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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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There, there Lituya. Please don't be a little scared Trumpist any longer.
You may be able to pull your sagging pants up & find some manliness, if you quit listening to your crazed leader.
Please! Post more stories & photos about how much you hate me! I enjoy it when you show how Trump has helped you to become a "little man."
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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“tards”
That is all you have. For sure.
Never mind that the last two Republican presidents ,who have the combined IQ and curiousity of an average high school grad,were given their positions by an antiquated law known as the electoral college.
But ,feel free to mock the electorate.
Bye the way,in a super strong economy,we are bailing out farmers.
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dirtbag
climber
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Sadly, the days of reasoned discussions with conservatives are over. Instead of keeping the kooks on the fringes, as Wiilliam F. Buckley and others tried to do, the Republican Party is now a white nationalist party, prone to embracing conspiracy theories, impervious to facts (exhibit a: the “emergency” justifying that goddamned wall) and increasingly authoritarian. The party would happily see this country turned into another Poland or Hungary. The GOP’s cowardly leaders simply go along with its masses. We need two parties, but the GOP is not capable of governning meaningfully any more.
Defeat them.
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WBraun
climber
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We need two parties ...
No .... the world needs intelligent people and not brainwashed nutcase politards like so many of you here .....
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HermitMaster
Social climber
my abode
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Sadly, the days of reasoned discussions with conservatives are over...
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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No .... the world needs intelligent people and not brainwashed nutcase politards like so many of you here .....
Intelligent non-sociopathic people know to stay far away from the cesspool of politics. Stupid people in large groups ruled by layers of slightly smarter but far more evil people. It's why the trajectory of empires is varied but the crater at the end is the same.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Uh oh.....
Ruth Bader Ginsburg will miss oral arguments for the first time
By MATTHEW CHOI 01/07/2019 09:59 AM EST
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/07/ruth-bader-ginsburg-absent-oral-arguments-1083737
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will not be on the bench to hear oral arguments Monday, missing arguments in person for the first time in more than 25 years she has served on the court.
Ginsburg underwent surgery to remove two malignant nodules from her left lung that were detected after she had a fall that fractured three ribs late last year, the court announced in December. The 85-year-old justice returned to work promptly after the fall, publicly saying a few weeks later that her ribs were nearly fully recovered and that her health was fine.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
Jan 5, 2019 - 06:10pm PT
So now the mid term election was simply "predictable", a weak effort to deflect from the beating
you would have to go back 25 years just to beat the whopping 40 House seats won by the Dems
in addition to seven state governorships and 350 state legislative seats switched from Republican to Democrat
the American people came out and voted in a midterm with numbers rivaling a Presidential
in fact the most votes cast in a midterm in US history
and it was out of complete revulsion, disgust, and contempt for the complete incompetence,
the daily embarrassments, the shocking rise in the national debt and loss of US Foreign policy credibility
all while Republicans controlled the Presidency, House, and Senate
ignorant, old and white men - the fast shrinking Republican base voter
All that success, yet President Trump may still select another Supreme Court Justice.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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It's a shame the way things turn out, isn't it?
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sempervirens
climber
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Will the amendment also apply to public-sector union electioneering?
--100% agree.
--Not gonna happen. People have the right to contribute to the candidate of their choice. Slippery slope when you start making citizens contribute to candidates they don;t support--or allow elites to "decide" who gets to run.
--Well intended, but in here in WA--and in CA--it's turning into a recipe for one-party rule.
1. Yes, funding limits and disclosure of donors should apply equally.
2. There is a lack of competition due to large mergers. It concentrates wealth and power, affects prices and wages, affects availability of opportunity for all of us.
3. Aren't these elites already deciding who runs and who has great advantage in campaigns? Citizens are losing a lot more by letting big donors run the show.
4. But if the ranked choice voting makes it more likely for elections to reflect the will of the voters then that party is in place due to more democratic process. And that one party can be more easily replaced.
5. Add: National Health Care. Or at the least a rational discussion of the alternatives that includes a realistic economic analysis. The fox news attitude certainly impedes that discussion with nonsense rhetoric. As I said earlier, the libs often take the bait and defend their position of "health care is a right" and the wealthy should pay for it. That opinion, whether you or I agree or not, only preaches to the choir. It's another smoke screen that supersedes the discussion of how the rich, middle class, and poor all suffer from our current system.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Health care isn't a right or a necessity...Same with police and fire protection....privatize everything and let the free market determine the true cost of everything...these entrapeneurs will then trickle their wealth to the rest of society...
