Over the past three years, Trump and Mitch McConnell have worked tirelessly to stuff the federal judiciary with extremists, libertarians, and lawyers who were unwilling to say that the Brown decision was correctly decided. Trump’s attack on the judiciary will outlast his time in office since federal judges have lifetime appointments.
On the bright side, Chief Justice John Roberts has defended the independence of the judiciary. He just issued his annual message, which contains subtle jabs at Trump.
The New York Times spelled out the pointed references.
As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prepares to preside over the impeachment trial of President Trump, he issued pointed remarks on Tuesday in his year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary that seemed to be addressed, at least in part, to the president himself.
The two men have a history of friction, and Chief Justice Roberts used the normally mild report to denounce false information spread on social media and to warn against mob rule. Some passages could be read as a mission statement for the chief justice’s plans for the impeachment trial itself.
“We should reflect on our duty to judge without fear or favor, deciding each matter with humility, integrity and dispatch,” he wrote in the report. “As the new year begins, and we turn to the tasks before us, we should each resolve to do our best to maintain the public’s trust that we are faithfully discharging our solemn obligation to equal justice under law.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Too bad his role is basically ceremonial in presiding over the impeachment trial. I hope that he takes full advantage of his role to inform the public on the proceedings. Some would say that Nancy Pelosi and the House ultimately had little power in the impeachment process. However, she has used the power vested in the House to maximize its role in ways I think few people had even considered. I hope Judge Roberts has looked at his role with eyes that allow him to define the importance of the rule of law.
“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Chief Justice Roberts said in a statement. “What we have is a majority group of Reagan judges” who do things like put George Bush in office and put corporations before people.
Fixed.
As long as the court’s decisions are largely predictable, based on party line verdicts, Roberts’ comments are a fraud.
Harvard trained judges listening to arguments by Harvard trained lawyers is not my idea of “independence” — except maybe independence from the real world.
Shuttering the ivy leagues, in the best interest of American democracy and society, works for me.
Shuttering (of Harvard) to avoid shuddering (of everyone else) works for me too.
I’m both witcha and agin’ ya on this one, Linda. Hopefully agin’ because the one opinions of Roberts that gives me a glimmer of hope is his vote on the Affordable Care Act. It was one of those rare votes that history will judge. His presiding over an impeachment trial gives me that glimmer. The word in the Constitution that is key in terms of his role in an impeachment trial is “preside”. Many who are not constitutional historians or experts read this as the equivalent of wallflower. But for true historians or experts, there can be Warren-esque interpretation, one that is more of a wild card. He can be as passive or assertive as he wants to be. Perhaps the weight of HISTORY will make an impression. Time will tell. But he may well turn out to be fraud. I’m just not ready to go there…yet.
I’m witcha completely on the Ivy League comment. In my short time as a teacher, I had a number of students who went on to Ivy League schools. Some did consequential things with that opportunity. They would have done so no matter where they attended. More were legacies or came from very wealthy families and never really amounted to much or got jobs with investment banks and the like to monetize their connections even more.
I defend the Ivies. Sure lots of legacies and snobs go to the nations top schools. But for many students (like me), going to a great college is a golden opportunity to enter a new world, break free of provincialism, and sit across from those legacies as their equals (or better). Any stereotyping is bad, and I suggest that we not stereotype the top colleges, their students, and their graduates.
Diane . . . and the stereotype against top colleges and universities only feeds the rampant anti-intellectualism that presently pervades this nation. (Trump is the poster-child for anti-intellectualism.) CBK
My daughter graduated from Stanford and in one of her classes was the son of Steve Jobs that she said never did anything but he got all A’s anyway.
If there were no Ivy League schools, other places would get the reputation for being the place to go. Once everybody wants to go somewhere, that place becomes better because people are there because they want to be, not because they have no other choice. If ivies vanished by accident or magic, other institutions would fill that role by this process, for people tend to behave in flocks.
As a product of state universities, I have always felt it would have been a great experience to go to a place where all the students in the class were very interested in the subject, and the library was filled with people searching for knowledge. This was not the case in the universities where I went, but there were great teachers and caring people, most of whom were interested that their students learned.
