The New Moderate Speaks!
Yes, I was invited to spread the moderate gospel over the airwaves — for one radio interview, at least. Court Lewis, host of American Variety Radio, chatted with me a few months ago about moderate principles, where moderates stand on various issues (I suddenly had to become a spokesman for my notoriously independent-minded peers), the potential for a moderate movement, and our mutual regard for Teddy Roosevelt. (In fact, you’ll have the rare privilege of hearing me launch into my impression of TR, based on recordings of his speeches.)
After the interview aired, the host informed me that TR’s great-grandson was listening in! How did he know? The old gentleman wrote to tell him that he loved my impression of his famous relative. I was, as the 26th President might have put it, “dee-lighted.”
Note: The host mispronounces my name, but I didn’t bother to correct him. I pronounce it BAY-un.
Here’s the link to the show:
Click here to play radio interview
If this link doesn’t play on your device, go to American Variety Radio, click on the square menu icon, look under “Past Shows,” and click on #391.
Rick Bayan is founder-editor of The New Moderate.
All written material at The New Moderate copyright 2007-2019 by Rick Bayan.
Rick I think you represented the moderate positions well, but like all moderates, we may not agree on each of the positions you took. And it is hard being a moderate and being asked what moderates support. Hard to comment without personal ideas coming into play.
But a couple of comments.
1. You comment moderates don’t attack each other. You might want to read comments posted to the website. Many attacks on one person especially.
2. Independents not being able to vote in primaries. Your state must be one of the very few that will not allow that. Had it not been for open primaries, I doubt we would have had Trump as the crappy right candidate to go with the crappy left candidate the democrats provided.
3. Government run healthcare reimbursement for those without employer insurance. Once again I comment and this time ask you to research the British system and how they have held down cost. Not until every last healthcare provider from the janitors to the brain surgeons, the local doctors office, the local pharmacy, the local pharmacist, the labs and the hospitals are under the government employment and control will we ever control costs. Last time I checked, most all nurses, pharmacist, doctors and other healthcare professionals made 30% more that in the UK. If we could cut salaries by 30%, that could reduce healthcare cost in this country by 20%. And then doing what they do with drugs and supplies could cut another 5%-10%.
We need to control costs, not control reimbursement rates and when you have drug companies and big tech companies (MRI’s, CT SCANNERS) against government against insurance companies against doctors against nurses against hospitals, and all against each other, everyone has their own special interest and no cost will ever be cut. ly rates will continue to increase or quality cut to that less than in the UK.
Ron;
Despite some of the acrimony here – TNM is pretty tame compared to most political blogs.
The lest informed most fact free most prone to ad hominem posters here are much less offensive than those you find on most political blogs.
Yes true, much better than other sites, but there are days when many comments are not on subject, but on the commenter. And yes, I have been guilty myself. Sometimes it is easier to talk about the one commenting than to offer alternatives to the positions.
Ron;
With respect to primaries.
I do not share your fixation that there is some specifically better way to do things.
I do not think I agree with your conclusion that the structure of the primaries gave us Trump.
I think The primary contest was the most difficult for Trump.
But you are free to disagree, and might even be right. I have thought about what you say.
As to different structures for primaries – I am not looking to defend what we have, I am more highly skeptical that some other arrangement is inherently better.
All change is not good.
This is close to my view on “gerrymandering”
First it is a tiny problem.
Next it is dangerous.
Last in reality the “fixes” are worse than the cure.
I am more upset witht he mess that is our court system than anything else. – criminal, civil whatever our local, state and federal judiciary is incompetent and has destroyed the rule of law. They are more corrupt than our politicians – not in the sense they are being bribed, but in that they abuse power without even knowing it. And they are more dangerous.
The last thing I want is the courts getting sucked into gerrymandering – or any other election related conflicts. The cure is worse than the disease.
There are myriads of ways to run elections. Some of which would better serve my ideolgy and some would be worse. NONE are inherently right or wrong.
To the extent I want to see our elections change it is to preclude even the appearance of fraud, and to structure the process such that fraud is more difficult and that the process itself is self checking and self fixing.
I want voter ID. There can be little doubt about most forms of inperson fraud.
I want open and transparent handling of ballots
I want everything opaque – like computers and machines eliminated or at the very least completely independently and manually verifiable after the fact – by anyone.
I want absentee balloting reduced to the greatest extent possible.
I want early voting eliminated.
We vote in person on election day – rain or snow or dark of night.
I want close elections to be resolved – not by courts or committees but by the people.
No recounts, no legal wrongling over hanging chad or voter intent, if one candidate does not outright win with over 50% of the vote – have a runnoff.
The changes you propose do not address the credibility of the process, they focus on altering the outcome.
I am mostly not a big fan of altering the rules of the game for the explicit purpose of altering the outcome. Not even if it produces an outcome I would prefer.
Doing so is essentially the ends justifies the means.
Dave, I think what you say you want has about as good a chance to happen as my closed primaries. I think closed primaries are much easier to create than my desire to fix the gerrymandering issue. I still fight with myself over states rights v logical district lines developed by non state agencies.
But my party primary issue is based on party politics. Parties have political beliefs. People who register as members of that party in most cases agree with those beliefs. The state party leaders are free to allow or deny individuals from being included in their primary. That should also apply to voters. A party should not have individuals from unaffliated or opposition positions crossing over and choosing a candidate far removed from the politics of the party they will represent.
I am registered republican. I disliked Cruz, but along with the other major candidates, I could have voted for him. I, along with many other GOP members, got stuck with what I consider a non GOP nominee that represented the worst of America in his person actions. That due to many undeclarded or cross over voters that had beliefs far removed from established GOP beliefs. I had to vote for Johnson to vote for someone who had some of what I supported.
Democrats should choose their candidate. Republicans should choose their candidate. Unaffiliated should not have a voice until the general election. It should not be the other way around like it is now where voters like me end up with someone like Trump who was evefything but a Republican until he decided to run for president, then became a member of that party in registration only.
“Dave, I think what you say you want has about as good a chance to happen as my closed primaries.”
A significant portion of what I am asking for is near certain – atleast in red and pink states. We are in the midst of attempting to accomplish some of it now.
The left has successfully delayed, but it is not stopping it.
Other parts of what I want – which are really less controversial, are harder to accomplish – because people do not care enough.
” I think closed primaries are much easier to create than my desire to fix the gerrymandering issue.”
Parties have the right to run primaries however they please. I do not think the state should have ANYTHING to do with primaries.
That said the rules for getting into a general election should be consistent for all.
“I still fight with myself over states rights v logical district lines developed by non state agencies.”
There is absolutely positively no means of taking a corruptible political process and shifting it from the legislature to others without it remaining a corruptible political process.
“But my party primary issue is based on party politics. Parties have political beliefs. People who register as members of that party in most cases agree with those beliefs. The state party leaders are free to allow or deny individuals from being included in their primary. That should also apply to voters. A party should not have individuals from unaffliated or opposition positions crossing over and choosing a candidate far removed from the politics of the party they will represent.”
I do not think primaries are the business of government.
What is the business of government is the rules for getting on the ballot in a general election. That is it.
“I disliked Cruz”
Cruz is highly dislikeable – much more so than even Trump. But if you get past the dislikeability on policy issues he is about as close to libertarian as you can get without admitting to being libertarian.
“I could have voted for him.”
Trump was pretty close to my last choice among republicans.
Like you I do not know how he got through the GOP primary. I really thought after his attack on McCain he was toast.
All that said – Trump did get elected for a reason. I keep saying this over and over but no one seems to be listening.
Van Jones was correct – Trump was “backlash”.
Trump was a response to the left going way too far.
Everything that the left loath’s about Trump is pretty much why he won.
He is the “anti-PC” candidate.
One of the big reasons I think Trump will win “bigly” in 2020 – is that nothing has changed – if anything the left has gotten worse and Trump will be an incumbent.
“I, along with many other GOP members, got stuck with what I consider a non GOP nominee that represented the worst of America in his person actions.”
Trumpism is not incompatible with big tent republicanism. Policy wise Trump is “Pat Buchannon” A perenial republican candidate.
” That due to many undeclarded or cross over voters that had beliefs far removed from established GOP beliefs.”
That is also why he won the general.
Overall I think 2016 was likely to be a GOP victory.
But I also think that the electorate chose Trump deliberately – not necescarily democrats and republicans. An awful lot of Trump voters were disaffected by both parties – which may explain 2018 – they had nothing to vote for in 2018 or if they did it was for a Trump supporting Senator.
“I had to vote for Johnson to vote for someone who had some of what I supported.” To the extent I had issues with Johnson – he was not libertarian enough. He got in trouble in the libertarian convention because he fell on the side of forcing people to make cakes for others.
“Democrats should choose their candidate. Republicans should choose their candidate. Unaffiliated should not have a voice until the general election.”
Why ? that is my “big” point. I can answer why I want the structure one particular way – values. But I can not state a principle that requires what you are after. While I am not saying that you can not hav things how you want them, But there is a difference between value conflicts and principle conflicts.
We are not entitled to have our values met. While real principles are NOT subject to the whim of the majority.
Ultmately I mostly can not stand listening to Trump – or much of the media – and I do not.
When I block out all the noise and focus on Trump’s acts adn accomplishments as president, he scores highly.
That is not the same as universally endorsing his policies.
Even in Trump’s actions – there are plenty to complain about.
But that would have been True of Johnson or Cruz.
At the same time Trump has MOSTLY been the most libertarain president elected in my lifetime – far from perfect, but we lived through Obama and Bush and Clinton
I am not going to go all bull-goose-looney over Trump.
He is an improvement in MOST important ways from Obama and the Bush’s.
Dave I moved it over to this post. Other one took forever to load with all the comments.
You ask what I disliked about Trump.
I do not judge him for what is being investigated. That is for the courts to decide or the congress.
I support many of his programs, most specifically his trade and immigration policies since congress will not do its job and fix the trade problems nor reform immigration to address the many problems we have. Just letting more immigrants in without a comprehensive reform only adds to the problems we have with states fighting the feds over immigrants.
I support his reversal of all the Obama E.O’s.
I support his tax policies, maybe because I am paying less tax, and I don’t consider myself rich. And my kids are paying less and they sure as hell are not rich.
And I support his position on the Paris Accords and Healthcare. Both were gigantic idiotic agreements and legislation that I have commented on many times.
But I am sick of muiltiple daily tweets that somehow I see when i am even trying to avoid that crap. He tweeted yesterday or today “General’ McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama, Last assignment a total bust. Known for big, dumb mouth.
If a person was an employee of mine or was the CEO of a company I owned and he consistently posted crap like that, I would fire his ass in a heartbeat. I don’t care what good he was doing for the company, I could find someone else to replace him. Put your finger in a pot of water and see how big a hole it leaves when you remove it. That is how indispensable you are to any company. You leave a ripple and then everything smooths out.
I hold the president to the same standards. Saying someone is fired like a dog and has a big dumb mouth is unacceptable in business and especially the president. And he does it with much of his other daily crap he posts.
I did not like him when he ran, I do not like him now, I did not vote for him, nor would I vote for him in the future. He is an ass that cant shut up. His words totally destroy any good he is doing.
“Eventually Schumer asked a third time for one reason Trump wouldn’t accept the offer, and Trump responded: “I would look foolish if I did that.”
This from a guy who said he could shoot someone on Fifth Ave.; foolish is his worst fear?
dduck, if I were in his shoes, I might not say I would look foolish. I might say something where all of them would get up and leave. Something like being no way I would agree to something based on something they would do in the future. Accepting something the democrats propose now based on renegotiating something in the future when all strenght is lost is like promising a kid in the winter with snow on the ground that we can have a snow ball fight in August after it warms up. NEVER HAPPEN. As far as I know, he never agreed with any deal other than the house bill. Why should he agree to deal for an agreement.in the future when he has some leverage now?
Congress reminds me of many of our younger generation. They want someone else making all their decisions, something like the 30 year old living in their parents basement.
People tend to look folish when they accept bad offers.
Moved from previous thread: Screwed again! “Shutdown Leaves Food, Medicine and Pay in Doubt in Indian Country”https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/us/native-american-government-shutdown.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
I hope the, “it’s about time”, two new Native American Reps rip into the government for all its abuses.
Dave “If they actually want a shot at regaining serious control of government – they need to stand for something.” 😂😂😂😂😂
Now thats a good joke! Senate standing for something. I would be surprised if they all dont sit when they pee.
My point to the democrats and the left was that just being opposed to Trump is NOT going to return them to power.
Democrats in the house did better than I expected – though they did much worse in the senate – and it easily could have been much worse for democrats in both the house and the senate.
Republicans did badly when they were the Anti-Clinton party.
Thank you Rick for your persistence. One could find some reason to hope that the trump takeover would move more moderates into being politically active. In any case the 2018 congressional results were certainly affected by the moderates vote. So, we do exist and, sometimes even are important.
Donald’s Debt Economy
Trump asked every cabinet department to cut 10% from their budget.
Do you think that is going to happen ?
Those of you on the left have made sure than any Trump appointees who were fiscally serious were tanked.
We are operating with only 75% of government right now – the world is not coming to an end.
How about if we make that PERMANENT ?
President Hypocrite asking for cuts? But giving himself and others a bonus?
“Pence and top Trump appointees to get $10,000 raises as hundreds of thousands of federal workers go without pay in shutdown”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/04/while-federal-workers-go-without-pay-senior-trump-administration-officials-are-poised-get-raises/
Trump lost in 2016 by 3 points. He lost in 2018 by 8 points. He has no mandate to remake the US in his image, and he is losing with his ego driven bull in a China shop approach. The resistance will continue, it’s natural. Unfortunately he is The Story and will be until he is safely in the rear view mirror.
The wall as some kind of a huge concrete money sink is a vast oversimplification of a complex problem. Yes, there is an actual border security problem but Trump’s caricature of an answer would not fix it. He is in the wrong holding so many people hostage. If he will lose his battle I hope that calmer more rational people can listen to what the point headed wonks, engineers, and generally actually informed people would propose.
Conservatives: people who react in horror to every suggestion to limit the gun Carnage by American home grown nuts while being terrified of not building a giant ineffective monstrousity and maintaining it because of their over the top fear of a Hispanic takeover that there no evidence of. Since they are willing to shove their answers down the national throat having lost in the vote, then they are going to have to be stopped or we are going to be held hostage over and over whenever Ann coulture or Rush have a tantrum.
He is NOT remaking the US in “his image”.
What he has a “mandate” to do is undo all the things that Obama did outside the law.
And he is doing that.
Further there is ALWAYS a mandate to reduce government infringement on liberty.
“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
John Stuart Mill
There is no need for a mandate to decrease the infringement on peoples rights.
No the wall is NOT the answer to all problems. Yes, the situation is complex.
The wall is a part of a solution, not the entirety.
Jay proposed Drones and helicopters and increased surveilance.
Those are much MORE expensive – and ineffective.
Or more accurately much less effective absent a physical barrier.
The Berlin Wall was heinous – particularly as it sought to keep people IN.
But it was very very very effective for 50 years.
The Israeli Wall is extremely effective.
Regardless – the fundimental problem is that neither Trump nor his supporters, nor republicans nor I trust the left – YOU.
The wall was a part of a 1986 compromise between republicans and democrats.
both sides agreed to it 4 decades ago. It was approved – it is authorized by law – and has been repeatedly.
What did not happen was approval of funding. That was supposed to be part of the deal – the compromise. But democrats in 2016 CHEATED, and after getting their part of the bargain renigged.
Nor is this the only time this has occurred.
For very large numbers of republicans the wall has become a matter of principle.
It is proof that the left can not be trusted AT ALL.
And honestly you can not.
I share more values with the left than the right.
But I trust Trump much more than Clinton or Biden or Obama or YOU.
Trust means living up to your agreements.
Democrats agreed to the wall in 1986, and several times since.
Trump promised the wall in his campaign.
It is time for those on the left to live up to their promises.
Kicking and screaming if necescary.
You and others at TNM elevate Compromise to a principle.
Which it is not.
But compromise requires trust – and the left is NOT trustworthy.
Can we atleast be honest about the polls.
42% strongly disapprove – 34% strongly approve.
Not 53/25.
How are calmer more rational people going to prevail – they do not exist.
You claim there are better solutions – yet you have not offered them.
You are correct that border security is “complex”.
But if you want simple and low cost – there is only one solution – “open borders” – that means tossing our drug laws ALL OF THEM – I will support that – but I doubt you can get 1 in ten others to. It means pitching most of our labor laws. We can not employ tens of millions of new low skilled members of the labor force at the current minimum wage. It means driving wages down for those at the bottom. It means balloning costs to the social safety net – or ending it.
I would support all that – but despite my idealism, the realism in me knows that is not happening.
Regardless – if you actually want to push ideals – then push ideals. Not meaningless pablum claiming to be ideals.
Accepting that we are going to have border security, A physical barrier is the cheapest most effective START to accomplishing that.
It is not alone sufficient.
It is probably possible to accomplish the same thing – without a phyiscal barrier – but at far greater cost.
When you rail about the cost of the wall – there are only two possibilities – you are stupid/hypocritical, but any effective alternative is MORE expensive, or you do not really want border security. If so then be open about that.
You can easily guess my reaction to your comment. Ron, (if this winds up in the wrong place, it’s your more harm than good comment). Why the general world of conservatives can’t admit that trump does more harm than good, even from a a conservative policy point of view, is beyond me. All the energy they put into defending the indefensible boggles my mind. 25 percent support him with adoration, another 15 percent will tolerate his nonsense if they get some things they want, 52 percent oppose him, and 8 percent believe that they will have a beer. Nearly twice as many people strongly oppose him as strongly support him. He lost the popular vote and got really beaten in the midterm s. He is not in astrong position, and neither are his supporters. Eventually, he will be gone and conservatives are going to be in a big hole with moderates for a long time.
Roby, I don’t know how many times I have to say this. I did not like the man, I do not like the man now and I do not think he will change so I could find myself disliking him any less. I did not vote for the man, I thought he was a typical New York City assh*%& and I still do.
However, I had thought Hillary was a bitch from the minute she made the comment on January 26, 1992 about Tammie Wynette standing by her man and baking cookies. She then stood by her man for 24 years or so just so she could run for president. As well as her calling 48% of Americans Deplorables. All added to the liberal policies of the democrats, I could not vote for her either.
And I suspect it will be a Libertarian I vote for in 202 if they are not some radical like McAfee that keeps running and if that happens, my ballot will have a blank spot for president.
But that does not mean I do not support some of his policies. Unlike many, I am able to separate policy from persona.
If you want to discuss policy, fine. If persona, then I don’t know how much more I can say that I have not already said!
Jeez, Ron, did you ever misinterpret me. I thought your original comment was fantastic. I guess I should have just said exactly that instead of being oblique.
Roby, well damn, That is why written words on the internet can get someone in trouble. I just read the first two sentences of your comment and kind of squished them together and made a bad “assumption”, completely overlooking the “good comment” in the first sentence you wrote. Add to that I could not even find what I had said earlier ended up causing a bunch of garbage being written on my part.
Sorry, will try to do better going forward.
Ron, Ron, you are so wrong about Trump. He is not a typical NY a——. In fact every NYer knew he was a superior Queens A———-, for a long time.
We NYCers are pretty smart and excel at spotting his type and shun them. Too bad the rest of the country, excluding NJ, can’t spot grifters.
I accept your apology, in advance.
BTW, initially, I thought that getting rid of him other than by election, would be a very bad idea. Not any more though, I and all other NYers underestimated his ineptitude and total ignorance.
I agree.
Most NYers when referring to him before politics described him by using NY endearments like Smuck and Putz. Now it’s more like asshole & Dickhead.
Well thats what I called him when he was running. But that does not change his policies that many I agree with. Debate policies and I will comment. Post crap from Twitter about his personal actions, I delete.
🎼 Then time will tell just who has fell
And who’s been left behind
When you go your way and I go mine. 🎼
https://g.co/kgs/rfCPYc
OK dduck, I thought NYC was made up of 5 boroughs. Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island and Brooklyn . But its all NYC.
What you said, Roby. 🙂 Good to see you again.
“Why the general world of conservatives can’t admit that trump does more harm than good, even from a a conservative policy point of view, is beyond me.”
What does that mean ? It is a word salad of gobbledygook.
Trump was elected by voters to undo much of what Obama did.
He was elected to restore prosperity.
He was elected to reduce the power of government.
Hes has succeeded – maybe not as much as he promised, but quite well over all.
There are things he has not succeeded at.
Reducing the power of government has not thus far reduced the cost of government.
You say Trump harms conservatives – HOW ?
He is polling higher than he did on election day. He is polling as well as Obama did at this time in his presidency – and Obama won in 2012.
Republicans lost the house, but made better than expected gains in the senate.
The economy could be stronger – and he promised better. But it is stellar compared to the past 20 years.
In terms of the policies he pushes for – they are mostly things that Republicans have claimed they beleived for decades.
Dave “There were approximately 3M people in the US that Obama’s program would have applied to. But Obama’s DACA required those people to apply for the program. Only about 800K did.”
Again, ,moved this discussion. Other tread took way to long to load, even on desk top.
Then 2.2M people were smart, 800K had questionable intelligence. Anyone who believes our government when they tell them “Hey your illegal, you come in and apply, we will review your application and then we will give your a card or whatever to stay” IS OUT OF THEIR MIND!
That”s like the road runner taking a stick of dynamite from the coyote and he tells RR “Don’t worry, its not lit”.
Or better yet, The FBI asking for an interview and saying “You don’t need a lawyer present, this is an informal meeting and nothing you say will be used in the future.”
Jonathan Turley has been sort of coming out more recently regarding the democratic party.
Turley is a democrat and a very prominent law professor who writes an excellent blog on law and current events.
While I disagree with his support of the Mueller investigation – if the foundation is rotten the whole house comes down. otherwise he is pretty good – particularly on the law.
He is by no means pro-trump. I am pretty sure he has stated that he voted for Clinton.
Regardless he is starting to take on the democratic party – for not being the democratic party.
For abandoning their values and principles in their zeal to “get Trump”.
Here is his article on the return of Pelosi as speaker of the house.
I am not a big Pelosi fan. But the democratic party has gone so far to the left that Pelosi – who is the rep from berkeley seems almost moderate.
I do not think Speaker Pelosi is a mistake for democrats specifically because of Pelosi.
Pelosi is a mistake because she is exactly what the “new democrats” who won the house in 2018 said they would NOT do.
Pelosi as speaker is a repudiation by the democratic party of the promises and positions that won them the house. There were myriads of close house races won by candidates who were promising something different, Who were promising to govern. Who were promising bipartisanship even with Trump. Who were promising moderation. Those DO NOT make up the majority of democrats or of democratic congressmen – they are essentially the right flank of the democratic party. But they are also the most vulnerable flank of the democratic party.
They are the representatives most likely to loose in 2020 with Trump running and two years of political outrage which is what they ran against.
The democratic party is destroying its future. It is betting on the Occasio-Cortez’s not the Connor Lambs.
https://jonathanturley.org/2019/01/03/vive-la-revolution-meet-the-faces-of-the-new-democratic-party/
We’re in another government freeze and both parties seem content to keep it going. Both parties are almost worthless. Both are political tribes that spend most of their energy pushing against one another, And what energy is left is spent on gaining reelection. The needs of the People are ignored! The border wall’s cost of $20 billion is chicken feed compared with the agriculture bill just passed. The only people that can change the situation (Congress) don’t care. I hope Trump doesn’t fold!
Welcome Mr. Halyard;
What if there was a government shutdown and no one noticed ?
https://spectator.us/shutdown-redundant-government/
Mr. Halyard;
Am I correct in gathering that you are arguing for bi-partisanship ?
You say that the needs of the people should not be ignored.
What in your view are the needs of the people ?
What is it that government needs to do for us beyond what it is already doing ?
Well said. I agree 100%.
Five or six years back I was strongly in favor of a physical wall/barrier across the entire Southern border. After listening to criticisms of that, and thinking it through, I’m now in favor of building containment fences/barriers like the ones at San Diego, in places near other border cities and areas known to be illegal crossovers, but not along other vast stretches of borderland where few migrants would trek to cross. For those places we should install high tech survailance systems, with quick response helicopter and/or motorcycle teams for interdiction, as we already do to some extent, and how Australia secures it’s 37,000 kilometers coastline.
Satellite technology is already in place at the Mexican Border. DHS provides detailed survailance photos of illegal crossing hot spots to Border Patrol agents daily. Expanding those systems will be far less expensive and intrusive on the environment than physical walls Requiring perpetual maintenance, repair, and inspection. We already know how expensive it is to maintain the border barriers and survailance already in place – $1.7 Billion was allocated the past two years.
As to Trump holding his ground, screw him and his bullshit lies of Mexico paying for it, and his bullshit boast he’d proudly take personal responsibility for shutting down the government.
Your comments strongly suggest that you accept that it is legitimate to control border crossings.
That for you this debate is merely a question of the methods.
I would entirely agree that within reason we should make use of technology to “secure our borders”.
That said we have decades of experience with technological approaches – they are an enhancement, they are a supliment, they are very useful.
They are not a replacement for a physical barrier.
We can debate whether a 12′ or 18′ or 30′ physical barrier is needed.
But absent a physical barrier the effectiveness of technological enhancements diminishes significantly.
There is no barrier – wall or technology that can completely preclude determined people from crossing.
The purpose of the barriers is to reduce the incentives to reduce the ease and to give CBP sufficient time to respond.
One of the problems with the technology is that while agents are dealing with one group of crossers – others cross almost brazenly elsewhere.
The solution requires agents, technology and a wall. as well as policy changes.
The more difficult to wall is to circumvent – the lower the technology and HR costs for the same level of effectiveness.
One of the other issues forgotten in all of this is that the crossers – or atleast their managers are fairly sophisticated.
An extremely common technique is to release a group of crossers at one point to tie up all the CBP in that region and then send drugs and other large groups accross just far enough away that CBP can not engage.
Quite often existing technology allows the CBP to know they are being gamed, but there is little they can do about it.
On of the purposes of sending the guard to the border was to free CBP agents from monitoring tasks and allow them to actually interdict smugglers.
The prime reason for deploying the military was to string something like 500miles of concertina wire right in front of “the caravans”.
But concertina wire is a temporary solution – though it will likely be effective until past 2020.
Physical barriers do have a cost to maintain – so do technological barriers and human resources. Physical barriers are the LEAST expensive to maintian
You cite helicopters – helicopters are probably the most expensive means of enforcement.
So you rush agents in to stop a group of crossers.
Now what ?
Further a physcial barrier accomplishes something NOTHING else does.
Every single immigrant who can be prevented from successfully crossing the barrier does not need to be detained. They do not become the responsibiltiy of the US government until they have crossed.
We have no media battles over family separation or the treatment in detainment exampls for those still in Mexico.
We intuitively understand we have no responsibility for people who are not inside the country.
I would build a complete physical barrier and I would go one step further – if someone is observed illegally crossing and caught – do not detain them. Return them to the other side of the border – no hearing no nothing.
If you want to actually get in – cross at a checkpoint.
“The solution requires agents, technology and a wall. as well as policy changes.”
Wall/fence in selected areas, where they will deter enough illegals to be effective for the cost. What part of that doesn’t penetrate the wall around your thinking apparatus?
Aside: it’s just another insignificient fib from your bro, Dave, but I’m sure you’ll have a jolly explanation for Trumping making it:
“Trump said he was receiving an overwhelming number of calls supporting his wall.
However, the WH switchboard is closed because of the government shutdown.”
Do overwhelming numbers of Americans have his personal phone number?
William Arkins letter of resignation from MSNBC.
This is excellent, you really should rear it all the way through.
https://pastebin.com/HGfyzzJ9
One portion I find interesting is that Arkin criticises Trump as a naive ill informed bumbling fool who apparently accidentally is right about nearly everything.
I would ask those on the left:
Are you for endless war ? Are you for the war mongering of the Chenney’s and Boot’s and myriads of other neo-cons ? do you beleive that every foreign affairs issue is a justification for US shows of force ? Do you beleive we need or should want a 750B military ?
Do you beleive that we should be working to reduce WMD’s throughout the world ?
Do you beleive that we can end or seriously diminish global terrorism through the use of military force ? Do you beleive that we should divide the world into our enemies – China and Russia and that we should oppose whatever China and Russia might want ?
Do you beleive that the US China and Russia might have common ground on anything ?
Do you beleive that any gains in China or Russia’s influence in the world come at the expense of the US ? Do you beleive that the US MUST win every global conflict, every global argument ?
The most terrifying part of Mr. Arkin’s letter is that the National Security aparatus is growing stronger and more autonimous.
That is the real story.
The left is so engrossed in their anti-trump fantasies that they arr not only ignoring but empowering the national security aparatus.
The real story is that in later 2015 apartently with the support of the president that national security aparatus – the “deep state” decided they were going to pick the winners and losers in our election.
It is not “russian influence” that we should be concerned about. It is the much more sophistcated influence of the “deep State” of the National security aparatus.
Many have noted that aside from Sen. Graham Hillary Clinton was the most significant HAWK in the election. Clinton was the neo-con. Clinton was the establishment candidate, Clinton was the candidate of endless wars of the CIA, of NSA, of FBI or DOJ.
The Clinton email fiasco could not be allowed to derail her election – and so the “deep state” assured that it did not. Despite negligence and misconduct that had sent many prominent people to jail – Hillary must be exhonerated.
Having done that Trump targetted the “deep state” from the start. Trump ran as the anti-war candidate, Trump run on a platform of draining the swamp – and the swamp fought back.
They targeted his political campaign from 2015. They spied on him. They manufactured false intelligence in order to justify further spying. The sicced the CIA on him and his campaign,
The NSA, foreign intelligence services, the DOJ and FBI. The entire deep state was in sync in targeting Trump as a threat to their power.
The continued their war with Trump after his election.
Those of you on the left worry about Trump the totalitarian, Trump the fascist. and are so filled with Trump hatred that you totally miss the fact that it is our national security aparatus that has sought to improperly “influence” our elections.
Dear Tin Hat Dave.
The DOW closed down 660 points today.
The devious Deep State deplorables are messing with the markets to undermine Trump!
Damn, we are in deep shit now!
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-economy-added-312000-jobs-in-december-missing-passing-expectations
I thought you said tarrifs were killing us ?
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/04/manufacturing-posts-best-calendar-year-for-job-gains-since-1997.html
So the Dow is up almost 3000 since its low AND RISING STEEPLY.
If the previous drop was “trump’s fault” – or caused by the Shutdown
Doesn;’t that mean the subsequent rise is equally meaningful ?
Just to be clear – I do not beleive either.
The DJIA is effected by all kinds of things – including “fake news”.
In the longer term I am concerned because I beleive that Obama’s economic policies discouraged corporate investment and encouraged profit taking – driving stock values UP artificially. I am not sure that garbage has been cleared yet.
Dave “trade is not the business of government”
I offer this as a debate point. Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the constitution states that the United States Congress shall have power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”
So it is clearly in my mind the business of government to regulate trade with foreign countries. And this to me includes insuring that the country gets a fair deal in these agreements.
I do not want the government telling you, me or anyone else what we can buy or what we have to buy. Hell, I have been bitching for years about the government shoving Obamacare down the throats of people who do not want nor need healthcare insurance.
But it is in the best interests of this country to insure we have fair deals. Why the devil are most cars made by AMERICAN auto makers made outside the United States? Why do we allow China to impose large tariffs on our cars, but we allow GM (who we bailed out just a few years ago) to eliminate jobs in America and produce cars in China and send them here duty free.
You say that’s good because it keeps the price low. I say BS. If that were the case, a Buick Envision would cost 25% less than a Toyota or BMW of the same class car. It does not. They are just making more money off that car than if built in America and sold for the same price as is sold now. The Toyota Highlander is made in Indiana and starts at $32,000. The Buick Envision is made in China and starts at $32,000. Where is your savings? And I would suggest most people would agree a Toyota is a much superior car to a Buick, unless your Chinese.
Read our founders on the commerce clause – also read the contracts clause of the constitution and the federalist papers and a century of what is called “dormant commerce clause” decisions.
The purpose of the commerce clause was explicitly to deprive the states the power to regulate commerce.
Next, I have repeatedly made clear that while we should NOT ever allow government to do more than the constitution allows – atleast without amending the constitution, that does nto inherently mean that any federal action that is permitted by the constitution is inherently a good one or a good idea.
TRADE IS NOT THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT!!!!
The absence of a specific bar to government interferance with trade in the constitution does not make something idiotic into something virtuous.
I do not support Trump on Trade – but I tolerate – meaning I am not going frothing at the mouth crazy over what he is doing regarding trade – because for the most part his actions are pretty puny, and because I beleive – and the evidence so far is that the ultimate goal is free trade.
The fact that I am unwilling to join the “Argh! Trumpers!” over Trump’s trade policies does not mean that I support them or yours.
I am increasingly disturbed that nothing has happened regarding the UK – though there has been alot of talk.
Trump should flat out offer the UK a pure free trade relationship – anything the UK makes can be sold in the US with no additional tarrifs and regulatory burden in return for exactly the same access to UK markets. I strongly suspect the UK would love that.
Frankly we could reconstruct the former British common market – with the addition of the US and Mexico.
How about an absolute free trade pact with every former british commonewealth/colony plus Mexico ?
That would seriously advantage the UK in negotiations with the EU and the US with China.
The US is already the single largest market in the world and very nearly the largest producer.
Such a deal would dwarf any other trade deal ever.
A major factor in the UK’s decision to leave the EU was EU control of UK trade.
The UK is one of the largest trading nations in the world – even today.
The EU severely restricted its trade with the rest of the world in return for free trade with the EU. But the EU was rapidly approaching the point where trade outsid ethe EU was larger than inside.
Two funniest remarks today: “I know more about drones than anyone”. This after his error filled “lecture” on Afghanistan and Soviet Union/Russia yesterday to an enthralled cabinet.
“I would build a complete physical barrier…….. by our resident non-Trump liker and cheapskate; but won’t contribute to wall fund”.
Two peas in a pod, although our pea is 10X smarter than Mr. Bone Spurs.
🎶 Where have all the tariffs gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the tariffs gone?
Long time ago
Trump has resurrected them
One by one..
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn? 🎶
BREAKING: Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett predicts “a heck of a lot of” U.S. companies will join Apple in announcing lower than expected earnings because of trade war, per @ToluseO
The sky is falling !!! AAPL Stock is only up 40% since 1/1/2017.
BTW stock has been on a exagerated high since post 2018.
The Obama policies that targeted small business,. the massive regulation increase the fiscal policies that discourage investment ALL work to raise stock prices.
All increases in stock prices are not GOOD.
Trump’s reversal of all of these with certainty leave stocks prices closer to where they belong.
Just like housing – we want the increase in price of stock to reflect and actual increase in value.
AAPL was 115 on 1/1/2017, it is 142 now. that seems appropriate.
While I would prefer to have bought AAPL at 115 and sold at 227,
that is pure speculation.
An actual robust economy does not have major stocks rising 100% in 18 months.
Well DUH! What would someone smart enough to understand economics expect? After years of losing companies to China due to there controlling our product going in, but we allow their products in willy nilly come in and then we decide to make things fair, hurt is going to happen short term.
I might be one of the few percentage who have a different perspective. When we made decisions at the Health System, we never looked at 3 months, 6 months, 12 month impacts. We looked at 48 months to 72 months and what the results were projected to do.
So Jay, find some information on what a fair trade policy will look like in 60 months and what the impact.on economics in the country will be compared to today. I support it because I believe our economy will be better off in 60 months when we can sell an American F150 Ford truck in China the same as Buick sells their Envision. Both with out Tariffs.
If you can find something to refute that, then post it and we can debate why we accept different thoughts. But spare us the short term impact analysis that is just political posturing, from either party to attack or cover asses.
I oppose actual Trade Wars.
I am completely at odds with Ron over Trade – though I would note for your edification that like Ron – possibly much more so than Ron, that huge portion of blue collar democrats in the rust belt who voted for Trump very strongly support all of these trade policies – AND MORE.
At the same time I have followed actually credible sources on all of this.
For all the rhetoric the US is NOT in a trade war. Trump’s tarriffs are relatively puny. They are nothing like past Tarriffs. I would remind you that in the 19th century the only source for federal revenue was tarriffs and excise taxes primarily on alcohol.
There is a reason that the 16th amendment preceded the 18th and that the 19th amendment occured at much the same time.
According to actual market analysts the total economic cost of Trump’s tarriffs – at their maximum level is less than 0.25% in growth. That is 1/10 of the gain from Obama to Trump.
I am not going to whigg out over Trump Tarriffs until they become something real rather than purely symbolic.
But I greatly appreciate that you and so much of the left have suddenly discovered the merits of free markets.
So much of what you were told about Flynn not only was false, but the FBI/DOJ was aware it was false and essentially sabatoged Flynn by classifying the evidence that he was NOT colluding with Russia – but actually helping US intelligence on his trips to Russia.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/423558-exculpatory-russia-evidence-about-mike-flynn-that-us-intel-kept-secret
“Why Is Trump Spouting Russian Propaganda?
The president’s endorsement of the U.S.S.R.’s invasion of Afghanistan echoes a narrative promoted by Vladimir Putin.”
The historical truth: “By the end of 1979, the Kabul-based Communist government was teetering, nearing collapse. The Soviet authorities in Moscow blamed the incompetence, corruption, and internecine violence of their local allies. In December 1979, they overthrew and killed the then-Communist leader, installed somebody more compliant, and deployed 85,000 troops to enforce their rule over the countryside. The Soviets had expected a brief, decisive intervention like those in Prague in 1968 or Budapest in 1956. Instead, the war turned into a grinding Vietnam-in-reverse. The Soviets withdrew, defeated, in 1989.”
“The war in Afghanistan helped bring about that collapse, not because it bankrupted the Soviet regime—that was an effect of the break in the price of oil after 1985—but because it forced a reckoning between the Soviet regime and Soviet society. As casualties mounted, as soldiers returned home addicted to heroin, Soviet citizens began demanding the right to speak the truth, not only about the war in Afghanistan, but about all Soviet reality.’
So far Trump has not said he knows “more about history than anyone”. Maybe after his cabinet of losers licks his boots he will bashfully admit it.
Whoops, for the above: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/trump-just-endorsed-ussrs-invasion-afghanistan/579361/
So cool department: “New Muslim congresswoman to be sworn in with Thomas Jefferson’s centuries-old Quran”
Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article223866655.html#storylink=cpy
It’s not the crime, but the cover up (ask Nixon’s ghost and Clinton’s…….):
“Undocumented Worker Says Trump Resort Shielded Her From Secret Service”
Erdogan not out of the legal woods over Washington D.C. rampage. “Turkey Pulse
Lawsuit over Washington violence looms over US-Turkey relations
Amberin Zaman January 3, 2019
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/01/lawsuit-washington-violence-us-turkey-relations.html#ixzz5bbf7n4aB
JAY??!!!! Lets look at it like Moderates. From both sides!
Yesterday,you posted negative tweets and info about economy and how the stock market tanked.
So what happened today with jobs report, stock market and interest rates?
Great one day news about the stock market uptick.
If you’re sure it soon wont flatten back on a downward path, add to your portfolio now!
Good to see additional jobs were added to the employment ranks – about the same number to cover government employees presently not getting paid for work.
Jay I love your “sky is falling” reports when a daily or monthly report comes out that is negative about Trump”s economics and you post numerous negative comments about that, but when we get a report that shows 312,000 jobs created, 2.1 M jobs created in the last 12-18 months, hourly wage rates increasing 3.2%, black unemployment down to just over 6%, total unemployment less than 4% and at 1:45 the Dow is up 725 points, its just “Great one day news about the stock market”
And by the way, those government employees you say equal the number of jobs created are just on an extended vacation, WILL GET PAID when they go back to work JUST LIKE THEY ALWAYS HAVE in past sutdowns.
In my way of thinking, when you are unemployed, you don’t have a job, you have to go look for a job and you don’t get paid when you are laid off. Unemployed is not sitting at home waiting for the government offices to reopen so they can cut you a check for the time you were sitting on your ass or off somewhere enjoying the beach or mountains and not have any benefit time charged.
If someone came to me and said, “Ron, stay home for a couple weeks. When you get back, we will pay you for that time and we will not charge you annual leave”, I would say “Bring it on!!!!”
Ron, if furloughed workers (those sent home) are paid for not working during Trump’s shutdown, that means US taxpayers are footing the bill for their extended vacation pay. Plus the work they should be doing is not being done.
