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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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I'm trying to understand how this system works and came across this article from Al Jazeera which, if I'm reading it correctly, is saying that the US did determine gross human rights violations but the Biden administration is refusing to apply the Leahy Law. Doesn't this mean that Biden does have the authority to stop sending military aid but isn't, or am I misunderstanding something? Also, aside from Leahy Law why can't he veto the military aid?
Oh man, this is a doozy. You aren't wrong but I've got to get some sleep. To explain this is A LOT.
The thing is the Leahy Law doesn't put the power directly in the President's hands. It grants the vetting process to the Secretary of State. Which is a member of the cabinet of the President. Which I don't know how familiar you are with how the Executive Office works or not. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken is the one who wields the power to deny Israel's aid.
There's Executive Orders (EO) that the President can give but there's the whole "what if" Blinken quits given an EO and then we have to get the Senate involved which is currently 50-50 on Republicans and Democrats. Which that turns it even more complex and Senators can delay confirmation until after the election or if they're really bitter, until next year. Which means that everything that requires a Secretary of State would get put on pause.
I get that everyone thinks the President gets to have the final say, but the President orders people around on EOs, which the various Secretaries can just quit if they don't want to follow them, and then that kicks everything to the Senate. That's kind of a built in protection in our system of Government to prevent a President becoming a dictator. If a President wants XYZ done and the Secretary thinks that's bad, they quit and the Senate becomes involved potentially delaying the President forever.
There's way more background on why Blinken has only stopped two aids and also because of classification reasons, not every stopping of aid can be published, unless the President does so since the President has unilateral authority on classification markings (except for anything related to the name of spies and nuclear bomb designs, that is one of the few things that requires both the President and Congress to sign off on, there's a few other exceptions as well but I won't go into them).
But anyways, Blinken is the one who can stop aid. The President could order him, but he could also quit, which means the Senate would get involved, and I can explain why all of that would be messy if you need me to.
The President only has veto power on bills that have passed both the House and the Senate. Once something becomes law, the President "has" to carry it out. There's a ton of background on "Executive Discretion" and any time the President wants to exercise discretion, Congress can sue, which then brings the matter into the other branch, the Judicial. Plenty of States that would sign on, to a Congressional suit (which that's a requirement for Congress to sue the President, at least one State has to join in).
So Biden could use Discretion to delay funding, and he's done that quite a few times, but he can't just outright NOT pay when the law requires him to do so. That discretion comes from a kind of EO called a "Reviewing Executive Order" and it requires a department to "review" ((insert whatever the topic is)). That's a delay, but it isn't a halt. The President has to follow the law as well. So if we have a law that says, "we provide $xxx to Israel's Iron Dome", we have to send that money to them at some point.
A lot of the funds that Israel is getting, is funding they secured before the Gaza invasion. There's been recent upping of that funding that Congress has passed, but that's been on things called Continuing Resolutions (CR). Republicans in the House (who are the ones who control what the US Budget is) have been using CRs to get choice things enacted. That's because Republicans in the House have passed rules on how a budget may be formed in the House that are impossible to comply with (which that's a whole long story). So if Democrats in the House refuse to accept the CRs the Republicans offer, the Government shuts down.
Anyways, that's been a lot already. If you need me to clear anything up, let me know. But Harris likely wouldn't have Blinken as Secretary of State, which would fix A WHOLE LOT. But I don't know, because if the election isn't kind to Democrats in the Senate and Republicans have a majority in the Senate, they could block Harris' Sec. of State unless they specifically pledged to support Israel. Now they could absolutely lie about that, but then Congress could also impeach them, but that would cut off aid to Israel for some time as that's not an easy process to impeach a secretary of state.
This comment needs no be posted and stickied everywhere. I mean everywhere. Thank you for your detailed response and explanation of how the executive works. I'm saving this comment.