You remind me of my spouse, who often tells me how the world ought to be rearranged. I used to say,”That’s not gonna happen,” or “No ones listening,” but now I should smile and agree.
The problem with the ivies is the “I’m better than everyone else” attitude.
I not only went to an ivy school (left after two years because I could not stand the attitude), but I grew up in an ivy town.
The attitude is pervasive and obnoxious.
As others have said above, the reputation of ivies as great schools is a self fulfilling prophecy. And if they disappeared tomorrow, other schools would fill the void. In fact, there are already state schools like University of Wisconsin and U of Illinois that are just as good as (in some cases better) than the ivies in many disciplines.
Finally, the ivies have a corrupting influence on the entire college admissions process.
SomeDAM If what you say is true, and I have no doubt that such problems exist, they are rooted in human problems that, if not changed, will only emerge elsewhere and in some form, if specific “Ivy League Schools” go away. And as your note suggests, other institutions ALSO provide a good education, sometimes better–though that’s certainly a VERY complex issue in itself: what constitutes a truly good education.
But the suggestion to get rid of “ivies” because they have problems is the same empty argument that reformers use: that we should get rid of public schools because they have problems. . . instead of working on the problems themselves.
Also, it seems to me that the problems associated with ivies are not as much educational as social; where “reputation” is distinct from, and often conflicts with, actual quality (as in the purveying of several forms of group bias, e.g., snobbery, classicism, and downright racism); and where those social issues are, in turn, connected with the distorted, ill-conceived LCD values of both the business community and the public mind at present, such as it is, both of which seem to have lost their ground in the higher values of democracy, human well-being, and the good of community. CBK
There is no defense for tax dollars going to legacy admission colleges. There is no defense for college endowments to avoid taxes when payoffs and legacy buys the unmerited privilege to enroll.
If legacy enrollment was eliminated, a defense for the ivies could be made. Legacy admission, by its definition, is anti-intellectualism- case in point George W. Bush.
Trying not to beat a dead horse here with respect to Ivies. But perhaps I am. Note that I wrote, “Some did consequential things with that opportunity.” I don’t think my comment was a blanket condemnation. But it unquestionable that an Ivy degree is the reverse of a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. It’s “Get In the Front of Line and Lock Out Others Before Proving Oneself” card. It is analogous to graduating from, for example, West Point. Note how few, if any, of the top leaders of the military have a West Point pedigree. They had to work their way up and prove themselves.
I am also reminded of Noliwe Rooks’s incomprehensible choices of subjects she chose to spoil the ending of a remarkably good book. Rather than profile teachers who have actually walked the walk, she takes the easy way out and profiles two graduates from Ivies—who surely didn’t get there as legacies—who contradict virtually every argument in her book. It seems she was enamored with Ivy credentials only, which kind of sums up my argument.
On the other hand, this article argues against my views and points out the exceptions to the rule: https://gen.medium.com/my-semester-with-the-snowflakes-888285f0e662
The very name “Ivy League” encapsulates the central problem. Elitism is baked in.
I am under no delusion that one could “get rid of the ivies”.
But cutting all Federal funding to Ivy League (and other private) universities with legacy admissions would be something that could be done.
There is no good reason that a university like Harvard that admits legacy and donor children and grandchildren at a far higher rate than the proles should’ve getting close to $600 million in federal grants every year, espe Kelly since Harvard has such a large endowment (on which it pays no taxes, by the way, not even on the income on investment)
Actually, Trump’s tax bill of 2017, written by an assemblage of boobs and know-nothings, did include a tax on the endowment of the wealthiest universities. In the one case with which I am familiar, my alma mater, that meant a cut to scholarship funds. Wellesley guarantees that no student will graduate with more than $12,000 in debt, and all admissions are need-blind. It makes idiots like Mitch McConnell and Mick Mulvaney happy to tax the endowments of universities that offer need-blind admissions and undertake to subsidize high-needs students.
Well, in Germany, the best universities are public. The same can be said about France or the Scandinavian countries.
In the US, even public universities are just publicish: the boards are packed with businessmen, often representing business and political interests, not the public’s.
