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'COVFEFE Act' Would Make Social Media a Presidential Record (thehill.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) introduced legislation Monday to classify presidential social media posts -- including President Trump's much-discussed tweets -- as presidential records. The Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement (COVFEFE) Act, which has the same acronym as an infamous Trump Twitter typo last month, would amend the Presidential Records Act to include "social media." Presidential records must be preserved, according to the Presidential Records Act, which would make it potentially illegal for the president to delete tweets. "President Trump's frequent, unfiltered use of his personal Twitter account as a means of official communication is unprecedented. If the President is going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future reference. Tweets are powerful, and the President must be held accountable for every post," said Quigley in a statement. Most people took the "covfefe" tweet to be a typo, although press secretary Sean Spicer told the media that the term was used intentionally. "The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant," he said.
The more time the congress spends on pointless stuff like this, the less time is left to waste taxpayer money. Carry on.
I don't respond to or upvote ACs
When he is no longer president, Donald J. Trump can have a library where his words of wisdom are recorded 140 characters at a time.
Let's make the Democrats' social media accounts part of official government records, too. Don't limit it to POTUS.
This is pathetic grandstanding by a moronic representative. We didn't elect you to troll the President and waste time on bills that won't get passed, we elected you to get actual legislation through.
He could have easily made the same bill without the insult and had a good chance of it passing, but that wouldn't get his name in the press.
Covfefe actually isn't a typo. It's a code word sent to his Russian handlers. What it means, no one has figured out yet... but Trump himself admitted that it has a meaning. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/869858333477523458
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the current record keeping rules are very broad and would include this, especially given Spicer's other comment that they consider Trump's tweets to be official Presidential announcements. So this seems unnecessary and more grandstanding than anything else (which is reinforced by the name chosen).
All internal political party emails and communication will be released for public viewing to ensure no shenanigans are taking place.
Word verification: thefts
Twitter FB etc would be legally barred from deleting posts from government employees ?
How interesting.
Rolling on the floor laughing!
It might condition Trump's future twitter behavior but it's illegal to use this new legislation on stuff that already happened in the past... Try again libtards.
Not only because such a bill seems to be necessary, but because it was named about the most annoying non-story of 2017 so far.
I'd love to see how Snapchat would handle deletion ban of POTUS posts.
why they ruled us, but now they hypocritically have decided to support this.
Impressive, they found a way to make the babbling of an overgrown baby into an acronym for a real program.
KEEP TRUMP IN PRESIDENT
"The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant." The small group are his Russian handlers.
Wondering how and if Twitter and Facebook can ban access to there services... if they are now official government communication channels.
Wasn't there some article about all of Obama's tweets being backed up in the Library of Congress? Or did that only happen at the end of the term, not as they're coming out, fast and furious.
Really, they're just fucking with the President now. I'm ashamed of the US Government, the media, and the lack of intellect of most voters.
Point 1: Master level trolling.
Point 2: He's right. Now that several layers of courts and the White House via Spicer have established that Trump's tweets are in fact relevant to his administration's policies then they should be treated as they were presidential records.
Point 3: Make it retroactive so he is already in violation for his deleted Tweets.
Point 4: This will never make it to the floor but if it did and passed Trump would veto it anyway.
Is this needed? YES ABSOLUTELY!!
Does it have any chance of passing? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
So why bother introducing it? It won't pass. Republicans control both houses.
All internal political party emails and communication will be released for public viewing to ensure no shenanigans are taking place.
Word verification: thefts
Putin's willing to do his part!
Congress is already stalled by the fact that the party in power is not quite so ideologically unified as it thought it was.
Only the fear-mongers on the left ever claimed there was ideological unity. Anyone with a mind left could clearly see there are many Republicans who detest Trump and are part of the effort to work against him in most things. Every now and then there is real alignment but it is rare and happens in only the most clear-cut of cases (like Gorsuch, and even that became a bit iffy).
Trump's election was never a danger to anyone because he's not a God Emperor, he's just a president and in the end they can only do so much alone.
If you want real fear, actually manage to pop Trump from the stack of American leaders, because up next is Pence and there you WILL see ideological unity of the worst kind. That's the point *I* would think about leaving the country.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I love watching the American media double even triple down after being utterly humiliated last election. That said who am I to talk, our own prime minister opened the floodgates to the illegals from your country in one tweet to run up into ours. Kicker is (apparently) 50% have "serious" criminal records.
