And then it immediately turns around to, if they can't survive in the market, why should we prop it up? That's been the tactic for years but conservatives have still been wanting to kill it. In 1981, it took Reagan's friends Heston & Coors to dissuade him from defunding the NEA, and since then it's only been saved because Democrats have been willing to go to the carpet for it. The whole "look how it impacts you" clearly hasn't worked much in the Trump Administration, as Trump admitted on Tucker Carlson's show that he knows that Trumpcare would hurt his voters more than blue state voters.

And guess what, the single struggling mother in Flint may not directly benefit from NEA spending (none of the Fall 2016 grants went to Flint), and so showing how it benefited museums, concern houses, etc in Ann Arbor and Detroit is not exactly a compelling argument (now Flint really needs the EPA not to get cut, but that's another story).

The only way to really make a defense of arts spending is to educate people on how the arts have been traditionally funded and what has been the result. People are far more impressed by the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel than they are about the reinstallation of 200 artworks at the Detroit Institute of Arts - but if you can link those together its far more impressive and impactful.

OK, media, stop it with the breathless "ZOMFG WTF BBQ NO INDICATIONS OF WIRETAPPING" headlines, and someone just write "Trump was talking out of his ass like he often does, and he's too stupid/naive to understand that accusing a former President of a felony is serious business. This is what happens when you elect a loudmouth with zero government/legal background as President. Hopefully he'll learn from this, but he probably won't" so we can move on from this stupidity.

That's a long headline.

I agree! But this is not what you said earlier. You said (paraphrasing) anyone who thinks this must be uneducated. That's the type of statement that loses elections. And we should aim for better messaging than that and better discourse than that, even on a silly sports sim message board.

You win elections by getting your base to turn out. Not by convincing folks like JIMG that the arts matter (and I think JIMG would agree on the vice versa).

And the way to educate people is to first acknowledge that people are uneducated and call it out, rather than pussy foot around it. That's what has caused the Democrats to lose elections - gingerly trying to back their views to get folks from the other side, losing the base in the process.

I'm an artist and I'd rather focus attention on the cruelty of cutting school lunches and Meals on Wheels.

I'll agree on the premise but question the impact of the approach here.

The question I'd pose is basically this (as best I can phrase it on a first try anyway):

Take the ignorance approach you're talking about here. How much more votes does it get you versus how many votes does it motivate for the opposition. I'm picturing it working about as well as criticizing "their bibles and their guns" or calling them "deplorables".

Agree!

:p

Yes, exactly. I'd point to the deplorables moment as being one of the two or three pivotal moments of the campaign. That's exactly what this sounds like to me. We know better than you doesn't play well with the other side and doesn't help you with the convertible fringe.

Yeah, I'm with Jon on this one. Seems like you're needlessly pissing off people who don't care about the arts but wouldn't have bothered to vote until you took a potshot at them.

The very first sentence you typed in response was:


Start any discussion with a moderate who is an otherwise reasonable person but has no strong opinion on funding for the arts with "well that just means you have no real knowledge" and see how well everything sticks.


Go look on reddit right now at pretty much any thread that touches on trump. Read back through our political threads during the election. There is a defeault behavior of many on the left that is supported and cheered on that is arrogant and condescending. Read enough of that arrogance online and maybe someone who would have held his nose and voted against Trump decided "fuck those assholes" and stayed home.

We're all sports fans here right? I have my favorite teams but a lot of my rooting interests are shaped around what I see from the fans of other teams. How many of us root against Kansas City teams with glee due to MBBF? I root against Boston teams in large part due to fans of the tems that I knew when they started winning.

Is that relevant to politics? It shouldn't be. We should all analyze a large number of issues and decide how to vote. But, isn't it much more likely that for some people, if they see arrogance and condescention as the primary way they are treated, some will subconsciously shift.


Of course its unlikely that any one person online lost his side votes with a post on FOFC. But I don't think its unreasonable to make an effort, even in mostly throwaway conversations, to communicate better and to think about who may be reading what you write.

Unsurprisingly, digamma and Ben said it better than I in far fewer words, but I think we're all saying generally the same things :D

Basically nobody is going to come out to vote for or against the NEA. Any arguments are playing to voters that aren't persuadable.