Diane
Do you believe that if endowments were taxed (actually, its just a small tax on endowment income) those universities would be FORCED to cut out scholarships?
I think it is FAR more likely that that is just the story they give every time someone proposes taxing INCOME on endowments.
Harvard has an endowment of $41 billion. If they were to use that principal to fund scholarships, they could fund 150 thousand FULL (tuition and room an board) 4 year scholarships.
So the idea that if someone (Trump or anyone else) places a small tax on the yearly INCOME on their endowment, they are going to HAVE to cut scholarships is simply absurd.
It’s a game these elite universities play, and a dishonest one at that.
Many colleges have NO endowment. Perhaps it makes sense to tax the rich ones a little and give that money to the poor ones.
I live not far from Yale, which not only pays no federal tax on endowment income, but also pays no tax (federal or local) on the vast majority of it’s billion dollar real estate holdings in New Haven, which puts a heavy burden on the city. On top of that, Yale gets $500 million in grants from the feds every year.
Sorry. But when a university with a large endowment and federal grant funding says they are going to cut scholarships every time someone tries to tax their endowment income a little, I have to call BS because that is precisely what it is.
It’s reasonable to expect that private universities and colleges use their endowment to fully support the research of their professors, and public grants should only go to public universities. The counterargument is that much of the research done by profs at private universities do benefit the public, since the results are made freely available for all. It’s also the case, that much of the research done at public universities are done for corporations, and hence never made public. These profs are paid by the taxpayers but, in fact, do much of their work for private companies.
So the situation is not exactly comparable to private and charter K-12 schools, and it seems to me, the whole US higher ed needs to be rethought to weed out the inherent and more and more out of control corruption of research and education ethics—not to mention the administrative bloat and accompanying expenses which then the students and parents pay for.
Also, it’s quite reasonable to state that elite universities do play an important role in preserving the power of the oligarchs. My understanding is that a Harvard student needs to be prepared to shell out $400K for the four years of education there. Who can afford to do that?
SomeDAM It’s like businesses who “pass increased costs down to customers,” never absorbing those costs into their inflated profits. Their and their stockholders’ income remains sacrosanct. CBK
How does Yale evade the tax on endowment that was included in the 2017 tax bill?
Compared to the individuals and families with wealth in the billions, who contribute nothing to society, the endowments of great universities don’t seem criminal to me as they do to you.
I am more concerned about reducing wealth inequality and income inequality than taxing the resources of great universities that do contribute to society by educating young people (not all of whom are legacies, many of whom are middle-class or poor) and conducting research in science, history, literature, and other fields. We don’t need to destroy our great universities. We do need to impose taxes on those individuals, families, and corporations that have found ways to evade them.
I misspoke above. Yale does now have to pay a meager 1.4 percent excise tax on net investment income, as do other private colleges and universities with at least 500 tuition-paying students and per student assets of at least $500,000.
I really don’t see that as any huge “hardship” and frankly, I think it is irrelevant that Trump and Republicans are the ones to enact it because many people on both sides have proposed this for a long time.
Yearly cost at Harvard is $67k (tuition, room, board and books).
Cheap !
I don’t know why anyone would even need a scholarship.
This cannot be correct: tuition and fees alone are $50K according to
https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/harvard-university/paying-for-college/tuition-and-fees/
Maybe the difference between the total I found — 67k x 4 = 268k — and the 400k estimate is the bribes required to graduate with honors?
Or maybe the $400k already factors in the bribe to get in.
And also prolly includes the $10k to pay the Harvard grad to take the SAT.
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/harvard-graduate-accused-of-taking-sat-for-students-in-college-scheme-expected-to-plead-guilty/124384/
And to pay someone to write the application essays.
That must be at least another $10k if they want good ones.
So, to recap
400k – 268k = 132k
132k – 20k (to buy essays and pay someone to take the SAT) leaves 112k
So $112,000 remains for bribes.
Seems to be in the right ballpark.
Ok, I’m now satisfied with the $400,000 estimate.
There was an excellent Op Ed in the NYT a year or two ago that really nailed the Ivies.