The poor refugee victim narrative falls down at every turn.
What's the problem - you want to record Trump's tweets then record them, they're openly available. Ffs there's even a JavaScript API for Twitter you can use to do it automatically.
It's Orangenian for "Rosebud".
Table-ized A.I.
Twitter is the worst thing to happen to public discourse since TV.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
This is the kind of Asshat Bullshit you get when one party doesn't accept the results of an election.
Petulant doesn't even come close to describing the deviant mental status of the Democrats these days.
Seriously, do they even have a platform anymore? If they want to regain power, they need to figure out what they're about. (Hint: Twitter butthurt can't be it.)
Certainly, something that should be preserved as a presidential record.
It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
I love that sitcom about the aging wannabe-celebrity becoming US president. It's a bit unrealistic, I admit that, but it's a hoot and a half, every episode a new surprise and you never know what's gonna happen next.
Some say it's formulaic, but I can only say I'm entertained. And isn't that the most important aspect?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People seem to forget (or never learned) the lesson from Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.
What was the role of President? To distract people's attention from where the real power was.
With the media's help, Trump is doing that job admirably, just like Zaphod,
Well, they're not exactly overwhelmed by the volume of work.
Congress is seriously overworked. You are thinking only of their secondary job, legislating. You are not thinking of their primary job, walking out of Congress and going to the nearby DNC and RNC private offices where they get on the phone and start dialing for donations. Members of Congress as essentially call center workers first, legislators second.
Another pointless bit of political grandstanding.
Much like slashdot itself is becoming.
Why are his tweets deemed official? They're from the President, and many of them are tactless, Jimmy Kimmel fodder. But, he's not using Twitter to issue instructions to his cabinet. This is his personal account, and it's no more official than any other Twitter account.
sig: sauer
IANAL but Trump's tweets about Comey and Flynn appear to me to be obstruction of justice. I don't believe an act of Congress is necessary to find that either.
The United States has the largest GDP in the world
That depends on how you measure GDP. If you use puchasing power parity which is designed to remove the effects of the international currency markets that skew rates in a way that may have little to do with actual GDP then the EU beats the US.
However, even third place (China is first) still means the US is clearly a world power. While the trend does not seem to be a positive one for the US especially recently given your president the same could be said for the EU too.
These Butthurt Democrats just don't get it. They are making themselves look 10 times worse than they are Trump, because they're just proving themselves to be a bunch of whiny crybabies and petulant children throwing a temper tantrum because they didn't get their way.
I don't like Trump at all, but I have more respect for him than I do for these idiots.
Who'd name a sled covfefe?
they just haven't figured out how much they can get away with before even they get thrown out on their asses. But while no one was looking they gutted the last of Dodd-Frank along party lines no problem (hope you don't need a payday loan anytime soon because they're no longer regulated).
I'm reminded of Microsoft during the Xbox One launch where every day brought a new announcement of something horrible followed by a retraction. But that only worked because they had a viable competitor. Unlike the console wars the other side of the political wars is a mess.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Today, the Department of Common Sense" (DoCS) Finally struck down one of the most frivolous and wasteful government resolutions yet. On the 20th anniversary of its inception, the the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement (COVFEFE) Act was finally struck down.
For years, the American taxpayer has been footing the bill to replicate the childish and nonsensical social media tweets of every sitting leader since the controversial and infamous Donald Trump (45). Those opposing this bill have been fighting for the past 20 years to make lawmakers understand that nothing posted on the internet ever really goes away, and the bill, by its very nature, is a terrible waste of taxpayer money in its current form.
One could speculate that this may be a direct result of the actions of one Rep. Qike Muigley III(D-Ill.) When his tweet "Underware sux haha!" began circulating attached to a picture of the Muigley with a conspicuous brown stain on his rear.
President Comancho's reaction to news?
"wut? lol OMG"
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Also, how are we losing audience and electorate?
... it'd probably be things like:
Damn it @Marty, you know the Jews are out to get me!
Shut the hell up @CheckersTheDog!