Now it could motivate donors or volunteers, but the single mother in Flint isn't going to decide to vote or change her vote because of the NEA. But she might go vote when her heat gets turned off because Trump zeroed out heating assistance.

Or when she loses Medicaid for herself and her child. :(

I find this amusing. Where did the 'WTFBBQ' stuff come from? I just think that formulation is hilarious, and am curious on the origins.


Everyone I know has stayed where they were. The Trump supporters have basically just pointed out things he's done that they like, and their response to the negatives is 'still a much better president than Hillary would have been'. To which my response, if I bother with one, is always 'those weren't the only two choices', and then we get back on that merry-go-round until someone is sick/bored of it.


When people who did go to law school have vastly different opinions(see: Ginsburg and Scalia who were hard pressed to agree on much beyond water is wet) this line of thought loses quite a bit. The larger issue here though is whether law is law, or merely a suggestion that may or may not be useful, as it has come to be used as increasingly.


Interesting how this argument is always used by those who support a ruling. Particularly in this case coming from those who tend to not particularly care all that much what the Constitution says if it's not convenient. As an aside, the actions under discussion don't violate said Constitution.


Actually it doesn't say that he has to show that, or anything else. It gives the POTUS the power of making the decision. The word used is 'find', which is quite different.


Also inaccurate. First, neither executive order stated a religion-based ban. Second, even if they did, the section you quoted says basically that the president can if the SoS agrees. The phrase here is 'personally determines', which again is not about whether they can demonstrate something, it's a decision made by the SoS within their powers.


No he doesn't. The Constitution explicitly applies to 'the people of the United States'(per the beginning of the Preamble). If we were talking about the nonsense discussed in the campaign about deporting people who wouldn't renounce Sharia law, then yes absolutely this is the case. The First Amendment doesn't apply to immigration though. It applies to those who are already here.

As I've said before, I think the travel ban is/was/continues to be a lousy idea. I'd consider changing my mind if somebody would give me one concrete thing that 'extreme vetting' would accomplish that isn't already being done. The silence on that front is deafening, and I wouldn't believe Trump or anyone from his administration if they told me the sky was blue. It is within his Constitutional powers though, and the judges in these cases should be ashamed of themselves. It is simply none of their business to assess his motivations or the presumed economic impacts of these issues. One of the things Trump is right about is that this kind of thing matters greatly for future presidents as well. When we basically decide that we don't like how someone uses the office, so we are going to limit their ability to govern, it's just another step down the road to lawlessness.

May I point out that the so-called deplorables did plenty of motivating votes for the opposition. Y'all do consider "liberal" basically a curse word, right? And let's not even get into what you consider people from the inner cities.

It's the false dichotomy here that rankles. It's the arrogance and condescension of the 'left' but for some reason the arrogance and condescension of the right (which arguably led to the building of the alt-right and Tea Party movements) is completely ignored.

Yep, this.

The word "scoreboard" seems rather apt here, don't you think?

I mean, stipulate exactly what you said for the purposes of the exercise.
Which side did that work out better for?

I have no problem with the concept that the two groups of voters really don't much care for one another. {shrug} That's cool by me. Thing is, for the purpose of what we're talking about here, which one does that animosity seem to work out better for at the ballot box?

Are you confusing the scoreboard for one game for the entire season, though? 4 years ago or 8 years ago, saying 'scoreboard' would have meant the Democrats won the game, regardless of the condescension of the right wing against President Obama and liberals. So it isn't as if the condescension of the right always wins while the condescension of the left always loses. I would argue that especially in 2008, the condescension of the left was overwhelmingly triumphant.

I'd caution against judging Trump elections vs virtually any other.

You can, of course, if you want to ... but you ain't gonna like the outcome any better than you did last time.

I don't think 2008 was about any of that one way or the other. Information seems to indicate it was about change and the economy and nothing else mattered. The fierce urgency of now. I do definitely agree with your basic point though. Trump won, but getting all arrogant about that fact is silly when you consider how much he lost the popular vote by. Doesn't matter in terms of winning the election, but it does matter in terms of the state of the electorate and sustainable success.