Trump owns the Shutdown (he bragged he would personally take responsibility for it, remember?). Can We The People sue him personally for duel restitution of money and services we lost (and keep losing) for his shutdown?
Yes, I agree that we are paying for work not being done now. But I have two thoughts on that subject.
1. I hold that we need two things. The first being a complete (or as complete as possible) closure of our souther border, along with a complete reform of immigration policies. In my thinking, the second will never happen until the first is accomplished. Why would Democrats, who see future voters from that demographic or GOP rich business owners who have a large supply of low wage illegal workers now want to support immigration reform that would impact those benefits for both parties?
2. Only non essential workers are not working. That means most of the work they do really does not need to be done or it will get done when they get back to work. If it gets done, then we really are not paying anymore for their hours. Yes, a few things might hurt, but most make no difference what-so-ever. I hold we could lay off 1/2 the non essentials permanently and not even notice. Did we really have any lasting impact from the Obama administration 16 day total government shutdown other than some peoples trip getting screwed up when national parks closed? I have not heard anything now about bad things happening from that closure.
As for immigration reform, we need to stop with the limits on numbers, we need to look at needed workers from Chicken processing feather pluckers to doctors, we need to change requirements to allow someone who has entered legally to stay here as long as they are productuve immigrants , we need to change some of the requirements for citizenship to allow those born here or who have been working here to earn and achieve citizenship earlier than now. But if one of your parents is not a citizen, then your birth location should not determine citizenship.
But none of this will ever happen until the border is no longer an election issue. Border security is one of the reasons we are stuck with Trump.
And Ron, show me proof Trump’s policies have had any influence on the ‘good’ economic news and are not a continuation of the same trends at work during the previous administration.
Jay, this is the latest eonomic article I could find written by a more centrist or left of center owned media outlet to avoid ” thats just some crap written by Fox business reporters”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/how-trump-has-set-economic-growth-on-fire.html
And remember, figures dont lie, but liars can figure, so anything can be questioned, those can be answered and sceptics will still question.
But questioing something from NBC owned might be.more difficult to question.
Also, Ron – keep in mind those added jobs show hirings in November, traditionally a high hiring month for seasonal holiday jobs. We can expect to see many of those jobs vanish in higher unemployment numbers this month. If So, are you going to praise Trumplestilskin economics for that?
Jay, check where these occurred. Few in retail compared to healthcare .Healthcare is not seasonal.
Democrats and many independents, along with some conservatives, think Donal Trump is mentally deranged, but I dont think he is completely crazy like Nancy Pelosi! She recently ( last day or so) said somethink like ” we have to open the government before we can negotiate the wall”.
Now who in their right mind gives up all their bargaining chips and then goes to the table with nothing. If the GOP buckles under now, there is little chance for many republicans in the 2020 elections.
Just like taking a hard line on trade, short term pain is going to have to be felt to get long term gains!
Pelosi bargaining chip:
“Forty-seven percent of adults in the U.S. hold Trump responsible, while 33 percent blame Democrats in Congress, according to the Dec. 21-25 poll…” Yesterday’s Reuters/Ipsos poll.
So? Whats more important, being responsible and doing whats best for the country, or buckling under to get reelected?
I hold Trump responsible AND I am happy about the shutdown.
How does that factor in ?
Purportedly the 2013 GOP shutdown was highly unpopular – much worse than this. Something like 70% opposed.
Yet 9 months later Republicans decimated democrats at the polls.
Polls do not measure values well.
That is what markets are for.
Even voting is a crappy means of making decisions compared to markets.
One of the reasons that government should be small is that decisions made in the markets are made better and more accurately reflect our nuanced complex and desparate values.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/no-deal-on-shutdown-but-talks-to-continue-through-the-weekend
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/pelosi-says-government-must-re-open-for-border-talks-to-proceed?srnd=premium
Yep I mentioned that > “Now who in their right mind gives up all their bargaining chips and then goes to the table with nothing. If the GOP buckles under now, there is little chance for many republicans in the 2020 elections.”
Pelosi and Shumer must think Trump has lost every connection to reality.
This is like buying a car, giving the dealer a check, signing the ownership papers and then telling the dealer you want to negotiate a better price.
Absolute nonsense.
“We really cannot resolve this until we open up government, and we made that clear to the president,” Pelosi told reporters after the nearly two-hour meeting.
Why ?
As noted there is absolutely no reason for any of us to trust those on the left.
I do not have a problem with Pelosi’s negotiating position – except the presumption that it is anything but a negotiating position.
We will survive as a nation if the shutdown continues.
We will survive if it does not.
We will survive regardless of how this debate is resolved.
There are outcomes that are better and those that are worse.
There are many factors in this. I am not sure if Trump’s threat is credible, but neither is Pelosi’s position.
The fundimental issue is the effect on ordinary americans.
This is a republican president managing a partial shutdown. to a great extent he can target the pain at people who are never voting for him anyway and away from those who likely will.
But not completely. I doubt he can continue this for months – but neither can Democrats.
Further the longer this lasts and the less pain that ordinary people feel the weaker the position of the left.
https://freebeacon.com/columns/the-coming-democratic-disillusion/
Trump Shutdown Consequences
“Washington (CNN) Hundreds of Transportation Security Administration officers, who are required to work without paychecks through the partial government shutdown, have called out from work this week from at least four major airports, according to two senior agency officials and three TSA employee union officials.
The mass call outs could inevitably mean air travel is less secure, especially as the shutdown enters its second week with no clear end to the political stalemate in sight.”
If they are essential, the do what Reagan did with FAA. Order them back to work and if they dont come back FIRE THEM!
Ron, didn’t those Reagan era employees go out on what was determined to be an illegal strike?
Reagan had legal authority to do that.
Trump doesn’t have any authority to fire employees on short term sick leave, permitted in their employment contracts. And they’re likely sick with Trump worry fatigue – a legitimate medical excuse. See, I told you Trump disease would infect America.
If they cant produce a doctors note that they were sick, then I think they could be terminated.
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-administration/fact-sheets/personal-sick-leave/
Hard to say what the personnel policies require fir “essential” employees.
I would end the TSA – what do I care.
Every terrorist threat to airlines since 9/11 was thwarted by Passengers.
Regardless security is the responsibility of the airlines – not the government.
They can not only handle it more effectively they have better incentives – and competition.
Securtity is like everything else we value and the government steps in to interfere with.
It is a value not a principle – it is not absolute.
The human cost of our security today is TOO HIGH for its benefit.
That is what always happens when government gets involved.
We elevate security to a principle – it is not, rather than a value, we forget that it is one of many values and that we make tradeoffs between values.
There is absolutely no instance of true voluntary exchange where the situations like the TSA or DMV would be tolerated. We only accept being mistreated, delayed and tortured because it is government.
Ha ha ha!
Let the commercial airlines be in charge of security.
Sod sob sob.
Sometimes I don’t know to laugh or cry at your silliness.
Well Jay, you love government and trust government, so I guess you would be crying.
dave and I mistrust government and I think, with proper controls, private industry can do thing better and cheaper. So we would be smiling.
Ron, I don’t love and trust government.
Nor do I hate and revile it.
I feel about government as I feel about automobiles: it’s a useful machine, but has to be driven with caution.
I’m sure you feel that way too.
Our differences of opinion concern what regulations to allow or restrict.
I
Jay ” I feel about government as I feel about automobiles: it’s a useful machine, but has to be driven with caution.
I’m sure you feel that way too.
Our differences of opinion concern what regulations to allow or restrict”
Well not really. Using your automobile reference, I view government like I do a Rolls Royce. Cost way too much, uses way too many resources to operate and provides no additional benefits than a Chevy Malibu or Toyota Camry. You get the same results from operating any of them, except one cost ten times the other.
Again we agree, we don’t need a Rolls; but nor do we want a jalopy lacking advancements necessary in the modern world, like power breaks, automatic transmission, seat belts & air bags, signal lights, air conditioner & heater, windshield wipers.
Times change. Government of necessity adapts. We no longer live in a horse-less crank-start carriage era: even the cheapest of new vehicles have GPS installed. Yes, you can drive without it, but it sure comes in handy when you’re lost.
Yes, advances should take place. But we have gone from the era of crank start government where just the basics were provided as with the old model T’s (in todays thinking) to a government that tries to provide everything that one would find in a Rolls, Maserati and Ferrari 250 GTO.
I would prefer a government that provides a Chevy, Toyota or Ford level of service, and that would be the Chevy Cruze, Toyota Yaris and Ford Fiesta. They all have what is needed to get one from point A to point B, and can go coast to coast.
That is where I differ with the political left leaners. They don’t understand we can not afford the Rolls and Ferrari. And they don’t understand that cars like that have many more problems than ones with just basic accessories, just as government that tries to do too much has many more problems than government that should be providing just basic needs.
Dave “Regardless security is the responsibility of the airlines – not the government.”
Amen!!!
If people think it should be a requirement, then I, being much more moderate than you, would accept congress passing legislation that required airlines using the FAA system to provide screeners for those getting on their planes and have guidelines concerning what needs to be screened. (minimum standards)
(and before anyone asked questions concerning which airlines using the FAA system, that is where the airlines, FAA and congress would need to determine who that covers)
Then let the airlines form a company that is jointly owned if they don’t want to do it themselves and let that company provide the screeners at each airport. I would suggest the $4B that the airlines collect now to cover the cost of about 47,000 TSA agents would more than cover the costs if they ran the agents themselves. That is $85,000 a year on average, almost twice what the cost per agent is paid currently.
And yes this is another anti government comment from me because the government can screw up most anything and double the cost of most all they touch. It isn’t their money and there are no limits, so why worry?.
“We only accept being mistreated, delayed and tortured because it is government.”
Ever fly on El Al out of Ben Gurion Airport?
That’s El Al airport security in action, and makes tooth extraction seem pleasant. El Al is responsible for it’s own boarding security, but the airport is patrolled by armed Israeli soldiers, and other armed security agents, and the
Israeli government pays 97.5% of the airlines’ security costs – and is subject to government oversight.
You use El Al as an example – which to some extent makes my point – though Israeli government control of airports and subsidies complicate things.
Imagine if you will – airlines being completely responsible for secutity.
What would that mean ?
Some airlines would be like El Al – you would be analy probed but you would know that there were no bombs on the plane and likely armed security riding with you – and you would pay for that.
And “liberty air” would be another aliternative available to you.
LA would use the least intrusive least expensive approach to security.
Getting on to a plane would be quicker, and cost would be lower.
And YOU would get to choose.
Further all the airlines – both the El Al’s at one end and the LA’s at the other would be competing – all would have incentives to reduce costs. All would have incentives to improve security.
All would be looking for the ways to provide the best security at the lowest cost and inconvenience to customers.
When government steps in that dynamism DIES.
Why as an example do you presume that anything TSA does is the most effective means of providing security ?
One of the most important things we know about security – post Lockerbee, is that it is critical to make certain that everyone who checks a bag gets on the plane. The number of actual suicide bombers is incredibly low.
We also know post 9/11 that the most effective security on the plane – is the passengers themselves. It is pretty well known that Flight 93 and Flight 77 did not reach their targets because passengers went after the hijackers.
Post 9/11 every attack that has been thwarted was done by passengers
Just to be clear I am not proposing that is the only security we should have.
What I am proposing is that like most every other problem in the world we allow smart people in markets rather than smart people in government bureaucracies work this out.
I would further note that the smart people rarely find the right answer on the the first (or the tenth) try. That we solve problems by itterative refinement, that the process is dynamic.
Further everytime we find an effective way to improve security – terrorists adapt – so we must be free to adapt too.
Only markets do that.
Ultimately if you get government out of this – you are likely to end up with the same or better net effective security that is FAR FAR FAR less intrusive.
Forcing people through TSA has an enormous cost – it adds about 1HR to each trip.
2.6M passengers fly EACH DAY in the US – that is an additional 2.6M hours of wasted life dealing with “security” every day
that is the equivalent of 3.6 Lives wasted every day or about 1200 lives wasted per year in airline security.
If TSA killed 1200 people a year – we would be demanding changes – but effectively that is what they are doing – they are stealing 1200 life equivalants in wasted time in airports/year.
Ultimately people know and understand this.
We could reduce automobile deaths to near zero by changing the speed limit to 5MPH. But the actual wasted life would be far greater.
Almost 40,000 people are killed in cars in the US each year – and we still drive.
We are prepared to accept less than perfect safety – when the cost of that safety – not just in $ but in lost time exceeds the benefits.
Only markets ultimately and intuitively (and dynamically) get this right.
Only markets get it right – because they are driven by real costs and by consumers not experts.
In a market the role of experts is to give consumers what they want.
In government the role of experts is to give bureaucrats what they want.
There are over 60 airlines that regularly use LAX.
Don’t you see the unfeasibility of them independently overseeing their own security?
(In Israel the state has an equilevant FAA, military assisted, supervising other airline’s boarding security and physical airport security)
https://www.flylax.com/en/lax-airline-list
Your concerned that Air Travel – the safest means of travel (and that safety has NOTHING to do with the TSA). might get a little less safe.
The information below is from DHS – and whether republican or democrat, I do not have a high level of trust for government agencies. That said – how much do you think it is off by ?
10% ? A factor of 2 ? A factor of 10 ? A factor of 100 ?
How bad does this data have to be before it is LESS significant that whatever you think the issue is with TSA ?
Rather than preventing terrorists from hijacking planes – what is wrong with stopping them from entering the country ?
I went through the Wikipedia data for “acts of terrorism” post 9/11.
Almost 50% of those since 9/11 were committed by first generation muslim immigrants.
Adding in 2nd generation radicalized youth brings the numbers to about 75%
Maybe wikipedia’s data is wrong ? Maybe those here and in the media who keep telling us that no no no we do not have to worry about foreign terrorists are right and have real data to back it up ? But Wikipedia tends to lean left, so why would they screw this up ?
Just to be clear since all you have to do is say muslim and you will be accused of being a racist – I welcome immigrants – including muslims. I hosted a family of burmese muslims for 2 years. I will be happy to discuss reasonable means to broaden our immigration.
I will be perfectly happy – and I would bet that Trump and Republicans would too, to allow unlimited numbers of immigrants from anywhere in the world who can get some person or organization to take meaningful financial responsibility for them for say 5 years.
I am also happy to actually discuss open borders – but there are many things that have to be addressed to do so – and I have no respect for those who claim they do not want open borders but have not seen any limit to immigration they are not opposed to, and have no interest in trying to determine how to make actual open borders work.
Open borders – in any form would be a massive disruption to the fabric of this country.
Done properly it would be a net good disruption – but we should not delude ourselves, immigration can be and often is significantly net positive – but there are ALOT of losers.
All alternatives to open borders have limits on immigration.
If you are not prepared to discuss those limits – then you are for defacto open borders – which is the WORST POSSIBLE FORM of open borders.
I have no respect for the ostriches on the left who are sticking their heads in the sand.
President Donald J. Trump sent every member of Congress the slides from the security update that Pelosi and Schumer ignored. According to that presentation, Customs and Border Protection seized 850 tons of narcotics and arrested 17,000 adults with existing criminal records in fiscal year 2018, blocked 3,755 known or suspected terrorists from entering the country in FY 2017, and apprehended 6,000 gang members. How much of these substances and how many of these dangerous individuals eluded federal officials? Who knows?
Where’s the link to those interdiction numbers?
From my own Wikipedia search all I could find from public realm reporting was that 15 suspected terrorists have been apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, or en route, since 2001. Most terrorist interceptions have been at US airports and ports of entry.
Show me your link & I’ll show you mine.
And President Poop has had nothing to do with those arrests/stoppages.
Another example of the rubber band snapping back when stretched too far.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/02/bolsonaro-takes-office-in-brazil.html
The world is seeing more and more reactions from voters throwing out the left and replacing with the right.
And what happens with those with more moderating views?
National Debt up Two Trillion in las two years. But who cares, Do the Reps, Dems or Libs?
Nah
Well dduck I care. WAY WAY back when I first found this site, Obama was in office and he had created a commision by E.O. to look at ways to control the debt and deficit. It was the Simpsom Bowles or Bowles Simpson Commission. There were 18 member, if I remember right, with 9 from each party. They worked on a plan and many like me thought what they came up with was a good solution. 66% saving from expense reduction and 33% from tax increases. Over a given period of time, the budget balanced.
Congress and Obama saw the outcome and it was dropped like a hit potato. There was BIPARTISAN OPPOSITION to the recommendations, the last time I remember bipartisanship ruling in congress. The democrats opposed spending cuts and the GOP opposed the tax package.
Had that happened we would be well on our way to a balanced budget .
And dont say that I support Trumps tax cuts that increased the budget. Had Simoson Bowles taken.place in 2011, no one can predict what 2019 would be looking like other than the deficit might be almost gone. And I think what SB recommended in 2010 will be forced upon government at sometime in the future.
Good, Ron. I thought with all the talk around here that no one noticed the debt elephant in the room, the Reps being the blindest.
I also cheered SB and saw how it was ignored.
Tax increase will not work. PERIOD!!!!.
Christine Romer – Obama’s chief economic advisor did some very effective analysis of taxes accross the entire EEOC and her results fairly effectively demonstrate that the revenue optimizing peak for taxes is approximately 35% – that is TOTAL taxes. We are above that already.
Higher taxes will bring in LESS revenue not more.
That aspect of Simpson Bowles was economic garbage.
You can restructure taxes – there are some types of taxes that are less economically destructive than others. Of course those taxes that produce more revenue without as much economic destruction tend to be the least popular taxes. Sales taxes – higher taxes on the middle class.
There is a reason that Europes incredibly high tax rates are highly regressive – particularly targetting the middle class.
I would further note that the revenue optimizing maximum tax rates is NOT the optimal tax rate.
We separately know that government larger than 20% of the economy reduces growth by 1% for each 10% increase in the size of government.
Our data below 20% is poor, but I would expect that the optimal size of government is somewhere between 3-9% of GDP – that would be based on the US in the 19th century and the 7.5% average growth we had at the time.
Dave, if I can get the government spending cut by $670B and taxes go up $330B and then have a balanced budget from there on, I blueve in the long run that is a win. Once youcstarve the beast, then you change spending where the savings will continue to accrue and taxes can be cut more than the 330B in the future.
You can keep argueing that we need to cut spending until the cows come home and it will never happen!!! Not until be are bankrupt, interest become a massive expense and benefits can not be paid for. Then massive increases in taxes will happen!
I am willing to accept minor increaees in taxes to get significant decreases in spending.
DD;
I do not recall anyone outside of the right and libertarians caring about deficits in the past.
Moderates, democrats and the left do not say squat about deficits until republicans are in power.
I am not happy that Trump and Republicans have not addressed the deficit.
Though effective deficit reduction is near political suicide.
Unless you are willing to go after entilements and defense – you are at best going to make draconian cuts to the rest just to break even – if that.
I would absolutely cut the federal government to the bone – get right of the department of energy, education, EPA, Housing, Labor, FCC, FEC, and strip much of the rest to the bone.
Trump has not done a fraction of what I would do.
But he has TRIED to make fairly substantial cuts, and though his successes are small they are greater than any prior president.
BUT he has significantly increased Defense – as did Obama.
And entitlements have increased dramatically on autopilot.
Further entitlements are increasingly in the red – SS and HI tax collections are well under expenditures and will be forever, and that money adds directly to the deficit
I would slash Defense in HALF – possibly more.
But that would still leave the elephant in the room – entitlements.
Neither party is touching entitlements.
And without doing that we are screwed.
If you look at the year/year deficits, the really big deal was the deal between Obama and republicans to get rid of the sequester.
Deficits under Obama peaked at over 1.4T Before the sequester was eliminated they were down to $400B, after the sequester was dropped they shot up to 800-900B.
Average yearly deficts for Trumps first term will match those of Obama’s last, and will be much less than Obama’s first.
Some parts of that art artifacts – Much of the 2017 budget was set by Obama.
Just as much of 2009 was set by Bush. ‘
Though Obama was responsible for ARRA.
I did not support the increased military spending – not under Obama, not under Trump.
Jay,you mention in a couple places polls indicating support for or agaist Trump. Do you know how these polls are conducted?
I ask this because polls can result in much different outcomes based on how they are created. If 42% of the respondents strongly disapprove of Trump, are these polls asking respondents based on each states percent of the popular vote?
If the polls is done this way, it will produce different results than randomly selecting voters across America and asking them. That process could show 42% disapproval, but Trump could still carry the electoral vote since approval by state voters can vary greatly from national results.
You’re right, individual polls can be slanted, and you need composite poll samples to have a better read on the topic under discussion.
But if Trump can chortle over select polls he likes, I can do the same for polls that disparage him.
The only poll that matters is the election.
And even there – we disempower government because elections are binary and do not truly reflect the will of the people.
Where possible – and they are not possible for everything, markets most accurately reflect peoples desires.
Free markets allow us to express each of our values proportionate to its individual relative strength.
Nothing else comes close to capturing our real values.
“A GoFundMe page to raise money for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall has raked in over $18.5 million in just two weeks with an ultimate goal of $1 billion, and inspired at least one competing page dedicated to paying for ladders to get people over said wall (that page has so far raised over $158,000 with a $100 million goal after being established on Dec. 19).”
If you support the Trump Wall, even though you say you don’t like him, shouldn’t you contribute to the fund. If you don’t, and I am pointing to Libs on this blog, are you all just talk?
Nancy Is willing to donate one dollar $….
I forgot to ask how much of the $18 Mil. is Trump’s contribution.
He is a phony and cheap to boot.
If this was a donor restrictec not for profit organization raising these funds, I might send $100. If you think about it, $5B divided by each vote Trump received was just $80. each.
But a gofundme account is like betting on the Cleaveland Browns to win this years super bowl.
I wont give anything to any gofundme page. No better than investing in cryptocurrency. Who knows where it ends up?
Yeah, well I guess that’s that.
I give money to homeless people, to people on the street, to anyone who asks – if I have money to give.
Who knows where it ends up ?
I do not give to the Clinton Foundation –
Who knows where it ends up ?
I would bet that GoFundme funds are more likely to go to the purpose asserted than funds contributed to a non-profit.
New topic. Not really political. Just a WOW for those not in NYC
Who knew Taxi cab owner/ operators had more than a million invested in each cab.
No wonder they are so pissed with Uber/Lyft. And NYC for not protecting their business.
OOPS. Heres the link
https://nypost.com/2017/04/05/taxi-medallions-reach-lowest-value-of-21st-century/
Why should taxi medallions even exist ?
They are an artificial form of property created by government.
Properly they are anti-property.
They force funds to be invested and tied up when if the govenrment stayed out no many would be invested in medalions – but we would still have cabs.
Well I agree with you. I do think that certain safety requirements be met so someone is not riding around in a death trap car because there will always be someone without a pot top piss in deciding to offer a service and then if your killed, your relatives have no recourse. And the owner who might not get killed just gets a slap on the wrist and spends a few years in jail which they could probably care less.
But other than that, I don’t think the government should be creating winners and losers. That is not the role of government. Private enterprise should be controlling taxi service, Uber and Lyft.
And since the genies out of the bottle, there is no way in hell that it ever goes back in.Try all they might, private operators will always exist, just as escort services exist even with prostitution laws on the books.
Why shouldn’t somebody without a pot to piss in and a death trap care be allowed to run a taxi service ?
If a taxi shows up that you do not trust – are you going to take it ?
The services like lyft and uber have ratings systems – the drivers/cars get rated, and the customers get rated back.
Sounds like an effective means of ensuring that you get value.
Long ago we debated some NYC jewish slum lord who was murdered.
He was providing shitholes to the homeless and drug addicts for $100/month.
These were horrible places to live. But they were better than the street.
NYC closed him down – and thousands ended up on the street – a few even died.
Whenever you decide that someone should not be able to provide really bad service cheap, you are deciding that really really poor people, people at the bottom have to go completely without.
Free markets are voluntary.
No one is forced to exchange.
Prohibiting the use of force IS the legitimate role of government.
Free markets do not assure that we get what we want.
Only that we are always free to say no.
All choices are up to us.
Whether it is a taxi or air travel – deciding what you are willing to pay for better, or safer should always be YOUR choice
AND you should always remember that what your chose regarding quality or safety – or whatever standards you think government should regulate – there is someone else out their who either would not or can not choose the same, and if you force your standards by law – you are depriving someone of what little they can afford – or are willing to afford.
Drug adicts living in non-code-compliant shitholes is better than living on the street. deathTrap taxis are better than none at all.
Dave, we will never ever agree. Your level of Libertarianism is off the charts. I accept anyone should be free to exchange goods and services without government interference. But your trust in your fellow man thinking you wont die invan accident or from some other short cut someone might take is also off the charts.
I thing government is too involved in most everything we have going on today. But I also know people are going to risk your safety in many cases. So I accept that cars need to be inspected to be on the roads in NC. That means that all cars, including taxi’s are on the road with fewer issues than if the cars are not inspected. We hardly ever hear of a blow out causing an accident, or break failure the same like we heard years ago.
Now this I could get behind if I were anywhere close to driving distance for a day. Wonder how many will really show up or just give lip service.
Interesting to see what Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates and others do to the national areas with our trash. In that, people are much the same/ Either you respect what you have or you don’t. I saw pictures of Yosemite Mat Park and there are many people that need to be banned for any national park,
https://libertarianvindicator.com/2019/01/04/libertarian-party-to-clean-up-national-mall-during-government-shutdown/?fbclid=IwAR2Gq3PEhUmQk2mUk02mruYp2uhuTNkBQ9iufGFUWrJdZ-cbRc7Peel-cxg
Many national parks are run using private services that have management contracts.
These are not likely shutdown.
True, but others are not. Nice to see some groups stepping up to make a difference. Most people are all hot air and do nothing. Other don’t give a crap and trash the places. But they are the ones that just throw their trash anywhere anytime. Most big cities are like that for the most part and need daily street cleaning and sweeping.
The constitution severely limits the property that the federal govenrment is permitted to own.
This is why there is very little federal land on the east coast – as our founders sold it all to private owners.
They understood that if you want something to be taken care of and put to its best use – it must be owned – and not be government.
But why would we bother to follow the constitution.
Tell him why he’s incapable of having this knowledgeable opinion, from your more experienced perch, Dave/John
“800,000 federal workers won’t be getting paid tomorrow”
I would call that a start.
The economy is adding 311,000 jobs a month, we shoudl be able to put them ALL into productive jobs that will make ALL of us better off in a few months.
“including a quarter-million U.S Military Veterans”
False the military was funded.
There is some issue with VA funding – that is unrelated to the shutdown, and is a failure of congress.
“but this guy will get a $10,000 taxpayer funded raise ”
True – congress was so caught up in bickering over the wall they failed to pass legistation stopping an automatic pay raise – or maybe they did so deliberately.
Regardless it is not related tot he shutdown and if Pelosi passes the legislation rolling back the pay raise – The senate will pass it and Trump will sign it.
It would help if you quit blaming things that have nothing to do with the shutdown and the shutdown.
Un oh… Trump is sounding very Dave/John like with his claims of superior knowledge. D/J – don’t take this appropriation of your scepter of superiority lying down!
By Scott Martelle
If Trump thinks migrants in the U.S. illegally are dangerous, why has he hired so many of them? https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-ol-2-enter-the-fray-if-trump-thinks-undocumented-migrants-1546619872-htmlstory.html
“In fact, Trump has profited before from the labor of people working in the U.S. without permission, including clients of his modeling agency and Polish laborers who demolished a store to make way for his flagship Trump Towers project in Manhattan (Trump paid nearly $1.4 million in a legal settlement for that one).
Possibly because your claim is inaccurate.
Trump has repeatedly states that some illegal immigrants are “very fine people”.
But some are not.
He is however trying to deport the ones with criminal records – generally evidence of being dangerous, and the left is seeking to thwart that – often with horrible results.
You can of course identify Mr. Martelle’s bias – as well as yours with phrases like “profited before from the labor of people …”
If you are employed – legally or otherwise – your employer is profiting from your labor.
If they are not – you are unlikely to remain employed long.
People are employed specifically because their employer can profit from their labor.
That is the ONLY reason people are employed.
Dave “If you are employed – legally or otherwise – your employer is profiting from your labor.
If they are not – you are unlikely to remain employed long.”
Yes, but those hired illegally provide more profits from their labor than legal hires.
One, hire someone for an amount for the day instead of per hour, the hourly rate can be less than minimum wage.
Two, hire illegally, no required federal employer taxes.
Three, no required employer state taxes
Four, no other cost like workmans comp, etc.
In June 2015 while campaigning he said this:
QUOTE: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Is the word ILLEGAL hidden somewhere in the quote.
And are the ‘yous’ he’s referring to, are they Hispanics.
And since then, has he said anything but negatives about Southern Border immigrants, legal or illegal?
Tell the truth Dave/John, isn’t he intentionally stirring up race hatred… come on, admit it
Waiting….
““In fact, Trump has profited before from the labor of people working in the U.S. without permission, including clients of his modeling agency and Polish laborers who demolished a store to make way for his flagship Trump Towers project in Manhattan (Trump paid nearly $1.4 million in a legal settlement for that one).”
All political!!!!
Left wants open borders, let anyone in, after a few years, more left voting minorities. For proof, look at California demographics in the late 60’s compared to now and compare voter rolls for same period.
Right yells publically for a wall, but privately these are a great pool of workers that can be hired off the books at much reduced cost of legal emp!oyees. Construction workers, chicken processing workers, house cleaners, lawn maintence, you name it, conservative voting rich benefit from this pool of workers.
Now, instead of saying Trump benefits from this illegal pool of workers, ask why would he be pushing to close down this pool? What could happen in any agreement for a wall that would benefit the rich businesses? Think about it. Forget the past, whats good for them in the future?
“Left wants open borders, let anyone in”
Balony.
A small insignificant minority of Americans favor open borders, but the majority of Dems (you consider all Dems left, correct) do NOT favor it.
Show me the Dems who ran for office this election who campaigned in favor of open borders.
Jay, “Balony”
Give it up Jay! The left does not want a secure birder anymore than the right.
You can argue that until it snows in Miami and itvstill won’t be true.
Ron, the quote is TRUE, are you refuting facts? Don’t be like the other Lib.
Damn, do I comment in a foriegn language? I agree totally. Read what I posted. I said this is all political. Both sides want open borders to meet their needs. The left wants voters, the right wants cheap labor.
Jay, as the good liberal will say libs dont want open borders.
Dave as the Trump supporter will say the conservative does not want open borders.
I say they both benefit and both want insecure borders, but wont say that.
what more can I say?
Ron, you’re brainwashed by false statistics.
Check this California poll on the Southern Border Wall.
See the percent in favor of ‘open borders’?
1%! That includes the 28% of California eligible voters who are Hispanic.
https://www.isidewith.com/poll/2905607533/9333303
Jay, I am sorry that there are so many people on each side of the political spectrum that believe what politicians tell them. The right believed Trump when he said Mexico wouod pay for the wall. The left believe that Demicrats do not want minorities entering the country and increasing support in future years.
No one brain washed me. No one told me the right supoorts illegals to increase cheap labor. I look at California way back when I lived there and Reagan was governor and I look at it today. Overwhelmingly minority and overwhelmingly liberal. I watched our health system during years of expansion and the greatest number of construction workers hired by the contractors building new buildings were day laborers that could not speak english. At the end of the day, they got paid in cash. Just in the last couple years my daughter had a house built. Carpenters, sheetrock and brick masons were unable to speak English. I suspect most were illegal and paid cash.
So my beliefs in border security is based on what I see. If it looks like an elephant, dont try convincing me its a pregnant cow.
And Jay, let me make it clear. The people may not want open borders. And the politicians will say they dont want open borders. But they are not telling the people the truth, they are telling them what they wsnt to hear.
Now ask yourself this question. Why did congress split up all the funding for government operations, pass those bills over the past few months, but the one supporting Homeland Security was left to the last minute? If they knew it was going to be the most contentious, would you not work on it first to give more time to work out a compromise?
No, they want a political agenda item, they will come up with some BS compromise that wont solve any immigration issue, DACA will still be illegal, illegals will still cross rhe border. illegals here will not screened by any job verification system and growth in minority population will increase liberal voter rolls and business will still have theur cheap illegal labor.
But this does come from someone who distrust government, which includes politicians. You can believe their crap if you want.
“Remembering Jan. 19, 1977, the day it snowed in South Florida. It was a day that no one could have imagined. And even when it happened, some people had a hard time believing it.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_wave_of_January_1977
Wellvdang, I’ll use Lake Havasu next time. But it did not snow in Miami city, just the Miami area!
Right. Close enough. 🙂
Trump’s shutdown is endangering the safety of those using airlines:
“In a scorchingly fact-based letter to President Trump, the Air Line Pilots Association — which represents 61,000 pilots — used simple words.
Its president, Captain Joe DePete wrote:
I am writing to urge you to take the necessary steps to immediately end the shutdown of government agencies that is adversely affecting the safety, security and efficiency of our national airspace system.”
https://www.inc.com/chris-matyszczyk/delta-united-airlines-pilots-to-president-trump-cut-nonsense.html
Something is not fact based merely by assertion.
It is a fact that the Airline pilots association has written a letter. The rest is primarily opinion.
Regardless – if you do not want the shutdown – fund the wall. It is quite simple.
This is a policy disagreement nothing more.
Trump has no right to get the wall built. Democrats have no right to prevent it.
Each has some power they can excercise to attempt to get what they want.
If pilots are so concerned – then they should choose not to fly.
Personally, though I do not expect it, I hope for a very long shutdown. It is unlikely that many government employees can hold out without pay for that long.
Inevitably they will start seeking actually productive private sector jobs at some point.
That would be incredibly good for all of us – less government employees, more people in jobs that require producing something of value.
Further if enough people leave government – and we do not replace some of them, we may save money and reduce the burden of government on the state.
As to the APA – lets just privatize everything associated with air travel
Why should government have anything to do with air travel at all ?
Interestingly in much of the world – including socialist europe a significantly greater portion of control of air travel is private.
So if you and your family show up for a flight and the flight crew is in front of the boarding line with signs saying “This Flight May Be Hazardous To Your Life” you are going to smile at them, ignore the warnings, and board because it’s not a fact based opinion?
Where you or the APA saying the same thing when Obama shutdown the government over funding PPACA ?
Please explain how that was different ?
In both cases the law existed to empower the president.
In both cases congress refused to fund the law.
In 2013 you blamed republicans
In 2019 you are blaming republicans.
Seems to be a theme.
Whenever you do not get what you want – it is the republicans fault.
It does not matter what it is you want.
It does not matter whether what you want is reasonable, or has broad public support – if you want it – that is enough. Government mush deliver.
In fact, I criticized Obama for his shutdown.
I wasn’t in favor of Obamacare as then proposed.
Over time it hasn’t turned out as bad as I thought it would, but the Republican tax cut for the 1% is hurting it as it’s hurting other US infrastructure.
Again, for the umpteenth time: I was an Obama critic.
But as bad as I thought he was, I’d take him in a millisecond over President Motherfu**er.
Jay;
The left DEFACTO wants open borders. When you do not support limitations on what can cross the borders – that is “open borders”.
Whatever limitations you support – and it does not matter what those limitations are – if you have limits you must enforce those limits.
If you say 50M people can cross the border and immigrate legally each year, you must have some means of assuring that 51M do not.
Whether you make it 5M, or 50K, or 50 unless you have the means to enforce those limits – you effectively have no limits.
And that is what this fight is about, and why it is accurate to say the democrats are after open borders – whether they are open about that or not.
I would further note that democrats are NOT engaged in any discussion regarding what the limits are.
While Trump has offered to put all kinds of other discussions on the table – there is no engagement by democrats on any of those issues.
Democrats are not engaged in determining what the limits are – who is permitted to legally immigrate and how many.
They are seeking to preclude enforcing ANY limits.
A wall is NOT the only means of enforcing limits.
It is however the most efficient and cheapest means.
We already know that the wall is effective – whether it is israel or the berlin wall or just the parts of the US border with wall now – in all those places unrestricted movement has ended – almost entirely.
Conversely where there are no walls enormous human resources are required AND unrestricted movement is less significantly impeded.
Ultimately – the Wall alone is not sufficient. But a wall with LESS CBP agents is more efficient and effective than no wall and more CBP agents.
“So if you and your family show up for a flight and the flight crew is in front of the boarding line with signs saying “This Flight May Be Hazardous To Your Life” you are going to smile at them, ignore the warnings, and board because it’s not a fact based opinion?”
That would be correct – if I show up at an airport for a flight – I am free to decide on my own whether I wish to fly or not, whether the conditions are safe enough for me.
Today airtravel is BY FAR the safest means of transportation with 0.07 fatalities per billion passenger miles – nearly all of those in “general aviation” not airlines.
Trains are 7 times more dangerous
Busses are about twice as dangerous,
Cars and trucks are 100 times more dangerous.
So based on the FACTS – no I would not give a crap what the APA says.
But you are free to make your own choices for yourself – and you can use facts, feelings or a Ouija board to do so.
Still using Asbestos insulating board in your home?
Ad Hominem as a substitute for argument.
Paul Revere: “The British are coming!”
Dubious Dave: “Unfounded supposition, Sir!”
Red Herring Fallacy.
Revere made an assertion that was supported by actual evidence.
The comparable analogy would be Trump is saying “the illegal immigrants are coming” – and the left is saying – “I can not see them”, while they camp at our borders.
“The left DEFACTO wants open borders. When you do not support limitations on what can cross the borders – that is “open borders”.”
Making unsubstantiated claims like that makes you DEFACTO Dubious Dave.
Prove that assertion Donald-Clone.
Jay, I admire patience; I have none.
I guess repeating nonsense over and over is a form of patience.
It is not one that should be admired.
Not an unsubstantiated claim. In fact the quote substantiates it.
What are the limitations that the left supports ? And what are the EFECTIVE means to impliment those limits ?
If you do not have concrete answers to those questions then you are defacto for open borders.
BTW I HAVE Proved the assertion – it is called logic, you should try it sometime.
Your assertion that the left does not support open borders is logically false.
When you do not support any effective means of achieving an objective – then you logically and defacto oppose the objective.
I am fully prepared to have a discussion of “open borders” and what is necescary to have them.
I am fully prepared to obliterate all our drug laws, making any need to secure the border against drug trafficking unnecessary.
I am fully prepared to obliterate the assorted labor laws and entitlements that make the free movement of legal immigrants accross the border impossible.
But the left is not prepared to have those discussions.
You want the status quo – drug laws that very costly and ineffective that you will not enforce, and labor laws and entitlements that ensure that “illegal immigrants” as well as innumerable others must commit myriads of crimes just to remain in the US.
Are you saying the status quo works ? It worked badly for Obama. Except that he is enforcing the law somewhat more vigorously – Trump is doing nothing regarding immigration that Obama did not do first. His executive orders – parrot those of Obama. Child separation started under Obama, Detaining people caught near the border – started under Obama.
Obama had the benefit of a weak economy – immigration subsides when our economy is weak and rises when it is strong.
“In fact, I criticized Obama for his shutdown.
I wasn’t in favor of Obamacare as then proposed.
Over time it hasn’t turned out as bad as I thought it would”
Actually yes it has turned out pretty much as bad as expected – that is the reason that both Trump and Obama have waived so much of it and that it has been so heavily modified.
“but the Republican tax cut for the 1% is hurting it as it’s hurting other US infrastructure.”
Nope – the baseline budget has increased for every year in every area for decades.
Separately all the claims of disasterous infrastructure – INCLUDING those of Trump fail the Mark I eyeball test.
Tell me one place in this country where the infrastructure is not substantially better than 20, 30, 40 years ago.
I would further note that we spend something like 350B on “shovel ready” projects in 2009.
Where did that money go ? Was there no benefit to that ? That was spending above and beyond the normal spending of the state local and federal government.
“Again, for the umpteenth time: I was an Obama critic.”
We have been here a long time. I recall fighting with you over the same issues for all of that time. I do not recall you as consequentially criticizing Obama.
“But as bad as I thought he was, I’d take him in a millisecond over President Motherfu**er.”
Based on FACTS, Trump is a far better president. He is better than Obama, He is Better than Both Bush’s. It is open to debate whether he is better than Clinton – Trump has only been president for 2 years – though Clinton failed at foreign policy – though mostly in small ways, and Trump is more successful – thus far mostly in small ways.
Economically it is a dead heat – growth was higher under Clinton – but Clinton inherited a strong economy and Trump inherited a weak one.
The fact is that Obama and the Bush’s were POOR PRESIDENT’s.
