler". Doesn't it have to be a pardon for someone specific? Or can it be as generic and vague as he wants?
President Carter pardons draft dodgers
On January 21, 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter grants an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.
In total, some 100,000 young Americans went abroad in the late 1960s and early 70s to avoid serving in the war. Ninety percent went to Canada, where after some initial controversy they were eventually welcomed as immigrants. Still others hid inside the United States. In addition to those who avoided the draft, a relatively small number–about 1,000–of deserters from the U.S. armed forces also headed to Canada. While the Canadian government technically reserved the right to prosecute deserters, in practice they left them alone, even instructing border guards not to ask too many questions.
<https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-carter...>
(Not an endorsement of a mass pardon of all Parler members.)
But the Carter case does address the circumstance of pardoning a large (and arguably unknowably large) class.
Carter pardoned anyone/everyone who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_4483
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNZc9H54eBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx4FD6xtLJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMiOMNIRs3k
TLDR: He can pardon any federal offense.
But I suppose that might be unfamiliar to American readers as they did not enter the war at the beginning, and "Peace for our time" was invoked in a different context by JFK.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1346970432017031178