JIMG: So does that mean you feel you only got 4 or 8 years to get everything done you can before you are fucked? ;)

This makes no sense to me in the context of the discussion we're having, unless your argument is that the other side is full of assholes so your side needs to match that.

We're talking about swaying potential voters. About convincing someone to see your side of things, convincing someone that your side of things is worth the effort to go vote and to turn an election. There is only you and the case you make and the way you make it and the effect it has on those reading it. An argument that begins around the idea that the person you are trying to sway is dumb is not going to be effective, no matter what the other side is doing.

No one is arguing this. This started because QS said it was a chance to have an honest conversation about budget initiatives. That was shut down immediately. With friends like these!

Making this a separate post so as to not dilute what I think is a much more important point in my last post.

Is "the condescention of the right" really a thing? The crux of the strategy on the right was one of fearmongering. It worked. I don't see arrogance and condescention as a part of a strategy or a way of speaking. I mainly see trying to create abject terror in voters.

I think there was some condescension when family values were a thing. Judging of other's lifestyle, etc.

Brian, honest question here. It seems like your position largely stems from your position that there shouldn't necessarily be judicial review and that Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided. This may be the topic of an entirely different thread, but what do you see the role of the courts then in interpreting the law? And in the instant case, why is legislative intent (or in this case executive intent) not a valid judicial inquiry? There is obviously a ton of judicial precedent for considering intent.

Also important to keep the framework of the cases in mind. We actually haven't had a ruling on the merits, just a decision on a TRO, which weighs likelihood of success on the merits versus likelihood/magnitude of immediate injury.

If the term "libtard" isn't condescending...

I would say the alt-right and Tea Party movements were the result of the traditional GOP not responding strongly enough to the arrogance and condescension of the left.

yea fair point there :D

That's about right. I think I've pointed out a few times that after the election I came to the realization that JIMG was more right than wrong about treating the other side as the enemy.


I don't think there are a lot of 'potential voters' that get swayed. Even independents are mostly leaning GOP or Dem. The way you win is by getting your base out. I think the Dems have tried too much lately to reach to potential voters in the middle rather than rallied the base - while I don't think Sanders would have beaten Trump (some one like Sherrod Brown though...), he was far more correct in focusing on the base being the campaign strategy rather than Clinton's 'Trump is horrible, moderate Republicans you should vote for me strategy' - which didn't really work. And I'll be honest, I thought, while she should have emphasized her policy positions more, the appeal to moderate Republicans would work. They lined up right behind Trump though when it came time to vote.

Considering that scientific research tells us that people made decisions based on emotional response, then try to rationalize ad hoc, trying to sway people rationally is a lost cause IMO. Unless they get an emotional shock (like in the gay marriage fight, someone they knew all their lives is gay), there isn't much change in their views.

As pointed out libtard has been used frequently, but Trump's entire campaign strategy was fear mongering coupled with "these morons and idiots don't get it". And that "they are so stupid, they can't see this obvious thing". The whole argument around political correctness is a idea that libtards would rather say nice things "about our enemies" than acknowledge the truth. There is a ton of arrogance and condescension involved in that worldview. I mean Hell, look at how JIMG talks about liberals.

The whole, coastal, liberal elite thing is condescending as can be.

Or, "get out of your bubble."

The democrats shouldn't refuse to believe there's anything wrong with their party. Including how they can come across to people, or how they unnecessarily embolden the other side, or how they perceive people who vote on different values, etc.

They did lose to Donald Trump, after all. That's quite a fail. They won the popular vote, but this was supposed to be a slam dunk.

Edit: A friend of mine on facebook made a long, passionate post about how he decided to de-friend a conservative facebook friend because he admitted that he sometimes posted snarky anti-liberal memes just to annoy her liberal friends. That was the line, apparently. But I wondered what the purpose was of all of the anti-conservative snarky memes this guy posted, about how dumb the other side is, etc. Was it to rally his own side, convert people on the other side or who are on the fence, or to annoy the other side?