The Bush’s were nice people – I would have said Obama was in 2016, but I am deeply disturbed by what I have learned since. It was possible to pass the IRS scandal off as the over zealous acts of underling’s when it stood alone, but what is increasingly evident is that Obama used the presidency as a political weapon for 8 years, Targeting political oppositions, Targetting Congress, Targetting Journalists, and ultimately targeting his successor.
The fish rots from the head.
Nice blinders you’ve chosen to wear.
“The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2012 that Obamacare will save $109 billion over the next decade. And in more recent reports, the non-partisan agency has credited the law with helping drive down the government’s deficit because its insurance expansion programs have cost less than initially expected.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/6/25/18001920/how-much-does-obamacare-cost-the-government
Jay, this is the type of reporting that progides false information as there is way too much not explained. Such as over 45% of most providers business is Medicare. The government reduces reimbursement for Medicare, that has nothing to do with Obamacare and providers chages practice patterns for that 45%. Once you change practice pattern for more than 30% of your patients, 100% get that new way of service. So reduced reimbursement for 45% changes prectices to be less costly, thus reducing cost for 100%. And that is not Obamacare.
Figures dont lie but liars can figure!
Ron;
Efforts to solve the immigration issue have been ongoing for over a decade.
There are clips of Clinton, Pelosi, Schumer and other democrats clearly stating the necessity of a wall for border security.
Further this issue came to a head in March with Schumer threatening to shut government down then. Trump then as now was happy to deal with the democrats on the other issues they want – DACA, Family separation, …. So long as the wall was authorized.
Purportedly Schumer agreed in March an then renigged.
Absolutely BOTH republicans and democrats pushed this to the last minute.
The republicans funded nearly all the rest of government – weakening any threat of a shutdown, and democrats prayed for a victory in Nov. to increase their leverage.
Both got what they wanted – so nothing has really changed.
And I am perfectly comfortable with a long partial shutdown.
Both got what they wanted. Screw the country. Illegals still getting in. Dems getting more future voters. Conservatives getting more cheap labor. DACA not addressed. Long term illegals not addressed.
Piss on all of the politicians, from Trump on down to that one rep from WY. They all care less about the average American citizen.
And the average American citizen gets what they deserve, because they keep voting for asses like Trump, McConnell, Shumer and Pelosi.
“Ron, you’re brainwashed by false statistics.
Check this California poll on the Southern Border Wall.
See the percent in favor of ‘open borders’?
1%! That includes the 28% of California eligible voters who are Hispanic.”
If when asked I say – I am opposed to shooting you, and then I shoot you.
it is pretty obvious what I really meant.
And if you claim 50,000 Dems are murderers, and a murder is committed by one, you’d gloat that you were right.
BTW, have I told you lately what a Haw-Haw you are….
It is trivial to win any argument if you can make up whatever claims you wish about your opponent.
I can just assert “Jay is a kiddie didler” and declare victory.
If n people commit murder, it is reasonable to conclude that when they claimed to oppose murder – that claim was not particularly strong.
Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Haw-Haw.
BTW – does that even have any meaning ?
“Yes, but those hired illegally provide more profits from their labor than legal hires.”
Profit in a free market ALWAYS converges arround risk. PERIOD.
If something is illegal – it has greater risk and there must be a higher profit to justify the risk.
BTW if something is illegal – but the risk of any consequence is low, profits will be little different than they are in the legal market.
The relationship between profits and risk is the same REGARDLESS of the activity.
Innovators take a risk on new products or new means of producing products and if successfully they BRIEFLY make high profits – in line with the risks they took.
But quite quickly as they are successful, and the risk drops profits drop back to levels comensurate with the risk being taken.
While the relationship between profits and risk is not absolute – several factors – government interventions or subsidies, or shortages can temporarily create high profits with miniumal risk.
Those instances are rare and they do not last long.
There is absolutely nothing that humans or government can do to sustainably divorce risk and profit.
Ron;
“Dave, we will never ever agree. Your level of Libertarianism is off the charts. I accept anyone should be free to exchange goods and services without government interference. But your trust in your fellow man thinking you wont die in van accident or from some other short cut someone might take is also off the charts.”
Please name something that you are afraid of, that is seriously harmful, that you think requires regulation that is not ALL of the below:
Extremely rare
A crime – by that I mean something like assault or murder that has been a crime for as long as we have had laws.
A breach of contract
A tort.
I can not think of anything. Even Anarcho-Capitalists – which I am not, are not looking to eliminate criminal law, contract law or tort law, they are just looking to privatize enforcement.
My “off the charts” libertarianism seeks only to not make things that are already illegal (and rare) multiple ways, not illegal in even more ways.
HOWEVER, if there is an act that:
Is not otherwise a crime,
is not a breach of contract,
is not a tort.
Then NO! I do not want it regulated.
All crimes are unjustified uses of force to infringe on the rights of others.
Killing or injuring others deliberately or recklessly or foreseably is a crime.
Any regulation that is about deliberately, recklessly or foreseably using force to infringe on the rights of others is REDUNDANT.
If you have a contract with someone else – and all free market exchanges are contracts, and you breach that contract, that too is already illegal and we have no need for regulations that impose burdens on people they are already obligated to by contract.
If you breach a duty of care to others, resulting in harm to another – that would be a tort. There are no need for regulations that duplicate Tort Law.
Most every fear I have ever heard you express falls into ALL of these catagories of things that are already illegal without any regulations.
Anything that regulations seek to prevent – that is not covered by criminal, contract and tort law – is not anything of the things you worry about, and is NOT anything that should be regulated.
The fundimental problem with regulation is that they are a priori, They govern means NOT ends.
There is an enormous gulf between – you may not kill your neighbor, and you may not spray your garden with roundup.
The former bars you from causing harm – regardless of the means you use to do it.
The latter bars a means – whether it causes harm or not.
Dave, wha n you ssk me to name something I am afraid of that is already not legal is not a good example.
For instance, it is illegal to provide a service that will harm someone. And if harm occurs, then those providing service will be tried and convictec. But that does no good for the ones who are dead or permanently disabled.
So where you dont want the intervening step where the harms risk is significantly reduced by inspections or other regulation, I want someone making sure products and services are safe. It does not need to be government, but some independent group.
But we have debated this issue many times, say exactly the same things over and over and get no where. And again we do the same.
There is no evidence that any regulation has ever effectively “intervened”.
Further, the government does not “really” intervene ahead of time.
There are – and can be no where near enough government inspectors to enforce apriori but a tiny portion of all regulations. The economy would grind to a halt if their were.
Just as with the laws I cite – enforcement is ALWAYS an after the fact event.
Every year were read stories of harms that occur because regulations were not followed.
Ultimately the teeth of every regulation – is the same as the teeth of the same law I am refering to. It is that if you do something that harms others, AND YOU GET CAUGHT, you will be punished.
People are almost never punished proactively for the harm they might cause.
But they are rarely punished – not for harm, but for offending those in power.
Regulation differs from other law – not in that it actually works as a preventative. The primary preventive facet of all law – criminal, civil, tort AND regulation is the near certainty of punishment WHEN HARM OCCURS,
Regulation gives those in government – not the power to prevent harm, but the power to punish enemies, or those who will not kowtow.
That is a flaw not a feature.
Further regulation stiffles creativity, innovation – we have plenty of data on that. We will never know precisely what invention is never born as a consequence of regulation, but we do know that more regulation results in less innovation.
Finally – we have no right to preclude people from doing things that MIGHT harm others. That is the infringement on rights based on oppinion, not fact.
Contra your claim – criminal, contract and tort law do have enormous preventive effect.
Anyone prepared to go to jail for violating a criminal law – is not going to be detered by a regulation. Anyone detered by a regulation will be as or more effectively stopped by criminal contract and tort law.
With one glaring exception. Criminal contract and tort law requires ACTUAL harm to result in punishment.
Regulation not only punishes harm – though no better than criminal contract and torts, but it imposes a threat of punishment where there is no harm.
Dave, no one can prove a negative. No one can tell anyone else how many accidents have been eliminated in North Carolina since the state began vehicle inspections and if they tried, they would be a fool or a liar. No one can tell you how many people have not been made sick because eateries are graded.
YES! There are still people that do wrong. But my distrust of people tells me that there are many who are not trying to skirt safety like they might if there were not inspections.
You are black and white. People will do good or bad regardless of regulation. I am gray. There is a subset within your groups that will change behavior from bad to good. Not all and those are still the ones we hear about, but some that we never hear about.
It is always possible to persuade yourself of a hypothetical risk that justifies regulation.
I have observed before that society is advanced by those approximately 10% of us that are willing to take risks.
Clearly 90% of us are not. If we allow the 90% to dictate – and that is precisely what regulation does, then we radically reduce improvement.
Just to be clear – if we take risks – sometimes bad things happen.
Of course if we do not bad things also happen – just different bad things.
The extent to which the FDA regulates the creation of new drugs absolutely positively reduces the number of people killed by drugs that have not been thoroughly tested.
But it also kills many more people who have problems that could be cured by drugs that will never occur – because the market is just not large enough to justify the cost.
You can identify regulated markets by the scale and homogenity of businesses in those markets.
Absent regulation there are businesses ranging from mom and pops to global giants. Because in everyarea there are smaller markets that are just nbot big enough to be worth while for the global giants, but plenty large for mom and pop to function profitably. Nor is this binary. there are problems too small for global giants but big enough that larger businesses can profit.
A full spectrum.
Because the wants and needs of humans are not black and white or uniform.
Regulated markets ultimately kill all but the global giants.
Look at health care ? How many new drugs are produced in somebodies garage each year ? And Why not ? Aside from the fact that the next multibillion dollar miracle cure is as likely to evolve in a garage as in a 10,000 person corporate lab, tens of thousands of drugs are ONLY going to be developed in a garage.
Big drug companies kill off development of innumerable promising drugs every year – not because they have no value or are dangerous, bhut because they do not have a market large enough to justify the cost to bring them to market.
I am using drugs as an example but this is ALWAYS the case – in every area.
I want to amplify further on risk.
It is probable that as a basically healthy person I am unwilling to take the risks associated with unregulated drugs. Again 90% of us are really risk averse.
But even those of us who are risk averse frequently change our minds – when nature takes away our choices.
If I develop terminal cancer that no regulated drug will cure, my willingness to take a risk for a possible cure will skyrocket. If I develop a “orphan” disease – I will be far more willing to take a risk to rid myself of that debilitation.
It is probable that if I – the terminal cancer patient or the person with the orphan disease am allowed to take whatever risks I want – that some charlatans will prey on me. But so will people seeking to profit from helping me. The harm to society – and even me by the charlatans will ultimately be outweighed buy even a small number of advances that would not have occured otherwise.
My point is that human norms are risk aversion. But even those norms are situational. It is NOT moral to take away the choice to take risks from entrepeneurs. AND it is NOT moral to take that choice away from ordinary people who have the misfortune to have needs that fall outside the norms that transform them from being risk averse to risk takers.
Even if you could successfully do what you claim regulations do – prevent harm, you would still do more total harm than good, because all improvement involves risk, and that is incompatible with regulation as a concpet.
Hay BAY-un!
:- )
I am “dee-lighted.” when you speak and thoroughly entertained // if not educated. I hope you continue to find your inner “Big Oak” and share.
I hope you got some extra energy from the Chargers win, you will need it to around here.
A view on Trump from the LEFT – Trump is better than Bush or Obama.
There is alot of crap in this, but that does not matter, The evaluations of what Trump HAS done as opposed to what he should have done FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE LEFT
or atleast what the left used to say they beleived is pretty good.
What the editorial really demonstrates is that democrats have degenorated into the party of Anti-Trump, without any consideration of actual democrat values and principles, much less ones that actually work.
https://theweek.com/articles/815101/case-optimism-about-trump
What nonsense!!! – Doesn;t the Detroit news understand that democratic policy is to thwart Trump. It is irrelevant what Trump wants. It is irrelevant what is good for the country. It is irrelevant what values and principles the left has claimed where core in the past.
If Trump is for it – RESIST!!!!
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/editorials/2019/01/06/editorial-dems-should-swap-wall-immigration-reform/2483294002/
Dear Vidkun Quisling:
When you have cancer (Trump) attacking your body, you concentrate on removing that first, then worry about repairing your knee cartilage.
When you are having problems with your knee you should not be fixating on worrying about a cancer that you do not have.
I beleive that things could be one hell of alot better than they are right now. I beleive that 5% growth is sustainable and we are far short of that.
I am deeply concerned about our debt and deficit.
I can come up with a long long list of other concerns that I have, things I think Trump could do much better on.
At the same time Trump has inarguably out performed Obama and Bush by almost every important metric. He is on track to outperform Clinton.
If using your analogy Trump is cancer – Bush and Obama were ebola, and we are all necrotic and dead.
The outrage is WAY over the top.
Your “cancer” remark makes that clear.
In inumerable ways the country is headed in the wrong direction.
But it is headed in the wrong direction LESS than anytime in 16 years.
We can do better.
Maybe we can even do better than Trump – though I actually doubt it.
I would rather have had Gary Johnson or Rand Paul as president, but I do not think either could have accomplished a fraction of what Trump has accomplished that matters to me.
They might have been more ideolgoically pure, they might have been less offensive, but they would have been less effective too.
Yup, old news, but still “collateral” damage:
“Trump Has Promised to Bring Jobs Back. His Tariffs Threaten to Send Them Away.”
“It’s a tax that comes right off the bottom line,” said EBW’s president, Cory Steeby. “It totally incentivizes you to move out of the United States and build either in Canada or Mexico. These are active conversations right now.”
“There’s no intelligence to the way this is being done,” Mr. Steeby said. “The tariffs are designed to hurt China, but they are being paid by American companies.”
Logic, reason, persuasive discourse is useless at this point when discussing Trump-The-Malignant with his rationalizing MAGAts.
If Trump uses the National Emergency ploy tomorrow, I guarantee his anus sucking syncophants will pucker up and kiss his flatulent ass for taking that Hitleresque route.
OK – I’m predicting tomorrow Trump ends the Govt Shutdown and declares a National Emergency on the Southern Border.
That’s win-win for him, short term. No more criticism for the Trump Shutdown, and proof to his supporters he has done everything he could to build the wall – when it inevitably gets shot down by the courts. Tomorrow, look for him to reference a number of obscure and tangential Legal precedents for authority… (they will be knawed in short order to the bone by the courts)… but #Trumpanzees will applaud him anyway, blame Liberal judges, media, Dems conveniently forgetting their con artist Prez guaranteed Mexico would pay for it.
All this does is shows me the president may have powers they were never intended to have, but congress did not want to make hard decisions, so they createc an octopus of regulations with the president as the body. And I suspect they wont do one thing about it, even if Trump acts.
This is why everything government does today seems to end up in court.
And again, Americans deserve what they get. They vote in these wimpy ass congressional officials that become more interested in career than country.
The question of whether this “”national emergency” ploy is legal or constitutional is really irrelevant – much of what I have read strongly suggests it is arguably inside of the presidents powers.
At the same time it is an unusual application of those powers.
In fact it exposes a relatively deliberate conflict in the constitution.
The constitution gives the president great power to act regarding national security, borders, and foreign relations, but it gives congress and particularly the house control of the purse.
Essentially the constitution says that in certain areas the president can do as he pleases, but it also says that congress need not chose to pay for it.
My expectation is all of this is a typical Trump negotiating tactic.
That it is not real, and that he is not going to do this – maybe.
The one thing I would not rule out is that there is a “secret” deal between Schumer, Pelosi and Trump – esentially – we will not approve wall funding but if it ends the shutdown we will allow you to build the wall by declaring a national emergency – so long as we can publicly rail at you about it.
I am not claiming to know that is what will/has occurred, but it is a way out for all involved that saves face for everyone.
regardless, I will stand opposed to this.
A proper deal should be negotiated regarding immigration, Trump and democrats should resolve this. That is what the people want. That is the right thing. Trump building the wall using emergency powers will not solve many immigration issues that need addressed.
Further like the democrats pulling the nuclear switch it will open the doors to broader future use of emergency powers.
It is a mistake – not an end of the world foaming and frothing mistake, but one none-the-less.
Trump has thus far governed by NARROWING what the president can do to what the constitution clearly allows.
It would be a mistake to shift to the more traditional presidential model of expanding executive powers as much as possible.
And jobs are up – WAY UP, last month set new records. The number of new jobs last month was 312K – 145K is the number necescary to maintian a stable economy.
There were something like 40K new manufacturing jobs – that is completely unheard of.
If Trump’s “tarriff’s” are actually hurting then something else he is doing is incredibly good.
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fmikepatton%2Ffiles%2F2012%2F11%2FNew-Jobs-2.png&f=1
If 2020 is about Job creation – barring disaster – Trump will be re-elected in a landslide.
Who would of have thunk we would have a president that helps people that like to defend any position that jibes with their tribal viewpoints. But here’s the genius of Trump, he lets the defenders of his positions (call them “supporters”- got to be nice-) two, or more, chances to defend him.
First he says I will do something, right away in the case returning troops from Syria, then when he speaks (consults?) to his minders, he reverses course and says he never said what he said (it’s on tape, as usual). Defenders jump on that and come up with a new defense. Mexico will pay, no the U.S. will pay, no start a GoFundMe, no the sky is falling, it’s an emergency. Let’s go to court and see if Brett supports Trump or the U.S.
History of Russia/Afghanistan: “well it could have happened that way, who knows?”
It’s a full time job, but at least it keeps them alert. 🙂
Well in my mind he just isnt as good a liar as seasoned politicians.
“If you like your doctor………”
They are ALL FULL OF BS!
I am pretty sure I can find lots of video of Obama saying that we would be out of afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo in 90 days – and we are still a decade later in all three.
Or video of “If you like your doctor you can keep them”.
Or video of “Benghazi was not an organized and planned terrorist attack”
Or video of Schumer, Pelosi, Obama, Durbin, and Hillary telling us all the necescity of a wall on our southern border.
I would prefer that all of Trump’s remarks were precise.
I would also prefer a lamborghini.
If Trump’s statements regarding withdrawl from Syria and Afghanistan are as deceiptful as any of those I cite above – you can be certain his voters will hold him accountable.
I do not think anyone expected our Troops were returning that day.
I would further note that we have heard days of whining by the left that has become a wholely owned franchise of the endless war neocons, that this was abrupt, precipitous and unplanned.
And now you are bemoaning the fact that it is not – and was not. There are news stories that Trump informed State and DOD at this time LAST YEAR to prepare for the inevitable withdrawl from syria and Afghanistan.
Put simply this entire “Argh! Trump!” news cycle has been another example of stupid leftist phony outrage.
As Prof. Turley noted – The left today is unrecognizable. There is no connection to past values or principles. the left is predictable only in the sense that if Trump does it they will oppose.
I am disappointed that more progress has not been made regarding North Korea. It is fair to conclude Trump promised more and faster progress. At the same time more has been accomplished than the entire past 30 years. There have been some setbacks in NK. Everything is NOT on track to meet the expectations Trump created. HOWEVER, NK is not “off the rails”, it is still proceding in a positive way albeit more slowly and with occasional fits and stops.
The same can be said of afghanistan, Syria, and numerous other of Trump’s promises.
If Government were a business – The measure of Trump’s delivery on expectations would be failure. But govenrment is not a business, and by the standards of past government Trump’s delivery on expectations is completely unequaled.
I did not vote for Trump – but focusing on what matters rather than the noise, there is no rational basis for the incredible hyperbole and outrage that permeats the left and the media.
You would think that Putin developed a secret zombie ray that allowed him to compell voters to elect Stalin/Hitler/Mao all wrapped in one.
Where are the death camps ? Where is the Trump equivalent of EO 9066 – oops I forget that was by the hero of the Left FDR. Where are the world leaders we have assassinated – no that was Kennedy who actually authorized the assassination of an ally. Where are the manufactured ballots – no that was Johnson. Where is the obstruction of justice – no that was Nixon, Where was the perjury – no that was Clinton. Where is the fraudulent intelligence assessments to justify a war – no that was Bush.
I can make a long long list of the criminal acts of prior presidents that Trump has NOT done.
I can not find any he has.
And yet if you listen to the left Atila the Hun has invaded Washington.
Lets compare AOC to Trump.
While Trump has exagerated his background – at the same time he has real accomplishments. He did graduate from Wharton, he did take over multimillion dollar family businesses and build them to multi-billion dollar businesses, he did succeed in NYC housing, he did succeed in Manhatan Comerical real estate, he did succeed in global real estate, in golf courses, resorts, casino’s beauty pagents and reality TV. And he won an election no one beleived he could.
As president he has dropped unemployment to numbers almost never heard of from the very low numbers at the end of the Obama administration, he has had a full year of 3+% growth for the first time in almost 20 years – which we were told was impossible.
Even manufacturing jobs are increasing significantly.
Trump has been president for less than two years and has accomplished things Obama could not accomplish in 8, and that we have not seen in 16.
An awful lot of Trumps accomplishment should be mundane.
3% crowth SHOULD be ho-hum But we have not seen it in so long it seems stelar.
Black unemployment is the lowest it has been in 50 years.
SATIRE: Only six non-U.S. people stopped at southern border and 41 at the northern border. What does that prove? “I like people that don’t get caught” says Trump. Real terrorists, thousands are invading us, and we don’t count them.
They fly in, come by boat sneak in on borders and it’s an emergency.
Real News: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/only-six-immigrants-terrorism-database-stopped-cbp-southern-border-first-n955861
The exact number is classified – but Nielson is working to declassify it.
But NBC – is correct ? Did they count themselves ?
I have a pretty low level of trust of government statistics – for very good reason.
But the press just makes shit up.
The odds of the 4000 figure being correct are small.
The odds of NBC being correct are zero.
I would suggest some other factors – because this has come up in other contexts before
there is not a single list – there are many lists for different purposes and with different criteria for getting on them.
Further most of those lists are – as Nielson said “classified’
This was raised in the context of gun regulation – why can’t we bar someone on one of those lists from owning a gun ?
Because you can not deny someone a right without due process. using say the “no fly list” to bar people from owning guns would either require making the no fly list public – which DHS refuses to do, even if DHS did not make the list public – you could find out you were on it by trying to buy a gun. Further there is currently no official means to get off the no fly list – should you manage to get on. But if you deny people the right to buy a gun then you would have to provide due process which would include and explanation for why they were turned down and a process to appeal inclusion.
I do not BTW think massive numbers of Al Qeda terrorists are trying to sneak into the US at our southern border. Which would also be my guess why NBC is wrong.
It is likely that DHS is counting as “terrorists” people who have nothing to do with traditional mideastern terrorist groups – but are affliated with violent efforts to overthrow regimes in south and central america.
But that is a guess.
Finally, I would note that 19 people from the mideast – mostly SA orchestrated the worst act of terroism in US history, costing immediately over 3,000 lives and subsequently 100’s of thousands – according to NGO’s and at current best estimates $5.4T and several thousand more US soldiers.
I am not sure I care that much what the “number” of terrorists stopped are.
Legal immigration to the US is about 1M/year.
Harvard conducted a study intended to debunk the administration claim that there are about 11M illegal immigrants presently in the US – their result ? It is probably more than double that.
Those crossing the southern border vary from a low of about 600K to a high of about 1.4M depending on the relative economic environment – when the US economy is strong those crossing from the south increase dramatically when it is weaker they drop.
There is also some flow of illegals south – some come and for a variety of reasons return, sometimes temporarily sometimes permanently.
Regardless, the number of terrorists, criminals, etc. are no matter what a small fraction of the total.
I beleive the estimate was that about 13,000 underage or pretend underage MS-13 soldiers crossed during the brief period Obama was giving a near free pass to unaccompanied minors.
The effect of that influx on MS-13 has been felt accross the country – in drugs and violence.
But even if we completely ignore the criminals.
If there are 1.4M people crossing the southern border when the US economy is strong – that is more than 100K per month.
Total US labor force is about 160M people. Presumably these people are coming into the US for jobs. That either means that almost the entire job growth in the US each month is being consumed by illegal immigrants – OR there is a market for “illegal workers” that can absorb 100K+ people per month OR that these people are coming here and not working ?
No matter what you are talking about very large numbers and a significant effect on US employment.
I will be happy to discuss with you how to reshape US policy to legally admit nearly everyone who wants to come here. But those changes are not tiny.
In the meantime what is current policy – which is to allow a large number of illegal immigrants – defacto because we do not have the means to stop them requires that they live in the shadows, that they are illegal, that they can not work legally – which means we are talking an enormous number of people working illegally.
The left likes to crack down on employers who hire illegal aliens – except for being less efficient and more stupid how is that different from stopping them at the border ?
If you successfully shutdown every employer hiring illegal aliens – which you are never going to manage to do, then you would accomplish much the same thing as the wall – at far greater cost.
If you do not shutdown employers but you preclude employers from “exploiting” them, you might as well adopt open borders – because that is defacto what you have accomplished.
I am tired of this nonsense of those on the left saying “I am not for open borders, but I am opposed to Trump’s policies”. If you are for the current defacto arrangement – you are not for open borders – you are for something WORSE than open borders.
If you do not like Trump’s policies – not that they are really Trump’s he is merely enforcing the laws we already have, then lets discuss how to change those policies – pass laws.
It should be pretty self evident at this point that Trump is adamant as hell about the wall.
That he is flexible on myriads of issues – in return for “the wall”.
13,000 MS-13 soldiers crossed during the brief period when Obama…
This from our ” facts” man.
Reliable source?
MS-13 is a group whose methods are beyond ruthless, this is a disease, most of all in the central American countries where they have taken root. They have committed some heinous murders in the US as well. According to wiki the gang numbers 10000, which is less than 1 percent of gang members and accounts for a similar share of gang murders.
That number is an FBI estmate. Their targets are other young central Americans, especially females. The wall is almost completely irrelevant to MS-13 and Visa versa, except for the right wing hoopla. The wall: a solution in search of a problem.
I am far more scared of home grown American loonies, including those with political-ideological grudges and their access to weapons (thanks in great part to the NRA)I than I am of the people coming across our southern border.
And that is an opinion that has solid facts behind it.
Roby, “thanks in great part to the NRA” .
Again this is a debate that will nevef be settled. Where you blame the NRA, others “blame” the founding fathers.
Some look at the 2nd amendment andcsay it is outdated. It means the military and not individuals. Others look at the writings when the founders were creating the Bill of Rights and see wording that supoorts “Americans” right to bear arms.
Those that trust government support tighter controls. Others, like me, who have no trust.in government do not support any changes.
Another phony from NY: “EXCLUSIVE: Yorktown Elitist and Bronx Hoaxer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Went by “Sandy” Well into College at Boston U (VIDEO)”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/01/exclusive-yorktown-elitist-and-bronx-hoaxer-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-went-by-sandy-well-into-college-at-boston-u-video/
When even Whoopi blasts you are on your way. WG blasted Trump too.
I hate to defend AOC – but politicians lying about or exagerating their past is so common as to be meaningless. Fauxcahantas comes to mind.
If you voted for AOC and you beleived what she said and would have voted otherwise – then you are free to be outraged.
What I find disturbing about AOC is that she speaks as if she does come from the hood in the bronx. She is incapable of readable gramar, she should be an embarassment to the schools and colleges she attended, she has a degree in economics – and can not add.
There are people on the left who share here views who are more articulate and decently educated and can make an understandable argument.
AOC may have attended the best schools but she got an education worse than one would expect from south bronx.
She isn’t any worse at grammar and spelling and syntax or any more confused in general than Trump.
Let’s gets rid of both of them politically.
Is there a reason I care what name she used in college ?
I am far more concerned about her stupid assertion that moral and factual are somehow distinct.
If you do not know the facts – you have no basis to make moral assessments.
Murder is morally wrong – self defense is not. It is facts that determine whether a killing is murder or self defense.
I can not think of any real world moral judgement that you can make without facts.
I will be happy to debate morality with you hypothetically, but ultimately applying theory requires facts.
I agree with Max on this:
Libertarian Dave-John, where do you fit in on this pie chart?
https://www.isidewith.com/poll/1861919956/339382531
I oppose the use of eminent Domain – probably even to build a wall.
Though I would note two things that:
Libertarians are near universally opposed to ED – or at most support very limited ED.
Conservatives are not nearly so well defined on the issue.
Opposition to ED is a core value for SOME conservatives.
Next for those who generally oppose ED but do support it for some critical purposes, “The Wall” would likely qualify.
Using ED to build a pipeline – NOPE.
Using ED to build a football stadium – Nope.
Using ED to build a highway – – probably not.
Using ED to build a border wall – that would fit into legitimate for even many libertarians, and most conservative – It is a legitimate function of government.
Last – I think you will find that ED is not necescary to build the wall.
People owning land along the border have long ago lost effective use of it, and CBP and illegals are already roaming freely accross their land.
Do Texans want that wall – over 600 miles of it along the Tex-Mex border…?
They oppose it:
https://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/Poll-Texas-voters-oppose-border-walll-12847966.php
Your poll is almost a year old.
Your poll has Ted and Beto in a dead heat.
Cruz Beat Beto by 3 pts despite Beto outspending him 2:1.
Government should NEVER be allowed to seize the property of one person and give it to another – even for a purported public purpose – See Kelo, wrongly decided.
There are extremely rare instances where government can seize private property for a compelling public purpose with appropriate compensation. But those are EXTREMELY RARE. In general if the govenrment wants something it should buy it from a willing seller just like everyone else.
Well it is going to be interesting.
Dems block funding for border wall barrier.
Government shut down
Compromise negotiations bring nothing
Trump decides to use National Emergency
Government reopened
Trump supporters happy.
Trump delivers on promise
Dems sad
Dems find individuals harmed by action
Courts stay Nat Emer. action
Dems happy
Trump supporters blame court
Border not secure, DACA not solved, nothing changes
Congress did not need to put their vote on record
Both win since their bases are happy with actions taken and courts are the bad guys.
“Trump decides to use National Emergency”
You mean he decides to lie about a non-existent National Emergency.
Are you OK with that?
If so, you gonna be OK when the next Dem President declares a National Emergency to institute drastic measures for climate control because of adverse weather forecasts?
“Are you OK with that?”
No!!!!!!
Did I say that???? No! I was playing out the political shit thats going on.
I have said for years congress has given the president powers that never should be there and the chickens are coming home to roost.
ALL presidential powers should be terminated immediately if NOT SPECIFICALLY written in the constitution. Then each power needs to be reviewed and approved for a period not exceeding 5 years if found to be needed. Or rewritten if needed not to exceed 5 years ,then reviewed and reapproved.
TO MANY PEOPLE TRUST GOVERNMENT! I DONT!! Now you might see why!!!!!
Would you favor an Amendment that limited the kinds of guns and ammo a civilian could possess?
That is an open ended question, so I give a qualified answer.
Yes, I would support the process to amend the constitution.
As for the details, I cant answer that.as they types of weapons and armament are not provided.
“Would you favor an Amendment that limited the kinds of guns and ammo a civilian could possess?”
No.
but that is the wrong question.
You are free today to attempt to pass such and amendment, and if you do it becomes part of the constitution – whether I like it or not.
BTW – you would not amend the constitution to ban specific guns and ammunition. You would amend the constitution to allow legislation to ban specific guns and ammunition.
I would greatly prefer that when you are going to infringe on individual rights and/or expand the power of government you would go through the process of amending the constitution to do so.
“BTW – you would not amend the constitution to ban specific guns and ammunition. You would amend the constitution to allow legislation to ban specific guns and ammunition.”
If the 26th amendment states the right to vote will not be infringed if the voter is 18 or over, then why could the amendment not specify that owning guns that meet the certain criteria would not be infringec.
JAY…As I said earlier, I would need specifics. I would still support the process if an amendment wss proposed, but there would be NO WAY I would support if it was what Dave wrote. I would be nuts to give government a blank check on gun control.
I do not know what will actually happen, and there are some indications that democrats are going to allow Trump to declare a national emergency as a means to giving him what he wants without having to vote for it.
I am opposed to that – It seems pretty clear to me the national emergency powers of the president do not involve spending money not allocated by congress.
I am also opposed to it because though I strongly support Trump narrowing the powers of the president. I oppose his expanding them.
Just to be clear – the fundimental question is not whether there is a national emergency – there is more than sufficient basis for that.
The relevant issues is whether the emergency allows unilateral action that has long term effects by the president without authorization by congress.
I think it is reasonable to conclude that our immigration policy has been a disasterous unsustainable mess for decades. that it is as damaging as the Steel Strike in the midst of the Korean war.
But the emergency is NOT such that congress is unable to act.
I do not think the president should ever have the power to unilaterally act in circumstances where the time and oportunity for congress to act exists.
I would say the same thing regarding the courts
Roberts as an example was wrong to uphold PPACA – he was wrong because the mandate was not passed as a tax.
SCOTUS is not empowered to legislate – to fix an unconstitutional choice of congress. We still had a house and senate at the time.
SCOTUS could have found PPACA properly unconstitutional and left congress to determine if they wanted to fix it.
It is not POTUS or SCOTUS’s role to act unilaterally – even if congress wont.
Dave-John, I admit you are right, claiming Trump is keeping him campaigning promise, to run the government as he ran his businesses
Trump Airlines…Shutdown 🚫
Trump University…Shutdown🚫
Trump Casino…Shutdown 🚫
Businesses that do not succeed should fail and be shutdown.
Government programs that do not succeed should fail and be shutdown.
Alot of what Trump is doing is shutting down failure – I have no problem with that.
As to your various Trump failures – the average entrepeneur fails seven times before they succeed. The current life of a fortune 500 company is just over 15 years.
Businesses succeed and they fail, Often they succeed for a long time before failing.
It is natural. there is nothing wrong with it. During their success many many people benefit – clients, employees, shareholders. When they ultimately fail and most businesses do ultimately fail, it is the shareholders who take the loss.
Waiting for Trump tonight to truthfully acknowledge more criminals enter the country thru airports than the border, and for him to call for walls around airports. Hopefully they’ll be beautiful too
Aside from being factually incorrect, your observation is irrelevant.
If wear causes flat tires and debris on the road causes flat tires,
and more flats are due to wear – should we not clear debris ?
You are offering a red herring – and a straw man.
I am near certain Trump would be happy to beef up immigration controls at airports – and in a way that is precisely what the Executive Order that you ranted about did.
It required more extensive vetting by State and foreign countries of people seeking to come to the US from countries with high rates of terrorism and poor records.
So not only are you beating a straw man – but you are doing so badly.
Trump is not SOLELY after a wall. He is after better immigration control broadly.
His so called “muslim ban” is a completely different means of reducing the number of people who get in illegally.
I would further guess that your airport claim is false – because it is misstated.
The large number of “illegal immigrants” who overstay their visa’s entered LEGALLY.
They were never going to be stopped at the airports. They came with a valid VISA.
They became illegal when they remained past when their visa expired.
They did not become “criminals” at the airport.
I do not entirely agree with Trump on immigration.
But spraying idiotic false facts and hysteria does not advance anything.
And honestly – compared to the media and the left and to you Trump is a font of Truth.
https://www.nysun.com/national/how-trump-confounds-the-fact-checkers/90528/
I really do not care much what Trump says.
But there are clues that a deal is brewing – presuming that Manchin’s remarks reflect more than one democrat.
My guess is there is. The structure of the shutdown is such that it harms democrats – most of us have not noticed.
We get this hysterical stories that airports security is somehow going to hell – when air travel could be 10 times less safe and still be safer than cars.
Or that 250,000 veterans are not being paid – which is false.
Regardless several things are at play.
First the news is nearly all about the Shutdown and Trump.
Second – the majority of people really do not care much and are not being effected.
Third most of those harmed are democrats. And infact there is a great danger to the left if Trump successfully drags this out for a long long time. Furloughed workers as well as workers who are not being paid but must work who give up and accept private employment ARE NOT LIKELY COMING BACK. And that is actually a very good thing for everyone – except democrats.
Almost everyone apoplectic over the shutdown did not and will not ever vote for Trump.
There is likely a great deal of pressure to end the shutdown at the moment – BY DEMOCRATS ON DEMOCRATS. At a minimum all those federal workers.
Trump does not care much that they are steamed – as I said they were not ever voting for him. But Schumer and company DO CARE.
Fourth democrats planned the early january news cycle to be about the new democratic house. It was supposed to be about the democratic agenda. They were supposed to start doing things ASAP. Thus far their have either made fools of themselves or been completely overshaddowed by the shutdown. Regardless, they have not had their corronation, and their truimphant returun to power. The change has been barely noticed.
Any agenda has been side tracked. And Again the message that the democratic party is nothing more than the “anti-trump” party has been greatly re-inforced – by democrats.
BTW I sort of liked Manchin’s proposal – though I would go farther.
He wants to see the 2013 immigration bill that passed the house to get a vote in the senate.
As a condition for providing funding for the wall.
There are innumerable immigration bills that have died because they could not get a vote in the senate.
Mostly I favor the 60 vote rule in the senate – as a means of slowing the growth of government.
But there are possibly better approaches.
The first BIG DEAL would be assuring that all provisions of all bills are germain.
I do not know how to do it. Such rules already exist but are not enforced.
But if legislation was limited to germain provisions – that would put a serious crimp on log rolling and other forms of legislative mashup – where support for a bill is acquired by adding enough pork to get congressment to vote for something that stinks because enough of it is good for them. This is a bigger problem in the senate because there are fewer senators.
I would also like to see a line item veto – that would require a constitutional amendment.
But the ability of the president to strike individual lines from legislation – might be the most effective means to resisting log rolling and pork
Next there should be a pretty free amendment process – in the house and senate.
It should be much easier for congressmen to get a vote on amendments to bills.
While amendments are a means to expand a bill they are also a means to constrain it.
Regardless if an amendment can get a majority of votes – that provision should be come part of the legislation.
Dave. I have not been hearing this.
“There is likely a great deal of pressure to end the shutdown at the moment – BY DEMOCRATS ON DEMOCRATS. ”
Please provide where this came from so I can read…Thanks
words of wisdom from Dave-John:
“the majority of people really do not care much and are not being effected”
OK, we’ll wait until 150 million Americans are hurting… thanks for clearing that up…
And Dave-John’s right: fuck those 800,000 federal employers missing paychecks, let them find work elsewhere, even though most have spouses and/or children to feed and house during the job search. Serves them right for not heeding people like D-J to keep their snouts out of the government trough
A new place for “moderates” (I use that to thwart quibblers) to get some more quality opinions.
https://thebulwark.com/
Thanks for the link.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trumps-border-wall-every-congressperson-along-southern-border-opposes-border-wall-funding-2019-1-8/
“Rep. Will Hurd, a Texas Republican who represents more of the southern border than any other member of Congress, was one of a handful of Republicans to side with Democrats last week on the funding bill.”
Over 800 miles of border in his district.
Why would he do this?
https://apnews.com/608b9fcbca5941348e2ac8796e94c8cd
Manafort is 100% sleaze, he is his creature not Trump’s. Trump just likes this type- kindred souls. Manafort has been doing this kind of dealing in information and deals for years. He MAY be a lone wolf.
Manafort is a sleaze – as is AxelRod, the Podesta’s. Plouffe, Rove, …..
And pretty much every politician on the planet associates with them
Manafort is most definitely NOT a lone wolf.
So manafort MIGHT have shared data with an american who MIGHT have ties to RUSSIA.
The Data may or may not be public data.
When you have something of substance – get back to me.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shutdown-poll-idUSKCN1P223U
I don’t know why it is taking so long for Trump to pull the “Emergency” brake end the shutdown, and then declare victory as he would be saving all those “people being harmed by the Dems.
So it goes to court, win or lose he gains time and can still negotiate a deal with, by now, the worn down and pragmatic Dems. DACA still looks like a good bargaining chip to me along with sophisticated barriers (anti-tunnel detectors) a nice perk for some defense contractors,
oh and a dose of compromise.
If you support trading DACA and/or pretty much anything for “the wall”, then why are you blaming all this on Trump ?
Trump has said the Wall in some form is not negotiable – but everything else is.
The Wall for DACA deal was in the table in March – Schumer accepted and then renigged.
After reading numerous oppions regarding whether Trump can build the wall by declaring an emergency – I think Turley is correct.
I do not agree with doing so – but congress has clearly delegated that authority to Trump.
It should rescind it. but it has not. Many Obama EO’s that I find distastefull relied on congress delegating authority.
I do not beleive congress can constitutionally delegate its authority.
I would be happy to see the courts decide that. but it is not happeneing.