The Ivies launder the privilege of the top .001% by surrounding those admits with enough high performing truly brilliant students who are admitted only on merit. The top .001% need enough of those other students to raise the false perception the public has that all students at that university are academically superior. Their big donors love it since they want their above average but nothing special kid whose application would be ignored if not for his family’s bank account (think Jared Kushner) to appear to be exactly like those students admitted entirely on merit.
The Harvard lawsuit showed just a very small part of that — the “dean’s list” of students who were so unlikely to get admitted if they were simply part of the admissions pile that their applications had to be flagged.
The point is to make the public believe that the applicants were so outstanding that they would have been admitted anyway, which of course begs the question of why they would have to be put in a separate pile and flagged if those students would have been admitted anyway. But those with the very highest amount of privilege are the ones who rarely have to defend it.
Diane
I provided the answer at 12:23 to the question you asked at 1:27.
But Yale still pays next to nothing on income on endowment (1.4%)
It’s clear that you believe it is wrong to tax income on endowment investments and I believe otherwise, so we are never going to agree.
I would just reiterate that the belief in taxing such income has nothing to do with Trump and/or Republicans.
And luckily for Yale and the others, I am not in Congress because I not only have no problem with taxing income on their endowments at 1.4% but I would also cut all Federal funding to universities like Yale and Harvard that effectively have two separate admissions programs for “Legacy and donors” and everyone else.
The only federal funding that elite universities should get is the federal student aid to which their students are entitled, and research funding for projects that serve the national interest.
What other federal funding do they get?
Here’s a brief nutshell on the subject. It shows that way back in the 19thC, a year at Harvard—w/o benefit of any govt assistance—cost the equivalent of 11 months per capita income. By 1953—still w/very little fed involvement—Harvard had expanded into a huge premier research institution & cost had decreased to 5 months’ per capita income, thanks primarily to economic expansion. But today, despite much fed contribution, Harvard is nearly back to what it cost in 1860: 10 months’ per capita income. https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2018/04/16/harvard-college-costs-and-the-federal-government/#56f8bc713109 I read the article as suggesting that economic shrinkage has a hand in that increase, fed involvement contributes as well.
Some good, but more bad is described. The good part: fed research grants are crucial. That’s preferable to corp-funded grants. Keep‘m coming – no, double them! One big bad: “In an era of relatively high income and estate taxation, tax privileges conferred by the federal government have helped institutions like Harvard build extraordinarily large endowments.” And the other bad applies to pretty much all higher education: “Federal student financial assistance has enabled colleges to raise tuition fees dramatically, as they take advantage of loan and grant programs to extract most of the federal largess for themselves.”
Seems to me the bads could be ameliorated without “shuttering the Ivies.” Tax benefits on donations to universities could be progressive, i.e., bigger tax benefits if you’re donating to institutions in higher need of funding. That would bring aboout some correction in the legacy dept too. And—obviously—the whole student loan game needs to be overhauled. At present it resembles a casino where nobody but the house [lender and receiving institution] wins.
As to legacy, somebody needs to show me stats proving that’s as big a deal as claimed. As I noted, tax benefits for endowments to flush institutions need to be severely shaved. That will help curb admssions to unqualified offspring. And that same measure would check the impulse to pay ridic salaries to profs, but let’s not go overboard: in general, profs even at Ivies are hardly rich. [And I really don’t mind if admins who pull in full-boat-tuition-payers get some kind of commission]. AND it should be noted that “legacies” – free or largely-subsidized tuitions—are not just for profs’ kids, they are for the children of ALL the workers at the U. As a kid who grew up in a collegetown dominated by a major Ivy, I can tell you that that was a major bonus to many middle/ working class employees of the UHere’s a brief nutshell on the subject. It shows that way back in the 19thC, a year at Harvard—w/o benefit of any govt assistance—cost the equivalent of 11 months per capita income. By 1953—still w/very little fed involvement—Harvard had expanded into a huge premier research institution & cost had decreased to 5 months’ per capita income, thanks primarily to economic expansion. But today, despite much fed contribution, Harvard is nearly back to what it cost in 1860: 10 months’ per capita income. https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2018/04/16/harvard-college-costs-and-the-federal-government/#56f8bc713109 I read the article as suggesting that economic shrinkage has a hand in that increase, but that increased fed involvement contributes as well.