So can we get back to how British microwaves are colluding with the 9/11 hoaxers to help Hillary Clinton impeach Trump to install Mike Pence as Chancellor of New California?

I dont see this as condescending. Unless you are talking the coastal liberals as being condescending.
That is the problem. Those liberals (Entertainers from the west and politicians from the east), come across as out of touch with the reality of the flyover states and come off as exceedingly condescending.
Thus the name. It is based on a truth many people in the Midwest feel is true. So it is based on that perception which is considered the truth.

My sincerest desire is, that within 8 years, there isn't enough of the left still standing for even a decent candidate to ever lose another national election again.

I don't want the left beaten, I want it destroyed. Completely. And relegated to the rubbish bin where it belongs.

Yes, they lost to Donald Trump. But there's more.

They hold less than 1/3 of the Governorships.

They couldn't retake the Senate in an election that featured Donald Trump as the headlining opposition candidate.

They control only 31 out of 98 state legislative chambers. The Republican number of 67 is a record. They let the opposition party set that record in an election that featured Donald Freaking Trump as the headliner.

There is no room for arrogance. They've got a lot to figure out.

Be careful with that kind of thing 'round here. :P. J/k, I like productive discussions muy mucho.


I was once against judicial review, but was persuaded otherwhise. Credit where credit is due: I think it was Isiddiqui on these boards who changed my mind.


Just that: interpreting the law. My beef with the modern judiciary is that quite often(though less so than in some past periods), they don't primarily concern themselves with mere interpretation. More on this in a second:


I think this is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Legislative intent is a valid and important judicial inquiry(though it should never approach what the law actually says in importance), because it directly concerns what the law is and means. Executive intent absolutely is not; it has no bearing on the law itself. Applying it also has the perverse affect of encouraging the executive branch to lie about what it is trying to do, but that's a side issue.

Taking the Hawaii case, when Judge Derrick Watson wrote that the argument regarding the six countries being blocked for national security reasons is not convincing, I'm inclined to agree with him. More importantly though, it's none of his business! :) He's not the commander-in-chief. It's not his job to make the decision on what national security-related steps to take. That job belongs to the president. Similarly, the implication that the ban would be more legally acceptable if Trump had not made anti-Muslim statements during the campaign is simply absurd ... I can't objectively put it any kinder. It's also clear from what he wrote that if Trump had added random countries without Muslim-majority populations to the list, it would be easier for his order to survive. The sheer machinations going on here are just really beyond my vocabulary to effectively describe.

As for the scope of the cases, maybe things will change when the full process plays out, but I see no reason based on the rulings so far on both EOs to think that is the case.

It's amazing how many articles you can find from liberal publications and blogs declaring the Republican party dead, written right after the 2008 election, and then in the months before the 2016 election. I remember that sentiment expressed here too.

There's probably some conservatives who think the Democratic party will die soon, but I don't think it's as prevalent a theme on that end. Republicans maybe are better at keeping the emphasis on themselves and what they want to do.

I say let them cut everything they want.

And then in four years or eight years, return the favor. Cut Veterans Affairs, cut military spending, cut subsidies/tax abatements to businesses and fund flower gardens and whatever instead. Stop shitting around and go after the guns for realz. Strip tax exempt status from churches. The whole enchilada.

I think it's time Americans get a hard lesson in what happens when you lose the art of compromise. If we're going to polarize, let's get serious about it. If we want to apply free market principles to the arts, that's cool...as long as we can also apply them to homeless vets. If that new fighter plane is so important to you, let the Air Force launch a gofundme in the Democratic years. If homeless vets freezing to the ground in January bother you, take one in.

Maybe after a decade or so, people will realize that maybe we can support both things in moderation without making everything an all-or-nothing false dichotomy. Sure, some people are going to die on either side of the policy divides, but we really don't honestly give a shit about that. Not when winning an internet argument is at stake.

I wouldn't call the Republican party dead by any means, but their stance on many social issues is still the minority and not trending in their direction despite election results. If 110,000 votes or so are moved around people would have been discussing the death of the party or the need to adapt for at least the next 4 years.

