Donald trump. what is your take on him?

[tands]

"After the historic oral arguments in March, the two knowledgeable sources said, Roberts and the four conservatives were poised to strike down at least the individual mandate. There were other issues being argued - severability and the Medicaid extension - but the mandate was the ballgame.

It required individuals to buy insurance or pay a penalty. Congress had never before in the history of the nation ordered Americans to buy a product from a private company as part of its broad powers to regulate commerce. Opponents argued that the law exceeded Congress' power under the Constitution, and an Atlanta-based federal appeals court agreed.

The Atlanta-based federal appeals court said Congress didn't have that kind of expansive power, and it struck down the mandate as unconstitutional.

On this point - Congress' commerce power - Roberts agreed. In the court's private conference immediately after the arguments, he was aligned with the four conservatives to strike down the mandate.
...

But Roberts pays attention to media coverage. As chief justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the court, and he also is sensitive to how the court is perceived by the public.

There were countless news articles in May warning of damage to the court - and to Roberts' reputation - if the court were to strike down the mandate. Leading politicians, including the president himself, had expressed confidence the mandate would be upheld.

Some even suggested that if Roberts struck down the mandate, it would prove he had been deceitful during his confirmation hearings, when he explained a philosophy of judicial restraint.

It was around this time that it also became clear to the conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, "wobbly," the sources said.

It is not known why Roberts changed his view on the mandate and decided to uphold the law. At least one conservative justice tried to get him to explain it, but was unsatisfied with the response, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation. "

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/roberts-switched-views-to-uphold-health-care-law/2/

 

[DaveP]

When the rule of law overturns what the politically powerful want to do, it becomes politicized. How would the judiciary be selected if not through some political method (election or appointment)? Lottery? {a joke}.

We have something called the Judicial Appointments Commission, which is an independent body and nothing to do with politicians.

Our Supreme court recently overthrew the governments right to initiate Brexit, saying that only Parliament could do that (which they voted on tonight).

When politicians can choose judges to get their preferred outcomes, instead of it being decided simply by the law, you are asking for trouble methinks.

DaveP

 

[mattiasNYC]

Theocracy

DaveP

Sorry Dave, but Theocracy is not mutually exclusive to Democracy.

You should possibly read up on Iran's system of governance and reevaluate.

 

[mattiasNYC]

I have put this in for balance:-
DaveP

How do you think he would react if hist country was on the list?

Again, I refer to Giuliani's own words on this.

 

[mattiasNYC]

???

Iran is another country that pretends to hold democratic elections but the candidates allowed to run are selected by the  mullahs, so the outcomes are controlled by the religious leadership.

That's not true. Easier on your eyes than thousands of my words no doubt:

Then that elected leader is only the number two man, who answers to the top religious leader who doesn't get voted on.

I was upset in 2009 when the green movement rose up to protest the sham election. Several western leaders publicly offered their support for the street protesters, while the US government remained silent.

JR

[edit- Iran is debating whether their recent ballistic missile test is in violation of the UN resolution, prohibiting such. /edit]

The problems with Iran aren't all that different from that of the US. It has a system with "brakes" built in to slow public influence of representatives. Now if you look at the US you had an election where 3 million more people voted for the one of only two viable candidates that lost.  Not sure when you voted for your electors.

 

[mattiasNYC]

I understand that this is an attempt at deconstructing Dave's argument. However, the situation/relationship between Britain and its former colonies is not really comparable to the situation between Israel and its neighbours today, and not comparable to the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis either.

Because (1) the latter tension has been pretty much ongoing as violence for the last 70 years with many failed attempts at reconciliation, boken promises and malignant behaviour by certain groups of people on both sides, whereas (2) the former is today not violent, unless we claimed that some economic relations are, well, if not violent, then at least destructive -- although I'd prefer to say they are not necessarily constructive.

The similarity is that people today are in some cases held responsible for what their forefathers did and in some not. What makes it "odd" to me is that the descendant of the colonialists doesn't want to be blamed for what his predecessors did, but places blame on those currently being colonized by their ancestors. That doesn't look convenient to you? Or is something more personal at play here?

Apart from that: anyone discusssing this topic here ever been to Palestine, ever been to Israel? Ideally both to talk to people there and compare realities directly?

I've spoken to both Palestinians and Israelis about this.

Look, the bottom line here is that the view he has amounts to telling a Palestinian farmer "Hey, sorry that your olive trees that you use for a living are being bulldozed and your land taken to build thousands more houses for our people, but it's really your own fault. It's your fault because of what people did back in 1948, even if you had absolutely nothing to do with it. So, tough luck that you're now losing your living, aren't living a nation that is recognized by the entire international community, that this expansion of your neighbor is done with oppressive military support resulting in thousands of dead including women and children and the elderly, but again, it's really your own fault, because you're an Arab and Arabs started it many many decades ago."