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10b4me
Social climber
Lida Junction
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Trump wants the networks to give him airtime Tuesday night. I thought the networks only spewed fake news. Hmm.
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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
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Chuck and Nancy are right not to give him one dime for the stupid wall just so he can say he kept a campaign promise
if they do, he will want 3 dimes more for now a steel fence when he shuts the government down again in three months after a short term funding bill eventually passes
like negotiating with jello (Schumer)
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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A very interesting take on Trump's threat to declare a 'national emergency' and use eminent domain to build his wall...see if you can guess which side of the aisle this writer sits on...you might surprised.
Trump Veers Off Message on the Border Wall
By JOHN FUND
January 6, 2019 6:40 PM
Donald Trump spent much of his 2016 campaign railing against President Obama’s misuse of executive power, especially Obama’s decision to extend legal protection to underage children who were brought to the U.S. by their foreign parents.
But now President Trump, frustrated by Congress’s failure to deliver $5 billion in funding for the border wall, is proposing to bend the Constitution to get what he wants. Trump told reporters that he may be willing to declare a state of national emergency to build the wall “very quickly” without congressional backing, and that he may even use “the military version of eminent domain” to seize the property such a structure might need. “I can do it if I want,” he declared.
Trump can certainly declare a national emergency, but the courts would probably look askance on any rash actions. In 1952, President Harry Truman cited a state of emergency when he ordered the government to seize the steel mills during a strike. He claimed it was the only way to guarantee that the mills would continue to produce weapons for the Korean War. The Supreme Court — packed with justices appointed by New Deal presidents — nonetheless concluded by a 6 to 3 vote that he didn’t have the authority to nationalize private businesses. Few legal scholars believe that the current Supreme Court — the conservative portion of which is steeped in Federalist Society principles of limited government — would give Trump the benefit of the doubt in a non-war situation.
But many legal scholars say there is a way Trump could act legally. Current law allows the Defense Department to use “un-obligated” money to fund construction projects during war or emergencies. “The Department of Defense has funds in its account that are not specifically designated for anything,” Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet told NBC News. “My instinct is to say that if he declares a national emergency and uses this pot of unappropriated money for the wall, he’s on very solid legal ground.”
But Trump would be on shakier ground — even with his conservative base — if he pursued his concept of a “military version of eminent domain.” Legal analysts don’t know if such a concept is firmly rooted in the law even during peacetime. Seizing land along the border would also create many opportunities for abuse. The federal government owns less than one-third of the land adjoining Mexico. The rest belongs to local governments, Native American tribes, and private-property owners.
Trump’s cavalier attitudes toward private property are nothing new. As a crony capitalist, Trump backed the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in 2005 in Kelo v. New London, which allowed public authorities to seize private land and turn it over to private interests for “economic development.” In a 2005 interview with Neil Cavuto of Fox News, he praised the eminent-domain ruling:
I happen to agree with it 100 percent, not that I would want to use it. But the fact is, if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and . . . government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and . . . create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.
Indeed, Trump was notorious for his misuse of eminent domain. In the 1990s, he fixed his sights on the home of Vera Coking, an elderly homeowner whose tiny house in Atlantic City stood in the way of what Trump called a “fantastic” limousine parking lot next to a Trump casino.
The Institute for Justice, a public-interest legal firm that eventually forced Trump to back down, described Trump’s approach :
Unlike most developers, Donald Trump doesn’t have to negotiate with a private owner when he wants to buy a piece of property, because a governmental agency — the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority or CRDA — will get it for him at a fraction of the market value, even if the current owner refuses to sell.
As a businessman, Trump reveled in having such special powers. When John Stossel, who interviewed Trump about the Coking case for ABC News, accused Trump of bullying Coking, Trump retorted, off-camera, “Nobody talks to me that way!”
But “someone should,” Stossel answered.
Someone should also warn Donald Trump that as much as he’s convinced that the American people want a border wall, the poll numbers tell a different story. Though a Quinnipiac poll last month showed that support for building a wall on our Mexican border has risen ten points in the past year, from 33 to 43 percent, it also found that 54 percent of those surveyed (including 53 percent of independents) did not think that a wall was “necessary to improve U.S. border security.” A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that just 35 percent of those surveyed supported including money for the wall in a federal spending bill.