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/424314-yes-trump-has-authority-to-declare-national-emergency-for-border-wall
The 2018 election effectively put an end to the delusion that nobody cares about Trump’s nonsenses.
All kinds of people from every ideology except perhaps libertarian understand that it’s wrong to cut off the paychecks to workers over a political fight. Perhaps people who have a blind hatred of government think it’s cool, the rest of us understand it’s wrong, cruel, unfair.
Roby, I feel sorry for anyone caught in this mess. But we have two opposing views that neither party is willing to budge. When one says they will not negotiate the primary issue until the government is opened and the other holds that all negotiating leverage is lost if they do that, then I hold the blame is 50-50.
The other issue is the fact the number #1 issue in the funding of government was Mitch and Ryan waiting until the last minute to fund this part of government, then tried to do a stop gap measure to February to reopen. Kick the can and then face the same problem, hopeing it miraculously disappears.
At some point, our immigration problems need to be solved. Democrat leaders do not want this solved. Many Republican leaders do not want it solved.
If this fails, then I think they need to terminate ICE, eliminate border patrol, open all roads into the country and let anyone and everyone in.
Why keep playing this idiotic game with “catch me if you can”. There is no gray area. This one is black and white. You either do everything you can to secure the border or open it completely. What we do now is not working.
And it is because both parties have an election issue they can use to generate votes. WHY CHANGE THAT?!!!
“then I hold the blame is 50-50“
Ron, bank robbers have taken hostages inside a bank after cops have surrounded them. They demand to be provided a safe escape or they won’t release the hostages.
If the cops refuse are they 50% responsible?
Trump INITIATED the shutdown, refusing to sign a bipartisan bill.
The bawling baby buffoon is 99.99% to blame.
Jay, show me documentation that the senate passed $5B for wall funding. I can not find that. I find a number of articles where some form of funding was discussed, but not $5B.
And dont use a life threatening hostage situation as an example. Government workers HAVE NOT missed a check yet!!!! No one has starved to death.
When Trump goes to a meeting, sits down, asked ” are you willing to include funding for a wall in an agreement” , Pelosi says “No”, Trump get up and says,” then we dont have anything to discuss” and leaves and the Shumer describes this as a temper tantrum, then you can clearly see the problem, ( or at least I can).
The issue IS THE WALL! Why be there if it is not going to be discussed?
Ron
The US and other countries have spent a fortune on foreign aide – and it has failed.
Over 1T was spent on Africa in the past 50 years – and in most places conditions are worse.
As most of the world has improved Those places we have given aide have stagnated.
China went from greater poverty that africa – the largest mass starvation in history was during “the great leap forward”, to a first world nation.
I am not opposed to people giving Aide to other people.
I am vehemently opposed to countries giving aide to other countries.
It is at best waste and often makes things worse.
We have seen one thing that does work – The immigrants gathered at our southern border are NOT mexican.
NAFTA has raised the standard of living in Mexico sufficiently that illegal mexican immigration is just a trickle.
Roby, this is not a rhetorical question. I have tried to come up with a solution.
How do you pay employees when probably 60-70% of cost is salary and not give up negotiating power.
Right now both parties have their hecks on the chopping block and neither is moving.
There is no right to a paycheck.
The free market means trading value for value.
It is not an entitlement.
I have small sympathy for those who are working without getting paid.
Though congress can fix that and they can quit and go elsewhere.
I have zero sympathy for those sitting at home who we all know will eventually get paid for not working.
Anne coulture is of course feeling very proud. Government by the influence of a racist right wing windbag on an unfit POTUS. That has to fail.
This is not about Colture. While I am not a big colture fan – I trust her far more than you.
Which is not very much.
More of this “Trump is a racist” garbage.
He probably is – about as much as you and I.
Everything is not about race.
The fraction of immigrants that are white is miniscule.
To the extent the immigration fight is about race it is about whether we admit more brown people then yellow people.
But the real issue is how many people do we admit – not specifically who.
I am prepared to allow almost anyone who wants to come here in.
Contingent on changing the rest of our laws so that is sustainable.
That FEMA money includes funds to help the now suffering fire victims to survive, many still living in shelters on donated clothing and food. And BTW, that Northern CA fire location voted for Trump.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/09/donald-trump-fema-california-wildfires/2523581002/
Lets really solve the problem
Shut down FEMA.
Sell nearly all federal lands or give them to the state they are in.
The constitution severely restricts the right of the federal government to own land within a state. It may do so where that use is necessary and proper for the exercise of an enumerated power. For the first 100 years of our existance the federal government acted to dispose of nearly all its federal land holdings. That is why there is severly limited federal land holdings in the east and midwest.
I would note that we also do not have these massive “forest fires” in the east and midwest.
The problems in California are very specific to California – we do not have them in Oregon or Washington. Even the large forest fires that occur in the rocky mountain regions occasionally – and are a direct consequence of over a century of forest mismanagement, are different from those in CA. Dealing with Forest Fires in CA should be a CA problem.
We have a two processes for socializing the cost of natural disasters – charity and insurance.
The Chicago Fire, the San Francisco earthquake and fire, the Johnstown flood and innumerable other substantial natural disasters were dealt with entirely and rapidly without federal involvement primarly through charity and insurance. Even fire departments in places like NYC were private organizations operated by insurance companies for much of US history. In my area nearly all fire departments are volunteer organizations – they solicit funds each year – and most people donate.
Dealing with natural disasters is not a constitutionally enumerated federal power. Frankly it is not even a legitimate state power.
Shifting natural disaster costs to government encourages recklessness.
That is essentially what Trump is arguing – though less eloquently.
We spent hundreds of billions on Katrina – and got almost nothing for it. We spent enormous amounts on Sandy – which was not even a huricane by the time it hit land.
Federal Natural disaster funding is just a form of political graft.
It is easy for politicians to vote for, and handled nearly unaccountably and wastefully.
Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson pioneered activist government – claiming that a more powerful federal government was a necesity in the industrial era – to regulate things such as drugs, food safety, labor conditions.
Harding and Coolidge brought about a “return to normalicy” after Wilson.
While Harding was corrupt he was short lived and Coolidge was the model of rectitude.
He had a more minimalist approach to government than Trump, Possibly even than Gary Johnson, while being exactly what everyone left and right today claim they want regarding Character.
FEMA or its precursor was created in 1928 after the 1927 Mississippi floods – a disaster roughly equivalent to Katrina.
Coolidge called the emerging legislation “the most radical and dangerous bill that has had the countenance of the Congress since I have been president.”
He did everything in his power to limit the scope and the duration of the emergency legislation, which still endup larded up with bailouts for banks and railroads.
He used all his authority as president to narrow the scope of the legislation as much as possible, and though he ultimately singed the legislation, he did so privately with no public fan fare, He thought is was a horrible idea – and it was.
From 1928 on we have come to rely on the federal govenrment in the event of most any disaster – even beyond natural disasters. From the inception of federal disaster relief the primary beneficiaries are ALWAYS special interests.
Federal involvement discourages charity, it discourages responsible behavior – by individuals, and by state and local govenrments, it discourages insurance.
All in all it is a collasal mistake. One for which the evidence is readily available and compelling.
Go visit new orleans today and see what hundreds of billions of federal aide has done .
Almost nothing.
In the real world recovery from natural disasters is almost entirely accomplished by ordinary people – usually by the victims of the disaster, Outside money – particularly unaccountable federal money does not help. If anything it makes things worse.
In a perfect world what would happen here is that intelligent capable citizens would be prompted to educate themselves on all the subtlties and nuances of this issue and people would be more able to tell shit from shinola. In a better world we would start to throw out the simplistic answers and start looking for ways to influence the root causes. Mexico is on the verge of being a failed state the conditions in Honduras, Guatamala, El Salvador, are hellish, especially for young women. That is at the root of this. That is where people should look for game changing answers.
The party bases do live simple caricatures of this and many other problems, so we are stuck in limbo. Honestly, democracies suck at working out complex issues like this, politics is all about fear and instant gratification.
That was a reply to your reply Ron, but the CIA unfortunately has hacked WordPress and is disrupting attempts to converse. (Dark humor alert).
No Roby, it is a consequence of the shutdown, the electrons moving that make the internet possible requires the US government constant monitoring or things go haywire.
Didn’t you know that DIA – is department of internet adjusment and CIA is constant internet adjustment and FEC is fiddle with electronic communications.
Mexico has alot of problems, but it does not appear to be on the verge of failing as a state – evidenced by the fact that very few mexicans are caught up in illegal immigration.
I am not looking to downplay mexico’s significant problems but she is not doing nearly so bad as the rest of central america and many parts of south america.
I would further suggest that you heed your own advice – or that of George Washington.
The entire purpose of the wall is to change the terms of immigration.
Absent a wall – whoever wants can enter the US. We get to decide who and how to throw out after the fact.
With a wall rather than dealing with them after the fact, we have greater ability to prevent them for crossing – and we are not responsible until they do.
God only knows where the CIA (or is it Russian hackers?) Will move my answer to you Ron, but my best answer to your non rhetorical question is that shutting down the government is a morally wrong way of negotiating, no matter which side does it. This is not the way to negotiate.
Get moderates to vote in primaries, the we may get to a more intelligent political problem solving.
Roby, if you me or others here decided to negotiate this issue, our trust of each other would probably allow us to open the government because I would expect you, or anyone else here, to be open to different ideas and solutions. I suspect we could work out something to solve the problems.
However, If I made that decision to meet with the government open and others came dug in without any room for negotiating, the next time something came up, I would not back down. You could only screw over me once.
That is where we are today. There is no way in hell anyone can or should trust Pelosi or Shumer. They have been there long enough for anyone with 1\2 a brain cell to know you can not trust anything they say.
If the parties want this fixed, pick two moderates from the house and senate from each party and let them rewrite immigration. Then see if it would pass, and if so, let Trump veto or sign.
But right now I would not reopen because the Dems will say “thank you, we win” and march off into the sunset, never to be seen working on the problem until the next closure.
When you loose trust, working to fix anything is much more difficult.
Shutting down the Govt has caused MULTIPLE problems in addition to the border problem. The budget was approved by Dems & GOP. Reopen the Govt and THEN they can negotiate the border in good faith.
Republicans tried that Argument with Obama.
Most of the funding bills for the federal government were already passed – that is why this is only a partial shutdown.
There are several left that have nothing to do with the wall – Congress can pass those too and minimize the impact of the shutdown.
Democrats have NEVER negotiated in good faith on the wall.
BTW the Wall is “budgeted” it has been for decades, It was approved by congress in 1986 and remains by law approved. It is not Funded, something democrats agreed to in 1986 and then renigged and have been renigging every year since.
Jay,
The shutdown has not caused any problems of consequence.
In fact it has demonstrated that a great deal of the federal govenrment does nothing of value.
Something Calvin Coolidge noted 100 years ago, and is still true today.
We spend near 1/4 of GDP on something that does almost nothing.
It is the CIA in league with Russian hackers.
Unless it is Russian hackers in league with the CIA.
If trump wanted a wall what he needed to do was behave like a decent ant intelligent morally responsible leader for the past two years. Then he would have won the 2018 election. Instead we know how he behaved and how badly he lost the House. So, he has lost the fight to dictate his answers.
Reagan wanted a wall – and democrats agreed. Every republican since has promised a wall.
The closest to any success was Bush who got a ‘fence”
Democrats have been claiming to want a wall for 40 years.
There is hours of video.
Schumer agreed to the grand bargain in March – wall for DACA – and then reniged.
Republicans clearly lost the house – why remains debateable.
Republicans also did better than expected in the Senate.
The Senate is where Republicans have been delivering on Trump’s promises.
I do not know what 2018 means regarding Trump – I do not think you do either.
I am not sure anyone does.
He is not dictating answers – he is attempting to keep a campaign promise.
Just as Obama did.
There is little consequential difference – except that you liked Obama’s promise and do not like Trump’s. That and Trump’s demand is arguably constitutional, and Obama’s was not.
Your claim is garbage.
If Trump wanted a wall he needed to get elected president running on a platform to build a wall that his voters expected him to keep.
One party wanted the wall, but they were not able to manage it when they controlled the presidency, the house, and the Senate. So, they are in no position to get it now, after being repudiated as a party and losing the house. Democracy should not be about forcing solutions that a majority oppose by shutting down the government until they force their answer on us. And, you may remember that I have said it was tragic that Dems in their hubris forced Obamacare on acountry that did not support it.
Roby, this is a difficult subject to understand. Over many years, the USA has spent trillions for foreign aide and many more milli ons from private not for profit charities for improving conditions in f oreign countries.
What I have said before is we need to help improve conditions in countries south of us. I hear about organizations helping African countries, or Haiti, but I never hear about anything where we do much for hispanic countries south of us.
If you have a cancer growing close, why not help eliminate it before it spreads further. I dont support boots on the ground, but I think one could look at Columbia to see what could happen. Not everything is eradicated in Columbia, but conditions are greatly.improved.
With the right leadership, which I dont see from any party or politician now, those same improvements could happen in central America.
We are on the same page on this part of the situation Ron.
Trump Shutdown In Operation:
“The ongoing federal government shutdown has stopped most food safety inspections, but the FDA is planning to resume at least some of them.
To do it, the agency will have to force furloughed workers to come back without pay.
This means FDA inspectors are not looking for salmonella in breakfast cereal, E. coli in romaine lettuce, or listeria in ice cream. Companies can still make their own checks, of course, and the FDA is still announcing those recalls.
That’s from NBCNEWS
So ? Why does it matter that is is from NBC ?
To the extent it matters at all it makes the claim LESS credible.
“This means FDA inspectors are not looking for salmonella in breakfast cereal, E. coli in romaine lettuce, or listeria in ice cream. Companies can still make their own checks, of course, ”
Hmm, Do you think General Mills or McDonald’s are going to decide to poison there customers while the FDA is away ?
BTW when is the last time you saw an FDA inspector at a McDonalds ?
Do you really think that the FDA has any consequential effect on food safety ?
The real threat is that we furlough all these workers and NOTHING BAD HAPPENS.
That is probably overstating it. NOTHING UNUSUAL HAPPENS.
Something bad happens everyday – and it will continue to do so – whether the FDA is up and running or not.
One Party wanted the wall ?
The House and Senate Republicans shutdown government in order to preclude Obama from getting funding for PPACA and FAILED.
You are arguing spin. Trump may get what he wants. He may not.
“Democracy should not be about forcing solutions that a majority oppose by shutting down the government until they force their answer on us.”
Possibly – but we are not a democracy.
Further precisely what you describe happens all the time.
A majority of people opposed PPACA when it was passed.
I can name inumerable things hat a majority of people opposed that the left wanted that have happened. Most of which ARE actually morally wrong.
BTW I will be happy go with government may never ACT – i.e. increases its power, or do something that does not at the time have the support of 51% of the people.
In fact I would say government may not act if as few as 15% vigorously oppose.
BTW there is a reciprocal to that – any government law or policy that does not MAINTAIN the support of the people may/should be repealed.
Agree to that and we can get rid of 2/3 of government.
One of the problems with one party or the other breaching norms – is that you do not get to go back.
Clinton normalized the concept that character does not matter as president.
You and I may disagree – but even social conservatives begrudgingly bought that.
You can call them hypocrits – but people living in glass houses should not throw stones.
Democrats invoked the nuclear option in the senate.
The consequences is that they have no voice to stop Trump appointing federalist judges.
While I like Trump’s judicial appointments, I would prefer the status quo before democrats went nuclear. We are not getting that back.
Obama normalized the concept that the house alone or the house and senate together are NOT sufficient to limit spending on something the president wants.
You can not go back.
Trump may be bluffing with his state of emergency threat – Trump does bluff, but he is not someone who it is wise to call his bluff.
Lots of people are certain how this will play out. I am uninclinded to make predictions.
As someone else pointed out – Democrats forced Bush I to back peddle on his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge and it cost him the next election.
I think Schumer, Pelosi, Trump, and republicans are very cognizant of that.
My instincts say that Trump is highly unlikely to back down.
Further the shutdown has already cost much more than the wall.
The left has no moral high ground on this issue as every single substantial democrat has endorsed the wall in the past.
Further to make a moral argument – you have to actually make the argument not just assert it. And democrats will not do that – if the Wall is immoral – that is tatamount to saying anything less than open borders is immoral.
Dave-John, I bet you would have picked the ‘under’…
https://www.actionnetwork.com/politics/president-trump-lies-prop-bets-sportsbook-big-losses
There is no way on the planet I would take a bet conditioned on an evaluation by the WaPo fact checker. Any conclusion by WaPo is at best random. and at worst politically biased.
But if I were to bet based on WaPo – I would bet for way over – not based on what Trump would say – but what WaPo would claim.
Whatever Trump’s problems with credibility those of the press and particularly “fact checkers”
is worse.
Real Clear Investigations has been doing multiple stories on the state of fact checking, and those stories are pretty damning.
Fact checkers do not follow what few standards they have, do not generally make public their standards and get the actual facts sufficiently wrong as to make them useless.
ONE – just one of their big problems is confusing headlines with articles.
They will frequently rate a story as true – even if the headline is blatantly false, or the story as false because only the headline is false, and they do so in a blatantly political fashion.
Regardless, fact checkers serve no purpose.
We live in the internet era. If you do not trust others – and therefore need fact checkers – why would you trust fact checkers ?
Good article on fact checking.
Aparently the assorted fact checkers attacking Trump’s recent speach had to pull many of their own fact checks – because their own newpapers had reported the same facts Trump had asserted and they were calling false.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/10/january-2019-when-media-fact-checkers-finally-jump/
BorderFence Past Problems
We’ve already built 600 miles of fencing, completed in 2015 along the southwest border from California to Texas. It was made up of 299 miles of vehicle barriers and 350 miles of pedestrian fence, including steel fences varying in height between 18 and 26 feet at border towns.
“A 2017 (GAO) report, citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, found that from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2015, the U.S.-Mexico border fence had been breached 9,287 times, at an average cost of $784 per breach to repair.[14] The same GAO report concluded that “CBP cannot measure the contribution of fencing to border security operations along the southwest border because it has not developed metrics for this assessment.”[12] GAO noted that because the government lacked such data, it was unable to assess the effectiveness of border fencing, and therefore could not “identify the cost effectiveness of border fencing compared to other assets the agency deploys, including Border Patrol agents and various surveillance technologies.”[15]
The fence is routinely climbed or otherwise circumvented.[9] The GAO reported in 2017 that both pedestrian and vehicle barriers have been defeated by various methods, including using ramps to drive vehicles “up and over” vehicle fencing in the sector; scaling, jumping over, or breaching pedestrian fencing; burrowing or tunneling underground; and even using small aircraft.[16] /New York Times/ op-ed writer Lawrence Downes wrote in 2013: “A climber with a rope can hop it in less than half a minute. … Smugglers with jackhammers tunnel under it. They throw drugs and rocks over it. The fence is breached not just by sunlight and shadows, but also the hooded gaze of drug-cartel lookouts, and by bullets. Border agents describe their job as an unending battle of wits, a cat-mouse game with the constant threat of violence.”[9][17]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_2006
We have this “lacked data” stupidity all the time.
The CA to Mexico border has been significantly upgraded since 2006.
Illegal immigration into SD and CA over the CA border has dwindled to a trickle.
This is the same stupid claim offered regarding voter ID.
The fact is we know that in many districts more people have voted than are registered.
There is no doubt there is fraud. The only question is who committed that fraud.
Voter Fraud is nearly impossible to prosecute – because you have to prove that a person who gave no identity claimed to be someone else and voted.
You really think people are building ramps and driving a vehicle “up and over”
Have you ever dropped 18′ ? The odds of dropping 18’ft without a serious injury are near zero. The odds of dropping 30′ are zero.
Try dropping a car or truck 18′
If what you say is occuring it is NOT occuring where the “wall” is 18=30 ft.
Regardless, all you are doing is making a compelling argument for a 30′ concrete barrier.
That said I will agree with you that no physical barrier is impenatrable.
But it takes a great deal of time to circumvent an 18′ steel barrier and orders of magnitude more to circumvent a 30′ concrete barrier.
Increasing the TIME is the entire point of the barrier.
If it take 20min per person to cross few if any will get accross before CBP arrives.
“The fence is breached not just by sunlight and shadows, but also the hooded gaze of drug-cartel lookouts, and by bullets. Border agents describe their job as an unending battle of wits, a cat-mouse game with the constant threat of violence.”
And yet we keep hearing there is no crisis or justification for the wall.
WHILE you are claiming that the border is a very dangerous place that is controlled by violent people.
Make up your mind.
Did no one ever teach you logic ?
When your own argument contradict themselves – you have zero credibility.
It’s immoral to make government employees suffer for political gain, as Trump has done. And please no BS about others have done it before. Multiple wrongs don’t make it right.
Now the Coast Guard is about lose their pay – this month they were paid with reserve funds, but it was one time only. They’ll soon be fucked like others not getting paid.
But not to worry, they have been advised on ways to get by during Trump’s shutdown:
“Employees of the U.S. Coast Guard who are facing a long U.S. government shutdown just received a suggestion: To get by without pay, consider holding a garage sale, babysitting, dog-walking or serving as a “mystery shopper.””
Maybe Trump can toss them paper towels or toilet paper on his next visit.
Anothef Bush43 idoitic signed legislation. Who the hell thought it a good idea putting the CG in DHS hands. They are military and should be DOD!
But Trump can easily change this problem by E.O.
“The U.S. Coast Guard reports directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security. However, under 14 U.S.C. § 3 as amended by section 211 of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2006, upon the declaration of war and when Congress so directs in the declaration, or when the President directs, the Coast Guard operates under the Department of Defense as a service in the Department of the Navy.”
So someone needs to tell him this!
We actually need ICE and CBP. We do not need most of DHS.
“But Trump can easily change this problem by E.O.”
Huh? I thought you were against EOs?
I am against E.O’s when the law does not spcifically state what a president can or cant do. For instance, Obama’s legal team sorted through legal documents and found missing informatio or hazy information to circumvent laws. In Jan 2016, Obama issued an EO concerning gun control after loopholes in current laws were found or missing informstion was identified. That is what I disagree with and that process is used WAY TOO OFTEN!
The legislation I quote specifically allows the president to shift the CG to the DOD!
The President would be following congressional directives, not acting unilaterally like a distator!
A distator! That’s a great neologism for Trump, Ron: Disasterous Dictator!
As to EOs not already specified in law, I guess you would have frowned upon President Abraham Lincoln when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation In 1863 – the most famous EO.
Jay you are going off the deep end. Lincoln had powers provided by the president’s authority to suppress rebellion (war powers) within the constitution and this was used in the southern states only. If this was today, it would come under the national emergency act from the late 70’s.in addition to constitutional authority.
The Proclamation was issued under authority granted by the constitution based on him being Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution. He based his decision on his power to free persons held as slaves in those states that were in rebellion as a war measure for suppressing the civil war . If this was today, that proclamation would have covered the four slave-holding states that were not in rebellion: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. Those states were not named in the Proclamation since he did not have constitutional authority.
THE DIFFERENCE IS CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY AND SPECIFIC LANGUAGE CONTAINED WITHIN!!!
Show me one EO that Obama issued where language specific to that EO was in the constitution and where articles were quoted as support like ones that can be used and were used in the A.P. by Lincoln.
Let’s not quibble, Ron – you may be right, but many historians attach an executive order tag to it.
Here’s just one from Wikipedia: “The Emancipation Proclamation, or Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and EXECUTIVE ORDER issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863” (My CAPS).
Yes, the Constitution did give Lincoln power to repress rebellion as Commander in Chief, but
It didn’t specify how he was to do that. His Proclamation née executive order was made on his own ‘sincerely believed’ opinion it was an ‘act of justice, warranted by the Constitution.’
Or so he said. His earlier thoughts on slavery are a little murky. But in deference to your superior historical credentials I will henceforth refrain from describing the Proclamation as an EO, unless that is Trump issues his own Wall-Fence-Moat Proclamation.
.
Jay, not sure exactly what I wrote and it is way too hard to find something on wordpress after 100 or so comments.
If I did not state it, yes, I agree it was an E.O.
and I dont object to EO’S that the president has clear authorization to issue. The Amancipation Proc. was what that should be used for. Trump has clear authorization to move the Coast Guard to D.O.D. so they can get paid.
And in many cases, my objections are not even directed toward presidential E.O.s. They are directed toward ” as determined by the secretary if XXX” which gives that department unlimited powers until the next secretary come in ( like the mileage standards the EPA issued a few years ago that were reversed by Trumps EPA) How does any company plan with 4 year or less rules in place?
I worked in a profession that was filled with “gray words” that left too much for interpretation. So we paid huge amounts over my career to consultants who made large salaries to tell us what they thought was legal or fraud. And even then, many providers were fined for what the government decided was fraud when the division of health and human resources interpreted congressional words different than providers.
So when it comes to legislation, I am black and white. And few words at that because the more words, the more interpretation.
That is what makes our constitution so unique.
We theoretically agree on a lot of issues, Ron; the few we differ on seem to be causing the most smoke.
And that smoke might linger for awhile since it is being created by two trust issues.
1. Your total dislike and distrust of Trump
2. My dislike and distrust of government.
I’m not sure we may be able to rectify those differences.
By the way, I have no problem with Trump transferring the CG as you suggest
Not getting paid for not working is not immoral.
Nor is anything they are experiencing “pain”.
Regardless, like every other employee in the country they are and were free to seek other employment before, now, and later.
Frankly I hope a very large number of them do.
That would be fantastic for the country.
Removing them from jobs that have a double negative impact on average standard og living and shifting them to productive jobs where they will raise standard of living for themselves and everyone else.
The employment of people at the public expense in jobs that are not productive and are not necescary to protect the actual liberty of others – that would be immoral.
Firing people for an indefinite period without cause is immoral.
Stopping or limiting public service to citizens for political advantage is unconscionable.
Defending it is self centered nitwitism.
Congress is free to explicitly fund parts of the government such as the coast guard any time they want. I have zero doubt Trump will sign narrow bills that fund specific parts of the government like the coast guard.
Separately – I would be very careful about these claims that X is not funded.
75-80% of the government is funded. Most of the stories about things that are not funded right now have either been outright lies or radically incorrect misrepresentations.
BTW it appears this is the only shutdown ever where congress did NOT pass an emergency supliment to cover the military and coast guard – so Blame Nancy, she can fix this anytime she wants.
While I have not made the “this has happened before” argument – specifically regarding the coast guard it has not – and that is congresses fault.
But why am I precluded from making that argument.
You claim this is immoral now – why was it not immoral then in the past ?
The fact is that to the extent there are moral issues at all – they favor the shutdown.
Regardless, if as you say “this time is different” the burden is on you to prove that.
“shutting down the government is a morally wrong way of negotiating, no matter which side does it. This is not the way to negotiate.”
Why is it morally wrong ?
We have had two years of “moral outrage” from the left – but not the slightest moral foundation for that “moral outrage”. Something is not immoral because you assert it is.
What is the basis for your assertion – how do you determine moral/immoral.
I have explained the principles that I use to measure morality – over and over again.
Those principles are nearly universally accepted – even by you, though you seem to think they only apply to individuals or that moral principles can be overcome by popular vote.
Which BTW they can not be and still remain principles, rather than merely values.
I have not merely presented those principles but demonstrated in numerous logical ways that morality itself is actually logically dependent on those principles – that you can not have morality without those principles. I have further pragnmatically democtrated that in the real world those principles work and the alternatives do not.
What you you done ?
For years I have begged and pleaded for your moral principles. On rare occasions you have fed me a few values – very rare occasions. But values are not principles.
Values are contextual and highly individual – values are incredibly subjective
Not only do values vary between individuals – they vary within an individual.
And that is fine, there is no contradiction, because they are only values.
Principles are immutable.
I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
Dave 95 percent of what you post is some variation of “there is no….” Your one trick does not interest me or have any effect on reality. You are simply a wordy denial machine. The number of things you have denied were happening that have come to pass in any case over the years is quite large.
ISTANBUL — President Trump’s muddled plan to withdraw the United States from Syria fell into further disarray on Tuesday after Turkey’s leader rebuffed Mr. Trump’s emissary, John R. Bolton, and angrily dismissed his demand that Turkey agree to protect America’s Kurdish allies.
“It was the latest, most vivid example of what has become a recurring motif in Mr. Trump’s idiosyncratic, leader-to-leader foreign policy: a senior American official humiliated by a foreign head of state who evidently calculated that he could extract a better deal by talking directly to Mr. Trump.
So ?
Yes, trump has done well in foreign policy by ignoring the state department.
Trump has just announced that if Turkey “hits” the Kurds, the US will “devastate” Turkey economically.
Though frankly I think we should stay out of the messes of other nations.
We are not obligated to right every wrong in the world.
I can not wait to here the response from the left.
Is Trump going to get it for threatening Turkey ?
Or are we going to hear the neo-con chorus that economic sanctions are not enough we must go to war ?
Yes, the NYT can make erroneous news, but at least they try to correct the record:
Here’s the Times‘ correction:
A previous version of this article misidentified the people to whom Paul Manafort wanted a Russian associate to send polling data. Mr. Manafort wanted the data sent to two Ukrainian oligarchs, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov, not Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin”
Can Fox or the WE do as well?
“Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!’
Just like any third world dictator would do to his political enemies.
Iowa GOP rep. Steve King, a guy effusively praised by trump and supported by trump as “a smart person who has the right opinions on almost everything” is quoted asking the NYT “when white supremacy somehow became a dirty word”. We will all wait for trump to have a presidential reaction. He would half to take time out from his busy schedule doing important thing so like threatening to axe disaster relief.
I can count on one libertarian here to say that King is an idiot who should not be in government. I can also count on our other libertarian to say that while he is not a big fan of king, Obama blah blah blah blah blah and liberals blah blah blah, and no one cares if king and trump defend right supremacy anyhow because the important thing that we all need to focus on is drowning government in the bathtub.
Roby, what scares me more is those like Stephany Murphy (FL) or Tim Scott (SC) becoming dinosaurs and the Trumps, Kings, Ocasio-Cortez or Ellisons becoming the “norm” and future of the parties.
How have the majority of Americans, moderate America, become the real silent.majority that no one cares about?
How has the parties been commandeered by the fringes of the parties?
Isnt this how many democratic countries fall to one extreme government or the other?
Trump won on “Make America Great Again” .
I think we need a campaign based on “Wake Up America”
Ron;
Let me ask you something about Trump.
You did not vote for him – neither did I. He did not make me any binding agreements. For an agreement to be binding – there must be consideration – in this instance, Trump makes a bunch of campaign promises, and people who care about those things chose to vote for him based on those promises.
Those of us who did NOT vote for him have little voice in this.
At best we get to decide if we will change TO an Pre Trump vote in 2020.
The question of whether this is a promise kept of not lies SOLELY with those who voted for him.
So try to put yourself in their shoes.
Myriads of politicians have [romised the trumnp voters many things for decades.
The wall promise is near 40 years old.
Every president has promised to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem since Nixon.
Trump promised to kill TPP
Trump promised to Renegotiate NAFTA
Trump promised to Kill the Iran deal.
Trump promised to defeat ISIS quickly and leave.
Trump promised to get out of Afghanistan
Trump promised to enforce immigration laws.
Trump promised to Increase military spending
Trump promised to cut taxes,
Trump promised to shift from multilateral to bilateral trade deals.
Trump promised to unburden us from crippling regulations.
Trump promised to get out of the Paris accords.
Trump promise to approve they Keystone XL, and the DAPL.
Trump promised to get out of the way of Fracking.
Trump promised to allow US energy exports
Trump promised to repeal the PPACA mandate, lower prices and increase choices.
Trump promised to increase economic growth.
Trump promised to lower unemployment
Trump promised to appoint a supreme court justice from the Federalist list of 25.
He promised to appoint federalist federal judges.
The above and many many other things are promises that Trump has KEPT.
You may not agree with those promises.
You may think they were a mistake – But Trump has still kept them regardless.
Absolutely there are campaign promises he has not kept and will never keep and some that he might still keep- or might not.
There are some he has kept that I wish he had not.
But I can not think of any president in my lifetime that has actually kept so many of the campaign promises he has made – significant one and less significant ones.
For most people THIS is the foundation of trust.
This is also why the left is so vigorously seeking to paint Trump as a liar by nit picking, to distract people from the fact that he has kept so many campaign promises.
Dave, first I like your list. Why the GOP political party does not publish this monthly, using social media and getting it out is hard to understand.
Now for my list with Trump on that. You and I have had this conversation. I support almost everything Trump has done. And all that is on your list. But I have to say I think his personal actions overshadow much of what he does good. No one knows what Ted Cruz would have done or anyone else.
So my dislike for Trump the person makes it really hard for me to vote for Trump the politician. And I hold, and will hold until people give me definitive proof, and not crap from polling information, etc that cross over independent/ unaffliated/ democrats provided Trump with the support in early primaries that froze funding for others that ended up dropping out. If the GOP wants me voting for GOP nominee, then I want the GOP selecting the candidate. Not individuals with no GOP blood at all.
LMAO, Roby. And throw in a quote from someone for the cherry on top of the Tower of Bable.
Show me the pesos!
I am not especially interested in defending the “Mexico will pay for it” claim.
It is stupid to defend – partly because Trump supporters actually understood what he meant, and the left clearly does not.
But mostly because – as Reporter Salena noted during the campaign – Trump’s opponents take him litteraly but not seriously, his supporters take him seriously but not litterally.
That is one of the most excellent observations regarding Trump that has been made.
And it is the critical problem of all this anti-Trump outrage.
Taken absolutely litterally Trump lies in nearly everything he says (as does nearly everyone).
Evaluated seriously rather than litterally he is one of the most honest presidents we have had.
Certainly Obama was less prone to speaking in a way that was so easy to take apart.
At the same time What Promises did Obama deliver on after 8 years ?
Like it or not Trump has delivered more in 2 than Obama did in 8.
Further you are on the weak side of this argument.
If Trump gets his wall – he wins with his supporters – and the credibility of his future promises increases significantly.
If Trump puts up a sufficiently strong fight and loses – Trump STILL looks like someone willing to go to the mat to keep his promises.
You keep making these “liar liar pants on fire” claims regarding Trump.
At the same time – it is OBVIOUS that your fear of Trump is NOT rooted in his lies.
But that what he says is the truth.
“It is stupid to defend – partly because Trump supporters actually understood what he meant, and the left clearly does not.”
No, you may not have taken him literally, but the OVERWHEALMING majority of his dumbass supporters did. And you are a despicable motherhumper to defend candidates for president lying to get elected.
“No, you may not have taken him literally, but the OVERWHEALMING majority of his dumbass supporters did. And you are a despicable motherhumper to defend candidates for president lying to get elected.”
Hillarious response. You insult trump supporters and then claim to know what they thing, and go on to sexual defamation, and the pretense that Trump is not the LEAST lying candidate to ever get elected president.
The entire Benghazi investigation was quite literally about a very serious lie told to get elected.
You MIGHT be right about Trump voters. They MIGHT turn on him just as republicans turned on GWB over Read My Lips.
It is also possible the earth will reverse its rotation about the sun tomorow.
Neither are likely. Trump’s core support has not changed – really pretty much ever.
“And you are a despicable motherhumper to defend candidates for president lying to get elected.”
If that was actually what I was doing – that would make me indistinguishable from the entire left including you.
But that is not the case.
I am defending actual rights. It is irrelevant whether those are the rights of people I think are good or bad.
The best of us can count on no more rights than the worst of us.
I am also defending facts.
It is an indisputable fact that Trump has kept more campaign promises than any major presidentiial candidate in my life time.
That is not defense, it is fact.
Put so that hopefully a left wing nut can understand – if Trump lies repeatedly about important things – by any rational standard he does so LESS than any other significant politician.
The problem is that you can not deal with that.
Where were Wilke and Tapper over “Benghazi was a spontaneous protest to an internet video” ?
As Whoppers go that it far more significant.
First that was a false statement about a significant fact that Obama and Clinton KNEW was false at the time they said it.
It is not an unkept promise, it is lie about a FACT.
Next – why does it matter what Tapper and Wilke think ?
Does it matter what Stalin thinks about capitalism ?
Is Mao’s oppinion of free enterprise going to have any weight with Warren Buffet ?
Trump did not make this promise to Tapper or Wilke – he made it to his own voters.
THEY get to decide whether they got what they wanted – you do not.
Well I could not avoid “BooHoo” NBC coverage of the shutdown. Wife had it on while I was fixing dinner. Basically people not getting a check, but they screwed up. They left in a comment by a federal worker that said ” unemployment insurance will run out sometime “. So unemployment ranges from 400 to 650 a week depending on stste. And that is payable.until the worker returns to work. If they get back pay, then they have to reimburse the state.
So lets get the news TO TELL THE WHOLE DAMN STORY! Yes, $400 a week will be less than they make and this is about equivalent to a gross income of $533.00. But they are not going to starve. Steak? No. Pinto beans and corn bread? Yes (But I apologize since Pinto beans and corn bread is one of my favorates). Concert ticket s? No. Walk on the beach or hiking trail, Yes.
So the dems know what Trump wants. What HUGE deal do the dems want? DACA with citizenship after 5 years? More?
Come to the table. Tell America you are going to negotiate. $5B for XXX(most everything dems want). If Trump walks, then they have a big election issue. “We wanted to fund the wall in return for kids and young adults educated and molded by American values and Trump refused” or whatever they ask.
I think that would turn too many moderate leaning house and senate GOP members that they would vote for that including Graham.
My question is, seeing that it is pretty clear that sopport for a wall isn’t much higher than one third of the country, and coincides pretty much to Trump’s base, why do we inevitably have to agree to a so-called wall (which in fact ain’t gonna be at all like what it’s supporters have in mind). We can’t say no to the POTUS and his base?
“We can’t say no to the POTUS and his base?”
Well why not if you so choose?
Voters will decide who is more to blame.
And Trump can keep what he has now.
But I guess he did receive more electoral votes and carried more states. He received those votes based on a wall in his platform and he has senate support to keep a small part of the government closed. And he has the power of the veto if congress passes anything he does not like and congress has the veto override if they so choose.
Then we have 2020 to remove him if there are enough states flipping blue to remove him from office since they did not support his wall idea.
But my thoughts were $5B is small change to get a huge immigration reform bill. And because congress has given POTUS unlimited powers, this is only 23 months until a new POTUS may come in. No way $5B is going to be spent by then. Just E.O. that out of existence after 2020.
(Ha! no I dont like um, but they are there that can be used)
It would take years to build any significient length of wall-fence-barrier. Thousands of legal suits will inundate the courts, over eminent domain, costs, ecological and structural concerns, etc. I just read this, it will address some of the problems facing attempts to fence the border.
Now if this is true, why would the Democrats throw away this golden chance to obtain permanent status for DACA and a good chance for a pathwsy to citizenship? That for a wall ( that will be tied up in court and after 2020 when Trump is defeated, funding is not renewed by the next administration)
You are presuming that something that is not binary is.
About 35% of people STRONGLY support a wall.
Strength of support dminenses after that. If I recall correctly only about 16% STRONGLY oppose a wall. Between those two extremes there is more opposition than support. but it is not strong. Polls taken last March had 80% of people supporting trading a wall for DACA. I have not heard that polled recently, but since support for a Wall has nearly doubled over time, I would be surprised if that has diminished.
I would note that “support” for the revolutionary war was about the same as support for the wall. The situation was very nearly the same.
About 1/3 of people strongly favoring independence, a smaller minority strongly opposed and a great gulf between that did not feel strongly.
Jay;
If the problems building a wall are so insurmountable – why do you care if the legislation passes ?
Ron, I can ask you in return why did the GOP Congress not give trump his wall when they were in control? Because the wall is an unpopular giant government project that will cost far more than projected and still likely fail and they did not want to oown that. So now the Dem house is supposed to give trump what the GOP house would not?
“I can ask you in return why did the GOP Congress not give trump his wall when they were in control? ”
I will reiterate what I have said many times. (And relate this to Trump notbreally being a main stream Republican)
Neither party wants immigration fixed. It is too benefitial to both. Democrats get voters, both from young whites that support illegals and future citizens from illegals now. GOP business leaders get cheap labor, many cash based that avoid taxes and benefits.
And this is a HUGE base motivator during elections for both parties.
If this was not the case, why has Mitch McConnell been MIA during wall meetings?
Jay;
330miles of the enhanced fencing – I beleive that is the 18′ high steel slat fencing was built LAST YEAR.
At that rate it will take less than 10 years to build the entire wall.