IMO, if Republicans want to take a Trump fluke against a weak democratic nominee as some some sort of validation I'm fine with that. Polls have shown that society as a whole has been moving slowly to the left for 15 or so years. An administration that is combative with the majority of the voting base isn't going to help slow that.

I don't think the issues matter that much for voters.

We've gotten decisions on it from both sides of the judicial spectrum. I'm sure we'll get more and maybe it will change.


I'm going off what the decisions have said. Not my personal opinion on the matter. Like I said, I didn't attend Harvard or Georgetown law. I haven't spent my life working in law. It'd be ignorant of me to pretend I know more than the judges because I watched a few segments on cable news.

Maybe all the stuff you say is right and will be changed by other judges. We have a rather vast array of checks and balances. Many other great legal minds will take a look at this and rule on it. If they reinstate it, I'll go with it because I assume those people have a better understanding of the law than I do.

I don't think the attitude of the Dems matters anywhere near as much as the lack of definition of the party's goals. Can anybody list the five things Dems would do if they were in charge? They have no brand, largely because most of them are too scared to stand for anything more than, "not quite as bad as the other guys."

Personally I'd like to build around a modern version of Roosevelt's four freedoms, but even if it were to the left or right of my ideal, any clear set of principles and goals is bound to help.

The problem is that as soon as Dems settled on a new set of four freedoms or principles or whatever, we'd immediately start tearing each other apart because victim group x, y, or z got marginalized, re-victimized, or disenfranchised by such absolute statements that ignored their historical plight.

The problem with building your political momentum around increasingly atomized groups of victims is that eventually you can't say anything definitive without conflicting with one of your interest groups. I think Dems are just confronting the logical end of the post-modern political narrative.

For the record, I'm not saying that Dems shouldn't come up with clear principles to push as their agenda...just that I think the outcome is predictable because of the way we've set up the game for the last 20+ years.

But that's been a problem since at least Roosevelt and somehow others have managed to square that circle. This is also the time to lay out guiding principles, as defeat makes people willing to compromise in ways they wouldn't after a victory.

The problem is, who is the voice that could credibly articulate these principles? I don't think anybody can alone, but I hope Perez and Ellison are working on ideas that can get the Sanders folks and the moderates to walk hand in hand. And it has to be more than opposition to Trump.

Read on a Fox News FB post on how Trump as a Kentucky coal-mining town "on the road to recovery" -


No, not condescending at all.








Yep, lots of respect coming from that side of the aisle.

Ah, shouldn't have stopped before getting to this one:


edit: or this. Screw me because I work at a desk and not in a coal mine:

So again, if Dems are so perfect and superior, how the hell did you lose to Trump?

And why is every response to this a comparison to Republicans? Why can't Dems stand for anything in their own right?

It's a weird combination of arrogance and an inferiority complex.

I largely agree with you, but also have to acknowledge that what we're really talking about is that in order to succeed, we need to counter the GOP cult of personality with our own. I suppose that's what surprised me most about the election. I had largely thought of the GOP as a party that canonized their Reagans after the fact and the Dems as the party that needed a charismatic personality to get the college kids fired up enough to vote by selling them a vision of participatory change.

It's like we're stuck in this loop that if we can just re-create Kennedy and keep him away from Dallas this time, it'll all turn out okay.

I would agree with that, which makes the loss to Trump (and all the Republicans wins in governor and legislative races) so stunning. But then it starts to make sense when you see how many Dems refuse to acknowledge any of their own faults that led to those results.

Your own post was a comparison of Democrats and Republicans.

Not in my first post on the topic, but sure, I'll concede, Republicans are worse. Great. That doesn't make Dems perfect or above criticism. They lost to Donald Trump and that still pisses me off because I think it was avoidable. I think that will go down as one of the great political failures of all time and too many Dems were, and are, in such denial and still talk like they're so darn perfect and above criticism. After losing to Trump!! No member of a party that loses to Trump should be bragging about their party, they should be trying to figure out what the fuck went wrong and making big changes. JPhillips is the only liberal here who ever acknowledges that the Dems may have fucked up in some areas and may have some identity issues. I just go a little further and think that their arrogance and hostility/inability to understand and respect those with different values is a part of the problem. (That's from my perspective as a mostly liberal guy in a very, very red state.) And yes, Republicans are bad at that too, worse even. I want Dems to be better than "Republicans do it too" or even "Republicans are worse." It's so off-putting when people just refuse to acknowledge that they, or their party, or their views, might not be perfect and might not be the only valid way to look at the world.