If President Trump begins to imitate Barack Obama in issuing dubious executive orders and trampling on private-property rights, he could find himself in trouble even with portions of his base.
Changing tactics would be the best way for Trump to end the stalemate that has shut down one-fourth of the government for more than two weeks. He should brand Congress as irresponsible on the issue of border security and say he’s been forced to direct the Defense Department to use some of its unallocated funds for border construction projects.
Doing it that way, the president would probably score points on the political argument and ensure that, come the 2020 election, he will have actually built something along the border rather than just talking about it.
Source:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/trump-border-wall-construction-pentagon/
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dirtbag
climber
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f they do, he will want 3 dimes more for now a steel fence when he shuts the government down again in three months after a short term funding bill eventually passes
like negotiating with jello (Schumer)
Remember, too, they offered him 25 bill, thought they had a deal, only to be turned down.
I agree, Norton, don’t give that as#@&%e a dime for his goddamned wall.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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I laugh robustly at the whining from the Right about how Dems are not negotiating appropriately or fairly on this issue....they remain incredulous, in spite of the fact that Trump hasn't negotiated anything fairly or rationally, and no-one...including his own Party...trusts anything that he says.
If you are an as#@&%e, don't be surprised if everyone you deal with is an as#@&%e.
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sempervirens
climber
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Health care isn't a right or a necessity...Same with police and fire protection....privatize everything and let the free market determine the true cost of everything...these entrapeneurs will then trickle their wealth to the rest of society...
I follow you rotting.
Maybe its possible to avoid the question of right vs. privilege. Instead explore how the system(s) could be improved. Of course that would take some logical thought, mundane details, ... maturity.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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privatize everything and let the free market determine the true cost of everything
The compelling idea of a free market is to let the buyers and sellers determine a fair price for something (i.e. a price that satisfies both sides), rather than letting a government or other entity force a price that leads to shortages on the purchasing or selling side. It seems the most "fair". For most commodity items this seems like a good idea and works well. But it breaks down in a variety of situations, most commonly when a buyer or seller cannot walk away from a transaction, or when they have poor access to information about the transaction and alternatives.
Almost by definition, there cannot be a "fair" price negotiated between buyers and sellers for things they really need. How much would you pay for protection from death? The answer is everything you have, and everything you can beg, borrow, or obtain through criminal acts. So a laissez-fair system for healthcare or police/fire support would almost certainly lead to widespread destitution, and higher crime! It would likely result in revolutions of the destitute/desperate people against those who have profited by others' misfortune. And it would certainly accelerate wealth asymmetry and result in widespread human misery.
Now pivot for a moment and consider the reasons for creating the Constitution of the United States of America, as enshrined it its preamble: "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"
Laissez-faire economics applied to societal needs (at most basic, the need to stay alive) is just not consistent with the aims of the Constitution. For this reason, police/fire response and life-critical healthcare should not be subject to a "free market" because that is just a captive extortion market ripe for abuse.
Now I am very open to discuss what are "needs" and where to draw the line for things that make sense to be governed by laissez-faire economics and those that don't. That I think is what our national dialog should be about healthcare for example. But when people tried to do that, azzholes started labeling it "death panels" and the sheeple ran in fear.
Also, on the topic of things that are "needed": I am sensitive to the arguments posed in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I don't like the idea of hard-working value-creating people having stuff stolen to give to other lazy people just because they "need" it. But this way of thinking about the problem is a narrow construction, not taking into account the value (and cost) of having a stable society that can continue to function and produce raw materials that your product/service requires, and provide a market of customers who can pay for what you offer. If we value having a world we can interact with in a civilized manner (i.e. the opposite of a zombie apocalypse), then we have to pay what that costs, and the rich people will by definition bear the cost of that more than the poor people.
That said, the costs of participating in a civilized world would ideally be transparent and known, so that sellers contemplating a business can decide whether to commit to a business in that context, or whether they want to walk away. That is freedom. The closest we can reasonably get is to advertise the income tax rates and have a government that represents all the people in our nation to define through it's actions what it costs to maintain a civilized world.
If you disagree with that, you should surrender every bit of technology you possess, including the device you use to jabber on this forum. Or accept that you are a thief, taking value from others when you are not willing to pay for the cost required to create that value.
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