More than 80% of the California border has a wall – I beleive that occured during Bush – though Trump has repaired or replaced some of the crappy parts that are failing.
CA illegal immigration dropped from 640K+ per year to only a few thousand.
BTW the 10 year claim – presumes that every foot of the border needs a wall.
Probably less than 70% of it needs a wall. Other parts are already naturally difficult to penatrate.
Further the objections you “structural engineer” made are not structural engineering objections. You are citing her as an expert on something she is not expert at.
Dave, wonder why California Democrats are leading the “stop the wall” effort. If you don’t have a problem and can get votes from it, why not be front and center!
Yep Iove government. They are so trustworthy and righteous. AND THAT INCLUDES TRUMP!
BTW, reading parts of her statement – I think your “structural engineer” is a fraud. There are some errors in her writing that sugest either she does nto have the education she claims or standards have declined.
Her reference to “Daubert” makes it pretty clear she has no clue what “daubert” means.
Actual practicing Engineers RARELY have MS’s.
I am an architect – I have a BS,. Architects with BS’s look down their noses at Architects with MS’s. An MS in architecture means one of three things – you could not get through architectural school in the normal 5 years, you went to an architectural school that could not get their 5 year program acredited or you are looking to be a college professor, not a practiving architect.
Engineering degrees are 4 years, so getting an MS in engineering is even more dubious. What she does NOT say is that she has a PE – an engineering license. That is far more important than an MS.
Some of the assertions she makes are true – because they are true of every single federal program ever. The current wall costs already reflect that.
I beleive last year Trump built 330Miles of wall with $2.5B in funding.
That is ACTUAL COSTS – including all the factors your source cites.
I beleive Trump’s total Wall program is about 1500Miles. That would take less that 5 years and cost 11B at the current rates.
Those are real figures using real wall constructed in 2018 that already includes all the factors your “engineer” factors in.
BTW qualifying in court as an “expert” is not particularly difficult.
I have testified in court as an expert on accounting, building codes, and building costs. My background, professional experience, and education would qualify me to testify as an expert on almost anything related to architecture – and that includes the construction of walls.
Architecture is a broader profession that engineering.
To get an architecural license you have to pass 5 full days worth of tests, including a full day of structural engineering tests.
Most architects have 1 full year of structural engineering – that is about 2/3 what a structural engineer has – remember an architectural degree takes 5 years, and engineering degree takes only 4.
Due to transfers, I have 2 full years of structural engineering at two of the top engineering schools in the country – significantly better than UH.
Additionally, I have more science and math than most engineers.
I took science and math courses to raise my GPA – again at two of the top schools in the country. I did not go to MIT or Stanford – I went to RPI and GaTech. GaTech is currently the #8 school in the nation. RPI is #41. UH is not listed. And unless RPI has declined significantly in the past 35 years RPI is a better school than GaTech, and nearly as good as MIT #1.
The real big fight over the wall is getting it into the budget.
Trump got 2.5B for the wall last year – but not as part of the normal budget.
What this fight is really about is that if Trump gets wall funding as part of the budget – it will be there every year for atleast the next decade and will take superhuman effort to get rid of it.
We are not fighting over $5B but over $50B/10 years – which is also why Trump is prepared to compromise the number down.
When a Dem POTUS and her base set their hearts on something in another 3 years that most people don’t support, the chickens will be home.
And if they set their hearts on something naive that a majority think in some fuzzy way that they want conservatives are going to be in a Very hard spot once we have established the standard that the base of the party in power must get it’s ways.
Yes, Roby. Gun laws and climate change immediately come to mind: both of those easily defended as genuine national emergency issues .
“Yes, Roby. Gun laws and climate change immediately come to mind: both of those easily defended as genuine national emergency issues .:
If they are so easily defended – why have you failed to do so.
“Climate change” is more semantic fraud – the climate has changed naturally for billions of years. It has changed in ways favorable to man and in ways hostile to man and will do so again and again, and we are powerless to do anything but adapt.
The left wing nut nansense is NOT about “climate change”. Everytime you use the phrase “climate change” you are subtly admitting you have no real crisis and no argument.
The actual scientific debate – to the extent any real debate exists, is over Catastrophic anthropogenic Global Warming.
To defend that you must prove:
That what is occuring is actually caused by man.
That it is unusual.
That it is catastophic.
That it is a bad thing.
You can not prove ANY of those elements.
Further it is pretty much self evident at this time that after over 30 years – The predictions of the high priests of warmendom have FAILED. In Hanson’s famous congressional testimony he predictions that by 2020 the earth would be 2C hotter than it was then – it is 0.2C warmer – almost all of that from 1990 to 2000. There has been very little change in global temperatures since 2000.
Conclusiving disproving warmists.
The same is true of “gun control”.
The entire premise of gun control rests of the fake argument that guns cause violence. But all of human history demonstrates the opposite.
Cave men – that is 150K years before guns, had a 50% probability of dying a violent death – at the hands of another human. The entire history of humanity is the slow decline in rates of violence. That decline is inversely proportionate to the INCREASE in weapons. I have repeatedly pointed out that “common sense” is not a useful guide to determining much of anything – we do not share the same “common sense” despite the name. The existance of “entrepeneurs” inherently means some of us are able to see what makes sense better than others, and more important – that the “common” perspective is often wrong. If we relied on “common sense” rather than uncommon sense, we would still live in caves and still have a 50:50 chance of dying a violent death before 25.
No credible study has ever found a link between weapons of any kind and violence.
As has been noted repeatedly is what is a neat perfect controlled laboratory study, AZ imposed a near total ban on firearms whole NZ did not. Demographically the populations are near identical. They had the same rates of violence as each other at the time – decades later, if anything the rates in NZ are lower.
Nor is this the only statistical refutation.
BOTH your claims are NOT “easily defended”, and in fact neither can be defended at all – atleast not using facts, logic and reason.
But of course that is the point. You are seeking to use your feelings to justify the use of force. That is the SOLE argument that you actually have.
.
The “chickens have already come to roost” – PPACA.
I have repeatedly argued that there are many criteria for govenrment acting.
Public support – in the strict democratic way you use it is not one of those. However strong public opposition IS.
Regardless, I would find your argument more compelling if you were sincere about it. The vast majority of what congress passes – regardless of party, does not have strong support.
Quite often to get something through congress requires massive log rolling.
Ultimately to buy enough votes we cobble together these “compromises” – where we do things like trade the wall for DACA, or the infamous Nebraska CornHusker kickback to get PPACA.
I will be happy to join you in precluding any such political compromises.
And nothing will every pass.
I can live with that – can you ?
Absent declaring a state of emergency or something like that Trump is NOT trying to get his way unilaterally.
The choice is not simply a wall or no wall.
Trump has been pretty overt – He wants a Wall, in return he will support some other things democrats want.
That is the purported “compromise” that “moderates” claim to approve of.
BTW there is no reason to ever compromise if you have sufficient support to accomplish what you want without it.
So if you beleive in compromise as a principle or a value, this is exactly where it applies.
Jay, note the irony, Dave is arguing for a gigantic open-ended government project that has failed in the past. He has finally seen the light, government will fix this by pouring money into it!
I like the DACA for Wall negotiation with this added caveat: Wall Tax to pay for it.
Jay great idea!! I like it. And adding just 1/10% to your tax liability would pay for it in one year
If your tax liability was 5,000, then it would be $5,005. If $200,000, then instead it would be $200,200. And if $1,000, then $1,001.
Love it. Great idea!
Just sell drugs confiscated at the border on Silk Road and you could pay for it in a few days.
Drink while you can, clean water supplies are shrinking.
“UN says Gulf’s thirst for water causing toxic brine problem
United Nations scientists warn that desalination is creating huge volumes of chemical-laced brine that risks contaminating food chains”
“We have to address potentially severe downsides of desalination — the harm of brine and chemical pollution to the marine environment and human health,” said Vladimir Smakhtin, the director for the Hamilton, Canada-based UN Institute for Water Environment and Health.
Together, the world’s 16,000 desalination plants produce enough effluent every year to cover Florida with a foot of toxic brine, according to the peer-reviewed UN study, which was published by Elsevier’s journal Science of the Total Environment.”
https://www.arabianbusiness.com/technology/411020-un-says-gulfs-thirst-for-water-causing-toxic-brine-problem
Satire: Who needs more regulations from big governments.
NO ONE is forcing you to drink.
Get your Acme Sweat Recycling Suit and, remember, in a pinch you can drink your own urine.
The UN is about the least credible organization you could come up with on this.
Water is 1000%% recycleable and recycled.
There is absolutely nothing you can do to water that does not near immediately return it to nature.
We could desalinize the entire contents of the pacific every year and so long as that water returned to the pacific with no more contamination than in the past the pacific would remain on net unchanged.
That does not mean that the consumption of water can not create local issues.
The Russians pretty much destroyed the Aral Sea – but by diverting it to irrigate massive cotton fields. There are many other instances of humans wreaking havoc on specific resources in limited contexts by massive acts – pretty much always by GOVERNMENT.
Almost always socialist governments.
BTW what desalinzation produces is not “efluent”.
All desalinization does is separate sea water into components – drinkable water and minerals.
So long as the separated drinking water ultimately returns to the gulf – which it mostly will,
returning the separate minerals causes no actual harm.
Though I suspect that is unlikely to occur.
Says law – the law of supply and demand, states that anything in sufficient supply will create a demand – it will become valueable.
If there is a large and reliable supply of brine, then it will be used as raw material for some product.
This truth is why there are few if any “recycling” laws in the US that apply to business.
Business will always eventually recycle waste into a product.
I have noted this before – but when a Mexican farmer picks a chicken for dinner – 50% of that chicken ends up in the garbage, only half is consumed as food.
When a chicken enters a nearby tyson plant 98% of that chicken is converted into some product or other.
Satire requires more meaningful grains of truth.
We need more regulation – is an overt call for the use of force.
Your “satire” pokes fun at your positions, not mine.
Further you misconstrue alternatives. When force is not involved – there are infinite choices – not merely “acme sweat recycling suits” and “recycling your own urine”. the later of which is actually extremely feasible and ultimately ALWAYS happens naturally.
You also miss or unintentionally highlight the core issue.
No one forces you to drink. The laws of nature which are not a person, do.
No one forces you to work to sustain your life. The laws of nature do.
The POINT is not that you do not have to drink or produce – unless you are going to die, you must both drink and produce.
The POINT is that neither I nor anyone else has a positive duty to assure that you can drink or produce. You are obligated to quench your thirst yourself.
You can try to debate that – but you will trivially lose. If you impose a positive duty to unilaterally sustain others you have an unsustainable arrangement and ultimately things collapse.
Blah blah. Snore.
“”Blah blah. Snore.”
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F82%2F62%2F2c%2F82622ca59d4ddd1d5f9a5bc646e286fc.jpg&f=1
Bleat, bleat, fart.
Ron, while the shutdown continues those collecting unemployment insurance will certainly be eating less, you included.
Jay, to quote a smart man “Blah, Blah, Snooze”.
Dave-John, your right!
Trump supporters knew what he meant about Mexico paying!
Adam Schiff ? Really ?
Regardless, If Trump’s coters think that they were lied to about Mexico paying – as they were by George Bush’s Read my Lips pledge – then they will drop Trump in 2020 like Bush in 1992.
What I see is the left outraged and trying to persuade Trump voters to be incensed and it is not working.
You beleive otherwise – maybe your right.
Or maybe you are having another 2016 moment where you thought Hillary was going to win.
I would remind everyone that – Brexit was supposed to lose. Trump was supposed to lose,
The left and the media and the pundits have been misgaging the public in the US and accross the world.
And post backlash they are in denial.
I am now hearing idiots claim that Putin gave Trump significant support – Nope.
There is no doubt that Putin invested in an effort to disrupt the US election.
There is no doubt it was a miniscule effort that has paid enormous dividends.
He has accomplished exactly what he wanted we are fighting over the integrity of our own election which makes it impossible to criticise his elections.
There is no doubt that Russian efforts were close to neutral as to who they favored.
All this and more is self evident from actual facts.
But the left and the media do not give a crap about facts.
2/3 of democrats actually beleive Russians hacked election computers and changed votes.
That beleive is like beleive in global warming – religious faith absent evidence.
For a left tilted article – this is a pretty good article on the Federalist society as well as federalism originalism and textualism.
The author notes the shift of some left constitutional scholars to originalist approaches.
I highly welcome that – Though I can find no originalist argument supporting affirmative action – not even in the reconstruction amendments – those on the left are welcome to look for one.
I think Barnet does an excellent job in his book on the lost constitution of demonstrating that the Reconstruction admentments were an effort to combine extending the full rights of citizenship to blacks with restoring the importance of the 9th amendment.
The argument that the reconstruction amendments support affirmative action is ludicrously stupid. The reconstruction amendments are actually BROADER than the 9th amendement, they not only limit the governments ability to infringe on individual rights – even unenumerated ones, but the limit the governments ability to infringe on priviledges and immunities – which in the 18th and 19th centuries were bore than just rights.
Regardless, I welcome those on the left to explore the actual historical constitutional traditions of our founders and the authors of the assorted amendments.
The 14th amendment was the foundation for the warren courts incorporation of the bill of rights against the states – one of many things the Warren court actually got right.
There was a time – in my lifetime when those on the left cared what the constitution said rather than what the wanted it to day
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/01/02/feature/conquerors-of-the-courts/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b1214f4f2679
Logical discussion about the morality of a border wall.
http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/08/why-is-a-border-wall-immoral/
When you call someone else a liar – you bet your credibility against theirs.
In Trump’s recent speach – the left and the media exposed themselves as frauds and liars.
If you call something a crisis – you can not call others liars when they do.
http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/09/medias-angry-response-to-president-trumps-oval-office-speech-comes-up-short/
More bad water news.
https://www.nytimes.com/201…
“As the oceans continue to heat up, those effects will become more catastrophic, scientists say. Rainier, more powerful storms like Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Hurricane Florence in 2018 will become more common, and coastlines around the world will flood more frequently. Coral reefs, whose fish populations are sources of food for hundreds of millions of people, will come under increasing stress; a fifth of all corals have already died in the past three years.
People in the tropics, who rely heavily on fish for protein, could be hard hit, said Kathryn Matthews, deputy chief scientist for the conservation ……”
There is still a ray of rationality in college, although minute.
https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5988524950001/?#sp=show-clips
Look into heterodox accademy.
Not stated in your clip.
If it is germain to what is being discussed in the class there is not only nothing wrong with but it is appropriate to CHALLENGE those views that offend you. It is not OK to SILENCE them.
Shakespeare was unbelievably progressive for his time – he actually poked alot of fun at traditional gender roles.
But even literature that is crushingly sterotypical of those roles in its time.
it is still important to learn and understand what that literature offers irrespective of where it is wrong.
We have 10 millenia of history – pretty much all of it will offend SJW’s. if we refuse to expose ourselves to anything in the past because of what was wrong in that past, we end learning, worse we lose what we have learned, we will rapidly revery to disaster.
Here I will officially state that I loathe hate and despise the progressive movement and consider them to be among the chief examples of mass stupidity. Bernie, Warren and now the most over hyped news story of 2019, AOC, the new Bella abzug. I am going to puke if I see one more news story on my Google feed about whatever idiot thing AOS said or tweeted today.
And if I had a time machine I would go back and poison the person who invented Twitter before he could unleash it on us. Come to think of it there are a Lot of people who would not be safe from me and my time machine.
Which is why you should not have a time machine.
There is alot about twitter to hate.
But the worst issue with Twitter is that twitter itself is putting its thumb of the scales of what speach should be heard.
The cacaphony is otherwise a good thing – not a bad one.
Twitter is showing us as we are – not as the facade we paint.
That is an improvement.
Further twitter and the internet in general means that all oppinions have a platform and that generally – aside from the stupid acts of Twitter Facebook, Google etc to supress some viewpoints – all viewpoints are expressed approximatley respective of their weight as ideas and of their support NOT based on some elites judgement of them.
That is GOOD not bed.
Much of what we know today – is because we are not being spoon fed by 3 nearly homogenous networks.
AOC is popular among the right at the moment because she is someone on the left that is the mirror of Trump – only stupider.
AOC makes Trump look good.
If the left and media were not so focused on Trump outrage AOC would not be getting coverage.
With respect to your obeservations regarding progressives.
I would note that they are a far greater threat than Trump.
Trump talks about restricting the speach of others – but he never does anything.
The left is actively and agressively involved in supressing the speach of others in every way they can immagine.
First they came for Richard Spensor, and no one spoke because he was a white supremist.
Then they came for Robert Benjamin – and no one spoke up because though he was a centrist, he used the N word (in satire).
Then they will come for Roby, and Jay, and DD, and no one will speak up, because there will be no one left
God help me but I have to say this, trump and AOC:
A twit and a twat.
I now voluntarily banish myself and resign myself to never giving another weather report.
Roby, T ulsi Gabbart announced yesterday. Look at ontheissues.org and based on her positions, she is rated dead center liberal. For instance, she supports a one payer system for healthcare reimbursement. She supported Sanders in 2016.
Now read this. A threat. How far the party is moving left. And we further divide.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tulsi-gabbard-2020-presidential-run-foreign-policy_us_5c393bb2e4b01c93e00a0009
Two thirds of Americans do not support trump using emergency powers to fund the wall. 75 percent of Republicans support it. Today’s news is full of GOP officials saying it would all be legal. Obama, wrong trump right they say regarding using a presidential power to go over the head of Congress.
If the poll would have specifically about the wh plan to transfer disaster funding to pay for it I bet the could have hit 80+ disapproval and still found GOP voters approving. I hate loathe despise the GOP. We are so screwed, idiots left and right.
I linked to Johnathan Turley’s peice on the legality of using emergency powers.
Those republicans or democrats claiming that Trump may not invoke emergency powers unilaterally without congresses authorization to build the wall – using the Truman Steel case as the basis – are CORRECT. He cant.
But Trump can use Emergency powers because confgress has actually authorized Trump to do so. Read Turley’s artical – our current immigration law – passed by congress gives the president broad powers to act unilaterally – including to spend money.
I do not think there is any question remaining after reading Turley that Trump CAN build the wall using emergency powers.
BUT I do not think he should. Further I do not think congress should have delegated that much authority to the president.
If Trump does invoke emergency powers – the courts are near certain to stop him immediately – some 9th circuit judge will decide against Trump and impose a nationwide restraining order.
But it is highly likely that given the facts and the law SCOTUS will correctly side with Trump.
You presume the funding would come from disaster funding. That is just one of many possibilities. The easiest is to get it from the military budget. $5B is less than 1% of the DOD.
I also tripped over something else last night.
Trump is after funding to build 330M of the slatted metal fencing – the metal is a compromise he has already made with democrats – he wanted concrete, While the metal fencing is very effective, the concrete wall is even more effective.
Regardless, Trump built 150mi of the slatted metal fencing in 2018. For the most part Trump is looking for money to SLIGHTLY expand what is already being done.
Other things I found – illegal crossings in 2018 were DOWN from before. BUT Family crossings are WAY up.
Why ? Because if you cross as a single adult you are near certain to be deported quickly.
There is no incentive for single adults to attempt to cross the border – they are likely to be caught and near certain to be returned.
But our current law makes it near impossible to return a family. Part of the mass over Trump’s handling of families, is because Trump was seeking for a way to return families.
Anyone caught crossing the border can be deported on an expedited basis – IF and ONLY if they are detained. Once they are released the process goes from 90 days to 18 months for single adults and indefinite for families.
We continuously forget that our law drives the behavior of immigrants.
We are not seeing families – because people wish to come as families.
It is much easier for a single adult to cross. It is also much less dangerous.
But we have made that ineffective, so immigrants have adapted.
Obama changed the polices regarding unaccompanied minors – and in 2 months the number of unaccompanied minors skyroketed until Obama reveresed policy.
We see the same with families at the border.
“Regardless, Trump built 150mi of the slatted metal fencing in 2018.”
Really?
Or are you as full of deceptive BS as your soul brother Lyin Donnie?
No new fencing barriers slatted or otherwise were build in the US last year.
However, sometime in the future… IF Congress allocates the $5 billion, officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, want to build about 200 miles of new AND replacement barriers in high priority areas.
And ongoing repair and replacement has been ongoing, and 160 miles of additional repair and upgrade is scheduled to be constructed (mostly barbed wire) along the Ca AZ borders starting next month.
“Other things I found – illegal crossings in 2018 were DOWN from before. BUT Family crossings are WAY up.”
And illegals crossing BACK across the border into Mexico are exceeding all illegal crossings in. How will they continue to leave with impenetrable wall-fences blocking them. Will the barriers be designed with one-way exit doors?
Rather than a poll, lets just change the law to empower the people.
Any person or group who is willing to take full financial responsibility for the immigrant of their choosing may do so.
If Sorros wishes to fund 1000’s of immigrants – fine. If your church wishes to – fine.
If you wish to personally – fine.
You get to pick who you sponsor. If you want to sponsor poor brown people – OK.
If you want to sponsor those from the mideast – fine.
Rather than political democracy – how about giving a real voice to the people.
Rather than allowing the majority to use force to impose their position on all.
Allow each of us to do as we choose while taking responsibility for that choice.
I doubt he will use it. If he did, they go to court in either 4th or 9th district, judge stays E.O., government reopens, and it take a number ofvweeks to get through the system. SCOTUS has to have time to finalize decision. Trump loses all negotiating power and Democrats get everything they want. No immigration reform, borders hard to protect, families getting caught and news stories of kids being detained, great election images.
Country screwed, parties benefit, individuals hurt!
Salon saying “God Help Us Trump is right”
https://www.salon.com/2019/01/09/god-help-us-trump-is-right-about-something/
There is so much in this I can not keep track of it all.
Regardless, it ties Fusion GPS to the same Russian Oligarch’s that purportedly were helping Trump.
And it ties the false flag operation against Roy Moore to the Senate intelligence committee repoirt and to multiple democratic senators.
I have absolutely Zero sympathy for Roy Moore.
Of the few things Trump has done that I find completely dispicable – supporting Moore is one of those, and pardoning Arpio is another.
But as disgusting as Moore might be, deliberately creating fake accounts made to look like Russian accounts and then claiming that Moore’s election was being aided by Russia is pretty bad.
I would note that if this is legal – and I beleive it actually is or should be – then absolutely everything the Trump campaign is alleged to have done is also legal.
Conversely if what Trump is alleged to have done is illegal – this was illegal.
But most importantly this makes it even more likely that the only conspiracy in all of this was one to “get Trump”.
All the players involved in “getting moore” were also involved in the efforts to set up Trump and the Trump campaign.
The already overly strong argument that there was a broad conspiracy between “the deep state” the Obama whitehouse, russian oligarchs, assorted wealthy democrats, the Clinton campaign, and democratic operatives to set the Trump campaign up, has gotten much much stronger.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/10/fusion-gps-russia-false-flag/
You all know what I think about government and its incompetence in many areas, but I ask you to look at the below link and pictures and especially number 5. Can someone please tell me what good that is doing if someone really wants to get into the country? Who approved that?
But I do find it interesting that so many people in California are fighting the wall. Could that be because 80% of the California border already has some sort of barrier? Maybe Nancy Pelosi should introduce a bill to tear those down since they are immoral and it is her home state. How can they be appropriate to stay there if they are immoral?
https://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/u-s-mexico-border-now-n685936
There’s 600 miles of fencing and other security barries in Texas, and a majority of Texans don’t want more of it.
I get it, do you? Fencing makes sense along parts of the border, but not other stretches.
https://www.statesman.com/news/20160915/majority-of-texans-oppose-border-wall-poll-says
I guess I am mentally challenged because I look at the 5 th picture and ask how could a pet owner or a farmer think this would keep animals within an enclosed area and how does anyone think that is going to stop people from entering.
For anyone that argues “walls work” damn right that one works! Why would you climb over it when you can walk around the end!
How many billions have we already spent and we have this idiocy? I am going back to my many comments already. If we have this mess and wasted money where holes are miles long, then get rid of all walls and let them in!
JAY, can you tell me you really believe that mess is working?
Sorry Ron, that was supposed to be posted on a Dave-John thread…not this one.
I’m in favor of protecting the southern border: more formable fences in heavily trafficked areas; more reasonable/economical methods in other places. Like the Israelis fencing, it needs 24/7 hi-tech surveillance and quick response teams for breaches. Whatever is installed, it will only deter economic migrants; and have little to no effect on drug trafficking or actual terrorists, and little to no effect to those seeking amnesty.
I agree with your disdain of the three progressives, Roby – but not of lumping Battling Bella Abzug in with them.
Bella, an authentic 1970s Liberal, in the decades before Liberal went Lopsided, was on the correct historical side of almost every major issue she championed/initiated in office – from gay and women rights, to government transparency, to Vietnam, to Nixon opposition. And she early on shrewdly understood how to manipulate media attention: her hats, her Laverne & Shirley NYC idioms (“Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel“).
As to AOC, she does need to stifle it (or it’s gonna be… pow… right in the kisser…to quote renowned NYC bus driver Kramden). But now with Hillary’s on the sidelines AOC is a necessary right wing media focus of disdain (like Warren) to fill in the Clinton vitriolic void.
Roby/Jay, Liberals from the 70’s were nothing like liberals from today. While liberals today believe in force to attain their desired outcome, liberals from the 70s belived in equal treatment and individual liberties.
I was one of them! That is when I became one who believed in Libertarian issues. Many of the liberals in the 70’s were very Libertarian. Equal rights, no descrimination, sexual freedoms, both straight and gay, anti war, Nixon/Kennedy health plan( no mandate), freedom of speech and many more.
Todays liberals beliebe in force to achieve their agenda. Higher taxes on the rich, mandated healthcare, force created by Paris Accords, force from EPA on land owners, force on those with religious objections to LGBT issues and forced silencing of opposing views on college campuses. And I suspect I could add many more.
So JFK would never be nominated in my opinion for president. Just his views on military, foreign affairs and taxes would eliminate him today.
I agree with your assessment of liberal change, Ron – or did you miss my Liberal Lopsided comment?
I was just stcking my nose into the conversation. Just a comment, not disagreeing.
I looked up Bella’s bio to refresh my impressions. She was pretty far out on the left, as I remembered. She certainly had accomplished a lot more than AOC before getting to Congress and had formidable mind.
AOC hasn’t accomplished a thing yet other than providing a n endless list of wildly naive impossible to pass proposals that make great copy for the press and allow the right to make her the poster girl for the Dem party when she is possibly actually it’s leftmost congressperson. The press has created her but it’s gone to her head, she is the attention loving celebrity while all the other new Dem reps are still just learning the ropes. She is capable of doing a lot of damage and is oblivious to that. The press bears the blame for writing a pile of stories every day. There are 2-3 AOC stories at the top of my news feed daily. I never open them. I say that she will likely accomplish nothing in terms of legislation but will have a large effect nonetheless. If she didn’t exist the GOP would need to create her.
Agree, she’s an annoying pain in the ass (except when effectively prodding Trump tweets); like Trump, she’s an attention/publicity junkie; and like him I think her core beliefs are elastic.
AOC is the democrats gift to republicans.
She spews total nonsense even more than Trump, and she is far less intelligent.
I think that the fact that democrats elected AOC is a reflection on democrats – and should be.
Nothing to Hide, yeah, sure…
———————
“President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.
Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson.
The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.
As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is thought to be in the final stages of an investigation that has focused largely on whether Trump or his associates conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. The new details about Trump’s continued secrecy underscore the extent to which little is known about his communications with Putin since becoming president…
Former U.S. officials said that Trump’s behavior is at odds with the known practices of previous presidents, who have relied on senior aides to witness meetings and take comprehensive notes then shared with other officials and departments.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-has-concealed-details-of-his-face-to-face-encounters-with-putin-from-senior-officials-in-administration/2019/01/12/65f6686c-1434-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html
———————-
If I was the interpreter, I’d be asking Mueller for round the clock protection
WTF?
“U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years”
So what ?
In 2013 there was no record of any of Clinton’s communications with anyone.
And to this day many remain missing.
Regardless, Presidents learned with watergate not to keep records of their conversations.
I would be surprised if there are records of Trump’s converstations with almost anyone.
Trump does not have anything but a recollection of what he said to Comey.
I doubt that there are records of what he said to Netenyahu.
I doubt there are records of what Obama said to most world leaders.
What is said does not matter.
What is DONE is what matters.
You place weird importance on words.
More bullshit babble from you, Dave-John.
Notes were taken of ALL Clinton’s meetings with foreign heads of state; they’re ALL in the National Archives and/or the Clinton Presidential Library.
You/the press keeps saying this is unusual.
I HIGHLY doubt that.
I think the exact opposite is true.
We only have Obama’s remarks to Medved – because he made them with an open mike.
As you note Tillerson was present. If there was anything worth noting – Tillerson knows it.
I do suspect Trump is a bit more circumspect than prior presidents.
He has a whitehouse full of carreer government employee democrats who have demonstrated that they will stab him in the back at a moments notice.
That said – why do you presume that interpreters keep notes ?
Their job is to interpret. It is not to set policy, not to spin policy, not to report on what was discussed, not to make a record. It is to accurately translate that is all.
To the extent what is said in these meetings matters – it matters because it is turned into action.
If Putin and Trump spend 5 hours telling each other knock knock jokes – that is not really anyone’s business.
If they discuss changes to our nuclear weapons treaties – that is not anyone’s business,
if they agree to changes THAT MATTERS.
At the same time absolutely anything that Trump might agree to with Putin ultimately must be documented by myriads of people. Because no agreement exists until the agreement is put into effect, and neither Trump nor putin can act without informing others.
The point, Nincompoop,is TRUMP CONFISCATED the translator’s notes.
What innocent reason was there for him to do that?
You’re fast migrating from deplorable to disgusting Trump apologist.
” TRUMP CONFISCATED the translator’s notes.”
Kind of like Nixon erasing 18.5 minutes of tape.
Yes. Sneaky birds of a feather destroy evidence (against them) together.
If you were an interpreter and you are talking to anyone (including Mueller) without the presidents permission about conversations between Putin and Trump you are breaking a raft of laws, and you should be in jail.
You do not seem to grasp that constitutionally the entire executive works for the president, not the other way arround.
As usual, you’re full of crap.
The only legal restriction she’s under is not passing on information covered by national security. If she’s called to testify before Congress, she can talk about anything else discussed there.
And if Trump tries to stop her from testifying, claiming his conversations with Putin fall under the national security umbrella, so much the better: under 50 U.S. Code § 3091 – General congressional oversight provisions, she can be summoned to testify in private before the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: they not only have clearance to hear classified information, the President is charged to inform those committees of any matters relating to the security of the nation, present or anticipated.
If Trump worked out any sneaky arrangements with Putin, and didn’t inform those committees, he’s in violation of the law – an impeachable charge I’ll bet.
“News Analysis
No, Trump’s Tax Cut Isn’t Paying for Itself (at Least Not Yet)
Federal revenues rose slightly in the 2018 fiscal year. But that doesn’t mean the $1.5 trillion tax cut is bringing in more revenue than it’s losing.”
“This is exactly what most forecasters predicted
When the tax law passed, members of Congress had all sorts of evidence suggesting it would accelerate America’s growing budget deficits. The Joint Committee on Taxation and the Tax Policy Center predicted that the new law would add at least $1 trillion to deficits over the next 10 years, even after accounting for additional economic growth. The Penn Wharton Budget Model predicted it would add $2 trillion. The most optimistic mainstream model that analyzed all the provisions of the new law, from the Tax Foundation, predicted it would add about $450 billion to the deficit after accounting for additional growth. “
dduck, I am a fiscal hawk. I wished the Obama adminstration had closed down givernment and made congress pass Simpson Bowles. But that did not happen.
So now I dont care. If they had not cut taxes, then they would have just increased spending. No politician has ever seen a dollar they want to save once the IRS gets its hands on it. So do I want the government having it and spending it, or have it back in the hands of those generating it.
I would rather the generators.
Now give me a bala nced budget amendment, I will support that almost 100%. The caveat is what they put in it where it could be broken or what accounting tricks that could be used to make it look balanced.
You give these politicians a dollar, they will budget spending $1.10. Now that is not much if its just a dime. Multiple that by $100T and its real money!
Ron, the point is******* they lied*****, as badly as Obama did. I’m sure you criticized him for his government backed figures at that time.
That is past, but preemptively, I figured it would be thrown up as a smoke screen by someone.
So what about the current lie “that it would pay for itself”.
Can we agree*** they lied***, no matter how you feel about politicians and bucks.
Yep, they lied. What’s new? They all lie. That’s how they get elected.
And is it anything different than “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. If you like your insurance you can keep your insurance?”
I believe there is a huge difference. Trumps lie does not impact me, my family or any one person personally. Spending $5B additional dollars is a small impact on me specifically, like a few hundred dollars if distributed for each man, woman , transgender, bi-sexual and any other identification over 18.
Obama’s lie impacted millions and personally. Doctors lost. Excess insurance cost, insurance dropped. etc. You know the story.
So if we want to go back on presidents for any number of years and rank their lies, I don’t think Trumps campaign promise is even in the top 5.
AND___REMEBER___ I did not vote for him___ I will not vote for him___I don’t like him as a person. I am not defending a lie. ___BUt when everyone else throws up Trumps campaign promise lies, then they have to be compared to previous lies.
And if anyone really believed those promises, I would like to understand those individuals. Could they be the never voters that registered as independents and stuck the GOP with Trump as the nominee by voting in open primaries.?
I don’t defend him, but I want each president evaluated the same. If a campaign promise not fulfilled is a lie, then list them all! And include lies concerning legislation to get it passed.
“They all lie”
Ron, the difference between Trump’s lies and other typical politician lies is the difference between being squirted by a water pistol and submerged underwater in a barrel of urine.
Jay, I dislike Trump as a person. I have since before he said “Look at that face. ‘Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” about Fiorina or his comparing ” penis sizes with Marco Rubio. How the hell people with 1/2 a brain cell voted for him in the primaries is lost on me.
But when someone tells “average America” that the legislation passed to control health care cost will not impact them keeping their doctor or their insurance knowing full well that changes will be created and those go on to impacting millions, I can not compare that to “Mexico will pay for the wall”
But I understand where others not with this thinking are coming from. I dislike Obama for his policies as much as I dislike Trump, the person. Others who supported the Obama agenda are much more likely to give BO a pass, but crucify Trump. I get that!
To reiterate: I was a critic of Obama care when it was proposed.
But in retrospect, the ‘lose doctors’ complaint is at best a limp flag.
Yes it’s true some insurance companies discontinued health plans that had covered millions of people, and thereby lost doctors who accepted those plans – but those were people who had bought health insurance directly, not through an employer. Those canceled plans didn’t meet the coverage standards of the new law.
My daughter, self-employed, was one of those who’s plan was cancelled, and she bitched loudly to me that she lost one of her doctors, and had to find a replacement under Obama rules. But subsequently she was able to keep other doctors, she found a suitable new replacement doctor, and – surprise – she has more extensive coverage now!
More important, she wasn’t penalized for her existing conditions requiring medical attention (two serious). Now, though she’s paying a little more money for insurance, overall she’s happy with Obamacare – but worried that Trump & Republicans will end it, and NOT protect previous conditions in whatever (if anything) replaces it.
Jay I am happy your daughter has insurance and she is happy with her situation.
But does that justify the force placed on individuals that do not want nor need insurance. For instance, I know there are two mid 30’s men, make over 100K per year, unmarried, have numerous different investments and saving accounts and one of them is health savings. They put a certain percentage of their income into savings and use that for health expenses. One has bought a insurance policy that covers catastrophic cost, something in the 6 digits, the other no.
So until the mandate was written out of the act, are you OK with government force in telling you, me or anyone else what we do or do not have to buy.
I am not! That is not what freedom is based on and should not be part of any legislation.
I can just here the left if the GOP ever got super majority of the congress and had the presidency and proposed the ASSA. (American Safety and Security Act). In that legislation would be a requirement that every household owns a gun for their own protection.
Outlandish? You bet, but no different than every man and woman over whatever age has to buy private enterprise health insurance regardless of need.
Good questions/POVs Ron.
I’ll try to provide good responses later: today is a wet rainy day in LA – my wife & I decided it’s good weather for home cooking. She’s baking fresh Italian baguettes, moist & fluffy; I’m making my world-class meatballs, to go with my world-class spaghetti sauce – time consuming but WORTH IT!
The sauce is done; meatballs are in process. Here’s the meatball recipe, if you feel ambitious to impress family or friends or your own taste buds try them.
BAKED MEATBALLS
• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F
• 1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 /2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• Prep 20 m,Cook 35 m, Ready In 2 h 15 m
1. Cover a baking sheet with foil and spray lightly with cooking spray.
2. Soak bread crumbs in milk in a small bowl for 20 minutes.
3. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook and stir onions in hot oil until translucent, about 20 minutes.
4. Mix beef and pork together in a large bowl. Stir onions, bread crumb mixture, eggs, parsley, garlic, salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, Italian herb seasoning, and Parmesan cheese into meat mixture with a rubber spatula until combined. Cover and refrigerate for about one hour.
5. Preheat an oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
6. Using wet hands, form meat mixture into balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Arrange onto prepared baking sheet.
7. Bake in the preheated oven until browned and cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes.
Yum!
Simspon Bowles proposed tax increases. Those would have been counter productive.
The total tax burden in the US is ABOVE the revenue optimizing maximum.
You can not get more tax revenue by increasing tax rates further.
All you will do is weaken the economy, not produce more revenue.
It appears to be impossible for most people to grasp this – even some intelligent ones.
Within the past few days both Tucker Carlson and Anne Coulter have proposed “taxing the rich”
Aparently AOC is not the only idiot unaware of the decades of scholarship and data on tax rates and revenue.
Ron we are STILL above the revenue optimizing maximum tax rate.
So long as we are any tax increase will decrease revenue, and any tax decrease that is not enormous will either be neutral or increase revenue.
We are near the appogee of the curve – and the top is relatively flat – which is why the tax changes of the past 75 years have had negligable effect on the tax revenue as a percent of the economy.
If we increase taxes slightly – we will lose revenue SLIGHTLY and harm the economy SLIGHTLY.
If we decrease taxes slightly – we will increase revenue SLIGHTLY and improve the economy SLIGHTLY
To get dramatic effects we must do dramatic changes.
Simpson Bowles starved the government of 67 cents, while using 33 cents to finally balance the budget.
I am willing for the government to rewrite tax policy to eliminate loopholes and other deductions, like solar power, electric car, and other deductions meant to promote an industry. I would also look at depreciation and depletion allowances.
Now if I looked at my budget and someone told me I could save 67 cents, but I would have to take a pay cut of 33 cents, would I not need to look closely at that?
So I would accpet the SB compromise, but no one in government would.
A balanced budget is important.
Reducing spending is MUCH MORE important.
Commism is inherently a “balanced budget” – everything belongs to government” Everything is spent by government – which decides what you get to keep.
Government must operate inside its means – or ultimately government will fail.
But that does nto mean government should be free to tax more in the hope of spending more.
Our standard of living is what we produce LESS that which government consumes.
The larger the portion of the economy governmenet consumes – the worse off we are – balanced budget or not.
dd;
“the point is******* they lied*****”
That would be false. I do not recall being promised this tax cut would be revenue neutral – yet according to the very article cited here it is.
Deficits are increasing because spending is increasing, and because interest rates are increasing. I beleive every basis point the Fed increases interest rates increases the deficit by $200B.
We are in a catch 22 that we knew was coming.
Current fed rates are too low. But raising rates will raise the deficit AND may harm the economy.
BTW EVERY fed rate change has positive and negative impacts.
When the fed gets it right the benefits outweigh the negatives.
I am not trying to say the Fed should not raise rates when appropriate – only that doing so will explode the deficit.
It will also increase incomes for retirees and those living off of investments.
“Ron, the difference between Trump’s lies and other typical politician lies is the difference between being squirted by a water pistol and submerged underwater in a barrel of urine.”
Yes, Trump is nailing us with a water pistol.
A rabbi’s view of “trump lies”
https://spectator.org/the-dems-who-cried-wolf/
Jay;
With respect to your daughter.
1). It is irrelevant whether she is happy now.
You seem to think that government can do to us whatever it pleases so long as it produces the appearance of a better result than we would have ourselves.
Government is NOT our nanny. Freedom means freedom to make our OWN choices – bad ones or good ones.
PPACA took away from your daughter the right to make her own choices.
That is evil in an of itself.
Hitler claimed the extermination of jews would produce benefits for others – and it is likely he was correct. But we are not free to murder 7M people to benefit 100M or 1B. The ends do not justify the means EVER.
