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Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by kolbe on Monday April 14, 2025 @04:11PM (#43685793)
You need to read what I wrote more carefully. The entire point is that whoever is in power decides which law actually gets applied and to whom. Do you think for some reason that the Trump administration risks being prosecuted by the Trump administration?
Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by davorak on Monday April 14, 2025 @04:58PM (#43686255)
This seems like an argument against the rule of law. When arguing for demographic compositions, at least for my personal admittedly limited experience, I see arguments for how policy X upholds the law, or maybe only the spirit of the law in Y ways.

I do not see that here for the current admins demands for diversity.

Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by ericjmorey on Monday April 14, 2025 @05:15PM (#43686417)
The executive branch is afforded some discretion, but the judicial system decides how law gets applied as directed by Congress when they write laws.
Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by kolbe on Monday April 14, 2025 @05:42PM (#43686636)
DAs of all kinds have enormous discretion. A significant part of our legal system is entrusted to them to act honorably, regardless of what judges and legislators say. DAs can't force outcomes that judges say are incorrect, but DAs can and do choose not to prosecute obvious crimes, and there are not great checks against that power beyond replacing them with the political process.

And even when cases are brought, the DoJ needs to defend them. See a number of cases that were very far along in the court system that the Biden administration was pursuing, that the Trump DoJ just quit defending. They simply no longer have a lawyer, and functionally cannot proceed.

Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by ajross on Monday April 14, 2025 @06:19PM (#43686915)
> The entire point is that whoever is in power decides which law actually gets applied and to whom.

And that "entire point" is historically incorrect in the United States. There is a long, long, LONG history of the Department of Justice investigating and prosecuting members of the administration that technically runs it.

That your point seems to be correct now, in the most corrupt administration of the modern era, is something that is notable and worth discussing. It's certainly not something to sweep under the rug with a both-sides-ist dismissal.

Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by kolbe on Monday April 14, 2025 @10:37PM (#43688499)
We can quibble about the definition of "the administration", but the head of it a man who can pardon whomever he pleases for any federal crime he pleases. The very fact that any of these historical charges weren't instantaneously mooted with a pardon is self-evidence to me that all of these prosecutions were of former members of the administration who had fallen out if favor of the actual administration.
Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by ajross on Tuesday April 15, 2025 @12:05AM (#43688879)
Classic No-True-Scotsman here: "Oh, well, sure, they were prosecuted in contravention of my point above. But that means they wanted to prosecute them."

(It's also tautological: I mean, of course they wanted to prosecute them. They were criminals and prosecutors prosecute criminals, definitionally!)

(And also also, it's an Occam's violation: the simpler explanation is that they were just treated like criminals and not that they were double-negative enforcement actions by a corrupt regime.)

Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by kolbe on Tuesday April 15, 2025 @12:36AM (#43689020)
Did that sound clever in your head? Again, the head of the executive branch can quash any charge he wants. You're the one contending that a person doing X is evidence that they support not-X.
Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by wredcoll on Tuesday April 15, 2025 @02:12AM (#43689505)
I admire your willingness to argue that, because they didn't do the corrupt thing, they are in fact corrupt.
Re:Federal Government's letter to Harvard demanding changes ... by kolbe on Tuesday April 15, 2025 @09:36AM (#43692496)
Using your constitutionally granted executive powers is pretty standard.