Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[Todd]

A weaker dollar is good for the US, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says

[BasilValentine]

As if interpreting what laws and constitutions really mean, or drafting and passing legislation, were not political, or politically-influenced, acts...

In the U.S., reinterpreting what laws and the constitution really mean has resulted in women getting the right to vote and African Americans being allowed to exercise the same right more or less freely. We have been lurching toward an actual representative democracy this last century, and at every step there have been deplorables who believed their power and status would be diminished if we ever actually got there, and who consequently have fought tooth and nail by political means to keep it from happening. They fought against equal rights for women, they fought for segregation, they are currently fighting to have their religious beliefs taught as science and imposed on other peoples' children, to suppress the voting rights and dilute the political influence of whole ethnic categories, and to restrict the rights of homosexuals by imposing their religious definitions of marriage on civil unions — among other good works. These people are willing to sacrifice their freedoms and protections so that those of others can be restricted by political means. President Shithole is their champion.

[Karl Henning]

[...] They fought against equal rights for women.....

Disruptive!  (Was that the euphemism?)

[Todd]

In the U.S., reinterpreting what laws and the constitution really mean has resulted in women getting the right to vote and African Americans being allowed to exercise the same right more or less freely.

Black suffrage and women's suffrage did not rely on "reinterpretation"; those relied on amendments to the Constitution and new statutes to enforce the amendments.

[Florestan]

What about the "soft socialism" of Norway (thread duty)?

Judging from what I have read and heard, I wouldn't be very happy living in Norway. The direct experience, though, might change my mind.

Yeah, I was progressive/left hook, line and sinker when I was young.

When I was young I had direct, first-hand experience with "hard socialism", and those years immunized me forever against any grand, all-encompassing, benevolent and definitive scheme for building and maintaining the perfect society. My youth experience also explains why I am particularly sensitive to the topic of free speech.

I'm more case-by-case now.

That's the best approach for me too, but I cannot and will not approve of any measure or policy wich contradicts  what to the best of my knowledge and in my all earnest appears to be true, reasonable and just.

There's a side to the left that is rational (providing healthcare, educational opportunities, clean air, equality of opportunities and treatment) and there's this other side I find suspect (third-wave feminism, political correctness...a few other things).

Totally agree.

[Florestan]

But those "deplorables" (your word, by way of Hillary Clinton) change with the times. The "deplorables who believed their power and status would be diminished" by civil rights legislation in the '50s and '60s were Southern Democrats. 

Is it really productive to stigmatize your political opponents?  Are you really interested in a productive dialog with your political opponents or do you just like to hear yourself say what makes you feel good to express?

Excellent points.

[Karl Henning]

Guess he just could not seal the deal.  Sad.

Schumer rescinds offer to [El Tupé] on border wall

[Florestan]

When I was young I had direct, first-hand experience with "hard socialism", and those years immunized me forever against any grand, all-encompassing, benevolent and definitive scheme for building and maintaining the perfect society. My youth experience also explains why I am particularly sensitive to the topic of free speech.

And also why I am very skeptical when accusations of "fascism", "racism" and "sexism" are thrown around; I know only too well how such things, loosely and vaguely defined as they are (most of the time meaning simply "people with whom one disagrees", or in a more official context "people who disagree with the political orthodoxy enforced by the government") can ruin not only the reputation but also the life and liberty of a completely innocent person.

[Baron Scarpia]

And also why I am very skeptical when accusations of "fascism", "racism" and "sexism" are thrown around; I know only too well how such things, loosely and vaguely defined as they are (most of the time meaning simply "people with whom one disagrees", or in a more official context "people who disagree with the political orthodoxy enforced by the government") can ruin not only the reputation but also the life and liberty of a completely innocent person.

The number of people whose life and liberty has been ruined by false accusations of racism is a grain of sand in the desert compared to the number of people whose lives have been ruined by actual racism and sexism.

[Florestan]

The number of people whose life and liberty has been ruined by false accusations of racism is a grain of sand in the desert compared to the number of people whose lives have been ruined by actual racism and sexism.

That's probably true, but two wrongs don't make a right.  Plus, falsely accusing people of racism and sexism is an insult to the victims of real racism and sexism. Plus, every time I read and hear that even if one is not personally guilty of any racist or sexist act, the very fact of being born white and male gives one an unfair privilege over non-whites and women I am strongly reminded of the communist position that, even if one is not personally guilt of any unlawful or morally reprehensible act against the proletariat, the very fact of being born in a bourgeois environment makes one guilty and despicable --- the so-called theory of the objective class enemy;  substitute race or gender for class and you have the exact tenet of some circles of contemporary radical left.

[Todd]

A Syria Plan That Breaks the Law

Cory Booker goes all War Powers Resolution on Trump.  (He gives Obama a pass on distorting the AUMFs; I'm sure that has nothing to do with partisan politics.)  He also mentions international law, though if Mr Booker wants to be president, and he does, he surely knows that presidents routinely violate international law.  Who knows, maybe this op-ed turns into something more than nothing and Congress effectively alters the trajectory of US foreign policy. 

[Florestan]

A Syria Plan That Breaks the Law

I clicked the link and got this message:


Subscribe to debate, not division.
Get The New York Times for just €1.75 a week.

Thanks, but no thanks.

EDIT: a second click got me to the article. What gives?

And: who is Cory Brooker?

[Todd]

And: who is Cory Brooker?

A senator with presidential aspirations who cries "tears of rage" (his words) and performs double fisted desk poundings during hearings.

[Florestan]

who is Cory Brooker?

I've read the article and I've learned who CB is. What I'd like to know now is this: did he publicly make the same points during Bush Jr and Obama? If he did, more power to him; if he didn't, he's just a hypocrite.

[Florestan]

A senator with presidential aspirations who cries "tears of rage" (his words) and performs double fisted desk poundings during hearings.

Thanks. See my post above.

[Karl Henning]

Because, well . . . he's an amateurish boob.

[El Tupé] asked FBI official Andrew McCabe how he voted in 2016

[Karl Henning]

I've read the article and I've learned who CB is. What I'd like to know now is this: did he publicly make the same points during Bush Jr and Obama? If he did, more power to him; if he didn't, he's just a hypocrite.

Whoa, did you just cast the first stone? 

[Todd]

did he publicly make the same points during Bush Jr and Obama?

He was a state politician during the Bush years, so his actions and words on foreign policy meant nothing, but if memory serves, he opposed the Iraq War.  On Obama's Syria policy he opposed it before he supported it, or at least didn't oppose it as much.

[Karl Henning]

Separately:

More than 2,000 lies later, [El Tupé] — we dearly hope — has revealed that he is unworthy of the public's trust. The Mueller findings might not shake loose congressional Republicans, who have demonstrated a remarkable willingness to sacrifice their own credibility to defend the president, but then the public doesn't trust Congress much these days either. When the GOP and [El Tupé] most need the public's faith, they may find that the well of trust is bone-dry.

[Florestan]

Whoa, did you just cast the first stone? 

Seems like I did it, yes. Not the first time, and certainly not the last. But then again, I have never ever claimed to be a good, let alone perfect, Christian. And in all earnest, every single time I quoted Jesus on casting the first stone I was drunk, which is a sin in itself, albeit a minor one. I hope and trust you'll forgive this my trespassing.   

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.