PPACA was and remains immoral.
If your daughter is actually better off – and the actual numbers strongly suggest otherwise, that is irrelevant. It does not change that what was done was wrong. It does not change that undoing it is RIGHT.
Every right thing we do is not automatically also good for all of us.
Sometimes acting morally has a price. While acting immorally benefits us.
If I can steal and not get caught – I am better off, but that is not a good thing.
2). Most people including your daughter are inherently CONSERVATIVE, and that is a good thing. She apparently was opposed to PPACA – and by your own description she lost something that she was happy with at the time.
Now she has something different – and she AGAIN is opposed to changing.
That is called being conservative.
The left counts on it.
For most people Social Security is a BAD DEAL.
For most people PPACA is a BAD DEAL.
But once in place it is hard to get rid of – because people do not like changes that effect them.
3). Your claim that things are all honky dory now, presumes that you know how things would have been had PPACA not passed and it presumes they would be worse. More specifically it presumes that they would be 200B/year worse – because that is the cost of PPACA. That is about $1000/person worse. If you beleive that PPACA has created 1000/year/person in new value – you are smoking whacky weed.
This tax cut was not expected to “pay for itself” however the graph you provided as well as the data in the first paragraph of your article REFUTE your own headline
After several years of small declines Revenues rose.
Put TRIVIALLY the tax cuts have cost nothing.
To conclude otherwise requires beliving that had hillary been elected – growth would have spike taxes would have stayed the same or increased and revenue would have increased.
That is a fairly tale. What is clear from the first paragraph is that despite a substantial reduction in tax RATES revenue is INCREASING.
Dramatically ? That remains to be seen.
What is CERTAIN is that revenues did not DROP dramatically.
BTW you can go review the work of Christine Romer – Obama’s Cheif Economic Advisor in the first term and grasp this.
Upper marginal taxes about 35% are net LOSERS in terms of revenue.
Corporate taxes at almost any rate are net LOSERS in terms of revenue.
Why is it so hard for those of you on the left to understand that if you increase tax rates – people chose to make less. To be less productive.
Even those Nordic social democracies you all love learned this. Swedish tax rates are near FLAT – the vast majority of tax revenue in sweden comes from the middle class.
The swedes learned that high corporate and upper margin income taxes lose revenue.
“News Analysis
No, Trump’s Tax Cut Isn’t Paying for Itself (at Least Not Yet)
Federal revenues rose slightly in the 2018 fiscal year.”
“But that doesn’t mean the $1.5 trillion tax cut is bringing in more revenue than it’s losing.”
FALSE – litterally in its own terms. It revenues are UP then it is NOT losing revenue.
This is more leftist idiocy. The beleif that higher taxes MUST produce more revenue.
No they must not – and in fact they rarely do.
There is alot of solid economic data that the revenue optimizing maximum top TOTAL tax rate is about 35% – that means Federal, State, Local taxes of all forms added together over 35% will reduce revenue in comparison to a lower rate.
Knowing the exact point at which tax increase produce less revenue requires data – like romers.
Knowing that there is a point at which that occurs – something the left has not yet figured out, requires nothing more than simple logic.
Tax revenue if the tax rate is 0 will be 0. Tax revenue if the tax rate is 100% will be zero.
The revenue optimizing tax rate MUST be below 100% and above 0%.
Real world data from our nation and nations accross the world shows that the revenue optimizing maximum upper rate is about 35%.
BTW the revenue optimizing maximum is NOT the optimal tax rate.
The optimal tax rate is the rate at which sufficient government is funded that reduced government does no negatively impact standard of living, but no government that reduces standard of living is funded. That rate si KNOWN to be below 20% MAXIMUM, we do not have enough modern data to know exactly how far below 20% that is.
But 19th century data suggests TOTAL government should cost 3-8% of GDP.
BTW the graph in your article shows something else that intelligent people have noted for a long time. Within the range of tax policy changes that have occured in the past 75 years, tax revenues are fairly constant regardless of tax rates (as a percent of GDP) fluctuating primarily as a consequence of economic changes, not tax policy changes.
Put simply absent tax rate changes much larger than we have seen in the past 75 years – tax rates have little or no effect on federal revenue.
Because loud mouth Wall/barrier/white picket fence advocates were too cheap to put their money where their mouth is:
“GoFundMe refunding donors the $20 million raised for a border wall after campaign failed to reach goal But Brian Kolfage is starting a new campaign to build the wall privately”
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/01/11/gofundme-border-wall-refund/
They all lie, that’s your argument. I’m not sure you really are a fiscal conservative.
The Reps were warned by experts, not politicians.
“They all lie, that’s your argument. I’m not sure you really are a fiscal conservative.”
So when I see and understand something is true, then I can ‘t call a snake a snake?
So here is my point s and beliefs.
I supported Simpson-Bowles as written!
Neither party, including Obama accepted their recommendations
Neither party is going to accept changes to any program where decreased spending will make a difference.
If there is a choice between you and I having a dollar in our pocket from a tax cut or government keeping the dollar and spending it, I want you and I to have it.
A lie is a lie! Political promises are at best comments to energize a base. In many cases, they are just lies regardless of party affiliation.
Can unpaid workers be forced to work?
“The ongoing federal government shutdown has stopped most food safety inspections, but the Food and Drug Administration is planning to resume at least some of them. To do it, the agency will have to force furloughed workers to come back without pay.
FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said he is trying to pinpoint the most essential inspections, while making sure that employees do not suffer too much.”
My favorite Tea Party Conservative says this:
“Our FBI launched an investigation into our sitting President because they were concerned he might be a Russian spy.”
True – but “concern” is not a justification for an investigation.
EVIDENCE is. Todate there is no EVIDENCE.
One of the reasons that “concern” is not sufficient – is anyone can make up concerns from thin air – as was one here.
Clinton was not investigated over her email server until The state department responded to Judicial Watches FOIA requests for information on a topic that Clinton had to have addressed as Sec State – with “no responsive documents”. JW requested discovery on the basis that was impossible, and the court agreed. It was in the process of that discovery that State department aides supplied EVIDENCE that Clinton’s state department emails were on her own private mail server. Whether classified or not this is illegal – a violation of federal records laws. JW’s discovery prompted a re-opening of the ben ghazi hearings – and a formal referal to the FBI to investigate.
Clinton had previously LIED to the house and senate committees, she and some of her aides had LIED to the court during discovery – and we have not yet touched the issue of classified emails.
We have a solid basis for a criminal investigation.
At the START of the investigation – several crimes had already been committed,
At the start there was probable cause for several more.
In the course of the investigation – there was actual obstruction of justice as well as destruction of evidence.
These are all REAL things that actually occured.
Can you provide ANY EVIDENCE even today that any actual crime involving Trump, the Trump campaign and Russia occured ?
There is no basis at this moment for an investigation that has been going on for 3 years.
MacCarthy only covers the highlites.
He fails to note that ALL of the Russians alleged to have anything to do with Trump or the Trump campaign in some nefarious way have been tied to either MI6, the FBI, the CIA or now Fusion GPS.
MacCarthy also glosses over some important points.
Had Trump discovered what was going on after the election – he should not have FIRED the entire top of the FBI. He should have fired them and then ordered them charged with Crimes.
It is a crime to run a criminal investigation of a political enemy absent sufficient cause.
Not “concerns” – actual probable cause – evidence.
The “Plumbers” has “Concerns” about the McGovern campaign. That did not justify spying on them.
The plumbers only existed because J Edgar refused to do for Nixon what Comey did for Obama.
How do you not understand that this entire investigation is the worst political crime in US history,
If Trump was using the FBI to investigate Warren or Gillibrand for Collusion with Russia or pretty much anything else right now, he would be impeached the moment we found out.
Not only is this offensive – but it eliminates any doubt there was about prior corrupt practices in the Obama administration.
Using the IRS to target political enemies – again Nixon tried and failed – Obama succeeded.
MAYBE I could beleive that Lois Lerhner was a loose cannon – but for the fact that Holder refused to investigate and having survived IRS gate – Obama’s use of government agencies to conduct political espionage increased.
Ask Rosen and Atkinson about the Obama administration targeting journalists – spying on them, getting warrants on them – something that AGAIN has never been done before.
Ask Feinstein about the CIA spying on the senate ? Again never been done before.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-mccarthy-fbi-russia-investigation-was-always-about-trump
The more were learn the less credible it is to beleive that Rosenstein was just engaged in satire when he threatened to wear a wire on the president.
“True – but “concern” is not a justification for an investigation.
EVIDENCE is. Todate there is no EVIDENCE.”
Dear Dope, you are pathetically dumb.
If there is CONCERN, you Dingbat, they START investigating to see if there’s merit in the concerns.
1- you don’t KNOW what evidence they uncovered; But Mueller does.
2- the circumstantial evidence since then is SUBSTANTIAL that Trump is aiding and abetting Russia. There’s a dozen synopsis explaining that out there today, but a waste of my time to link them for you. You’re deaf,DUMB, and blind to the mounting evidence. But I’ll ask you this:
What innocent explanation do you have for Trump confiscating his interpteter’s notes at the Putin meeting.
“If there is CONCERN, you Dingbat, they START investigating to see if there’s merit in the concerns.”
Nope!!!
It is trivial to claim to be concerned.
I can claim to be concerned that Obama was being paid off by ukrainian transexual killers to cover up genocide in Tibet.
That is not a basis for an investigation.
You start an investigation when you have EVIDENCE that some concern you have has merit.
Provide that Evidence.
“1- you don’t KNOW what evidence they uncovered; But Mueller does.”
Ignoring the fact that the mueller investigation leaks like a seive, that no matter how much you threaten you can not keep grand jurors, secretaries, legal aides, from talking, and the press is incredibly resourceful and is watching everything mueller does like a hawk.
H?e cleared the entire floor of a federal court for an emergency hearing over xmas, and the press speculated and then eventually figured out what it was all about – the initial speculation was wrong.
We get tiny clues when redactions are not perfect – or when the same thing becomes public through multiple sources.
You also forget that you can threaten your staff, you can threaten grand jurors, but you have absolutely no ability to gag witnesses.
As Mueller has discovered – Manafort, Flynn, even Stone and Corsi can tell Trump and his lawyers EVERYTHING they are being asked.
They can also tell the press.
So yes, we actually have a pretty good idea what Mueller knows.
Or better put we have a pretty good idea that Mueller has no secret smoking guns.
You also forget that the press has far far more resources than Mueller and has been on this for longer. They can not subpeona, but they tend to be far batter at persuasion, again if there was anything to know – they would know it.
But MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL.
Whether we know what Mueller knows NOW, we actually do know what the DOJ/FBI knew at the time this started.
And the answer is they did NOT have actual evidence sufficient to open an investigation based on DOJ/FBI guidelines and the requirements of the constitution.
You keep putting the cart before the horse.
You keep pretending that you can dig and dig and dig – and as long as you ultimately find something, your digging is justified.
But investigations are not retroactively justified – though they can fail catastrophically as this one is if they never find anything.
“2- the circumstantial evidence since then is SUBSTANTIAL that Trump is aiding and abetting Russia. There’s a dozen synopsis explaining that out there today, but a waste of my time to link them for you. You’re deaf,DUMB, and blind to the mounting evidence. But I’ll ask you this:”
You seem to be under the delusion that emotions are circumstantial evidence.
You are clueless as to what constitutes evidence circumstantial or otherwise.
Your beleif about something is NOT circumstantial evidence.
A finger print in a room proves the person tied to that finger print was in the room. It does nto tell us when, and it does not tell us they committed a crime – that is circumstantial evidence.
The dozens of “synopisis” you claim are out there – are oppinion peices – they are not evidence, they are speculation – that is not evidence.
“What innocent explanation do you have for Trump confiscating his interpteter’s notes at the Putin meeting.”
Simple – privacy. Trump has had major problems with a permanent whitehouse staff that CRIMINALLY leaks like a seive.
There is in fact no reason in the world for an interpreter to keep notes.
Interpreters are their to interpret. They are employed for their skills with language. They are not policy guru’s they are not recorders, they are not transcriptionists.
I am hard pressed to think of any reason that an interpreter should keep notes in the first place.
If I was involved in ANYTHING requiring an interpreter – public or private and I found the interpreter was keeping notes – I would demand the notes and fire the interpreter.
As is typical – you continue to assert that the fact that you wish to know something is the same as a right to know, and that any action that impedes your ability to know what you have no right to know is the same as circumstantial evidence of a crime.
It is NOT.
I would further note that NORMALLY Circumstantial evidence is used to demonstrate that YOU committed a crime.
It is NOT typically used to prove that a crime was committed.
Habeus Corpus – is fundimentally a demand for proof that a crime was actually committed.
We very very rarely establish that a crime occurred through circumstantial evidence. That is highly dangerous.
The constitution prohibits issuing warrants short of EVIDENCE demonstrating probable cause that a crime has been committed.
The entire fight over the FISA warrants is because the Steele Dossier is NOT credible evidence – it does not meet the 4th amendment standard, nor the higher FISA court standard that an actual crime was committed.
The SC statue requires that the SC investigate a CRIME, to allege a crime – there must be EVIDENCE – not just concern.
You should contrast this with the Clinton email investigation.
AT THE START – we knew that Sec. Clinton’s state department communications did not exist at the state department.
We also knew that ALOT of what the Sec. State does is DEFACTO classified,. Even the Sec. States calendar is CLASSIFIED.
Further some of Clinton’s records had been subpeoned by congress, and what was provided was spartan, State was also subject to FOIA requests – and discovery order by a court related to one of these resulted in learning that Clinton had a private email server.
Prior to that there was NO government investigation. The Benghazi committee using the fact that a private email server was discovered with government documents on it requested an investigation.
The DOJ./FBI at this point had probable cause that several crimes were committed. The absence of all communications records at State and the presence of 10’s of thousands of state department communications on a private email server demonstrated that laws regarding federal record keeping had been violated and that probable cause existed that 18cfr793 was violated.
Note ABSOLUTELY nothing here is “circumstantial”.
Though further evidence was ultimately obtained – such as that 10’s of thousands of emails had been destroyed while subject to discovery (another crime). From the start the only open questions were – how much classified information was on Clinton’s private mail server, how did it get there, and did foreign powers have access to it.
Despite Comey’s claims otherwise – Clinton’s intentions were NOT relevant.
Or better put only relevant to determine the specific crime committed.
If classified infomation was present on Clinton’s mail server – ONE peice would be proof of a crime.
Reckjlessness and negligence – just as with homocide by vehicle to no make a crime into innocent conduct, they merely make it a lessor crime.
We are not free to drive drunk, or speed or drive recklessly, kill someone and then claim innocence because we did not intend to do anything bad.
I am continuously harping on the left’s fixation with “intentions”.
An act that is not a crime rarely becomes a crime because of criminal intentions.
Trump can intend to do evil – so long as his actions are constitutionally and otherwise legal they are NOT crimes.
Clinton can intend to do good (do you really beleive that), so long as her acts are illegal, they are criminal regardless of intentions.
Put simply you seem incapable of distinguishing between evidence, circumstantial evidence, and feelings.
Today’s Best Tweet
(for Ron, who waits for tweets with great anticipation 😉)
Obviously a joke – but if it isn’t ? So what ?
Treason is defined in the constitution – it is not maleable.
Our founders were familiar – intimately with the english proclivity to accuse disenters of treason
Precisely as you and the left are doing,
and defined treason in the constitution sufficiently narrowly as to preclude exactly the kind of garbage you are spraying – though unfortunately that has not worked.
Where does this ludicrous idea that Trump is conspiring with Putin to commit Treason come from ?
It is irrational. What is Putin going to do – offer Trump a Dacha on the baltic ?
Trump can not spend in the remainder of his life all the money he currently has.
There is no more power in the world than president of the United States.
So what does Putin have to offer ?
The US relationship with Russia is little different than under Obama.
If Putin purportedly bought Trump – he got nothing for it.
Not to mention do you really beleive that a multibillionaire got “bought” by something like $1M in bad campaign adds – about half of which were for Hillary ?
Rather than go to all this trouble to “conspire” with Russia, Trump could just dump another 4 minutes worth of interest on his current investment into his campaign fund.
“Treason is defined in the constitution – it is not maleable.”
How reading retarded are you?
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”
You see the ‘ors’ ??
What do you think ‘adhering to their enemies’ means – physically sticking to them with scotch tape? Do you think aid and comfort means bandaging them and giving them coffee and donuts?
The US doesn’t have to be in a declared war to charge someone with treason (look it up). Or be arrested for treasonous (in the Treacherous meaning of it) actions, and thereafter convicted and executed (the Rosenbergs).
And SCOTUS has never examined the consequences of treasonous crimes based on stupidity. Trump may be the first.
I wonder, can those who aid and abet treasonous stupidity (you) br charged as accomplices?
Like I said. 18.5 minutes of tape?
This is your Presidential lump of excretion insulting Warren today in his presidential imitation of a fuckhead.
I agree the spot is dumb, but only a mentally President of the US would comment this way.
Trump – Dave-John’s guy – threatening/obstructing a witness about to testify before the House.
https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/house-chairmen-issue-warning-after-president-s-statements-on-cohen-testimony
So ?
What do you expect ? I would point out that Cohen has plead guilty to lying to congress, except that I really do not expect that he is going to lie.
There is little we do not already know about the Daniels NDA – not that Cohen is a credible source.
Spittle contests over the details do not matter.
The most critical issue is that there is nothing in any version of the facts that would make what happened a crime – no matter how much you wish otherwise.
Your distaste for something does not make it a crime.
The next area of inquiry would be regarding Russia.
Cohen has steadfastly denied through to the moment any political involvement with russia.
Are you expecting that to change ?
Lets say Cohen testifies that he actually did go to prague and met with and paid off russian hackers for Trump – that is the left wing nut fantasy testimony.
It is not enough that he says this, it is not enough that he testifies to it under oath – he has already plead to lying.
He must assert facts that are proveable, he must provide evidence.
One of the problems with the Mueller investigation tactics is that no matter how hard you twist peoples arm to get them to tell you what you want to hear – to be useful it must be the truth.
Do you have any doubt that Micheal Cohen would testify to heinous crimes committed by Trump right now – if that would get him out of jail ?
Of Course he would. So would Manafort who has spent the last year in solitary confinement.
Getting people to “sing” is one thing, the danger is that they will compose.
But it does the left absolutely no good to have Cohen or Manafort turn on Trump, unless they can say something that has evidence to support it.
Mueller has shredded these peoples lives. He has gone through their computers, their emails, their bank records – absolutely everything.
Mueller is beating these people up to get them to tell him something that if he was smart he already knows they credibly can not.
Your fundimental problem is that you BELIEVE that something evil occured – and you do so with absolute certainty. Therefore you are incapable of grasping that Cohen has no way out.
Anything he says, anything he does to try to help himself has got to be proveably true.
if Cohen or Manafort had the evidence, if they really did the evil you beleive they did, they would have flipped and provided proof to Mueller long ago.
Do you honestly believe after the things Trump has said of Cohen or Cohen of Trump that Cohen is still holding out for a pardon ?
Manafort has already spent a year in jail – most in solitary. Even if Trump pardon’s/commutes his sentence – and I think he should eventually commute, it is not happening soon.
Manafort could have escaped any jail time and kept his money long ago by ratting out Trump.
If he had anything worthwhile to say.
The entire Trump Russia collusion nonsense requires a large conspiracy with a mafia like code of Omerta.
Manafort, Cohen, Papadoulis, Flynn, Page, Stone Corsi, …
These are not Mafia henchmen, who are going to die before they give Trump up, who are hoping for an eventual pardon or communtation.
They are not ratting out Trump because they have nothing to say.
That has been obvious for over 2 years. It has been obvious from the begining.
This investigation has never been about Trump/Russia collusion.
That has been ludicrously stupid from the start.
Trump russia collusion is just a pretext to investigate Trump in the hope of finding a crime.
And if you do not understand why that is criminal then you are stupider than I credit you.
President Stupid’s Shutdown Effecting Farmers
“Now, farmers and farm groups say that federal crop payments have stopped flowing. Farmers cannot get federally backed operating loans to buy seed for their spring planting, or feed for their livestock. They cannot look up new government data about beef prices or soybean yields to make decisions about planting and selling their goods in an ever-changing global market.” NYTIMES
http://www.michiganradio.org/post/partial-government-shutdown-affecting-michigan-farmers
“Jim Byrum is President of the Michigan Agribusiness Association. He says so far, the impact of the shutdown on farmers is minimal, because it’s winter. ”
Guess NY Times is goosing up the impact at this time. But what the hell, why report facts and the truth?
Er, Ron – Trump’s AG SEC said this today, ON FOX.
Agriculture Secretary Perdue: Farmers Hurting, Shutdown Needs to ‘End Now’ | Newsmax.com
“Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Monday his department is working to get staffers back to work on a temporary basis to help farmers hurt by the partial government shutdown — but the “real answer” is for the shutdown “to end now.”
In an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, Perdue said the Farm Service Agency has run out of funding, which has forced Perdue to work with the Office of Management and Budget to try getting farmers loans. “. newsmax.
Well we have a difference of opinion. So based on two agricultural representatives , one without a political agenda and one with a poltical agenda disagreeing, I guess I dont know enough to form a opinion.agricultural
So I need more info.
And this, from NC farmers:
“They’re playing a game of basically Russian Roulette, and it affects the people out here,” Revels said. “It’s having a big effect on us being able to do things we need to do this time of the year, when we’re really not in the field doing much work.”
With the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency offices closed, Revels said farmers are unable to turn in important paperwork and federal loans and payments, including disaster relief payments, are now on hold.
“We’re just like everybody else,” Revels said. “We don’t draw a paycheck every week like most people do, but still, every dollar that we get is important to us. We need it to pay bills like anybody else.”
https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/wake-county-news/central-nc-farmers-say-government-shutdown-is-hurting-them/1699806207
This has nothing to do with farming. It is disaster relief and Tariff relief funds for the most part.
So we have two assholes farting at each other. Trump farts what he wants, Pelosi farts no. So who pulls off the gas mask first?
I feel sorry for anyone caught in this mess. But voters voted for the mess we are in. One group wanted secured borders and voted for Trump. Another group wanted lax border security and voted for Pelosi,( after their border was 80%+ secure.)
So congress, do your damn job, pass legislation congress agrees on, send it to Trump and then go on record to sustain or override a veto.
What the hell is so hard for people to understand we do jot elect a king? We elect congress to create and pass bills. The president can approve or not. Congress can support him or not. If they support him, then a new bill is developed.
And this from Kansas farmer:
““I don’t know where we’re at from here,” Brunkow told Here & Now. “On top of not having a farm bill and not having crop insurance, our Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, our local offices are shutdown. We’re kind of in limbo right now.”
https://www.nhpr.org/post/how-government-shutdown-hurting-farmers#stream/0
And this is definitely not NYT slanted.
The Government Shutdown Risks Shutting Down Family Farms
https://www.farmaid.org/about-us/
“Now, farmers and farm groups say that federal crop payments have stopped flowing.”
The farm bill passed – it is one of the last bills to get passed. Any impact of the “shutdown” on farmer is inconsequential.
Separately – I oppose federal subsidies – even to farmers. If by some chance the shutdown is interfering with those – that is cause to celebrate.
I want those receiving subsidies of any kind from government to treat those subsidies as risky and unreliable. Or better yet just end them.
“Farmers cannot get federally backed operating loans to buy seed for their spring planting, or feed for their livestock.”
Again the farm bill passed – this is likely fake news.
But again – if so – Great, the federal government should not be backing loans – not to farmers, not to students, not to anyone.
“They cannot look up new government data about beef prices”
Beef is sold on privately run exchanges. The data is readily available.
Regardless, it is not the role of government to keep track of beef or other prices.
“or soybean yields to make decisions about planting and selling their goods in an ever-changing global market.”
again crap. Soybean yeilds are not highly dynamic. They are a function of the soil on your specific farm. They do not change because it is 2019 – unless condictions on your farm change.
This entire article is “fake news” – first almost all of it is a LIE – the farm bill passed.
But even if it were not a lie, most of it is still manufactured nonsense.
I just love this lunacy that we must end the shutdown because 800,000 federal workers are “suffering”.
They can end their suffering trivially – get a productive job outside of government.
There would be a tripple benefit to all of us.
One of the benefits of this shutdown is hopefully that some of them will have left to go elsewhere.
What is disturbing about this shutdown is that they are really getting a defered payment vacation. They are not working – and the world has not come to an end. We clearly did not need whatever they are doing. and yet when this is over we are going to pay them for having done nothing.
Free markets are an exchange of value for value – if you work for me – I give you money, and you do the work I consider of value to me in return. If you do not do the work – I do not give you money. If I do not give you money – you do not do the work.
There is no – i am obligated to give you money and you provide nothing in return.
Donnie’s Dave-John:
Isn’t Tom Nichols someone whose intellect and politics you once respected?
If he and others of the same reasoning ability see this, what happened to your ability to objectively assess?
“The president clearly has something to hide. As I have written many times over the past two years, it is highly unlikely that there is any innocent explanation for the remarkable frequency and depth of the Trump coterie’s interactions with Russia for some 30 years, and especially during the campaign.
While Trump is not an “agent” of the Russian Federation (too many people use this kind of language without knowing what it means to counterintelligence officials), it seems at this point beyond argument that the president personally fears Russian President Vladimir Putin for reasons that can only suggest the existence of compromising information.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/01/13/mounting-evidence-trump-fears-putin-compromising-information-column/2564892002/
“Isn’t Tim Nichols ….”
That would require me to know Nichols, I do not
Regardless, what relevance would that have ?
I way the oppinions of some people higher than others when making choices.
Ultimately I make my own choices.
Way to much of what we all do – but specifically YOU is massive appeals to authority.
Obviously if you stand alone on an issue, there are lots of reasons for you to examine your logic carefully – the odds of all being wrong save you are slim.
At the same time there are myriads of historical examples of EXACTLY that – Galleleo pops up instantly.
Regardless, we are not dealing with all minus one scenario’s.
We are not even close.
Nor are we dealing with binary choices – another of your favorite fallacies.
You keep spewing this nonsense that anyone who agrees with Trump on some issues,
or even more narrowly does nto accept that everythign that Trump does or says is the end of the world, is some Trump zombie – that it total bullshit – and it is both a logically fallacious and morally improper argument.
But morals are not the strong suit for those on the left.
Probably because the left is ideologically detached from morality.
I have asked you constantly for some underlying principles that underpin your values and beleifs.
I have yet to get any.
You are unmoored, making up whatever position you want on an issue based on your guts or what some talking head says.
As I have repeatedly asserted the foundation of morality is individual liberty – free will.
Morality DOES NOT EXIST without free will.
All moral measures are ultimately decisions about liberty.
With respect to your article – The premise is demonstrably FALSE.
Feelings are NOT evidence.
Beliefs are NOT evidence.
Spin is NOT evidence.
Trump’s “behavior” towards Russia has NOT always been a security concern – nor is it at the moment.
This is more of this garbage that words matter more than deeds.
Absolutely during the 2016 Campaign Trump said very stupid fawning things about Putin.
And yet we elected him.
Subsequently Trump’s ACTIONS towards Putin have been no different than Obama’s
Sometimes favoring Russia, sometimes not.
But more importantly Trump’s decisions have CONSISTENTLY been CONSISTENT with his campaign promises.
He promised to kill ISIS and leave Syria. He promised to leave afghanistan.
He did not make these promises contingent on getting the approval of neo-con’s.
For much of the past two decades MAJORITIES of american’s want our military OUT of the mideast, For much of the past two decades MAJORITIES of american’s want to end this We are the policemen of the world garbage.
Every presidential candidate INCLUDING Bush II Ran on that platform.
Bush ran opposing the nation building of Clinton and Gore, and went on attempt more failed nation building than Clinton and Gore ever attempted.
Obama promised to get us out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo.
Instead as president he got us into Libya, the Ukraine, and Syria.
Starting during Bush – but exploding during Obama fracking has nearly eliminated the important of mideastern oil as a national interest.
Alone among US presidents in the past 20 years Trump is taking atleast half steps to actually do what he promised – as opposed to EVERY OTHER PRESIDENT democrat or republican who once elected was OWNED by neo-cons and rather than get us out of these messes, they created MORE.
To be clear – I do not give all that much of a shit whether Russia’s influence in the mid east waxes or wanes based on ANYTHING.
The cold war is OVER – WE WON. Russia has a shitload of nukes – if she did not, she would be be a third rate world power. Russia is NOT a super power. Our foreign choices should NOT be driven by what harms or helps Russia.
“Have you at long last no shame ?”
Is there anything you actually beleive in Jay ?
Your and the rantings of the left regarding Russia would be far more convincing if you did not have a long long history of supporting exactly the things Trump is doing.
Because neo-cons are never trumpers – they have taken over part of your brian and gotten you to abandon principles.
While I opposed the efforts to frame Dick Chenney for the non-crime of not-outing valerie Plame, that did not alter the fact that I loath Dick Chenney and everything he stands for.
I did so in 2001, and I do today.
I did when the neo-cons were Republicans, and I do today now that they have taken ownership of the minds of everyone on the left.
Absolutely one of the big differences – and probably a subtle factor in the 2016 election results was that Hillary Clinton was the most hawkish candidate in the election – except possibly Lindsey Graham.
Absolutley everyone else – all other republicans and all other democrats were fighting to stake out some position between complete isolationism and non-interventionism.
That is where Trump ran, and that is how Trump has acted as president.
That is what Libertarians have wanted pretty much forever, that is what the left has claimed it wanted for decades.
But your hatred of Trump is so great that you accept without question that anything Trump does is wrong – even if it is something you vigorously advocated for for years.
You and Nichols should get a clue.
This argument/rant is illogical.
Tell me – if we open up the entire realm of hypothetical possibilities – what is it that Putin can have on Trump ?
You need something big enough that it would destroy trump.
The so called “pee tape” would likely have done so during the election, it would not now.
You need something that actually makes sense.
This conspiring with Russia to win the election garbage has never made sense.
Why would ANYONE go to an enormous amount of effort to make clandestine arrangements with Russia to get something like $1M in abysmally bad campaign adds ?
There is only one reason any political candidate has EVER danced with foreign powers – MONEY. Clinton received significant funds from the Chinese in 1992. There was a big stink about that. Obama received fairly substantial donations in 2008 from credit card contributions in the mideast. There is not even a claim that Putin provided Trump with money. The only political candidate receiving money from Russia was CLINTON!!!.
The efforts of Russia to “influence” our election are prima fascia proof of how difficult and worthless that is. The Guardian had more influence on the US election than putins stupid adds.
So why is it that you think Trump conspired with Russia – what does putin have to offer that Trump might want ?
You and Nichols claim Putin must have something on Trump.
So what would that be – something that actually makes sense.
Not this garbage.
We know all about the Clinton’s relationship with Russia – it was entirely about MONEY.
They traded political access for massive amounts of money. They did so almost openly.
What is it you think Putin has that is more significant than that ?
Next – you need something that Putin has absolute proof of that is damning,
AND it must be something that no one who is not scared shitless of putin has access to.
It is incredibly difficult to keep secrets. You would have us beleive that between Stone Corsi, Cohen, Manafort, Flynn, Papadoulis, Page, ….. that not a single one knows something AND can be flipped ?
Or that whatever this secret that Putin purportedly has – no one else knows ?
The press has been digging for years.
Mueller has been digging with the power to bring people in front of a grand jury, and to subpeona them.
Are you telling me that Mueller has found some deep dark secret AND that not a single person on a grand jury has leaked it ?
As time goes by we find MORE and MORE evidence that the investigation itself was corrupt from the start.
Todate that is ZERO evidence of whatever it is that you are looking for – except your beleif.
This is a religion for you. It is not about facts, or law or evidence.
And Nichols argument is the same – and BTW logically false.
In fact the opposite.
“You and Nichols should get a clue”
That’s like a rodent telling German Shepards to think more clearly…
You still don’t know who Tom Nichols is?
You’re like a dishwasher criticizing an oceanographer about the properties of water.
It’s illegal for Dumpster Trumpster to destroy any government documents relating to his presidency. LOCK HIM UP!
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/10/trump-papers-filing-system-635164
“It’s illegal for Dumpster Trumpster to destroy any government documents relating to his presidency. ”
No it is not – for multiple reasons.
Everything is not a record or a document.
Everything that is a record or a document is not required to be preserved.
I am actually a strong proponent of government having to do everything in public and on the record – or atleast nearly everything.
I would support passing laws to that effect. but the current federal records laws do not require all conversations to have records, or the preservation of notes – particularly not something like interpreters notes.
Further the one priviledge which the courts do respect regarding the president is that of having private communications.
Nixon made the mistake of recording his communications. Otherwise he could have precluded those advising him from testifying regarding any advice they gave him.
We want those communicating with the president to be able to say anything – no matter how off the wall.
This is part of this who left wing nonsense.
I even disagree with MacCarthy – who does not beleive that Trump’s firing of Comey is obstruction of justice – unless Mueller can prove a bad intention.
ABSOLUTELY WRONG. With very few exceptions a crime is an act. A legal act does not become a crime because of bad intentions.
What Trump SAYS may be annoying and imflamitory, but what matters is what he DOES.
Either Trump can legitimately fire Comey – or he can not. PERIOD.
If he can, then his reasons do not matter.
Whatever Putin and Trump said to each other is entirely meaningless.
Unless it results in actions – and if it results in actions – we see those.
They are not hidden.
Not a single AOC story in my Google feed today, oh happiness!
Trump down 12 in Rasmussen, which is callibrated by the 2018 election as being shifted 8 points to the right. So this agrees with other polls recently that have the trump gap at about -20. Which where it ought to be if we are not a truly degraded nation.
Oh, and yes trump is a traitor as I have believed since he took Putin’s side against American intelligence agencies. Duh, he is a traitor, and his party and it’s voters are mostly fine with that. History will not undervalue the importance of this fact.
So if the US intelligence agencies are WRONG – the president is still required to “side” with them ?
BTW “took russias side” over what ?
AGAIN Treason is defined in the constitution DELIBERATELY to avoid exactly the stupid assertions you are making.
It is a “truly degraded nation” that treats political differences as treasonous.
I have no idea where you are getting your rassmussen numbers but according to the 1/14/2019 Rassussen daily presidential approval tracking poll:
Trump’s approval is virtually unchanged since October.
Further from innauguration through to today it has matched that of Obama near perfectly.
In fact from April of 2018 through to early January Trumps approval was MOSTLY higher than Obama;’s at the same time – though only by a few points. At the moment it is lower – by a few points. Not enough to see daylight.
Are you saying that Obama was a treasonous scoundrel that the american people turned on – and yet they re-elected him ?
What is amazing is depsite the fact that it is well documented that Trump has gotten 3 times the negative attention from the press that Obama did, That with few exceptions Obama’s highest negative press was less than Trump lowest negative press,.
And yet Trump is still at the same approval as Obama.
What is self evident is that you, democrats and those on the left have zero interest in reality or facts.
If you are going to make claims – you can atleast get your facts straight.
So you define happiness as a day AOC did not do or say something stupid ?
Roby, I find little daylight between AOC and you.
She inarticulately spouts political and economic nonsense – so bad even Anderson cooper can not let her slide.
Aside from the Anderson Cooper part – what distinguishes you from her ?
You do not have her spotlight, You do not have a vote in congress. That is about the only difference.
I have yet to here from you a real argument – about pretty much anything.
Frankly even AOC does a better job of actually making arguments – hers are just hilariously stupid and factually wrong. You have yet to reach that standard.
I will be happy to address any issue of your choosing where we disagree, using
ACTUAL facts, ACTUAL logic, ACTUAL reason.
None of this manufactured nonsense – no appeals to authority, no appeals to emotion, no naked assertions, no ad hominem.
Your meaningless post(s) plus $2.39 will get you a loaf of wonder bread. As in the case of almost all of your posts it boils down to “there is no…”.
The convince Dave challenge is like the fly to the sun and walk on it challenge. In any case, Nothing will be proven on a political blog. Life will do the proving. One of us will be closer to the truth about trump and the Russians in the fullness of time.
$2.39 for Wonder bread. Where the heck are you shopping? Target has it for $1.79.
I buy it at the bread outlet for 79 cents a loaf.
The judge will be the history books that will be written decades from now, not you Dave, and not me and not internet opinions. If we choose to disagree with the final verdict that is a matter of personal choice. But, it’s a weightless personal opinion and nothing more. Imagining otherwise is delusional.
Ron, you must have that time machine Dave won’t permit me to have. I actually thought that wonder bread went out of business in the time of soupy sales. Does it still build strong bodies. 12 ways? All that for .79.
Roby
https://www.wonderbread.com
Maybe its a regional thing now.
Maybe Trump ate many WB sandwiches and one of the strond body parts was
ummm…hands!
So Trump should side with the same intelligence agencies that:
Told us that Iraq was developing WMD’s ?
This is what the left used to say about our intelligence agencies.
Now because Trump is at odds with them you are fawning over them ?
https://www.thenation.com/article/cias-failures/
I am near ecstatic that Trump is leaving Syria and reducing our presence in Afghanistan.
If anything I want more!!!!!! We are not the world’s policemen.
Accusing those pushing us into wars and conflict all over the place of treason would be stupid hyperbole – BUT they are FAR more dangerous than Trump.
Nor do I give a fig whether Trump’s choice benefit Russia, or China.
What I care about is how they impact the US.
If we are spending our blood and our treasure on foreign adventures then the burden is heavy on those advocating for those adventures to prove they are worth that blood and treasure.
Current estimates of the cost of the mideast mess since 2001 are CONSERVATIVELTY approaching $6T. the cost in blood immeasureable. Soldiers wounded in Iraq through 2014 are “officially” 32,000, that does not include the rest of the mideast, that does not include civilian casualties.
The great american novel – Larry Norman.
I was born and raised an orphan in a land that once was free
In a land that poured its love out on the moon;
And I grew up in the shadows of your silos filled with grain
But you never helped to fill my empty spoon
And when I was ten you murdered law with courtroom politics
And you learned to make a lie sound just like truth;
But I know you better now and I don’t fall for all your tricks
And you’ve lost the one advantage of my youth
You kill a black man at midnight just for talking to your daughter
Then you make his wife your mistress and you leave her without water;
And the sheet you wear upon your face is the sheet your children sleep on
At every meal you say a prayer; you don’t believe but still you keep on
And your money says in God we trust
But it’s against the law to pray in school;
You say we beat the Russians to the moon
And I say you starved your children to do it
You are far across the ocean but the war is not your own
And while you’re winning theirs, you’re gonna lose the one at home;
Do you really think the only way to bring about the peace
Is to sacrifice your children and kill all your enemies?
The politicians all make speeches while the news men all take note
And they exaggerate the issues as they shove them down our throats;
Is it really up to them whether this country sinks or floats?
Well I wonder who would lead us if none of us would vote
Your Google feed left out this front page story: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/nyregion/ocasio-cortez-democrats-congress.html
The coverage on her reminds me of another loud mouth NYer.
“The coverage on her reminds me of another loud mouth NYer.”
Absolutely.
I do not get a vote on AOC’s membership in congress.
I do get a vote for President
otherwise things are much the same.
Each of us is free to like or dislike, one, both, neither,
We are free to vote accordingly,
we are free to insult as we wish.
But that is pretty much the limits of what we can do within the law.
I do not understand why the Bronx elected AOC.
You do not understand why the country elected Trump.
Our lack of understanding does not empower us to take action outside the law.
“You do not understand why the country elected TrumpL
The country didn’t elect trump.
“The country didn’t elect trump.”
The government seems to disagree, even Obama accepted that Trump won.
We have rules – in this case a constitution. We play by the rules, we run elections by the rules. In football it is not the team with the most yards, in basketball it is not the time with the most time with the ball. In baseball it is not the team with the most strikeouts.
In each of these as with elections we can change the rules – doing so will change the game.
Both Trump and Clinton competed to win the most electoral college votes – NOT the most popular votes. You can win every single statistic at the superbowl – save the score and you go home the loser, the goat. The process is all about winning electoral votes – there is no consolation prize for winning the most popular votes or for winning the most minority votes or womens votes or ….
If you do not like that – change the rules.
But there are reasons for the rules as they are – though some things have changed, one purpose of the elctoral college was to increase the importance of ALL states in the election.
The electoral college is a form of “gerrymandering” conducted by our founders – to diminish the outsized importance of those who live in the cities the coasts and the populous states. We already see the mess that we have in California when people who are clueless about what it takes to grow fruit of grain get to make the life rules for those who do.
