Slashdot Mirror
'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.
Well, Trump seems to like spending time crafting executive order that get blocked by the courts, so why can't a Congressman come up with a bill that won't pass either?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
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.
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.
Are you talking about the Republicans for the last eight years or the Democrats today?
"The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant." The small group are his Russian handlers.
You think a bill sponsored by a Democrat has a chance of getting passed?
You're an optimist. I like that.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
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.
I believe it is one of the chief things keeping him from getting things done actually.....it creates too much turmoil, and distractions from the things he promised to get through...healthcare reform, tax reform, and the wall.
I used to love watching all the news channels, MSNBC, Fox, CNN...I'd watch all the Sunday morning news shows every week.
But man, I'm so over it....this tweet, that tweet...and the press jumping on this, or on that...just the constant "noise" is driving me to just watch nothing more weighty than Family Guy reruns on Netflix in endless succession.
If someone would take the fucking twitter phone away from him and advise him to just shut the fuck up and do leader stuff in the background quietly for awhile, I'd be ever so thankful.....
I don't like everything about him or his policies, but there are some I do....like the supreme court appointment (my main voting issues), and those listed above, but geez....can't he do it quietly and out of the spotlight a bit? He's his own worst enemy most of the time it seems....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's something of a sad state of affairs that news has become glorified Twitter readers.
He could have easily made the same bill without the insult and had a good chance of it passing,
Given that he's a Democrat and such a bill is obviously targeted at the Republican President, it never would have had a chance at passing.
Although I'm in full agreement that we should expect more of our legislators than this kind of juvenile attention-seeking.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Most voters - that's pretty funny really.
Nullius in verba
You think a bill sponsored by a Democrat has a chance of getting passed?
Once the Republicans figure out that they can't come to an agreement among themselves, they will turn to Nancy Pelosi for Democratic votes to pass "must pass" legislation. This bill and a laundry list of Democratic priorities will find its way into the "must pass" legislation.
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
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.
you seem to think that using twitter is making trump a less effective leader, when in reality it is more of a symptom of him not being a leader at all. So don't blame twitter, if his twitter phone was taken away from him he will think of something else to distract himself, like say play even more rounds of golf.
Wrong!
Trump seems to like spending time crafting executive order that get blocked by the court
I don't understand this nor the reason it was modded up. As opposed to the courts not blocking orders from the president? We have seen that and that is why we have the first year filled with E.O.'s.
Also, the arguments why he can't have his ban are specious at best. The only way the courts would allow them is if the executive prove a negative. "Prove it isn't racist!". Instead of taking the order as is and within the confines of the text to the extent that it would be enforced, the courts use campaign rhetoric that may or may not have influenced this order. But they don't have to prove it Trump has to prove it isn't racist.
Prove you are not racist and want strong immigration enforcement.
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.)
Listen, both you idiots can be right. You guys can be snowflakes, AND the bill can be moronically named.
At this point I think it's just pandering to the base.
sorry I speak arabic natively that is wrong
And Trump does not. I would totally buy that some nitwit told him "this is what this word means in Arabic," and he ran with it.
its not because X does shit that it warrants Y shit. With that kind of reasoning you end up with a whole lot of shit ;-)
Certainly, something that should be preserved as a presidential record.
Dude, you can't pass crap like those bans. Any President doing so would have them blocked by judicial review. They aren't constitutional. They are so clear cut and dry that they shouldn't even be part of the discussion. It's a restriction the US has self imposed as powerful as Innocent until proven Guilty.
The band aren't exactly that hard to think up. I am sure they were thought up by prior Administrations. But in those cases, the President knew it wouldn't work or atleast his advisors did. For Trump, no one wants to speak their mind against him.
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.
He's making it really hard not to, ya know...
When someone is asking to be trolled, you can't blame anyone if they simply do it.
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.
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
We didn't elect you to troll the President
Hey, speak for yourself, pal.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Although I'm in full agreement that we should expect more of our legislators than this kind of juvenile attention-seeking.