Peace of cake. Just task NSA to send all presidents' records caught in course of mass surveillance directly into Presidential Record file.
Another law from the parasite class. Only good Liberal is a dead liberal.
Assuming that this isn't already covered by existing law, it is a good idea, despite the ridiculous backronym.
So it COVFEFE is an internally used acronym or term that only a handful of people in the oval office know the meaning of? Riiiiiiiight... So it was shared on Twitter to millions why??? Spicer has shoveled enough shit to fill a landfill.
Also completely unrelated... If Comey coming forward with Trump's completely inappropriate implications makes him a "leaker", what does that make Trump for giving away classified info to the Russians? Only difference: A bigger title to hide behind. Apparently you can do no wrong as the POTUS unless you're black Hawaiian.
Trump is like the Herp; embarrassing, irritating, and refuses to go away.
Do it.....Not sure how this wasn't already thought of. Definitely should have been in place already, that's for sure.
Most people took the "covfefe" tweet to be a typo, although press secretary Sean Spicer told the media that the term was used intentionally. "The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant," he said.
Of course, it couldn't have been a typo and Sean Spicer couldn't have been joking...
Ken
The slashdot of five or ten years ago would have been laughing themselves silly over this perfect troll of Trump.
One of the many thing wrong with the so-called conservatives, and libertarians: no sense of humor.
"The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant." The small group are his Russian handlers.
Code word for his bot-net - Sorry, I mean dihard supporters...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Does he know that?
Obviously, but even if he didn't - irrelevant. I don't care what he thinks, I care what it is possible for him to do I consider to be harmful.
So far the net impact of Trump being elected has been extremely positive, the main thing I wanted out a Trump victory was (1) the press to pay more attention to what the president was doing, which they were not under Obama, and (2) to reform the Democratic party so it was a real party and not run by a secret cabal of incompetent corporatists.
Number 1 is accomplished in spades, the press is actually watching the presidents every move. Excellent.
Number 2 is a work in progress but I think after more Democratic losses in the next election they will have some real reform.
Hope you're good at swimming, because nowhere else will take you.
You're either not in tech or have never tried to work abroad. There's actually several options, one I was most strongly considering for some time was the Netherlands which would happily have me. If you are technically competent, have a good amount of savings, and have a clean criminal record there are a LOT of countries that will be very happy to have you. They need the tax revenue after all...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Welcome to the United States of Anagrams!! The politicians here are capable of coming up very creative names for bills. See PATRIOT Act. Now, we have COVFEFE.
Oh please. Two things:
1). The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and the road to ruin is paved with actions such as electing Trump. Your Pollyanna "he's ONLY President, really, he's just a minor bureaucrat in a tiny corner office, nothing to see here, move along" act isn't impressive;
2). Really? "[T]here are many Republicans who detest Trump..."? Where? In the Republican Party? On the Hill? Where? Republicans in power have near universally swallowed all their Trump objections and magically discovered how "excited they are" and are "eager to work with" the Yuge Orange Leader.
Yes, that could change, but only if crass self-preservation issues cause a rift. Republicans displayed crass pandering once Trump started to get momentum and only crass self-preservation will cause them to suddenly rediscover their independent principles. Such as they are.
the effects of the international currency markets that skew rates in a way that may have little to do with actual GDP
They have much to do with GDP, for reasons explained by the Balassa-Samuelson model.
But I discount the size of the EU as a single market, especially for information products, because of its multiculturalism. One plausible measure of market size is based on the effort needed to localize an application, a manual, or product packaging for the languages spoken in a market. Then each language group in the EU doesn't look like so big of a market anymore because after Brexit, Ireland and Malta will be the only EU members using English in any sort of official capacity.
In addition, a Tweet allows convenient citation of an article that more completely describes the views expressed in the first 115 characters.
by definition any foreign policy is discriminatory policy based on national origin. Or should we not have different policy for adversaries with a stated goal of undermining and disrupting the US government?
The latter does not follow from the former. A "policy for adversaries with a stated goal of undermining and disrupting the US government" can be written to treat foreign alleged adversaries no differently from domestic alleged adversaries. Otherwise, it misses domestic terrorists, such as natural-born Timothy McVeigh and naturalized Jahar Tsarnaev.