The electoral college was intended and succeeds at amplifying the influence of minorities – those in rural and suburban areas.
AS I said it is plain an simple a form of gerrymandering – but so is direct popular election,.
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/2016/election-results.html
“Your meaningless post(s) plus $2.39 will get you a loaf of wonder bread. As in the case of almost all of your posts it boils down to “there is no…”.”
Oppinions are free, you can hold whatever oppinion you wish, but the use of force is not justified by mere oppinions.
You say that the Truth will be proven “in the fullness of time” – and in saying so you make my point and lose the argument.
We do not use force – and all actions of government are force and require justification, on a mere opinion.
While we do not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt for everything that government does. We do require “probable cause” to do most of what is involved in an “investigation”
If probable cause that some crime was committed existed, you could name the crime and cite the actual evidence.
As you can not – the requisite basis for an investigation does not exist.
Trump bandies about “witch hunt” alot.
What constitutes a “witch hunt” – are you literal about it – a hunt for witches ?
Or does it mean an investigation without foundation ?
If there is a foundation – then you should be able to clearly identify it.
We might not agree whether wrong doing occured, but we atleast agree that some events actually occurred – we have evidence of them.
“The convince Dave challenge is like the fly to the sun and walk on it challenge.”
With respect to the use of force – aka govenrment, that is close to how things should be.
Today homosexuals mostly enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals. That was not true through most of history. Is that change merely some cultural whimsy – or is it an honest recognition that sexual orientation is NOT a justification for the use of force ?
If our oppinions shift again in 100 years – is it OK to criminalize homosexuality ?
In many parts of the world people do not share our oppinions and they use government force against homosexuals – is that OK – because that is not our culture, or is that wrong on some fundimental basis that goes beyond culture ?
The nazi’s wanted to exterminate jews – for the greater good.
Is that unacceptable for some fundimental reason, or just because you debate that it was the greater good ?
In your private life you are free – short of the use of force to do or beleive as you please.
You do not like homosexuals – that is your right. You do not want to sell wedding cakes to them – fine, but I might not buy from your bakery.
But if you wish to compell government to arrest them – your oppinion is NOT a justifiation for force.
Most everything we discuss at TNM is about politics – and that means GOVERNMENT and that means FORCE.
And the use of force means – oppinion is NOT sufficient.
It is not just me you need to prove your point to. You need to meet the standard needed to justify the use of force. Otherwise you are not free to demand government action.
Though you are still free to beleive as you wish and to act short of force on your own.
“In any case, Nothing will be proven on a political blog. Life will do the proving. One of us will be closer to the truth about trump and the Russians in the fullness of time.”
While you are correct – what you fail to grasp is that we have been from the begining at the point were we did not have sufficient evidence to investigate – to use force.
Further you do not seem to grasp that given the actual facts that we know, the odds of arriving at anything resembling what you beleive are very near zero.
The left has claimed the mantle of the party of “hope” – and today you are hoping the future will prove that bad things you beleive are actually true.
That is a bizarre form of hope.
From the begining of Obama’s presidency – I hoped he would succeed. I hoped I was wrong,
I hoped that he would bring about recovery.
Ultimately my hope proved futile – something I expected, because it was hope against the evidence.
But you are hoping – against the evidence for failure.
I am glad I am not you.
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/14/rand-paul-neighbor-attack-senator-have-surgery-canada/2568200002/
Rand Paul puts his hernia where his mouth is:
😄🤣👍
“Those who chuckled at this supposed irony missed a major detail, even though it was noted in the press coverage: Paul’s surgery will take place at the Shouldice Hernia Hospital in Thornhill, Ontario. The clinic is private, and run for profit; The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale, who is from Thornhill, notes that it was “grandfathered in to Ontario’s socialized health system.”
Paul is going to a private for profit hospital – and that somehow hypocracy ?
Do you lefties pay any attention ?
Can you read ?
Do you hear Canada and assume “socilaist” or “russian” and assume Putin ?
https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/14/rand-paul-canada-surgery-clinic-private
Jeez. Please someone explain that his hernia is going into his private libertarian mouth, the opposite of hypocrisy.
Your every drivel is fraught with misunderstanding an obfuscation.
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the voice of an ignorant generation”
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-the-voice-of-an-ignorant-generation
I do not agree with this entirely – but it is a START.
We need a FULL discussion about Immigration.
Though we need to go beyond whether we want a little or a lot.
We need to decicde what we want AND how to accomplish it.
It is not enough to decide we only want 500K immigrants per year or to decide we want 3M.
Or even we want anyone who wishes to come here.
We must also look at how to make those choices work.
I harp on the fact that I want open borders – but I understand that comes with consequences.
We can decide to open our border tomorow. If we do not make a number of other changes – the effects will be huge, broad and accross our society.
I can choose to have a long gravel drive way, but I can not do so and expect magic to clear the snow in the winter. Choices come with consequences, and we need to think about those too.
It is not enough to decide if we want few or many immigrants. We must also decide how we are going to impliment whatever choice we make.
Scher rightly points out that Trump claimed to support significant legal immigration – and he is lying about that. Though I think Scher is reaching on the claim that Trump is significantly making rather than enforcing existing law.
Scher’s note that we are not building a northern wall is disengenuous.
If Billions in drugs and millions of illegals were crossing from the north we probebly would.
That said he still has a point.
ANY limit on immigration means WE MUST CHOOSE.
My wife and I decided to adopt rather than to have biological children.
Whether we liked it or not, that choice came with consequences – lots of other choices.
Instead of random chance combining our genes and giving us a boy or girl smart or not, healthy or not, that we would love no matter what, we had to choose – boy or girl, domestic or international, What country, what race.
When adopting our son, we literally had to go to a website and pick children from photo’s and dossier’s.
Am I racist because I chose children from Asia rather than South america ?
Or am I racially enlightened because I did not pick a white child from eastern europe – for reasons that had nothing to do with race ?
I did not want these choices, but by chosing to adopt I had to make them.
I was very happy with adopting from china – because once we picked China – China picked everything else. 9 months later they sent us a photo – and the moment we saw that photo THAT was OUR daughter. There were millions of other children throughout the world at that time available for adoption. But this one picture once given to us, became OUR daughter.
It could have been any other child, there is no complelling logical reason for one over the other. Still choices have to be made.
With our son there were even more choices. With each one it was evident that in making a choice, we were also deciding AGAINST myriads of other children.
We were playing god, deciding things that are normally decided by chance.
I say all of this because immigration involves EXACTLY the same choices.
Both the left and the right are hiding from those choices. Though the left is more disengenuous about it.
I think one of the big reasons for opposition to the wall, and even for Pelosi’s claim that a wall is immoral – is hiding from difficult choices.
Pelosi and the democrats want to say they want border security and limits. But they really want not to have to make the tough choices. To let the border leak like a seive and then bemoan the drugs and crime and low wage low skill employment and illegal employment that come with that.
If you do not want enforceable limits on immigration – you OWN what follows, and you should be prepared to openly embrace and make the decisions necescary to make that work.
The debate over “The wall” vs other measures is stupid – yes there are other means – those are less effective and more expensive. No a Wall is not in and of itself sufficient.
Ultimately a wall means WE HAVE TO CHOOSE.
It means we have to decide who to let in and who to keep out.
Scher notes that asylum aprovals have declined.
What he does not say is that ever more people are asking for assylum on ever weaker grounds.
If we want to grant asylum based on abusive spouses – fine change the law.
That is my point CHOOSE.
Making choices is difficult.
It means saying NO.
It means saying no to people you want to say yes to.
Most people never have to hire someone. Most people never have to fire someone.
Most of us go through life without having to make myriads of difficult choices.
Fine – but your oppinion of how those who make difficult choices should decide does not count for much.
There are alot of accusations of “racism” and to some extent there is a “form” of racism involved. One I am actually very familiar with.
Not the choice between whites and others, but between one non-white group and another.
The left does not want a southern wall – not because suddenly hordes of white europeans will dominate immigration. But because the consequence of securing the borders inhernetly means more asians – my yellow people, more people like my children, and less hispanics.
Just like I had to make a choice – so do the rest of you. If you take ANY position besides open boarders AND the consequences that come with that, then you MUST make choices.
You can make those choices by default – oppose securing the border and just bemoan the consequences, pretend that the results were not a choice. Or you can secure the border which means being compelled to openly make choices.
Worse still you will have to make choices that you have claimed it is immoral to make.
Guess what – life is about making choices, not liking to have to make them does not make them into moral or immoral choices.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/01/14/lets_have_a_real_immigration_debate_139165.html
???. Even by your standards this is gibberish as a response to anything I said dave.
I will let your reaction to my objectively true statement the trump is 12 points underwater in todaysrassmussen poll act as one of thousands of examples of your typical ” logical” way of dealing wit reality.
Like trump you have incredible belief in your own BS. I did not actually say so, but trump has lost on the order of 6-8 points of popularity in tpolls in the last weeks and even Rasmussen has detected that, -12 now, where he has had trump near 50-50 for most of the last year. In your daveish way, that polling result is something you believe you can change with your BS. That is delusional, not logical. But, you are in luck, your nonsense plus .79 will get you a loaf of Wonder bread.
You say Trump is 12 points underwater on Rassmusen today.
I am not exactly sure what that means.
Regardless I responded that Rassmussen’s daily presidential tracking poll – which overlays Trump’s current approval with that of Obama at the same point shows no significant divergence between the two at the same time.
Whatever your 12 point underwater assertion means regarding Trump – it meant the same thing about Obama at the same time – didn’t it ?
Or do the same facts have different meaning when they are facts about Trump rather than Obama ?
There is no BS here – aside your attempts to convert and apples to apples comparison into one with apples and oranges.
There is no illogic.
Trumps current approval is within a point or two of Obama’s at the same day of his presidency. It has been within a few points every day of Trump’s presidency.
It has been a point or two higher sometimes and a point or two lower.
We can apply calculus to them and the area under the curves is very nearly identical.
Not only are their approvals the same at the current point, they are the same at every point.
It is as if they were siamese twins or something.
Any conclusion you draw from Trump’s approval – the exact same conclusion would LOGICALLY apply to Obama’s at the same time.
At this moment Trump is 4pts below Obama on the same day – a month ago he was 3pts above. But a few days before that he was 2 pts below.
For nearly all their 2nd year in office neither Trump nor Obama went over 50% very often at all.
What I would find interesting is Trump’s approval has only taken a small hit DESPITE being in histories longest shutdown. One which you remind us all repeatedly everyone blames Trump for.
Obama was not in the middle of a govenrment shutdown in 2011
By the end of the 2013 Shutdown Obama’s approval had cratered to 40.3% – according to RCP – my guess is that Rassmussen was several points worse.
Trump has been above 50% in Rassmussen in the past year more than Obama was – but still not very often.
I really wish I could pull a jpeg of Rassmussen – because it is much easier to understand in a graphic than 1000, words.
But the key point is – Trump’s approval has gone up and down in a narrow range and continues to do so. Obama’s approval went up and down in the same range at the same time.
There is nothing unusual going on.
As is typical – you are HOPING for something.
But hope is not fact.
Starting from your claimed inability to understand what 12 points underwater even means it’s pure denial of reality. Which is the essence of your shtick. Trump is in deep shit I say, you say he isn’t. Time will tell. I haven’t wasted too much time on your BS this time around and I am not going to waste any more. Your “arguments” mostly don’t pass the laugh test.
Roby
As to what 12 points underwater means – it means exactly the same thing for Trump as it did for Obama.
It is that simple.
I really wish I could post the rassmusen graph since you have made that the issue.
Rassmussen overlays Trumps approval with Obama’s.
Obama started his presidency with Significantly higher approval than Trump.
But within 6 months they converged. For the past 18 months Trump and Obama’s approval at the same time have been nearly the same.
Trump has been lower than at the moment, Obama had periods lower than Trump currently.
I fully expect small declines so long as the shutdown continues.
Those declines are matched by those of congress as a whole, republicans in congress democrats in congress, Pelosi, Schumer – all will continue to decline so long as the shutdown continues.
That said the negative impact of this shutdown is inconsequential compared to that of 2013, The 2013 shutdown absolutely hammered republicans in congress. And yet less than 1 year later the GOP obliterated congressional democrats.
Put simply there is only one poll that counts – the election.
The only meaning of presidential approval rates, or congressional approval rates or ….. is what it portends for the next election.
I would further note that this shutdown is far worse for Dems that Trump.
Pelosi and dems came in promising change, they have been totally shutdown, little is happening and little will in congress until the shutdown ends.
As a big proponent of limited government I favor that.
The longer this continues the worse it will be for dems.
And the less overall bad it is for Trump.
Dems should have made the best deal they could in December.
The longer this goes on the easier it is for Trump to go to his base and say
“I tried” – give me a repubican congress again, should he capitulate.
But the longer this goes – even if they win the more harmful it is for dems.
Most of the media is about the shutdown. That is actually good for Trump.
Maybe you recall the movie “wag the dog” where the president started a war to distract from other problems.
Trump has less stupid questions about other idiocies so long as the shutdown continues. All the news is about the shutdown.
Further the left keeps yelling the sky is falling – and yet the sky has not fallen.
That undermines your credibility.
Trump can afford to have a few actual speed bumps,
Only the most hard core libertarian beleives you can shutdown 25% of the govenrment with zero negative impact for long.
Though I am surprised at how little impact there has been, and how stupid the chicken littles have been .
Do you understand how damaging to progressivism it would be if there is a really long shutdown and very little negative impact ?
With every week that goes by – more people are going to ask – why are furloughed government workers going to get paid for having done nothing the past month or two ? Solidarity only goes so far. We are a cvery envious people and when we see somebody else getting something we want we either demand it for ourselves or demand it be taken from others.
Sympathy for govenrment workers only goes so far.
Further those workers can only hold out so long – eventually they will seek private jobs – and as I have repeated over and over and over – that is a really good thing.
The longer this goes on the fewer government workers will return – and that is a good thing.
The longer this goes on the more preasure govenrment workers will put on DEMOCRATS.
So long as the shutdown does not have the big impact the left keeps threatening – Trump wins and the left loses and big government loses.
Limited government republicans have been after this scenario for a long long time.
I beleive Trump has been planing for this since he was elected. And this is not just about the wall.
Republicans and democrats have tried to use government shutdowns as a political weapon for decades.
Total shutdowns – such as those during Reagan favor democrats.
Shutdowns with a democrat as president favor democrats – as the president can control the impact of the pain.
But one of the gifts Paul Ryan left Trump – was getting the critical portions of the budget passed before the end of 2018.
This limited shutdown with trump as president has calculus that favors Trump and republicans.
Schumer rolled quickly last march. Today democrats think control of the house changes things – it does if we are talking about a shutdown in 2020, where Pelosi gets to control what parts of the budget get passed.
But most of the 2019 budget was passed by Ryan.
Pelosi’s leverage is small. And trump’s power to mitigate harms is large.
As he repeatedly says – this could go on forever.
But I do not think it will.
Mitt Romney says there’s NO place in the GOP or Congress for Steve King, calling on him to resign. “I think he ought to step aside and I think Congress ought to make it very clear he has no place there.”
But Dave-John, tell Mitt how wrong he is, there’s no constitutional requirement for a duly elected Congress-person to quit because his own party colleagues insist he do so.
But if shunning works, and King resigns, will it be inapppropriate for them to tell Trump to take a hike too? On basis of your humongous law background will you opine on the constitionality of shunning.
Demand King resign – don’t. I really do not care.
I do not fixate on King as you do. There are lots of nutcase congresspersons.
We can argue that AOC should resign for mental defects.
Should Rep. Tlaib resign for calling ANYONE a “motherf#$%ker” on the floor of the house?
Franken resigned for sexually assaulting women. One of the most honorable things he has done.
Joe Biden who has done the same far more often is the democrats leading contender for president.
Ask whoever you want to resign.
Regardless, Mitt does not get to decide who has a place in congress.
Voters do.
If you really want King out – vote him out.
Regardless, this entire discussion is stupid.
You seem to think that standards only apply to republicans.
If Mitt wants to demand that King leave congress and the GOP – why not Tlaib ?
Tlaib actually had left wing groups falling all over themselves to de-endorse her.
But she was running unopposed.
Tlaib meets the state departments definition of anti-semitc.
We can play this game forever.
Can you name a republican in congress as corrupt as Menendez ?
He nearly got beat in the primary by someone no one heard of , and an unknown republican gave him a run for his money in the general.
We can play which party has the most offensive politicians forever.
A pox on them all – Sen. Romney included.
Shun whoever you want – it is not a constitutional issue.
My guess is that if I looked at him closely I would probably want King to resign too.
But that would be little distinction from 535 other members of congress.
You are also free to call on Trump to resign – just as people called on Clinton to resign.
Clinton didn’t, Trump is unlikely to.
You are free to try and impeach Trump just as Republican did to Clinton.
Did that work very well for the GOP ?
This is beyond belief: “Trump also had other private conversations with Putin at meetings of global leaders outside the presence of aides. He spoke at length with Putin at a banquet at the same 2017 global conference in Hamburg, where only Putin’s interpreter was present. Trump also had a brief conversation with Putin at a Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires last month.”
Only a Russian interpreter in the room!!!! Got it, we and the president’s staff, intelligence officials and advisors DON”T need to know. Mr. “I saw them celebrating on roof tops in Jersey City after 9/11” will give them a true and accurate report on the meeting.
Before some idiot says it: It was for security since there have been so many WH leaks. LMAO.
Wait, wait here it is, the definitive explanation from someone that is more wordy and, ahem, believable than anyone here on TNM.
Again you presume some right know or need to know where one does not exist.
Lets say Trump is conspiring with Putin to give the Russians all the US nuclear codes.
They have a meeting – with only russians present, the plot is put together.
Trump leaves the meeting. Now HOW DOES HE FACILITATE THE PLOT ?
Does he sneak up on the Col. with the nuclear football whap him on the head and grab the codes and rush into another meeting with Putin ?
Trump does not PERSONALLY do much of anything.
He directs others. It does not matter what Putin tells him, or what he tells Putin.
Trump can not act in Putin’s benefit without directing someone else to do something.
We got it – you do not trust Trump, and you want special scrutiny of everything he does.
Only that is not how things work.
If you do not want any meetings with anyone in government without records – change the law.
That would be fine with me. but i is not how things are now.
House republicans wanted to know what went on in several meetings between various members of DOJ/FBI, we are past the hints that there was a conspiracy against Trump and well into pretty open admission.
So why is the House of representatives not entitled to know what was going on in those meetings ?
It can ask people what they recall, and it can ask for notes, but there is no requirement that most government meetings be recorded.
You are trying to manufacture outrage from thin air.
Your suspicions of someone else are not proof of anything.
I am glad that Trump is making you suspicious of govenrment – you should be.
But not just of Trump, but all government.
While you were worried about what Trump was telling Putin, Harrold Martin at NSA was selling 50Terabytes of classified information to hackers across the world.
There are far worse things to worry about than Trump.
You are worried about what Trump might deliberately tell the russians.
Yet you had no concern about what Hillary recklessly shared with 5 hostile foreign powers – including the Chinese in real time.
“Again you presume some right know or need to know where one does not exist.”
Again you presume there is no right or need to know if a president is behaving improperly.
Whoops: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6590017/Kellyanne-defends-Trumps-one-one-meeting-Putin-saying-great-number-leaks.html
Whoops what ?
Any conversation that the president has with a foreign leader would be defacto classified, likely at the highest level.
Any leak of that conversation would be a crime – and we have had alot of that.
The leak of Flynn’s communication with Kislyak was a HUGE security breach and a very serious crime – yet no one has been prosecuted.
There are only a few people who would have had access to that information, so it should be very easy to find the leak.
It is pretty much certainly someone at NSA or FBI.
Regardless, I think it is quite reasonable for Trump to insist that interpreters do not take notes, or that they destroy their notes. I can not think of a good reason an interpreter needs notes.
“Any leak of that conversation would be a crime”
Testimony before relevant Congressional committees with National Security clearance is not leaking, dummie.
So those evil Russians – particularly Kaspersky who the US government has banned from its computers is responsible for cluing the NSA into their largest classified information breach in US history. Did the NSA or FBI catch the bad guys ? Nope – Kaspersjy did.
One wonders why they did not just say screw it and buy the entire trove – I am sure Putin would have rewarded them handsomely.
Regardless, the point – for the clueless, is that every single Russian, person of russian descent is not some evil Troll looking to destroy the US and working with Putin to do so.
Even Putin himself – though not among the worlds most attractive world leaders is not ALWAYS our enemy on everything.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/09/russia-kaspersky-lab-nsa-cybersecurity-1089131
Just watched the Tulsi Gabbard interview from this past Sunday on the CNN Van Jones show.
She was terrific and smart.
She is currently being attacked by extreme liberals. You will probably get the opinions an facts in coming weeks because I think some Dems dislike her for dissing the DNC and more importantly she has a mind of her own and is a square peg in a round Dem political hole.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=tulsi+gabbard+on+van+jones+show+cnn&qpvt=tulsi+gabbard+on+van+jones+show+cnn&FORM=VDRE
So far, she has my vote.
Dems could do much worse.
I would note that about 1/3 of the recent posts have Trashed Trump for withdrawing from Syria.
Gabbard is if anything even more of a non-interventionist than Trump.
On the Issues Ranks Gabbard as a libertarian leaning progressive.
I think the libertarian leaning is “wishful thinking”.
With few exceptions she is a pretty typical progressive.
But she is strongly anti-war, anti-interventionist.
My post made it sound like being anti-war and non-interventionist was antithetical to being progressive.
Liberals and progressives have in the past been near perfectly anti-war and non-interventionist.
The current neo-con streak is new, due either to absorbing fleeing neocons who were never a good fit for republicans or the “we are opposed to everything Trump is for” position of the current left.
Gabbard is a traditional progressive,
I think she’d be an excellent VP choice
Gabbard is far from anything I think would be even a good choice.
At the same time she appears to stand head and shoulders above most Dems and many republicans.
Excellent is a relative term. She appears to be one of the least bad choices that dems could make.
If you wish to call that excellent – I guess I can accept that.
I am a bit disturbed because she does not have much of a record on many issues that are important to me.
Further that are a large number of issues that she is wrong on. But mostly she does not seem to be wrong in the gargauntuanly stupid way that Sanders is.
The big area where she is pretty clear about where she stands is the military, and there she speaks with some credibility as a former service person.
She wants to slash defense spending, and she wants us out of myriads of foreign entanglements.
On that I fully agree.
I have made the argument that voting to use force to infringe on the rights of others is immoral. I have sought some support for that assertion – after all voting is a right, why can’t you vote as you please ?
I should have know to look for something from John Stuart Mill – probably the most intelligent human ever to live.
Voting is not a right. Contra constant claims by both the left and the right, actual rights do not come with obligations or responsibilities.
There is as an example no enforceable duty to use your right to free speach in a way that does not offend others.
Rights do NOT give you power over others – and therefore carry no responsibilities other than to yourself.
When you excercise power over others, it is not by right, but by trust.
Parents have power over children – and therefore have duties.
Guardians, Fiduciaries, and other positions of power over others are by trust, not by right.
Voting is an excercise of power over others, and it comes with obligations.
Holding public office comes with power over others and is comes with responsibilities.
When you excercise power over others – force, you must justify that force.
The use of power without justification is immoral.
“The spirit of vote by ballot—the interpretation likely to be put on it in the mind of an elector—is that the suffrage is given to him for himself; for his particular use and benefit, and not as a trust for the public. . . . [D]emocrats think them-selves greatly concerned in maintaining that the franchise is what they term a right, not a trust. . . . In whatever way we define or understand the idea of a right, no person can have a right . . . to power over others: every such power, which he is allowed to possess, is morally, in the fullest force of the term, a trust. But the exercise of any political function, either as an elector or as a representative, is power over others”
California immigrant excels.
Amazing!
Looking at the politics of the U.K. and us, how much the politicians in both countries have in common.
Donald Trump won based on a number of issues. But among the larger of those, if not the largest was immingration and border security. Brexit was approved by voters based on a number of issues, but among those was immigration, which was considered one of the top reasons for approval. According to BBC, “Prime Minister Theresa May said one of the main messages she took from the Leave vote was that the British people wanted to see a reduction in immigration. She has said this will be a focus of Brexit negotiations as she remains committed to getting net migration – the difference between the numbers entering and leaving the country – down to a “sustainable” level, which she defines as being below 100,000 a year.” It has also been discussed that she is not fully supportive of Brexit, so she has settled for Brexit lite.
In both cases the politicians are ignoring the people. America wants secure borders. America wants immigration reform. U.K. wants immigration controls. Americas congressional leaders refuse to negotiate, they refuse to develop legislation to address the problems, they are afraid for their careers. Theresa May refused to negotiate in good faith Brexit and presented parliament with a agreement few would support. One member of parliament compared it to America during the revolution. “EU membership without representation.”
One positive for the U.K. They can dissolve parliament and call elections anytime and hold those within 60 days. They can “fire” their leaders.
“America wants secure borders. America wants immigration reform.”
Correct. Polls show high numbers of voters Dem & GOP are in favor of both.
Polls also show high numbers of voters (Texas included) against the Wall, and in favor of citizenship for Dreamers.
Most American want to get to the same destination; a majority disagree with the dumbfuck who’s driving the bus and the route he’s dangerously driving.
Jay, I dont care what some dumbfuck suit in D.C.says they want. I dont care what America people polled says they want. I dont care what some liberal ass in Austin Texas says they want.
I put up with assholes in hospital administration for 35 years that sat in “Mahogany Row” making assinine decisions that middle management had to make work because these people had no experience with the problems being addressed, they had their 24×24 masters degree diplomas hanging over head in their office and they thought they had all the answers.
WRONG! The employees and supervisors involved with the issues had the answers! A few upper managers were smart enough to ask them for suggestions.
I care about three things.
1. Trump ran and was elected because he said he would build a wall.
2. Trump has asked those.in the trenchex what they want.
3. Those doing the work want the wall! Link: And less than a year old.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/2/border-patrol-agents-back-trump-wall-survey-finds/
So when the ones doing the work are surveyed by an “INDEPENDENT” group, and not the liberal mouth pieces from NY Times or Huff Post, then I will believe them when they say the BP does not support the wall. Right now they want it.
So again. $5 billion is not going to build 2000 miles of wall.$5B will build 200 miles of wall, just like the agent being interviewed suggest!
And I say once again… Congress do your constitutional responsibility as stated in the constitution. Pass a funding bill, send it to Trump, let him sign or veto, then address a veto if thats what happens. If it passes great, everything opens. If he vetos and GOP does not overide, then the blame rest completely with the GOP.
No more blaming Chuck and Nancy. Why is this so damn hard for anti-trumpers to understand?
Right and wrong, what works and what does not are not decided by polls.
As we have also learned – even the winners in elections are not decided by polls.
BTW you constantly accuse Trump of being a liar.
Yet hear you are demanding that he break his promise.
You are demanding that he lie.
You claim all his purported lies are a demonstration of bad character.
But character is not doing what is easy, it is not doing what everyone wants you to, it is doing what is hard. It is keeping commitments even when most would let you slide.
But you tell me Trump has not character.
By your own argument – he is doing something that has no upside for him.
You claim that support for the wall is not there, that everyone would be happier if he just capitulated. So why doesn’t he ?
According to you – it is not in his interests to continue.
Either you are wrong and it actually is, or you are seeing actual character from a person you claim has none.
I find leftism so impossible to understand – it is so completely devoid of logic.
How is the “driving” dangerous ?
Trump is confrontational – he is not dangerous.
You have spent weeks telling us how the shutdown was bringing the world to an end – and yet the sky is not falling.
We have heard how these words of trump or those actions were the end of the world – yet the world has not ended.
In fact IN ARGUABLY on net things are better – growth is faster, Job creation has increased. It took eight years for Obama to bring unemployment back to pre-recession norms. It is FAR HARDER to decrease unemployment the closer you get to those norms, and yet the decrease in unemployment has continued rather than leveled of as should be expected. We are below 4% unemployment.
Partly that is because Obama’s numbers were cooked – we were not counting those who left the world force, we were not counting the decrease in labor force participation, we were told that was structural – a result of changing demographics – and yet unemplolyment continues to decline and labor force participation rise.
You say that the shutdown is harming growth – how so ?
Employment does not rise – unless employers beleive they can productively use more workers. While employment is not a direct measure of the economy, it is a strong indirect one. If the shutdown is having a serious negative impact – employment should be changing significantly.
Regardless you say the bus driver is dangerous.
If 3.4% economic growth is dangereous – “Please sir, can I have more ?”
The fact is we have had 3 full years of TDS, of outrage of this garbage that Trump is the end of the world, and yet things continue to improve.
If you want a rational discussion – lots of us are prepared to have it.
I am fully prepared to discuss how we can do better than we are.
I do not think Trump is some savior, or has some golden touch.
The big change is that he is NOT F”ing up as much as Obama.
There are still plenty of ways we can do better.
Another first for the great Trump presidency :
We have been through this before. It is not a big deal. And the reason it has never happened before is every past congress has either before or during the shutdown passed legislation appropriating funds for the USCG.
BTW did you read the actual letter
Here you can listen to Adm. Schultz on the border – on
Oh, No!” Fox.
“Seventy percent of U.S. adults said it is bad strategy for Trump to bring the government to a grinding halt over a policy disagreement, such as funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. That includes 96 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of people who identify as politically independent and 35 percent of Republicans.”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/majority-of-americans-blame-trump-for-the-shutdown
But DoDo Donald’s Dopey Supporters (guess who) will claim he/it is only keeping a campaign promise. They would be likely to say the same thing if Trump promised to urinate on Congressional Dems, and attempted to do so.
And here we have Roby saying that Trump’s numbers have tanked – to almost the same level as Obama’s at the same time.
You do not seem to understand this is not a democracy – we do not govern based on peoples feelings from the last poll.
You also keep playing this “supporters” game.
I am my own person – my decisions are not driven by Trump.
It is pretty evident that a large body of Trump haters are – otherwise how does one explain the huge defection of those on the left from non-interventionist and anti-war positions to full throated neoconns all of a sudden.
I beleive we have debated shutdowns before. I supported the GOP 2013 shutdown – though I think not raising the debt ceiling is a far better tactic. Regardless PPACA should have been killed long ago, and government spending should have been cut.
I also supported the highly disliked sequester. I am deeply disturbed that it is gone.
I support this shutdown – even if the purpose has nothing to do with the wall.
I wish Trump was more serious about cutting spending – but Hillary would not have.
However much I disagree with Trump on many issues – neither Hillary nor most democrats would have been better.
My positions are not tied to the person.
I think it is good that we have gone so long with 75% of the federal govenrment and mostly not noticed. I think it is time to permanently lay most of these people off. It is better for them, better for the economy, and better for the country. And all that is true regardless of whether Trump is involved or not.
The Trump Shutdown
From NYT today:
“WASHINGTON — The partial government shutdown is inflicting far greater damage on the United States economy than previously estimated, the White House acknowledged on Tuesday, as President Trump’s economists doubled projections of how much economic growth is being lost each week the standoff with Democrats continues.
The revised estimates from the Council of Economic Advisers show that the shutdown, now in its fourth week, is beginning to have real economic consequences. The analysis, and other projections from outside the White House, suggests that the shutdown has already weighed significantly on growth and could ultimately push the United States economy into a contraction.”
The longer this goes on, the more I believe Trump is less likely to change his position. Trump is not a politician. He is not in this as a career. He is not worried about reelection.
But he is driven by ego. He promised certain things. The biggest, the wall. I dont think anyone will be able to tell him to back down and accept defeat, especially at the hands of Nancy Pelosi.
Congress is going to have to do their job. They have to give him a way out.
But then that will require Nancy to compromise. Will her ego allow her to accept anything more than the current wall budget. Would she sign off on $3B for DACA?
i doubt it. From my viewpoint, each day that passes reenforces the current standoff.
This is no longer political in my mind. It is personal, Nancy v Donald.
This is going to take someone willing to put their neck on the chopping block, circumvent Pelosi and come up with a compromise to go to the senate that will force McConnell to act.
So far McConnell has been MIA, and smart at that. You dont get in the middle of a pissing contest between two skunks
The left and the media is desparate to make this into a crisis.
While the Stossel clip I linked is right and Paul Krugman is WRONG this is not some grand libertarian experiment. No sane libertarian would want to pay for more government but get less.
At the same time – there is no crisis, and there are few hiccups.
In fact it should be pretty obvious to most people that with a few small adjustments – authorizing payment to the USCG as an example – something both parties have agreed to in every prior shutdown, that we could go on like this forever.
That is the great fear of the left, the media, Pelosi and Shumer. What if you are all crying wolf ? What happens if this goes on for a really long time and most americans barely notice ?
Jay and Company have come up with a long list of “catastrophes” that this shutdown has brought. Most are not even speed bumps. Regardless, none of them amount to $1T/year – and that is the approximate portion of government shutdown right now.
The bad news is this shutdown does not effect the core spending problems in the country. But it does address those at the periphery.
It should be self evident already that even the most left wing nut could take a small portion of the $1T that the portion of government shutdown currently costs and cover all the purported catastrophes that are supposedly occuring.
What happens if this goes on a month or two and all we have is a few more of these speed bumps ?
What happens when most americans see a convincing demonstration that a large portion of the federal govenrment is of little value ?
Yes, this is about the wall for Trump. But it is not for all of us.
I am happy to see a real life demonstration that government is just not all that important in our lives.
There was a bitch about meat inspectors – as stossel noted those are mostly in the Agriculture department and hard at work. But he noted something else two – most meat plants have MORE inspectors than government requires and impose food safety measures that are not required by regulation, they produce food MUCH safer than govenrment standards.
Why ? Because that is what consumers want, and because they can afford it – though ultimately once consumers decide to pay for more value, the cost of those gains declines.
I heard a radio add recently for Lasik for $250 – that is less than I pay for a pair of glasses.
We get better quality. safer food, workplaces etc because we have raised our standard of living to the point we can afford to express that value.
Even the counter productive demand for regulations is driven by our higher standard of living. None of workplace, or product safety regulations existed 200 years ago – we could not afford them – and we knew it.
Please identify a way in which the shutdown reduces what is produced in the country ?
Unless you can do that, it will have no NEGATIVE effect on the economy,
Quite simply I do not beleive ANY growth is lost by this government shutdown.
Making nonsensical claims of impact based on ‘feelings” is not science, it is no economics.
Real economic effects are not invisible. Difference in economic growth post Obama is not huge – but it is self evident. As was noted last month Manufacturing in the US has actually grown. Poor people and minorities are being hired – that is what happens as we approach full employment, wages – particularly near the bottom rise as there is more competition for workers.
Of course those in government think that government is indispensible.
I see only one short term negative impact – which would inevitably be a long term positive impact. Furloughed government workers moving to the private workforce would reduce upwards preasure on wages – for 3-4 months, but it would increase production over the long run government workers produce NOTHING – that is why the shutdown can only have negligable economic impact. Moving government workers to productive private jobs has a POSITIVE economic impact – because private workers get paid to PRODUCE VALUE.
Again – the point. Economics is NOT vodoo. Economic growth or decline is the change in what is produced. Government does not produce. The impact of government on the economy is indirect. It is the extent to which what government does makes us more or less productive. The actual rule of law makes us more efficient – we waste less time and effort securing for ourselves what government secures, we can count on the enforcement of agreements. We can count on lower levels of destructive lawless behavior.
Conversely, regulation has a NEGATIVE economic impact – much of the change in economic growth under Trump has been the reduction in fear of increased regulation and some small decreases.
http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/15/disagreeing-conventional-wisdom-crime/
Ron, you had better believe trump cares about reelection. Sealed indictments hang over his head after he leaves office.
You do understand you do not get to just make up the law.
Prosecutors do not get to say – we want to indict someone – but not right now, so we are going to “seal it”. They are very rare, and must have a compelling justification, and can not be used to circumvent the rights of the accused.
It is pretty well established law that a sitting president can not be indicted – sealed or otherwise.
I am not sure I agree that is a good idea, though I do think it was a mistake for SCOTUS to allow the Paula Jones case to proceed while Clinton was president.
Regardless, if you can not indict him, you can not get arround that by sealing it.
Further, we keep playing this stupid game that Mueller or some other prosecutor has secret information that the rest of us do not.
AGAIN The Mueller investigation leaks like a sieve. People in his office leak, people on grand juries leak, the press is watching him like a hawk. They know everywhere anyone associated with him goes, Courts leak, much of what he does must be done publicly. There are now several prominent democrats with connections to Mueller who are spreading the news that those suffering from TDS should expect to be disappointed.
If Mueller had anything of substance – we would have known long ago.
Further the evidence WATCHING Mueller, is that he long ago left the Trump/Russia Collusion thing.
Maybe you will get some miracle.
Though it speaks volumes regarding YOUR character that you are actually HOPING absent evidence that someone else turns out to be a criminal.
Don’t moral people hope that we have less crime, not more ?
When Obama was elected I “hoped” that he would prove to be a good president. I hoped that he would not be corrupt. Though I disagreed on many issues of policy and even the fundimentals of government – even through most of the early scandals,. I was prepared to beleive they were just over zealous subordinates.
What is increasingly clear is that Holder and later lynch deliberately tanked any investigation that MIGHT lead to the whitehouse.
I would like to have beleived that IRSGATE stopped with Lois Lehrner – it was a very serious crime – which of course Holder tanked the investigation. Probably because Lerhner was involved in leaking tax returns too, and we know that though she provided them, they got to the press from DOJ not lehner.
But the Strzok and page texts demonstrate that the Trump investigation was started B?Y OBAMA in Dec. 2015, and that he was personally involved on a weekly basis.
You can hope and pray that Mueller has found the kryptonite to “get Trump”, but we KNOW AS FACT that as late as Mark 2017 exactly what DOJ/FBI has – and that was NADA, ZIPPO,
It has been argued here and in the NYT that the FBI can investigate people based on Concerns – no , actually they can not. Concerns without evidence are nothing but feelings – and not even justifiable ones at that. The “defense” of the FBI being offered today is that Trump was not sufficiently concerned about Russia, that he considered Russia the far greater threat to the US. That is a political question, that is ultimately the domain of the president NOT the FBI.
Does the FBI get to decide that Obama might be an Iranian agent because he favored Iran over many of our traditional alies ? Obama’s choices regarding Iran were WRONG, But they were not evidence of treason or any crime. They were not a basis for the DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, … to investigate Obama. At the same times the Clinton’s were drowning in Russian Oligarch money – while Hillary was Sec. State. That is a legitimate “concern”, and there is plenty of evidence to warrant investigation, and the NY FBI office badly wanted to investigate, and that investigation was SPIKED.
What facts known in Dec. 2015, or March 2016 justified the FBI’s concerns ?
The entirety of Trump’s “policy differences” with the FBI, NSA, …. are based on public expressions well known to voters when Trump was elected.
It was no secret that Trump had little interest in Russia. It was no secret that Trump thought NATO’s mission had ended and that it was a waste of money. It was no secret that Trump thought China was the major threat to the US. We now hear the press reporting breathlessly that Trump had secret conversations about pulling the US out of NATO – OMG TREASON!
Bunk, Trump had PUBLIC converstations about getting us out of NATO – BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED. Regardless, Secret, public, whatever such discussions are not crimes, not treason, and in fact they are the legitimate choices of the president.
You do not seem to understand – the washington bureacracy does not get to decide US policy decisions. Those are made EXCLUSIVELY by those we elect, and the power to make those decisions divied by the constitution. Trump has the power to unilaterally withdrawl from NATO. At worst he might need Senate approval, though I am not sure he does.
There is nowhere in the law or constitution that he needs FBI approval, or NSA approval or CIA approval.
Absolutely Trump has on occasion chosen NOT to heed the advice of the permanent washington establishment. Surprise Surprise, he was elected based on the premise that that permanent washington establishment is the swamp. That they are not to be trusted.
The recent news is NOT that The FBI had a legitimate basis for investigating Trump – they did not, it is that the FBI as unilaterlly investigating a president for holding differnet policy views than those at the FBI – ones that the american people atleast accepted, if not endorsed when he was elected. The actions of the FBI in investigating Trump are not merely unjustified, they are criminal, anti-democratic, unconstitutional, and pretty close to an actual coup. The FBI does not get to decide “we think the presidents choice to de-emphasize the russian threat and emphasize the chinese one ” is a basis for investigating the president for Treason.