Sure man, where were you for the previous 8 and a half years?
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.
Yes, it is good that they are under judicial review but my contention is the arguments that amount to; "prove this is not a racist order". Hard to prove a negative. It also makes the argument that "cannot discriminate based on national origin" is an enforceable foreign policy when 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? It is easy when it is easily defined like the USSR but difficult when it is based on ideology and terrorism. Can the executive determine places of inordinate danger to the US and US citizens and bar entry temporarily or increase screening procedures?
Yes, the Executive cannot ban based on religion but the order does not do that nor does it state a religion. If it did you would think other nations would be part of that, not only ones that are failed governments, mired in civil war, and hot bets of terrorist ideology and recruitment that was named by the prior administration. The WH is arguing that the order should be judged by the extent of the order and the text that it is written which I agree. Sure, using the rhetoric on the campaign trail can, in some instances, give context to the order but that should not be the soul basis of constitutionality.
If SCOTUS takes it up, they will be arguing whether the order should be judged by the text alone or in addition to campaign rhetoric and whether a nation with a lot of terrorism (recruitment, activity, and organization) is sufficient danger to the US to bar entry temporarily.
you can't pass crap like those bans
Does the Executive control immigration to the extent of the law? Can the Executive bar immigration or travel if the place and people are determined to be a threat to the US? If not, then what is the point of a border? It isn't the same as the USSR and that is why it is a difficult thing. Was it unconstitutional to discriminate the national origin of Russians during the Cold War?
Exactly. It's like introducing a bill to repeal the sitting President's signature legislation. These people need to grow up.
The V next to the F? Could be thinking of Arkansas.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
That's totally why he deleted it right?
If someone would take the fucking twitter phone away from him and advise him to just shut the fuck up
Good idea. Let's rely only on the NYT and other unbiased mainstream medias to tell us what is happening
lucm, indeed.
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/
The Executive can bar based on country or affiliation*. But they can't do a blanket bar without severe justification. The President can bar ppl from Canada and Mexico but without a justification equivalent to "we are at war with them", it would be overturned pretty quicky because of the economic impact to the border states. The Gov failed miserably in showing immediately threat that the ban was curtailing.
The government also can't discriminate against religion in proxy nor results. They can't say "We are banning Buddhists" but they also can't say "We are banning Myanmar." because most ppl there are Buddhists and it unfairly impacts them. There is an "intent" aspect to this because maybe we are at war with Burma and want to ban them but they happen to be mostly Buddhists which we have nothing against. But the President's ongoing and past statements put that topic to rest.
Yes, these are severe restrictions. But they exist because of the danger of abuse if otherwise. Good guys have to play by the rules and have noble ideals... that's mostly what makes them good!
I doubt the Supreme Court will side with the President. I would be surprised if they take up the case. I easily see a majority voting against him. It would certainly be a fun read. Unless he has some major new argument and evidence.
* = We automatically bar people affiliated with terrorist organizes as recognized by a bunch of countries. We also expand on that list by our own classifications (i.e.: Mx cartels).
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.
A lot of the "immediacy" has been set by Obama to drone civilians i.e. not a lot. Are we at war? Where are we at war and who with? How do you ban people we are at war with that fight for a religious ideology who do not uniform their soldiers? How do ensure that the recruitment of that group does not reach any prospective refugee, immigrant, citizen?
Honestly, I am glad it's in the courts but that doesn't mean I have to like the arguments but because the temporary nature I don't see an issue given the complexity of the problem.
I can't say the name of his roller-skates in polite company.
Table-ized A.I.
... it'd probably be things like:
Damn it @Marty, you know the Jews are out to get me!
Shut the hell up @CheckersTheDog!
As usual, snowflake conservatives get all bent out of shape when somebody offers up a little well-deserved mockery of their self-importance, their willful ignorance and a level of arrogance so extreme they can't even admit to a simple spelling mistake.