If you want to keep up with daily events in the Executive, the Federal Register (Fed. Reg. or FR) cannot be beat. It contains all of the FOIA request, every public inspection requirement, CFR proposals, Executive Orders, Presidential Proclamations, and so forth.
If you want something more specific to rule making, you can find that here. Rule making makes a bit more sense when you think about it. Say Congress passes a law that says "build me a road between Texas and South Dakota". The law will usually say who (department) is in charge of that and then that department will take the money and begin rule making. Rule making is basically laying out the path the road will take, what kind of materials will be used, what companies are allowed to bid, environmental guidelines, etc, etc ,etc... Once those rules have been made the who is going to do it is determined. Like Highways in this case, the Federal Government provides the money and the States are the ones who select the labor and make minor course corrections to the highway (like if it's about to pass through a cemetery or something).
Rule making is also sometimes called regulation. Because the agency put in charge is regulating the action being done to ensure compliance with what they think the law is asking for, because Congress is very NOT detail oriented until they really want to be. Also with rule making, Congress can "ask" a department to come in and meet with them if Congress thinks some of the rules don't mesh with what they were thinking.
There's also override laws, which Congress passes like a normal law. These laws, remember the Constitution requires laws to be applied equally if they involve the public so these override laws are written as such so that they only apply to a executive department, specifically smack the department over the head and "corrects" where the rule making went wrong. These don't happen often, but we did have one back in Trump days over the FCC. The FCC had made a new rule that required ISPs to get permission to sell customer data, and Congress plus then President Trump overrode the FCC, explicitly banning them from ever creating such a rule. It's still open if the FTC could make such a rule. But that's an example of an override of regulation.
Oh also my whole comment didn't even touch on the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, which is what would happen if a Secretary quits. Very, very, very long story short. The Deputy Secretary automatically gets to become the "acting" Secretary BUT they cannot do any "exclusive actions", which that Leahy rule is indeed an exclusive action. The "acting" Secretary can only maintain "status quo" until the Senate Confirms that the acting secretary is indeed the actual secretary. But an "acting" position can only last for 210 days, after which the office is then considered "vacant", but none of that matters anymore because Congress uses "pro forma" sessions to prevent recessed appointments. But typically, if a position is "vacant" and Congress is not in Session, the President can make a recess appointment.
If you ask me, what we really need is an Amendment to the Constitution that provides the President a way to declare Congress as absent and if some threshold of Congress doesn't become present, then the President can then call Congress not in Session. The whole "pro forma" sessions of Congress really needs to stop, like in a really bad way. Sort of like how Filibuster should return to requiring a person physically speak for the entire duration of the filibuster and must remain on topic.
Congress has gotten really soft on everything and that's allowed them to permit a lot of bad faith actions in Congress to happen. It used to be that it was "gentleman's agreement" that Congress would behave and act in good faith, but boy have we really fallen down on that since the 1980s.
Anyway, I'm rambling.
Dude. This is awesome. We need to make this into YouTube shorts or tik tok. Anything to get civic education out. We are extremely in need...
Not the person you replied to, but just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to write up such an informative answer. I learned quite a few things from it.
Hey, professor, where do I sign up for the next civics lecture?
I've been needing some better gov't education since long before high school.
it'd be a poor course it empirically incorrect on a number of counts.
Blinken stated here:
However, as you said earlier:
Regarding:
I would like to hear more on this.
I did come across this where apparently Israel secured funding through a deal with the Obama administration.