Some good, but more bad is described. The good part: fed research grants are crucial. That’s preferable to corp-funded grants. Keep‘m coming – no, double them! One big bad: “In an era of relatively high income and estate taxation, tax privileges conferred by the federal government have helped institutions like Harvard build extraordinarily large endowments.” And the other bad applies to pretty much all higher education: “Federal student financial assistance has enabled colleges to raise tuition fees dramatically, as they take advantage of loan and grant programs to extract most of the federal largess for themselves.”
Seems to me the bads could be ameliorated without “shuttering the Ivies.” Tax benefits on donations to universities could be progressive, i.e., bigger tax benefits if you’re donating to institutions in higher need of funding. That would bring aboout some correction in the legacy dept too. And—obviously—the whole student loan game needs to be overhauled. At present it resembles a casino where nobody but the house [lender and receiving institution] wins.
As to legacy, somebody needs to show me stats proving that’s as big a deal as claimed. As I noted, tax benefits for endowments to flush institutions need to be severely shaved. That will help curb admssions to undeserving offspring. And that same measure would check the impulse to pay ridic salaries to profs, but let’s not go overboard: in general, profs even at Ivies are hardly rich. [And I really don’t mind if admins who pull in full-boat-tuition-payers get some kind of commission]. AND it should be noted that “legacies” – free or largely-subsidized tuitions—are not just for profs’ kids, they are for the children of ALL the workers at the U. As a kid who grew up in a collegetown dominated by a major Ivy, I can tell you that that was a major bonus to many middle/ working class employees of the U who happened to have smart/ high-ed-achieving kids.
Comments in this thread haven’t yet described how endowment funds crowd out other investors and raise prices. As example, when Yale makes the winning offer for land along an interstate highway miles from their location, not for the school’s expansion but, solely as a place to park cash in need of an earnings return, farmers, home developers, businesses and individuals who wanted the same land, find themselves in a system rigged for Yale. The tax rates of individuals and businesses placed them in an unfair situation where Yale didn’t carry the same cost of doing business.
Communities are worse off when non-profits engage in business investment for many reasons. Poet described that the endowment tax rules result in an underfunded government. Businesses and individuals pay for infrastructure through their taxes. Non-profits don’t.
2nd point- public-owned schools can attract high quality professorial talent when they have tax money. Private schools, denied tax dollars, operate from other income sources (and with hope, less money). Let the alumni of the ivies and the theocracy’s schools fund their professors.
Legacies: how you pounce on them, Linda! Here are some legacy stories from Cornell back in the day [my alma mater, 1970]. My great-gf was a Classics prof there for 50 yrs [1899-1949]. Never paid much $. Rd his young family in U housing, eventually could afford a modest priv home nearby. He died w/few assets; his frat brothers chipped in to buy his family plot at the U cemetary.
“Legacy” then was a U-prof bennie incl priv hisch subsidy: my gm attended Rosemary on scholarship, her 4 ygr bros the Hill Sch likewise. That, along w/tuition-free Cornell attendance [if you could get admitted] were the perks that allowed U’s to pay their profs no more than a midclass salary. His kids all qualified/ attended Cornell tuition-free & did well. The next gen had no such benefits; my mom like the other grch went to public school. She graduated [‘49] from one of Cornell’s state schools which were then cheap. Many of the other grch attended Cornell’s priv colleges on scholarship; all graduated well [i.e., they were qualified admittants].
As a great-grch I had no expectation of legacy admission, but maybe it boosted me over the hump? I had a B++ GPA: top grades in my anticipated major & related subjects, but a flat C in other subjects– & had been warned by guid counselor that Cornell was cutting back on Ithaca Hisch grad adm. Who knows? NYS Regents scholarship made it affordable.
None of that seems to me out of line. The perks offered midclass-salary profs—an affordable, hi-qual ed for their kids—seems a fair exchange. Does it differ that much from the longtime [until recently] perks of job-security/ pension/ health-benefits in exchange for midclass public school teaching salaries, or lowermid/upper wkgclass salaries for postal employees et al paradigms for public workers?