 

[mattiasNYC]

Interestingly, according to any article in the (London) Times yesterday, that list of countries was drawn up by President Obama for just such an action, but not put executed, and not the new Trump administration.

Mike

 

[JohnRoberts]

That's not true. Easier on your eyes than thousands of my words no doubt:

The dotted orange line on your pretty graphic shows where all the candidates for office must be approved by the guardian council

The problems with Iran aren't all that different from that of the US. It has a system with "brakes" built in to slow public influence of representatives. Now if you look at the US you had an election where 3 million more people voted for the one of only two viable candidates that lost.  Not sure when you voted for your electors.

"Mehdi Karrubi, a top Iranian opposition leader who has been under house arrest for nearly six years, has resigned as secretary-general of his party. ... Karrubi, 79, and Mir Hossein Musavi were reformist candidates and leaders of the Green movement in the controversial 2009 presidential election" (from google search).

Do you still not understand the electoral college system? (Google can help you, I won't).

JR

 

[mattiasNYC]

Do you still not understand the electoral college system? (Google can help you, I won't).

JR

Do you still not understand why my comparison is correct? (Google can help you, I won't).

 

[JohnRoberts]

Do you still not understand why my comparison is correct? (Google can help you, I won't).

Saying something is so, does not make it so...

Restricting who can run for office is far from a free election. Holding opposition candidates under house arrest for years (or worse) is not a free process.

Several western leaders voiced support for the protesters in 2009 who didn't think it was a free election. 

Maybe Iran can voice their support for the American election protestors who don't like that Trump won.  : Iran has already blocked US citizens from getting visas to reciprocate for Trump's travel pause (Iran was one of the countries that the Obama administration identified as risky). 

JR

PS: A high level Iraqi general was caught by the travel ban. He had relocated his family to the US for obvious security concerns while he fights ISIS in Iraq. But now he can't come here to visit his family like he planned.  This will get sorted out, no doubt.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Saying something is so, does not make it so...

Well I'm not going to do your homework for you, and I don't take assignments myself so....

Restricting who can run for office is far from a free election. Holding opposition candidates under house arrest for years (or worse) is not a free process.

And a nation having two choices where the most popular loses to someone who threatens to incarcerate his opponent isn't really democracy either. You even have a fellow conservative here who "schooled us" on this declaring clearly that the US is not a democracy, but a republic. So there you go.

 

[Banzai]

There are other "Democracies" but not as we know it, Turkey and Egypt etc.

DaveP

Lebanon for one.

I'll admit though, 'Not the Only Democracy In the Middle East' doesn't sound as good.

 

[tands]

"In fact, the evidence suggests that the intentions and strategies of distinct colonial powers were very similar. The outcomes were very different because of variation in initial conditions in the colonies. For example, in Latin America, where there were dense populations of indigenous people, a colonial society could be created based on the exploitation of these people. In North America where no such populations existed, such a society was infeasible, even though the first British settlers tried to set it up. In response, early North American society went in a completely different direction: early colonising ventures, such as the Virginia Company, needed to attract Europeans and stop them running off into the open frontier and they needed to incentivise them to work and invest. The institutions that did this, such as political rights and access to land, were radically different even from the institutions in the colonising country. When British colonisers found Latin-American-like circumstances, for example in South Africa, Kenya or Zimbabwe, they were perfectly capable of and interested in setting up what we have called ‘extractive institutions’, based on the control of and the extraction of rents from indigenous peoples. In Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) we argue that extractive institutions, which strip the vast mass of the population of incentives or opportunities, are associated with poverty. It is also not a coincidence that such African societies are today as unequal as Latin American countries.

It wasn’t just the density of indigenous peoples that mattered for the type of society that formed. As we showed in Acemoglu et al. (2001), the disease environment facing potential European settlers was also important. Something that encouraged the colonisation of North America was the relatively benign disease environment that facilitated the strategy of creating institutions to guarantee European migration. Something that encouraged the creation of extractive institutions in West Africa was the fact that it was the ‘white man’s graveyard’, discouraging the creation of the type of ‘inclusive economic institutions’ which encouraged the settlement and development of North America. These inclusive institutions, in contrast to extractive institutions, did create incentives and opportunities for the vast mass of people."