So... about that.

Judging by my Facebook feed, it was by underestimating the answer to the question "Surely you can't be serious?"

During the last few months, I've been amazed at simple things like a dude lashing out at Meryl Streep and saying entertainers need to just shut their pie holes and entertain...followed five minutes later by a celebrity quote supporting their position. Not a political celebrity, but another actor.

Or, Fight the Encroachment of Sharia Law Because it Violates our Constitution! Followed by a post about the Bible being a higher authority than the constitution.

I used to think it was just trolling...or incoherency. I couldn't take it seriously as an expression of extreme nationalism -- though it's not really that, it's more like culturalism -- because you could literally just switch the white hats with the black hats (Christians vs. Muslims, Blue Lives vs Black Lives, etc.) and just be saying the exact same thing with different nouns. It just seemed baffling because the parallels were so obvious, I couldn't take it seriously as honest expressions of the will to dominate those who thought/looked/behaved differently. And, I mean, I grew up in churches in the Midwest, so the driving need to take back the culture at all costs and repel the pagans should have been obvious to me.

This is why, as much as I disagree with Jon, I respect the hell out of him. Because if I can count on anything, it's that he's going to be logically consistent. He knows his bedrock principles, and he's going to argue the hell out of them...and he's not going to contradict himself just to score culture war points in an imaginary internet game.

A guy like Jon demands that you bring your A game if you want to oppose him, because you know he's dead serious about ending your way of life and the things you value. He's not going to play go-along-and-get-along to avoid conflict while trying to figure out a way to fuck you over. He's going to look you in the eye and embrace conflict so that when you're defeated, you know that he was the one who defeated you.

So, yeah, I think it was social media and cognitive dissonance that primarily contributed to Trump's victory. Democrats heard the voice of the people and simply couldn't make sense of it as a real thing because it seemed so outrageously illogical.

As odd as it sounds, if the voice of the people had sounded more like Jon, I think Trump would have lost in a landslide because more people would have understood the threat and realized that they needed to actively combat it.

ETA: Plus, Jon never posts links to chicksontheright.com and pretends like it's a news source.

I can buy this when we're talking about "execution" decisions. I think that's why we have executive immunity to protect officials when carrying out their duties. I'd argue though there's a difference when you venture into the realm of executive orders which carry pseudo legislative effect. (As a side note, if the criticism is valid that the judiciary is legislating from the bench, shouldn't we hold the executive accountable for the same? I realize this is a fine line to walk and you can argue that the president is simply implementing policy pursuant to power granted to him under a broad grant from Congress. I also think this is a fair criticism of Obama and really the last 3-4 presidents.) But, in this case if you grant my point that we have a new crafting of rules and regulations, I think it is ok to look to the intent (I take your argument on importance) and also to review them judicially.


There's a lot to think through here, and I'm not sure I've got it all right now. I think it may be a fair criticism of the court to say they applied the wrong standard of review here. In judicial review terms, they've applied strict scrutiny and I think the real argument is that rational basis should have applied. I know very generally how the judges get to strict scrutiny under the equal protection clause, and I think there's a fair argument they've done so incorrectly. But if we get to that point that we're using strict scrutiny, then I think there's ample precedent for delving into motive and right to do so. If we don't allow for that sort of review in cases where there is a real right involved, it's difficult to hold the executive accountable in any way.

Not sure I follow. Are you saying that 2016 was one of the greatest political failures of all time only because it was Donald Trump? If it were any other Republican it would not have been a colossal failure?

In historical context, a party winning three terms seems to be the most unlikely outcome. The fact that they massively won the popular vote I think underscores the near impossibility of a three term presidency.

Obviously the messaging of the Dem's was their greatest failure. However, the most effective and successful message in all of presidential history has always been "change". How then does one counter that?