Anybody doubting how far gone they are merely has to look at the video of Trump's cabinet meeting, where all the good little toadies took turns proving it's not just necessary to kiss the president's butt anymore. Now, there also has to be tongue involved.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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
My sentiments exactly. Not crazy about him, didn't vote for him, and hate his insipid tweeting; but OTOH, I've never seen such viciousness and unfounded speculation directed against a political figure ever. Ironically, it almost makes you want to root for the guy just on principle, but like you said, he creates a lot of his own problems too with his big mouth.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
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
Were you living under a rock during the 8 years of Obama's administration ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
America has passed many a retroactive law, including the last 2 copyright extensions. The last one survived a supreme court challenge.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
No, and I wasn't under a rock during George W. Bush's administration either. Or Bill Clinton's. Those got progressively nastier with each administration.
You may have been under a rock however, if you think well known celebrities casually mocked Obama's death, or openly talked about burning down the White House, or that tens of thousands of average conservatives took to the streets to protest, march, chant, and in many cases, burn cars and businesses, break windows, and beat people in an anti-Obama berserker rage. Then there's the constant attacks on his family. Previous presidents have all seen a little of that too, but nothing like what the trump family is seeing. OTOH, the mainstream media adored Obama in all it's sycophancy.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Taking to the streets to protest, march and chant is a constitutional right - and indeed they DID do that to Obama as well. Remember the teabaggers ?
And they did ALL the same things you just said - only when WHITE people do it during protests the police (and the media) tend to look the other way. It's not news unless it's black people.
Famously during the massive women's march there were no arrests or altercations with police - but as many women who were there documented, there were all the things happening that usually causes arrests and altercations with police: but police don't respond when it's white women doing those things because white women getting beaten by police looks bad on TV.
Nothing new about that - hell Louis XV was about to have his soldiers murder a troop of protestors in the early days of the revolution (before the Bastile storming, when the aristos still held power and the revolution was just sporadic protests over food hoarding while the people starved) until he realized these were FEMALE protesters - then rapidly pulled his soldiers back and instead ordered them to open the grain stores so the protestors could get all the food they wanted !
The same pattern has attended basically every women's march since (and probably before -though history is doesn't record prior examples as well).
There has been no president more deserving of mass protest since Donalds' hero Andrew Jackson - and if you recall his actions led to the brutal murder of thousands of innocents. Here is a president who is exactly like Jackson in every regard. Like Jackson he was elected on a populist wave by angry middle Americans after promising to defend them from the 'elites'. Like Jackson he has spent his time in office only enriching himself and surrounding himself with corruption while an ultra-partisan congress has been too afraid to restrain him. Like Jackson he is considered an idiotic buffoon by most of the voters and ALL of Washington. Like Jackson he thinks he is a strongman and is way to eager to use the military. Like Jackson he has absolutely nor regard or respect for American's institutions or checks and balances - including, critically, the courts and the press.
But unlike Jackson - he lives in the 21st century - with a far more educated populace, and far more rapid flow of news. Unlike Jackson - he cannot operate with the ignorance of most citizens. Unlike Jackson - he can be protested against whenever he tries to overstep his authority, and forced to obey the courts. Unlike Jackson - even with congress refusing to do his job - the CITIZENS can step up and do it for them.
The best thing you can say about Donald Trump is that he is probably suffering from dementia (one merely needs to compare a video of him speaking now to one of his speaking in the 1990s to see the marked and obvious decline in coherence). He'll probably end up impeached, but in fairness he really should be removed under the 25th amendment because he is simply unfit to continue to hold office.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
You use Donald Trump's Twitter feed to find out "what is happening"?!
It's better to have more sources than relying on news organizations who have literally asked Clinton "how can we help".
lucm, indeed.
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.
Don't even try to compare the TEA party marches to the violent crap that happened with BLM, various Trump protesters, even the pussy hat wearers.. you killed your argument right there before it even got off the ground, and then you threw in the race card for good measure too.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.