I'm not sure what other reasons there may be that Blinken isn't stopping the military aid which I would like to hear, but it seems to me like both the Obama and Biden administrations are the ones that pulled us into the genocide and that Blinken is playing the "we are working toward a ceasefire" card while not stopping the genocide, and figures like Harris are also playing the same card while pushing the same anti-protest rhetoric as Zionists. This article does suggest that Harris isn't going to have Blinken as Secretary of State and that her new pick might be more critical of Israel so it seems like there's at least some chance she might deviate from what Biden is currently doing; however, the article also suggests that she will have a similar approach to foreign policy as Biden. Aside from that, with the track record of Democrats historically supporting Israel and siding with donors against the interests of people along with their recently having dropped multiple progressive issues, I don't think people are convinced that Harris (and many Democrats in general) is going to stop the genocide (not saying that Trump who openly supports Israel is going to be any better).
lol. entire wall of text predicated on a position that is easily filled without congressional confirmed. someone didn't pay attention to trumps presidency at all.
but lets hit on the misconceptions you're spouting.
incorrect. Presidents have refused to enforce/carry out laws repeatedly throughout history. that's one of the powers of the executive branch. its not explicit but there is no enforcement mechanism. Your assertion that congress can sue is 100% true. what you're missing is that during that time the president can just not due what the law says and these things can take years. Secondly even if a judge blocks an EO the president can still do it the judge has no enforcement mechanism. You may have learned about this little system in grade school: The honor system. which is entirely useless. There are historical instance of this such as worcester v georgia. abraham lincoln did it w/ habeus corpus and more recently Franklin D. Roosevelt.
biden can easily deal with blinken, its called firing and assigning a temporary individual to the role. not like he has a lot of time left there'd be no time to confirm a new individual anyways. Blinken simply isn't the issue, biden was until we got rid of him by not supporting him. Now Harris is, she's the one who has committed to genocide at this point thats causing the issue not blinken.
You're entire 'civics' lesson ignores the historical realities of the presidency and EOs. especially in light of the recent SCOTUS ruling on presidential powers which expanded this ability by conferring it judicial backing.
Ugh. This is why I hate summary because there's always someone who is like "you didn't explain EvErYtHiNg so you're wrong!" While you're trying to flesh things out you always miss a ton of things too that neither one of us touched on, and I didn't because it increases what needs to be talked about when what I originally said was correct.
I hate this term because it shows that people are trying to oversimplify something that is in itself complex. Additionally, you're trying to point out things but you didn't cover everything either. Which is why especially here, this annoying. You're basically trying to make an argument of "you explain too much" and "you didn't explain enough". It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't argument that you're trying to make. I'm calling you out on it because you are attempting a no correct way to answer line of questioning. I'll give you this reply, but you keep going on this thread like this, I'll just block you. I don't have the time for childish game. If you have a point make it, if you don't stop beating around the bush. That's all there is to it.
That's not correct. I'll point to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 5 USC § 3345. You seem smart enough, you can figure out why Sec. of State quitting and the deputy becoming acting would trigger such a response.
Again, I'll point to the many failures on exclusive authority during that term. Namely you can see the multiple failures along the regulation of coal that failed exclusive authority. Acting has only nonexclusive duties for the 210 day period and the extended period of 300 days on inauguration. Hence the failures on rule making.
Yes, this is why enjoining an EO exists as a measure for the courts. Immediate relief is something the claimants can seek when bringing the issue up to the courts. That's why you hear emergency relief often with controversial orders.
The enforcement is via Congress at that point. If a just rules something as violation of the Court order, that's easily handled by Congress.
Just so we're clear the Nullification scandal, Jackson indicated he was ready to march troops into South Carolina and shooting the government if need be. That was with eye to Georgia daring them the exact same thing. We'd revisit that willingness to march troops into the State and start shooting State Government members about thirty years later.
So just, so we're clear the Worcester you cite, we got ready to have a preemptive war over the matter. I'm not sure the argument you're providing holds a lot of water here in that "they can do what they want to do with no ramifications". Clearly getting shot at by the Army is a ramification that at the time neither party wanted to try out. But we did give it a go a bit later.
Yeah. Thing called the Civil War.
Was kicked to Congress, like I said it would be. Was mulled and Congress decided to take a pass. But that's not free from consequences. Additionally, Congress had indicated to FDR to wrap that shit up with the alphabet groups. You'll note how many of them didn't last. CCC still a thing?
Again see FVRA.