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/02/how-colonialism-shaped-modern-inequality.html

 

[Andy Peters]

When the truth becomes satire, print the satire:

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/my-very-good-black-history-month-tribute-to-some-of-the-most-tremendous-black-people

 

[hitchhiker]

Trump's Muslim ban was more and less than a Muslim ban.  It was an utterly stupid and useless piece of crap insofar as fighting terrorism goes--a complete joke.  The justification for it--that the process for vetting people coming into the US is in need of revision--is utter crap.  It's a lie that his supporters can latch onto and repeat ad nauseam on the interwebs.  It's also utterly disgusting (and quite telling) that the countries not on the list included the majority Muslim countries where Trump has business interests.  So, so very classy and presidential of him (sarcasm, JR.  I don't like putting little faces in my posts.)

It did achieve a lot of other ends.  It revved up all his Muslim-fearing supporters.  It gave him the opportunity to see how far he could go in abusing his authority and flouting the laws of this country.  It was another opportunity to root out govt. employees who put the rule of law and sanity ahead of blind loyalty to the nutbag in the White House.  And it's a nice trial balloon for what is to come--because, sadly, xenophobia and racism are a huge motivator behind the actions of the current regime.  So no doubt we'll be seeing more and worse in the days ahead.

Mindful observations are best revisited before they are lost in the ongoing tensions.  Thank you hodad!

 

[mattiasNYC]

Trump's Muslim ban was more and less than a Muslim ban.  It was an utterly stupid and useless piece of crap insofar as fighting terrorism goes--a complete joke.  The justification for it--that the process for vetting people coming into the US is in need of revision--is utter crap.  It's a lie that his supporters can latch onto and repeat ad nauseam on the interwebs.  It's also utterly disgusting (and quite telling) that the countries not on the list included the majority Muslim countries where Trump has business interests.  So, so very classy and presidential of him (sarcasm, JR.  I don't like putting little faces in my posts.)

It did achieve a lot of other ends.  It revved up all his Muslim-fearing supporters.  It gave him the opportunity to see how far he could go in abusing his authority and flouting the laws of this country.  It was another opportunity to root out govt. employees who put the rule of law and sanity ahead of blind loyalty to the nutbag in the White House.  And it's a nice trial balloon for what is to come--because, sadly, xenophobia and racism are a huge motivator behind the actions of the current regime.  So no doubt we'll be seeing more and worse in the days ahead.

I think it'll get far worse. The last I read, and I've only seen it once yet, is that a measure to probe extremist groups is to get a sole focus of Islam rather than be all-inclusive. That means that white power racist groups won't be scrutinized as much in the future. This would be 'funny' if it wasn't for the fact that in terms of the sheer number of terrorist attacks on US soil it's historically been clearly non-Muslim terrorism that has dominated.

So, a ban on Muslims that get carefully legally reworded, a former CEO of a publication that catered to far-right ultra-nationalist groups and white-power groups put on the National Security Council, a possible focus away from ALL extremism to only Islam, and a supreme court nominee that has gone against atheists and sided with not just Christians, but with corporations, giving corporations the right to discriminate based on Christian values (So not only are corporations now people, but corporations are now people of faith whose beliefs must be respected... I mean... are Americans just dumb or what's going on here???).... In addition to recent calls to increase the demand by border patrol agents to go through people's social media accounts and cell phone records....!!!

None of this smells particularly good. But conservatives cheer it or look the other way.

Add to that people that have previously declared their wishes to essentially dismantle the organizations they will now run.

I'm so glad I actually have an option to leave in the future. I can't wait to see just how this shakes out in terms of what happens to the environment and freedom not only of speech but of thought. Some Americans can't seem to wait to hand over everything to corporations and a wealthy elite.

 

[Banzai]

Well, they're not wasting any time...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint-resolution/10/text

“Authorization of Use of Force Against Iran Resolution”

 

[tands]

Jonah Goldberg explaining Marxist concepts to National Review readers.

https://twitter.com/GerardDiTrolio/status/826934941854363648

 

[tands]

Well, they're not wasting any time...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint-resolution/10/text

“Authorization of Use of Force Against Iran Resolution”

Clinton wouldn't have wasted any time either, and probably would have skipped the AUMF and gone right to 'used chemical weapons on own people', etc.

Let's see how the votes go. Warren? Franken?

 

[mattiasNYC]

Clinton wouldn't have wasted any time either, and probably would have skipped the AUMF and gone right to 'used chemical weapons on own people', etc.

I disagree. I think she's a fair amount more pragmatic than you give her credit for, and she's not a blatant liar like Trump, even if she probably knowingly mislead people at times. I'm fairly certain that what people are thinking of is Iraq's use of WMD.

Either way, I bet you this authorization goes through and the conservatives get the strong leader they've longed for, complete with an attack on a sovereign nation. It's all for the greater good, because "they only understand force" (yet curious how "we" keep starting wars).

So it'll likely be more war. Good for business too, so I'm sure they'll cheer for that as well.