Running a candidate that Fox News had spent over 2 decades villifying was certainly a mistake by the Democrats. And forgetting about the lower-class white people because they thought that demographic shifts towards minorities would carry the Dems to victory was a mistake. Democrats need to be the party that fights for the little guy. We need to fight for the preserving the environment and for holding businesses in line with regulations. We need to be the renewable energy party. We need to stick up for minorities. We should probably not be so quick to label others as racists and mysogynists. Political correctness has gone too far. Only take on the most egregious acts. Forget about microagressions and that kind of crap.

fwiw, I actively try to discourage those who are ostensibly in my camp from using some of the absurd bullshit fake/spam/bloggy crap as evidence of anything. Not as a sole source at least. The biggest use of those damned sites is to pad the hit counts for their owners, at the expense of credibility for the lazy/gullible suckers who post/share them.

And I would argue that the exact wrong lessons to take. You don't sell out your black base because they've become expedient in chasing white union voters. That's the infamous circular firing squad right there. You try to appeal to both groups of your base (maybe get the white union voters to watch "Get Out" when they complain about microaggressions or something like that ;) ).

Yeah. I wasn't saying ignore minorities. I was just saying that you can't ignore poor white people because they are becoming less demographically important. Uniting them both against rich white guys and businesses would be ideal.

Yeah, but acknowledging microagressions is something you gotta do or else some of the bigger names in the African-American movement are just going to assume the Democratic Party is taking them for granted and will say lets take our energy and passion elsewhere.

And you can't say shit like "stop being a pussy" when they bring up microaggressions or you'll lose the women, too.

Being a Dem guy is complicated shit, yo.

Absolutely agree. I think it goes back at least as far as Nixon, particularly in terms 'executive priviledge'. Clinton's 'executive protection priviledge' is probably my favorite all-time. It's become very routine for presidents to use EOs on things that they just don't(or shouldn't) have the authority to do.


Yes and no. The point of examining intent is to establish what the law means, as mentioned. The question here though is not about what Trump means. There's universal agreement on that as far as I can tell; he wants to temporarily block immigration from six countries. So while examining intent can be useful in some situations, that's not how it's been used here and it really has no purpose in this specific case, because it's been used assess his motives. Imagine if the courts started examining the records of all legislators involved in passing some law to find reasons why they might have been guided by some impermissible motivation, and used those to strike the law done irrespective of what the law itself actually says. That's what we are talking about here.


We're definitely going to disagree here, esp. on the final sentence. I just don't see how that follows at all and it doesn't make any sense to me. Consider a hypothetical which is absurd on purpose; Trump signs an executive order declaring that all Americans age 24-25 who are less than 5-4 shall be imprisoned for a week. I don't think we'd have any disagreement that this would be an illegal order that should rightfully be immediately blocked for multiple reasons. I wouldn't care why he signed it, wouldn't see that as the slightest bit relevant, and almost any case I can imagine in which the executive oversteps would fit into this general pattern. They sign an order for something they don't have the authority to do; it's blocked based on what the order contains, not why.

Making friends everywhere he goes...

Germany rejects Trump claim it owes Nato and US 'vast sums' for defence | World news | The Guardian

Seems like a formal apology to Obama and his administration should be expected from the Trump at this point.

At a minimum. I doubt it happens though.

Well, he apologized so profusely for the whole birther thing.


Also, Ivanka gets an office and security clearance in the West Wing because...

You mean as an alternative to Trump tweeting a heavy implication to start a new theory? ... Trump can't admit he's wrong, its one of his defining characteristics ...

I think that's the whole point, Marc. He can't admit it, but he needs to be pressured to do, for the sake of the office, and the legitimacy of the position. Unless he'd rather keep going down that other road he's been on.

The irony of some dude holding a drain the swamp sign behind Trump at his Trump Youth rally. Like obviously that sign holder hasn't been paying attention.

Trump is like the addict gambler that doubles down after every consecutive loss to one-day get lucky and get back to break even. Only to start the losing process all over again.

Nobody should apologized to the previous demonspawn from hell for anything until he apologizes for 8 embarrassing years of trying to destroy a nation from the top down.