Again see FVRA, carry over has a lot more impact in the first 300 day period than having an acting position.
That is just plainly incorrect.
And you covered zero of them either. I've provided more context to the examples that you gave. But the reality is that "the historical realities of EOs" is a complex issue. But apparently you don't like walls of text.
I take it that you are referring to Trump v US. None of that has any bearing on the matter of what Bliken does or doesn't do. If Biden simply just withheld funds and gave everyone the finger, he'd still be subject to Congressional review of his actions and possible impeachment. That is not being free of ramifications.
Lol, all of it comes down to enforcement as you well know and the fact is there would be none. Everything you cited are either) insanely unlikely or not a function of our branches. Getting shot at by a member of the military? Lol. Please. Not remotely relevant.
Impeachment today is essentially toothless. Particularly in biden's case as hes done with office anyways.
So as i said: in the three months remaining of bidens term he could 1) absolutely dump blinken and replace him, not an issue. 2) can absolutely withhold weapons see leahy. 3) the history of the president defying judicial orders is well supported.
Id give a shit if it actually meant anything. You clearly confuse words on paper with real world consequences.
Correct it has bearing on what biden can do. I.e. fire him and replace at his leisure. Which is why you're trying to place the blame on bliken because as you know biden has many options on the table for gaza he is just unwilling to use them because he is a Zionist.
You'll note that in you 2nd wall of nonsense. Not once have you managed to identify how the judicial branch can hold a president accountable.
Yes congress might, though as we both know they almost certainly won't and essentially has never happened. oh no impeachment, poor 2 timer trump has suffered zero consequences from it. And that was after trying to overthrow the government. Lol @ congress taking a pass not equaling consequence free. But i see your issue you think someone filing paper work is a consequence. 😂 Identify material consequences a president has suffered as a result of defying congress or a judicial order? You'll find very few.
And it amuses me you claim harris isnt culpable for the genocide, she absolutely is and you know it which is why you won't expand on in detail as you're so very happy to do.
The fact biden is a Zionist is why gaza is continuing it literally has nothing to do with blinken. There are many paths biden can take to deal with him. He can fire him, countermand him, or execute him thanks to scotus.
Stop wasting everyones time by trying to argue the indefensible. You're clearly one of the dunces who thinks rules on paper matter even though people break them constantly in the real world with zero problems.
He can't legally, and Republicans in the House would absolutely jump at the chance to impeach Biden and have it carry over into the next session as Democrats did with Trump's second impeachment. It would literally be the train they ride till midterms.
Gosh you are really bad at this.
I don't think you've ever worked for the Government. You are insanely bad at this.
I've given you plenty of opportunity and you're just spewing "nothing means anything anymore!!!" Gosh, it's not like I haven't met countless numbers of you types.
Enjoined. You clearly aren't reading anything, I'm not typing any more. Consider yourself blocked, you are a waste of time.
snicker oh no! republicans impeachment! whatever will we do. it'll take them longer to run the impeachment trial than he has time left in office! rofl. OH NO! biden will be PUNISHED with.... wait for it.... removal from office. THE HORROR.
your coal example: sigh lets talk about how they were rolled back during biden's term. Why? because biden agreed with the courts and didn't like the policies to begin with. but the courts most certainly didnt force trump to roll them back.
you really dont get how to wield executive power. 90% of it is doing what you want letting people challenge it and by the time it gets through the court you've already accomplished what you wanted. my entire point has been there is 0 negative outcome for a president to exercise flagrant violations of law. israel is a prime example of this in fact.
You're simply dense and can't see the facts through your rose tinged glasses of your belief in law and order. fucking gaza is a straight up example of this. Those who control enforcement control which laws are upheld and there is jack shit courts can do about this. trump abused the fuck out of this.
selective enforcement please read up on it. it applies here.
is like your version of congressional impeachment? oh no.... whatever will I do. only reason I was responding to you was so everyone else knows what a load of nonsense your shit was.