Do you understand that means that you are empowering the FBI to decide on its own – without oversight what the polices of the US toward foreign nations will be, because any president that disagrees will be suspected of and investigated for Treason by the FBI.
The FBI is not even supposed to have significant involvement in foreign affairs.
I hereby posit Ian’s first law: The longer and more indignant a dave denial is, the more merit whatever point he is hotly denying has.
The phrase “methinks thou doth protest too much” never had a more appropriate target.
If I were cruel and had too much spare time I would think up a set of, say ten word posts, each of which could force him into tens of thousands of words of denial. Don’t worry, I am not going to do that.
I have been starting to learn the Mendelssohn violin concerto in e minor. In doing some research on the piece I found out that Mendelssohn wrote an earlier violin concerto in d minor, when he was 12. Then I found a performance of that by an 11 year old virtuoso, Leia Zhu. An 11 year old playing the composition of a 12 year old :
Now, ask yourself, are there better uses of the minutes of a human life than endlessly arguing with a hard-wired denial machine?
In otherwords – you have no argument.
You have no interest in facts – when someone present facts – they must be wrong – because it is too much difficiulty to read facts, and if you can not fit the facts into a soundbite – well that too is proof that they must be wrong.
Do you have actual evidence that sealed indictiments exist ?
Do you understand that legallly if you can not indict someone,
you can not indict them under seal either ?
Do you understand that the law and the constitution is not something to be gamed ?
A refutation of a stupid and unsupported assertion is just that refutation.
This idiotic word game trying to gin up hollocaust denial allusions is stupid and immoral.
If you want your assertions taken seriously – use facts logic reason to support them, Not ad hominem and semantics.
The argument that you should spend your time listening to bach or Mendelssohn applies more strongly to your lunatic unsupported allegations than it does to my response.
No one is stopping you from listening to whatever you want.
At the same time lobbing idiotic and unsupported political grenades and then claiming life is too short and there are more important things to do than to bother to consider the facts that refute some stupid made up assertion of your is diseninguuous and immoral.
Who needs facts – you have feelings, and Mendelssohn, isn’t that all anyone needs.
Roby, you might believe that, but my complete distrust of government fuels a different belief in me.
Ask yourself why did the Clinton investigation die a fast death once she was defeated? Why was nothing handled on illegal torture after 43.You might have your thinking. Mine is based on the the unwritten agreement between parties where “we wont charge your president or officials when your administration ends so you wont charge ours in the future when ours leave”
That is how you see it. But how does trump see it? The trump indictments may very well have been already made and sealed by the investigation, which has been widely discussed and trump I am sure is aware of.
trump lives by revenge and payback adn I am sure expects the same. He will be fighting hard for reelection.
I would think he sees saving face now and not losing to Pelosi will make reelection easier. So how does he see his supporters viewing if he lost to Pelosi?
I would think anyone who voted for him based on the wall will say, “&*^&* him, he is no better than all the other asses in the swamp” should he give in to Pelosi and they will walk away.
If I had any inclination to vote for him next time, i sure would.
Ron,
I mostly have no problem with the Clinton investigations dying after she was defeated. ALL these investigations should have died then.
While there is an awful lot of criminal political misconduct that has gone on in DOJ/FBI/CIA prior (and post) election, and something very serious needs to be done about it, the 2016 election was brutal. That is what you get when democrats decide to run someone as self evidently corrupt as Clinton.
Obama should have pardoned everyone. I asked that at the time.
Trump should have when Obama did not. I asked that too.
Ford was right to pardon Nixon.
What we have now is the consequences of not ending this.
While there is lots of evidence of criminal misconduct and crimes regarding Clinton, she is honestly finished. Most of us do not give a crap about the clinton’s anymore – until they stupidly crawl out of their cave and make a public nusance of themselves. It appears that democrats are wise enough to know that Clinton is dead meat, a rotting carrcass that cost them the election – though I think 2016 was inevitably a republican year. That without Obama on the ticket Democrats could not overcome american Obama policy exhaustion – in fact Trump probably would have beaten Obama.
We are long past any reason for the Trump investigation continuing.
The recent NYT article makes it clear that the FBI/DOJ was targetting Trump ALL A LONG and continued to do so covertly after the election. That they NEVER had sufficient evidence to do so, that the investigation targeted Trump – not the Trump campaign, not Russia, from the begining. That Carter Page, and Russia were all pretexts, that the root of the investigation was the determiniation of Trump’s purported betters that Trump was unsuited to be president – a decision that belongs to the electorate – not any part of the federal government. The NYT story makes it pretty clear – this was a broad conspiracy.
We do not have those involved saying “no, no, we did not do that”. They are saying that what they did was lawful and justified.
I want to be clear on that – WE ARE PAST debating whether there was a conspiracy to “get Trump”. The only relevant somewhat unanswered question is the defense being raised – was what was done justifiable by law ?
That is it. That is the only question. If Those int he Obama administration were justified – not only were their actions legitimate – but similar actions of others past and present would be justified.
One of the impeachment counts against Nixon was that he attempted to use the IRS and FBI and CIA to target political enemies.
If we accept that Obama can do that – then the articles of impeachment against Nixon were a blatantly partisan hack job.
If Obama can do that – then so can Trump, and any future president.
Though there is evidence of Obama’s involvement, even that is not a necescaity here.
Are the assorted agencies of the govenrment allowed to do this on their own ?
Does it matter whether the DOJ/FBI/CIA have the support of the current president or are actively thwarting the current president – if they are engaged in official conduct without appropriate justification ?
To Jay, and Roby and DD – I can argue about what should be sufficient to justify what occured. But the actual standard as important as that may be is overshaddowed by the fact that whatever standard you defend, that standard is the one that must be applied uniformly – left/right democrat republic male/female, gay/straight.
I can argue that “concern” is not a foundation for a criminal investigation of ANYONE. But if I can not convince you – that means that “concern” is a justification for a criminal investigation of ANYONE!
What if instead of FBI …. deciding that Trump’s focus on China rather than Russia was of concern sufficient to justify a criminal investigation of the president for treason, Then why couldn’t the same FBI choose to investigate Obama secretly for shifting the US favor to Iran ? During Obama’s tenure plenty of people were “concerned’ that Obama was a secret Muslim. After all he attended an Idras, I can come up with a long list of “facts” that reach the level of “concern” regarding Obama.
Obama’s decisions regarding Iran were WRONG!!!!.
They were NOT Crimes.
I happen to think Trump’s de-emphasis of Russia was CORRECT,
I think his fixation on China is WRONG!
But NEITHER is a crime.
Regardless, we are past any debate over WHAT occurred – there was absolutely and organized conspiracy within the federal govenrment to target Trump – as a candidate and as president. Anyone still debating the existance of a conspiracy whose goal was to assure Trump did not become president and after he did, that he did not remain president is arguing against what are now the openly accepted FACTS.
We had a big political uproar in October when it was revealed that Rosenstein had discussed applying the 25th amendment and wearing a wire on the president. Rosenstein assured us this was just a joke.
But the testimony of James Baker – the basis for the NYT story, makes no appologies This was no joke. Not merely Rosenstein, but a significant portion of the upper tier of DOJ/FBI in March of 2017 was jointly engaged in a criminal investigation targeting a sitting president essentially for Treason, based on public conduct that voters were fully aware of when electing him.
There is absolutely zero doubt that Comey, Baker, Rosenstein and Company rejected the choice of the electorate – that based on the same “evidence” that voters had – they reached different conclusions and beleived that in their appointed positions they had the power to thwart the voters.
It is also self evident and admitted at this point that beyond public conduct the basis for the investigation was the Steele Dossier – NOTHING ELSE.
If you are comfortable with what was done to Trump – then you will have no issue when it is done to YOU or yours.
I heard the other night, either on ABC or PBS in a round table discussion that the indications are the Mueller investigation is winding down and there is “very little there” and many people are going to be disappointed when it comes out.
no one on the panel disagreed and there were not many conservatives in that group.
Depends on your definition of very little.
I don’t expect to see a signed contract between Trump and Putin for services rendered, or videos of Trump passing memory sticks to Russian operatives. But I won’t be surprised to see a shitload of forensic bookkeeping and banking records indicating money laundering transactions between Trump entities and Russians connected to Putin’s government, plus other financial links that will provide motive for Donald’s attempts to obstruct the investigation into Russian interference in Trump’s election.
Unlike individuals on both sides of the issue that either want him impeached or would walk in front of him in a sea of snipers, I have no idea what “very little” represents. So I wait to make a decision when Mueller releases his report. My only desire is this is rele ased unredacted so we see all and the re are not 10,000 different tweets, articles,etc determining different opinions. That does not do any good for the country.
All I said was this was reported on a very liberal outlet by a very liberal reporter and none of the very liberal individuals at the table questioned his ” very little” comment.
So the only opinion I made was “very little” must be correct since no one objected.
Ron, I’m truly dissapointed that you have not come to appreciate how detrimental this scum sucker is to our nation. That you’re not calling for his removal is saddening.
“Ron, I’m truly dissapointed that you have not come to appreciate how detrimental this scum sucker is to our nation. That you’re not calling for his removal is saddening.”
Jay,
When I have proven facts that would hold up in court, then I will provide my input. Being a scum sucker is not grounds for removal. I know of no laws where being a scum sucker was the charge in court. I dont recall the constitution providing the authority to remove someone because they are a scum sucker. The constitution provide for removal from office for committing offences like treason, bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Please provide me with the information where Trump has been convicted of treason, bribery or other crimes. I will then call for his removal! As for scum sucker, I made my voice heard in 2016. I knew then he was a scum sucker and voted accordingly. I voted for Johnson.
Being a scum sucket is up to voters to reach a verdict. That is what the constitution calls for.
Tell me where I am wrong based on the law of the country, not MSNBC’s and Rachel MadCow’s laws.
Roby shares your complete distrust of government – he just does not grasp that.
The entire Argh! Trump! nonsense is just that – Distrust of government.
Or atleast government when they do not like who was elected.
They are channeling Madison without knowing it
If Men were angels – but men are not angels, and trust in government is not sufficient, even elections are not sufficient, But scrupulous adherance to the rule of law is a necescity – when those at the top of DOJ/FBI are saying the president is a bad person, and the president is saying they are bad person’s,
it is not our feelings that should decide the issue, it is the rule of law.
The actions of Baker, Ohr, Strzok, Comey, Rosenstein were either justified – and would be against any president where ranking public servants disagreed with a presidents policy choices, or they were not justified – in which case they are a criminal abuse of power under cover of authority.
WE all agree that government is not to be trusted – though Roby might qualify that with something like – government by those he does not like is not to be trusted. It is still a deed (and justified) distrust of government.
Roby I there is no basis for a sealed indictment.
You seem to think that the rule of law is a menu of choices,
I think it should be possible to indict a sitting president – but the current state of the law is that can not be done. There is no exception for “sealed” indictments.
US attorney’s and prosecutors do not get to say – I think these people committed crimes – but the current administration sees it otherwise, so I will indict and seal the indictiment in the hope that a future administration will think differently.
That is NAKED political corruption.
And now we are going from – you have to BELEIVE that Mueller has secret evidence no one else has ever been able to feret out. To – and it is so secret that you do not get to be told about it until Trump is no longer president.
But still you MUST BELEIVE!!!!!
Your feelings, concerns, beleifs, hopes, are not justifications for the use of force.
“But I won’t be surprised to see a shitload of forensic bookkeeping and banking records indicating money laundering transactions between Trump entities and Russians connected to Putin’s government, plus other financial links that will provide motive for Donald’s attempts to obstruct the investigation into Russian interference in Trump’s election.”
So we are back to the stupid Russian FB adds flipped the election argument.
Specifically addressing you money argument.
I beleive the documented cost of these Russian adds was about $1M.
That is about 4 seconds worth of interest on Trump’s investments.
So you think Donald Trump – rather than reach into his own pocker and pony up another $1M for well produced Social Media Adds from capable people that he actually knows, instead involved himself in an eleborate scheme with Putin that no one has been able to find evidence of – so the Trump campaign trade craft must have been incredibly good.
Do you understand the cost of all the elaborate trade craft by the Trump people needed to assure this never sees the sun is far greater than $1M
Do you understand that all the people in the room for the Natalya meeting would not have showed up for a meeting about $1m in social media spending
Next you are alleging money laundering.
How is that supposed to work ?
Money laundering is where a criminal tries to take illegally earned unrecorded money and turn it into legitimate money that can be spent without attracting attention.
Is your allegation that Trump is laundering Putin’s money ?
Or Putin is laundering Trump’s money ?
Do you understand that from the perspective of someone such as Putin who is the leader of a totalitarian state – there is no such thing as money laundering. Putin can do pretty much anything he pleases with all the money of Russia.
And Trump has more money that he can possibly spend before the end of his life
So who is it who paid who for what ?
I would further note that If Putin wanted Trump to be happy – if he wanted Trump to be more wealthy, he had a trivially simple way to do so:
Direct Moscow to approve Trump Tower Russia.
The very thing that Cohen lied to congress about is the absolute proof that there is nothing between Putin and Trump.
So you think somewhere in Trump’s financial records you are going to find
Checks or xfers from Trump to Putin for say $100K to keep the pee tape secret ?
Or is Trump paying to have the DNC hacked ?
Or is he paying for FB adds ?
Or is Putin paying Trump for an apartment in Miami ?
Or for dropping sanctions ?
You are trying to make money important in a game that has absolutely nothing to do with money.
Something is totally screwed up as these are coming directed to me and I dont know what your addressing. Pleade start a new thread.
“plus other financial links that will provide motive for Donald’s attempts to obstruct the investigation into Russian interference in Trump’s election.”
Prove Trump was involved in some conspiracy with Russia – and there is no need to find any financial motives for Trump to “obstruct justice”
If you do not prove that – there is no chance you will separately prove some financial entanglement.
I would separately note that – the DOJ/FBI/CIA/Mueller have NEVER investigated Russian interferance in the election.
This has been an investigation of Trump from the begining – everything Russia was the chosen narrative.
Just to be clear – I am not asserting my beleif – we now KNOW this because Baker, Comey, McCabe, etc have documented that in writing or in testimony or both.
“Ron, I’m truly dissapointed that you have not come to appreciate how detrimental this scum sucker is to our nation. That you’re not calling for his removal is saddening.”
Jay – you and the rest of those suffering from Trump Derangemrnt syndrome have been asked repeatedly for evidence of how Trump is “detrimental to our nation”
You keep responding with the trump word salad and media firestorm of the week.
I and other have told you – facts and actions are far more important than words.
It is inarguable that the nation as a whole is net better off than under Obama.
In pretty much every way that you claim to be worse off – that is of your own making. You choose to be outraged over Trumps words.
You could just as easily choose to ignore them.
To the extent you are worse off it is because of your own choices.
Most of us are better off.
Is Trump the cause for everything that is better ? No.
But it is a fair assessment to conclude that the difference in the rate of improvement between 2009-2016 and 2017 to the present can to a significant degree be attributed to having Trump as president rather than Obama.
If we are going to impeach a president because they are detrimental to the nation – then Obama would be ahead of Trump in line.
I will be happy to listen to arguments that we can do better that Trump.
But the assertion that Trump has been on net detrimental is FALSE.
So Jay – what could go wrong ?
What can Putin Trump agree to that would be treasonous, or criminal or disasterous that ALSO does nto require any visible ACT on the part of Trump ?
“Vlad old buddy old pal and wonderful person, if you do not release the pee tapes, I will end the sanctions”
But the sanctions have not ended.
In fact overall Trump has actually been tougher on Russia than “wait until after the election when I can be more flexible” Obama.
BTW but for the open mike there would have been ZERO record of Obama’s conversation with Medved – what could go wrong ?
Just to be clear – I would support legislation that assured that ABSOLUTELY everything said by anyone in government must be “on the record”.
It would make government far more cumbersome – which I think is fantastic.
But there is no such law currently.
Fox News Legal analyst Andrew Napolitano is among those who have addressed this issue of a sealed indictment. This is not some scheme that I personally cooked up to make Dave flip his lid.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/judge-andrew-napolitano-trumps-legal-woes-continue-to-grow
You can watch the attached video, it is similar but not identical in Napolitano’s comments. His is not a lefty, not a loony and not ignorant of the law.
“It seems that every time we look at the legal maneuverings that reflect upon President Donald Trump, the allegations of unlawful behavior by him add up. We know that two teams of federal prosecutors are examining his pre-presidential and his in-office behavior.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Trump and his campaign reached an agreement with any foreign nationals — particularly Russians — to receive anything of value and whether he obstructed justice by trying to shut down an FBI investigation of his first national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. And federal prosecutors in Manhattan are looking at bank fraud and campaign financing fraud.
The receipt by a campaign for federal office of anything of value from a foreign national is a criminal act, as is an agreement to receive the thing of value from a foreign national, whether or not it arrives. As is the case with nearly all federal crimes, one can be prosecuted for committing the crime itself or, when others are involved, for conspiring to commit the crime or for attempting to commit it.
The career federal prosecutors in New York have told a federal judge that they have evidence that Trump conspired with Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, and David Pecker, his former friend who owns the National Enquirer, to violate campaign finance laws. They have also told the judge that Trump orchestrated Cohen’s crimes and paid Cohen to commit them. The prosecutors know that he who pays for crimes can be as criminally liable as he who accepts the payment and commits the crimes.
What were the crimes? They consisted in hiding illegal campaign receipts and expenses from federal regulators and deceiving them. The receipts were corporate donations — prohibited under federal law. The expenses were payments made to two women who claim to have been paramours of Trump’s — claims he has repeatedly denied — in return for their silence in the fall of 2016, all done to benefit Trump’s presidential campaign.
Had these receipts and payments been innocent mistakes or clerical errors, they could have been addressed with fines and returning the money — about $350,000 — to the donors. They became criminal because the donations were part of an elaborate scheme of cooked books and phony invoices to deceive federal regulators, and they resulted in the Trump campaign’s filing false reports to the feds. All of this was done, according to federal prosecutors, knowingly and intentionally pursuant to a conspiracy among Trump, Cohen and Pecker.
What became of the conspirators? Cohen infamously pleaded guilty to this and other crimes and was sentenced to three years in a federal prison. When Trump learned that his former lawyer had been debriefed by the FBI for 70 hours, Trump called him a “rat.” Pecker received a form of immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony to federal prosecutors and to a federal grand jury about Trump and Cohen.
It is highly unusual for federal prosecutors to characterize a person who is not a defendant in their case as the orchestrator and paymaster of the crimes they are prosecuting, unless they intend to charge that person. Such a person — here, the president — is often referred to as an “unindicted co-conspirator.”
Can Trump be charged with these crimes? Has he been, in a sealed indictment? The Department of Justice has three modern-day legal opinions on the subject of charging a president. Two of them say that a president cannot be charged with a crime while in office, and one says that a president can be charged.
All three opinions counsel that if a statute of limitations — the period of time after the crime has been committed and during which a prosecution must be commenced or waived — is about to expire, the president may need to be indicted in secret, so as to preserve the government’s ability to prosecute him for his crimes after he leaves office yet also preserve the president’s ability to conduct the duties of his office unimpeded by the burdens of a criminal prosecution.
The statute of limitations in this case is five years. The conspiracy took place in 2016. The math for Trump is daunting.
Why should you care about this? The president is the chief federal law enforcement officer in the land. He has sworn an oath to enforce all laws faithfully. If he is a lawbreaker himself, he violates his oath, making it difficult for the legal, judicial and law enforcement communities to take his enforcement decisions seriously.
This week, Flynn was due to be sentenced for lying to the FBI. (His sentencing was postponed.) Though it may appear at first to have been a little white lie and though the FBI no doubt knew it was a lie at the time Flynn articulated it, it turns out that Flynn was also a paid foreign agent for Turkey — a spy, if you will, for an ally we currently have a strained relationship with — while working in the Trump campaign. Had U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan not skeptically approached the sentencing of Flynn, we might not know any of this. Did Donald Trump know any of this when he hired Michael Flynn?
The rule of law in America is what keeps us free from tyranny. The rule of law — which the president has sworn his solemn oath to support — means that no one is above the law’s requirements or below its protections. It also means that those who make law enforcement decisions have a public commitment to obeying the law.
Short of that, we don’t have the rule of law. We have the rule of whoever is temporarily at the top of the heap.
And to be clear – whatever free speach issues you think you have with Cohen/Trump and Daniels – increase those exponentially when you drag the national enquirer in.
Everything the press does regarding a political campaign has VALUE to one campaign or the other. MAYBE you could claim that straight reporting was exempt for campaign finance laws – but what about Op Eds ?
Pecker decided he had nothing to lose by cooperating with Mueller.
Outside of the lunatic left which unfortunatley is now a pretty large portion of the country, no one sane thinks that campaign finance laws apply to the press.
This BTW is really an argument for why they should apply to NO ONE.
I would also note that Napalitano’s facts are in error.
Federal Prosecutors have not to our knowledge told a federal judge any such thing.
Federal prosecutors negotiated a plea deal with Cohen where Cohen’s statement to the court confesses SOME of those things.
Federal prosecutors speak to court about crimes by CHARGING them.
One of the issues that came up in the Manafort case was limiting Federal prosecutors to those allegations they had actually charged Manafort with.
A federal prosecutor can not charge you with shop lifting and go into court and say – the defendant is a kiddie didler.
If you are unwilling to charge a crime as a prosecutor, you can discuss it in court.
This also came up with Sulivan. Flynn has a very narrow plea bargain. So long as Flynn adheres to the Plea bargain Mueller can not raise with Sulivan any of the charges against Flynn that are dismissed by the Plea Bargain. That is part of what was so outrageous about Sulivans remarks and why he very quickly backed away from them.
The standard for a judge is even higher than the prosecutor.
Essentially If Flynn comes before the court, and lies and says he committed to crime he is pleaing to, then Mueller must come before the court and lie and say he agreed that Flynn was NOT guilty of the other charges against him, and the court can ONLY consider the facts directly related to the crime being plead to as well as whether Flynn and Mueller upheld their ends of the deal.
“The receipt by a campaign for federal office of anything of value from a foreign national is a criminal act, as is an agreement to receive the thing of value from a foreign national, whether or not it arrives. ”
So the recciept from Christopher Steele – a foreign national of the steele dossier – a collection of intelligence purportedly of great value from not merely foreign nationals but according to Steele from FSB and GRU officers, by the Clinton campaign is not covered by this ?
Jay get a clue ANY broad interpretation of the law that you propose – even via Napoleon, that resolves to Trump or the Trump campaign committing a crime, will simultaneously prove the Clinton campaign did so 10 times over.
This is not “whataboutism” it is actually logic.
If you beleive a specific set of facts makes the actions of A a crime, then the same set of facts also make the action of B a crime.
If you also beleive that A committed a crime, but B did not – you are wrong, and illogical.
Either both did or neither did.
The law is not one thing for Trump and another thing for Clinton.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/06/digenova-toensing-napolitano
Now this is where I can flil my lid and have an anal hemmorrage.n
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coast-guard-are-members-caught-in-shutdown-11547676778
And what is suggested by our great leaders in high places, in the CG, DHS Congress, etc. The CG members can have garage sales or do house sitting to earn extra money.
Yeah right, try that as an enlisted member with two kids and a wife whike you are on a cutter.
This pissing contest between Donald and Nancy is unacceptable, And congress not doing anything is despicable.
And what do we hear on the news. The Secret Service and TSA not getting paid. Thats also BS. They are not risking their lives like the CG rescuing people like the CG.
Our military should not be Nancy’s and Donald’s pawns.
In every prior shutdown CG funding was covered by a bill specifically covering the CG during the shutdown. A bill was put forward this time but dems refused,
Every aspect of this is being contested.
Repubs put forward individual bills to fund specific critical things.
Dems will only approve bills that fund everything while negotiating.
If you have everything you want – there is no reason to negotiate.
BTW DHS as a concept was Stupid when Bush came up with it and it remains stupid now.
I am not really sure I agree with the Assessment that the Coast Guard is military – they used to be under treasury. I would further say – without downplaying what those int he CG do that the job is LESS risky than say farming. Lets not exagerate the dangers of what they do.
Regardless, if you want CG to be military – put them under the department of defense.
But I do not see them as exactly military – they are more like the border patrol – except on the ocean, with a bit of lifeguard thrown in.
I would note that like the military members of the CG receive free housing. healthcare. and meals. They are in far better shape without pay than a TSA agent – who must pay rent and food. The primary differences being the TSA agent is free to leave.
Trump wants to talk about using emergency power to build the wall.
Contrary to what others here have claimed the best legal analysis and the clearest reading of laws passed by congress is that Trump does have that authority.
At the same time I do not think he should do that.
HOWEVER I do think that a case can be made that for those people not furloughed – anyone deemed essential who must work, they also must be paid, and that Trump either has the authority to pay them or he has the ability to declare a state of emergency and pay them
But they must meet whatever the requirements of essential services.
I do not think during shutdowns we should have 3 catagories – those who still work and still get paid, those who still work and do not get paid, and those who do not work and do not get paid.
If you work – you get paid. If you do not work – you do not get paid, not even after the shutdown is over. If you are a non-essential government employee and you can not deal with not getting paid during furlough’s – then get a private job or take vacation during the shutdown. The salary of a government employee is for the work they do,
So if they are not military and they are Border Patrol, why did I have a husband and wife stantioned at different times in a ship off the coast of Central and South America. To achieve the rank of Chief P.O., they had to spend 6 months off shore.
This is a pissing contest between two egos. One elected by 87% of supporters or about 250,000 voters and one with about 48% and 63,000,000 votes.. It wax the.idiocy of Bush 43 that placed them under DHS.
If Trump cared, he would order the CG under the Department of Navy by EO. He has legislative authority tobdo that.
To address yourremarks about them being the same as the TSA worker. They are not! The TSA worker is free to quit! The CG enlisted individual is not!
“So if they are not military and they are Border Patrol, why did I have a husband and wife stantioned at different times in a ship off the coast of Central and South America. To achieve the rank of Chief P.O., they had to spend 6 months off shore.”
You are asking me why government does stupid things ?
I beleive during WWII and possibly WWI the CG actually engaged German submarines.
There are also some additional responsibilities imposed on the CG involving the support of US military operations.
The predecessor of the CG – was revenue cutters – I beleive going back to the time of our founders. Their job was dealing with taxes and contraband – much as the CG today.
Adding a few military requirements and structing the CG like the military does nto make them the military.
Their are ranks within police forces, and likely in the border patrol. Even the scouts have ranks.
Regardless, I am not looking to piss on the CG,
If you really want to push the idea that they are military – put them under DoD not DHS.
Further I absolutely beleive that if the government decides that someone must work, it has at the same time decided that it must pay them.
Either Shut down the CG or pay them.
I do not have much problem with furloughing 800K government wokers and NOT paying them – “no workee, no payee”.
If you are not happy – find another job.
I have a major problem with ordering someone to work and not paying them.
Even with a promise they will get paid in the future.
Link the article or cut and paste it – both is a bit excessive.
Napolitono is fairly libertarian, and he is generally someone I respect.
But he is not actually very good with the law. And he is pretty solidly wrong here.
Nearly all campaign finance law violations are NOT criminal.
Prosecutors tried to push a criminal theory using a set of facts much more egregious than this with Edwards – they lost in front of a jury so the decision was never reviewed by appelate courts.
Regardless the FEC chair AT THAT TIME and every single FEC chair since has not merely said that the edwards prosecution was wrong, but that Edwards use of ACTUAL campaign money to pay his mistress did NOT violate the law or the FEC guidelines.
BTW there is a reason for the FEC chair to hold this view – one that Napolitano does not address and the very aspect that your effort to criminalize this relies.
If the law is interpreted as broadly as you are trying to do – then it is facially unconstitutional.
That is the reason that every FEC chair has opposed this interpretation.
Under this broad interpretation any cost associated with anything any candidate does that MIGHT benefit him as a candidate must be viewed as a campaign contribution.
That would include the cost of any clothes they wear while campaigning – or at any public appearance or at any private appearance that might benefit their campaign.
That would include toothpaste and toilet paper, that would include deoderant, that would include food – it would include myriads of things that the candidate would have to do or might choose to do NO MATTER WHAT, so long as it was arguable that they benefitted the campaign.
You might get that past the 9th circuit, you will not get that past SCOTUS.
We have had these arguments repeatedly.
Personally I think pretty much all campaign finance laws are unconstitutional – they run afoul of free speech – which BTW is ANOTHER issue in this particularly instance.
Ms. Daniels was being paid not to speak – that is not only legal, it is also a free speech right.
I know it is hard for those on the left to grasp this – but the right to free speech includes the right to speak, not speak, speak anonymously, to pay for speech and to pay someone not to speak.
There are 250 years of precidents covering all of this.
I would further note that campaign finances laws DO NOT apply to a candidates OWN money – again the courts decided that decades ago.
There could be a really really really bad argument that Cohen was guilty of an unreported political contribution IF and ONLY IF Cohen paid for the NDA.
But there is no means of arguing that Trump would have committed a crime if Cohen paid for it, and no way of arguing there is a crime if Trump paid for it.
So Napalitono is wrong for myriads of reasons – and honestly he should know better.
Lets try this again – there is not ONE reason this claim is wrong – there are a dozen.
It is near certain that EVERY ONE of those arguments would prevail at SCOTUS – but only one must.
On of the better people on this issue has been Derschowitz. Though Turley has been pretty good to.
That said you should have a clue that this is nonsense because although Cohen stated that he violated campaign finance laws as part of his “allocution” – he was NOT charged with that, and he did not actually plead to that. If the US ADA intended to indict someone else for campaign finance violations arising from the NDA payments to Stormy Daniels, there are several things he would near certain do:
1) Absolutely DO NOT have Cohen plead to lying under oath. That makes him worthless as a witness.
2). Have him actually plead guilty to the crime you intend to prosecute against others.
3). Have him plead guilty to conspiring to commit that crime.
As you should pretty much be able to tell from the Flynn and other Plea deals – there is unfortunately no enforceable requireement that the person pleading actually be guilty of the crime they are pleading to. That is part of the problem with this stupid dance going on in Sulivan’s court. Flynn WANTS the court to step in and say this is prosecutorial misconduct – because it is, and because Flynn did not commit the crime he is pleading to.
But Flynn can not say that with out the entire deal going down the tubes.
If Flynn says to Sulivan – I am not guilty of the crime I am being charged with but I am pleading anyway to avoid getting bankrupted by Mueller – Sullivan will immediately reject the deal. Mueller did not agree to a Nolo or Alford Plea, to get the deal Flynn must confess in court on the record to being guilty – even if that is a lie. Anything short of that and the deal goes south.
Anyway, my point is that what the person pleads guilty to – the actual crime charged and plead not assorted things that are said in the paper work matters greatly.
Most of the pleas tied to Mueller have been for or including “Crim-in-falsi”
That is highly unusual, and never done if you are planning to use the person pleading as a witness – because you have discredited your own witness.
Anyway, as Cohen did not actually plead to a campaign finance law violationm, the US ADA SDNYC has made Cohen useless as a witness and tellegraphed that he is NOT filing campaign finance charges. Probably because even he is not stupid enough to push such a dead bang loser legal theory.
Please explain. I have no idea what you are writing about!
The Mouth that Babbles, at it again…
This is complex – because refuting a whisper down the lane claim is always messy.
“Jay say, Napolitona says, that the SD NY ADA says to the court that Cohen committed and conspired to commit campaign finance law violations. ”
That mess is approximately what I am trying to refute.
1). Napolitona DOES say approximately that.
Sometimes people I respect make errors.
2). The SD NY ADA did NOT say any such thing to the court.
The SD NY ADA DID have Cohen include statements to that effect in his plea. These are Cohen’s statements, not the SD NY ADA – though with near certainty the SD NY ADA requested them.
This was done this way because – the ADA can not speak about a crime he is not charging – but Cohen can.
It is political theater – it has no weight – first and foremost because once you plead Cohen for Crim-in-falsi nothing he says has probative value.
Mueller has this problem all over the place – these “lying to the FBI” pleas have been noted by numerous lawyers to be a very unwise move.
No matter what Cohen says in his court statements, he is pleading guilty of tax evasion and lying to the senate – NOT Campaign finance crimes.
The court can take Cohen statements into account in sentencing him, but they have no other value.
Cohen saying he did something in a plea statement – rather than pleading to it, is meaningless.
If the SD NY ADA was going to charge others with campaign finance law violations – they would not have plead Cohen to lying to congress and they would have plead Cohen to the campaign finance law violations.
Cohen is not likely to care about anything beyond how much time he gets.
I think Cohen is pretty slimy. But I know a long list of equally slimy lawyers – many of whom are prosecutors and some of whom are judges. None of whom are in jail though many should be,
Being a slimy and incompetent lawyer is not a crime.
The lying to congress charge is ludicrous. As much as I might dislike Cohen errors about the last date he communicated with someone in Russia regarding a deal that never happened is not substanitive.
Mueller – and the rest of you should read the court cases on assorted forms of criminal lying. Merely making a false statement under oath (or to the FBI) is NOT sufficient. Doing so KNOWINGLY is not sufficient. One of several additional elements is that the lie must be about something of importance.
The exact date at which Cohen stopped doing something that was neither a crime, nor even successful is not something of importance. Congress was not mislead in a way that altered the outcome of its deliberations.
The same is True – even more so of Flynn and Papadoulis and Van Der Zandt – the other Crim-in-Falsi pleas.
No one less that Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a case on this explicitly stated that you can not permit government to prosecute people for misrepresenting to the government something the government already knows or is not important.
If you allow that you allow prosecutors to manufacture crimes by questioning people until they contradict something.
Put differently there is no such thing as a perjury trap – because if the government already knows the truth your lie is not a crime.
Lying to the government is a crime – because the lie interferes with the investigation. If it does not, there is no crime.
Please, TSA Workers, Don’t Come Back
And take the rest of your federal colleagues with you.
https://reason.com/archives/2019/01/09/please-tsa-workers-dont-come-back
We must investigate the FBI and DOJ – from Volokh
https://reason.com/volokh/2019/01/14/why-the-fbis-counterintelligence-probe-o
If you want an actual negative effect of the shutdown – that in reality just proves the stupidity of regulation try this.
https://reason.com/volokh/2019/01/16/the-shutdown-and-the-first-amendment
The difference between what people think they know and what they actually know.
https://reason.com/volokh/2019/01/15/survey-shows-most-extreme-opponents-of-g
All that good government in San Francisco
https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/16/san-francisco-property-owner-fights-city
Rudy Giuliani to @ChrisCuomo: “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign. I have not. I said the president of the United States,” adding that Trump “didn’t commit a crime.”
So if there was collusion from Trump campaign people, but Trump didn’t participate directly.
Like Nixon didn’t personally break into Watergate…
Rudy may not be willing to say it – but I am.
Todate the DOJ/FBI/CIA/Mueller have found no evidence of criminal interactions between anyone in the Trump campaign and the Russian Government.
REINS something we should all be able to agree on – though I doubt we will
https://reason.com/archives/2019/01/11/a-new-bill-would-rein-in-the-executive-o
Who is the worst landlord in New York City ?
According the the New York AG – it is the New York City Housing Authority.
For those of you certain that polls are meaningful.
The majority of americans when polled want to ban the farming of animals.
But very few of us are vergitarians or vegans – and the numbers are stagnant, while our consumption of meat is INCREASING.
So what is it that we really want ? What are our actual values ?
Polls are a very poor measure of values.
Markets are the only accurate measure of our values.
Willet is one of the judges in Trump’s original Supreme court short list.
https://reason.com/archives/2019/01/12/liberty-has-a-new-champion-on
The world is getting better,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-is-getting-quietly-relentlessly-better-11546430400
And better still says NYT
And better still says WAPO
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-fall-for-the-doomsday-predictions/2019/01/08/46a4ced2-1361-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html?utm_term=.28ec0258c5ab
We are all going to be rich – says the financial times.
http://www.businessbvi.com/business/item/3526-why-i-predict-we-will-be-wealthier-in-the-future
Those damn righty Tea Party conservatives are at it again!
More of the same anti Trump nonsense from another well known conservative.
What collusion ?
Sorry Jonah, but this is more manufactured news.
Guliani is somewhat Clumsy sometimes.
Regardless – has some big news broke I have not heard ?
Has Stone been caught on video in August meeting with Putin ?
There remains NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION.
That Said Guiliani appears to be making the same argument that I and many many others have made – primarily as a hypothetical.
Collusion is not a crime.
Trump could have met publicly or privately with Putin prior to the election.
He didn’t, but he could have.
Alot is made of the “contact” between low level Trump surogates and “russians”
These “russians” are
American citizens born in Russia
FBI informants.
Russian businesmen that there are legitimate reasons for these people to have communicated with,
Ukrainians – because we all know that even though the russians and ukrainians are killing each other that really they are bossum buddies.
MI6 agents claiming to know russians.
Very indirect contact with Julian Assange – who the left has made into an Honorary Russian.
Do you remember that point about the left not having principles of values, that everything changes with the moment.
The left was worshiping Assange when he was making trouble for Bush.
The left has pardoned Chelsea/Bradley Manning whose leaks to Asange may have gotten people killed
But Asange is now some evil Russian Troll – how fickle those on the left are.
It is only ok to leak damaging information if it is harmful to the right.
It is OK for Manning to have released information that might have gotten US soldiers killed, it was OK for Asange to publish it.
But publishing DNC emails revealing that the DNC was in the tank for Clintion – that makes you are russian troll.
It is amazing, in so many ways the left is channelling Joe MacCarthy.
The Red Scare deplatfoming the demonization of russian and anyone who does not think they are the most evil thing on the face of the earth. blacklists, demogogery, ad hominem,
The left has become what it hates the most about the right
We would not have known anything about What Obama and Medved were saying to each other – but for the fact that Obama accidentally left his mike on.
This is more manufactured news.
BTW the Obama administration was the most agressive actor against leaks in US history there were more prosecutions for leaking than under all other presidents before combined.
Trump is trying to stop leaks by making them impossible, rather than by assuring that you go to jail.
Brilliant Nancy, like the cartoon character Nancy, you have snatched the political football from Charlie Brown, better known now as Trump. LMAO!
Taking the cameras away from Trump is like taking blood away from Dracula
“The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President,
On January 3rd, it was my privilege as Speaker to invite you to deliver the State of the Union address on January 29. The Constitution calls for the President to “from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union.” During the 19th Century and up until the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, these annual State of the Union messages were delivered to Congress in writing. And since the start of modern budgeting in Fiscal Year 1977, a State of the Union address has never been delivered during a government shutdown.
In September 2018, Secretary Nielsen designated State of the Union Addresses as National Special Security Events (NSSEs), recognizing the need for “the full resources of the Federal Government to be brought to bear” to ensure the security of these events. The extraordinary demands presented by NSSEs require weeks of detailed planning with dozens of agencies working together to prepare for the safety of all participants.
The U.S. Secret Service was designated as the lead federal agency responsible for coordinating, planning, exercising, and implementing security for National Special Security Events by Public Law 106-544, December 19, 2000. However, both the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have not been funded for 26 days now – with critical departments hamstrung by furloughs.
Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
NANCY PELOSI”
As Best as I can tell – this is fully within Pelosi’s power.
I think it is a hamfisted stupid political move on her part. While it may win her points with her base it makes her look petty – at a time when she is trying to claim Trump is the petty one.
I also think that it is long past time to revert to the 19th century letter delivered to congress.
But that is a decision that should be made by all – though it wont be.
I have no idea precisely how Trump will respond, But I suspect he will win the engagement.
One choice he has is to give the SOTU from the oval office.
Or possibly even better from Clemson University Stadium – or some other forum that is essentially a Trump rally.
Why does Trump care that 535 congressmen and SCOTUS are in the room for one of his speeches ?
My ran a factory in the food industry – which is heavily jewish.
She said it was always better negotiating with the jews than the christians.
The Jews wanted a good deal and they would bargain shrewdly, they seemed to know better than you did at what price you would lose money, and they understood that it was in their interests not to push you so hard you went bankrupt.
While the christians wanted to win every negotiation. They did not care if you made money, they did not care if you went bankrupt.
I think that applies to the differences between Trump and the left and is demonstrated by the Differences between Trump and Pelosi in this fight.
Trumps objective is the wall. You can agree with that, or disagree with it. But it is going to be damn near impossible to come to a deal with him unless he gets the wall.
While Pelosi and the left talk about the wall and immigration and ……
Their objective is to defeat Trump.
Even here – I do not think many of the more left leaning posters here are really committed to t