What winning in NK looks like

[scott2000]

I'm pessimistic, considering the power of partisan thinking these days.

Our ruling

Trump said that North Korea had agreed to denuclearization. While North Korea has promised to halt testing and close a weapons test site, it has not officially said that it is committed to denuclearization.

Other leaders have made that statement on their behalf, and even in that case, the only promise is that they are willing to talk about reaching that point. That is not the same as agreeing to do it.

We rate this claim False

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/22/donald-trump/trump-wrongly-says-north-korea-has-agreed-denuclea/




Hopefully we won't see any more testing...... That last one they did was a doozy

 

[Matador]

PS: I expect discussions about SCOTUS to get more heated and divisive now that Kennedy announced his retirement. If anything I'm surprised it hasn't hit here harder because it is actually significant to the future balance of SCOTUS. Some other interesting SCOTUS decisions were just handed down too but I won't poke that bee hive.

There's not much point in discussing: we're going to get a right-wing Federalist Society nutcase, and that person will get confirmed, and there's nothing anyone can do to change it.  It will be a sad day for LGBT individuals, people who believe in collective bargaining, and will probably begin the undoing of 'chevron deference', or the last 60+ years of case precedence.

 

[boji]

There's not much point in discussing: we're going to get a right-wing Federalist Society nutcase, and that person will get confirmed, and there's nothing anyone can do to change it.  It will be a sad day for LGBT individuals, people who believe in collective bargaining, and will probably begin the undoing of 'chevron deference', or the last 60+ years of case precedence.

Esh Matador, I liked you better as a living wikipedia page.  When you go interpreting things you can get daawk!  8)

 

[Matador]

Esh Matador, I liked you better as a living wikipedia page.  When you go interpreting things you can get daawk!  8)

Trump I can... somewhat tolerate, even though I disagree with him on nearly everything.  We can vote him out and we have term limits, and in the meantime I can find a nice bourbon and a case of antacid at the local grocery store.

But the SC pick we'll be dealing with for decades.  If Merrick Garland hadn't been the last victim of team politics it might have been slightly more tolerable, but having that seat stolen AND having to choke down another one of these picks is almost more than I can bear at this point.

 

[JohnRoberts]

There's not much point in discussing: we're going to get a right-wing Federalist Society nutcase, and that person will get confirmed, and there's nothing anyone can do to change it.

An unintended consequence of losing elections "and" changing the senate filibuster rules for judicial appointments (AKA nuclear option changed by Harry Reid in 2013).

It will be a sad day for LGBT individuals,

Similar arguments were made about Kennedy before he was seated, but he became a swing vote supportive of such non conservative issues.  Sitting on SCOTUS tends to give jurists freedom to decide issues on merit. Predicting the future votes of jurist is not obvious from their past decisions, while it is all we have to go on. 

people who believe in collective bargaining,

Unions have history of doing both good and bad. I am not very supportive of unionized government workers to protect them from us (the public)? I also do not care for unions collecting dues from non-member workers who don't want to participate.  Other than that no problem.  :

and will probably begin the undoing of 'chevron deference',

The "chevron deference" has many critics. The constitution  established 3 branches of government. The Chevron deferences refers to a fourth unofficial branch (government agencies) that get deference from the judicial in legal proceedings because they are presumably the "experts" about such matters (opinions vary about that). 

I have argued in the past that government agencies already have too much power when legislation just establishes a framework and tasks them with writing and enforcing the actual rules. I am OK with "we the citizens" having equal standing in court against "our" government agencies.

or the last 60+ years of case precedence.

60 years? I expected the top talking point to be Roe V. (only 45 years ago). Maybe you're thinking Brown V board of education is at risk (64 years ago)?

Supreme court jurists generally respect precedent (stare decisis) and don't lightly overturn established decisions after decades.  I doubt either of those two is in much risk but they will make good rallying calls for raising money and energizing voters. A conservative jurist could tilt the balance right of the current (Kennedy) court but only in the margin... Kennedy was conservative but often a swing vote for woman's reproductive issues.

JR

PS: The Chevron deference IMO is actually worthy of deeper inspection and possible review, but I expect a mostly emotional reaction to Kennedy retiring the way he did .

 

[Matador]

You need to read some of the appellate decisions of those on Trump's list: one of my favorites was an argument that the 14th ammendment doesn't apply to LGBT people because marriage "would have been originally understood to be between a man and a woman in 1789".

I get that we care far less about issues that don't personally impact us, but I don't think it's fair to categorize any trepidation about these events as merely "rallying calls for raising money".  There are real people with real things to lose.

And just to correct the record, McConnell invoked the nuclear option for Supreme Court nominations to clear Gorsuch, not Harry Reid in 2013.

 

[JohnRoberts]

You need to read some of the appellate decisions of those on Trump's list: one of my favorites was an argument that the 14th ammendment doesn't apply to LGBT people because marriage "would have been originally understood to be between a man and a woman in 1789".

Culture has indeed changed over a few hundred years. If deciding SCOTUS decisions was easy we wouldn't hire the best and the brightest.

The List of justices has been public information for some time, so now is the time to vet them and  voice objections. Don't read too much into precedents, Kennedy wasn't selected to become a swing vote.  Justice John Roberts has been a disappointment to some, but SCOTUS decisions are not made lightly. 

I get that we care far less about issues that don't personally impact us, but I don't think it's fair to categorize any trepidation about these events as merely "rallying calls for raising money".  There are real people with real things to lose.

It is hard not to see such things through a political lens. SCOTUS was a definite campaign issue in 2016. It is nice to see the public paying attention now but that horse has left the barn.  The best political use of this failure is to stir up the base to gain seats in 2018 and perhaps more in 2020.

And just to correct the record, McConnell invoked the nuclear option for Supreme Court nominations to clear Gorsuch, not Harry Reid in 2013.

Correct, Harry Reid invoked the nuclear option in 2013 for President Obama's judge appointments but excluded supreme court justices. In 2017 that exclusion was removed from the nuclear option by republicans. So Harry Reid unlocked the door, and republicans pushed it open wider.  I am not a big fan of changing arcane senate rules to make things easier because the pendulum always swings back the other way. Government decisions should be hard, so I do not favor using the nuclear option (especially for legislation that should be bipartisan).

JR 

PS: I thought Merrick Garland was surprisingly moderate coming from the Obama administration and that was obviously a calculation to flip some republican votes in consideration for the obvious uphill battle to get approval. I believed at the time we should accept him as better than what we would likely get from Hillary Clinton (that I expected to win in 2016).  I'm glad I was wrong about that too.