That he had help does not absolve him of responsibility.

Trump will be driving out to the Hamptons to see Snoopy and Prickly Pete sooner than he issues any apology.

Trump better sticking to something else. if Trump lose that many Tweets in a row. Being President might not be his game.

Trump = JB Magic!

I think Trump is more HornsManiac.

I just meant the whole if you lose, double your bet theory.

Jbmaniac? Hornsmagic?

He's the wrong shade of orange to be a Horns guy.

Here's what I don't understand about the new laptop ban (and this isn't meant to be an OMG racist! post). They've banned it from 9 destinations and airlines, if ISIS has the technology and the desire to do this, what on earth is stopping them hopping across a border and taking a flight to the us from somewhere else?

To the uninformed cynic this sounds like they are hedging on not making the ban global because it's too disruptive and might even be disruptive to the revenues of airlines that we like, so we will slap it on the most obvious ones and hope that's good enough.

Yeah, some folks are casting this to be a way to get back at certain airlines that get a ton of foreign government assistance (mostly the Middle Eastern ones like Qatar Airlines, etcetera). After all, who takes their flights? Business folks mostly. And not being able to work or use your laptop during a long flight is a major factor in choosing travel. So under this theory, it's protectionism masquerading as public safety.

Trump won’t allow you to use iPads or laptops on certain airlines. Here’s why. - The Washington Post

I can't find a non-pay link, but the WSJ blistered Trump in its editorial over truth telling and credibility. It's one thing for the NYT or WaPo to do that, but while not necessarily being Trump fans, the WSJ editorial board had been toeing the line a bit.

Who cares, he's not the black guy who tried to destroy Murca. At least he'll stand for the anthem if he's busy grabbing a woman's vagina... or some other The_Donald/Red_Pill talking point.

This administration does not have ties to Russia! Everyone knows that.

The emerging line from the White House isn't comforting. Trump didn't know his staff had Russian connections because he's too careless to vet the people he works with, doesn't make this any better.

Conway is claiming he doesn't even know who Carter Page is.

Demonspawn is the reference, I think.

And why would he know the guy that managed his campaign for 4+ months?

I know quite a few people in the travel industry who would applaud this. Many US airlines have had to cancel their routes to the middle east because these countries subsidize their airline operations such that they can offer tickets at 20-30% discounts, driving US carriers out. It's sort of bogus and I think justifies a response.

According to DHS, it's the result of information regarding specific threats that are faced. There are no simple answers when it comes to a security situation or risk. The simplest answer seems to be that there are no threats from those other locations that make it likely that there would be a significant threat there. Does that mean that it's not possible? Certainly not, but if the risk worldwide is .003% and the risk from these airports closes in on 1%, while still being a low threat, it's greater enough to warrant action (I totally made up those numbers to emphasize a point).

I'm not saying that's what the case is here. Because I have no idea what exactly went into consideration, but the fact that it happened quickly seems to be that it's in response to known information, like the liquids ban that went into effect years ago.


I'm gonna call bullshit on this theory. US airlines have been pushing for a very specific kind of response to the middle east airlines. A restriction like this seems like a very round about way to address something that the administration could do very directly.

You mean like awarding JetBlue government contracts to fly to Dubai from DC? Because the US is required, by law, to award that flying to a US company. In this case though, we all know JB doesn't fly to Dubai. Instead it's a code share arrangement with Emirates to get around the rules.

Isn't the scale is different? There is more foreign government subsidies to their airlines.

Been recently to China and encountered problems with using google and its/other apps. There are pretty much domestic Chinese apps that mimics the popular US apps. I'm not saying its wrong (e.g. they need to incubate their emerging companies) but lets be aware its happening and the US should not stand idly by.

(BTW - I agree with you calling BS on the theory)

Most of the Chinese apps are less about copyright and more about government censorship and control of content.

Sure, but by very publically announcing we are only blocking flights from very specific locations (and in many cases not locations right next door) surely we've just allowed that 1% risk to migrate somewhere else? If I've been planning this out of Tunis, I'm not just going to do it out of Algiers instead?