Perhaps your pbms w/legacies are only w/the children of big-$clout donors, & the assumption that they’re underqual, perhaps passed through regardless… Keep in mind that “legacies” also include the children of modestly-paid professors, as well as very-modestly paid wkrs in a host of jobs reqd to keep the U running. My bff from childhood was an Ithaca College grad [not qualified for Cornell] who worked her entire career as a relatively-low-pd Cornell-pubs graphics designer – whose highly-qualified dghtr got free tuition at Cornell Hotel Sch & has earned a to-die-for salary [plus travel perks] ever since.
bethree-
My familiarity with the process for prof’s kids getting free tuition is that they must first qualify for admission based on merit, which makes it unrelated to legacy. The argument the schools offer for the free tuition, beyond what you suggest, is the students’ GPA’s increase the schools’ stats. Profs’ kids on the whole have high test scores.
The addition of a single student to a classroom has a small marginal cost to the school. Universities are characterized by high sunk costs.
Can’t be many Reagan judges left at this point. Most are probably on senior status on lower courts, handling very light case loads.
Reagan judges was meant in the general sense as in those who support his policies.
I thought of phrasing it “Reagan like judges” because I knew someone would take it literally, but it would have ruined the joke😀
Ah, got it.
Let’s face it, the problem has nothing to do with Ivy league schools, but with the system. We have a system which, on the one hand, allows the president to appoint judges that are then supposed to operate independently from him; on the other hand, the system doesn’t properly protect us from individuals who corrupt the offices they hold.
If you are talking about independence, you have to ask “from what?”
Did you watch the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing?
What do you suppose HE wants to remain independent of?
No Trump-selected judge was chosen for their independence. They were chosen for their loyalty to the Trump-ALEC-McConnell-Koch brand of religious authoritarianism.
Máté Wierdl : “…the system doesn’t properly protect us from individuals who corrupt the offices they hold.” Trump actually believes that when he appoints a judge, that person is supposed to support him. Talk about corruption. Good grief. The Orange Buffoon is at the top of the list.
…………………………………………….
Trump Calls Them ‘My Judges.’ Will They Side With Him In Separation Of Powers Fight?
10/24/2019
Trump believes in a purely transactional version of life. If he scratches your back ― or appoints you to the Supreme Court ― you are expected to return the favor. He calls his judicial appointees “my judges,” and has referred to judges appointed by his predecessor as “Obama judges.”…
Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-judges-lawsuits_n_5db1d70ee4b03285e87ba2fd?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006
Yeah, everybody is his employees.
The president doesn’t “appoint” judges, he nominates them. They have to be confirmed by another branch of govt, the congress. That’s supposed to ensure they “operate independently of him.” But why has that failed? You say “the system doesn’t properly protect us from individuals who corrupt the offices they hold,” but I’m not so sure that’s true.
There’s something more going on here than corrupt individuals or a faulty system. I don’t believe there is any system, no matter how well devised, that can protect us from an extreme imbalance of economic power, i.e., a proliferation of asssets at the top—multiple billionaires. That set-up inevitably, in all cases, leads to inordinate pressure placed on govt officials to set policy favoring their asset-retainment/ enhancement, thus corrupting the entire system.
And how did that situation come about? IMHO—speaking strictly as a layman taxpayer observer w/no background in polysci/ economics etc—it was set in motion by ELECTED Rep lawmakers of the 1980’s [& elected Dems who followed suit in the ‘90’s]. Govt was responding to a perfect storm of economic changes incl maturation of devpg nations to rival status, automation, digital revolution– & it was a pusillanimous response equivalent to rats deserting a sinking ship to grab biggest pieces of a shrinking pie [to mix metaphors], which was easily sold via word salad to scared masses bleeding jobs, unable to afford housing, losing savgs to savgs/ loan crisis.
The only option at this point is to use the system we have to elect reps w/ authentic social vision going forward.
I am not sure, there is a great practical difference between nominating and appointing officials under the Trump era. Just think about Kav**** (whose name cannot appear on this blog) or DeVos “nominations”.
If churches of the two major religions supported candidates like Bernie, how would Trump’s 2020 campaign end?
Sorry for that two-fer double-post. Not sure how that happened– my bad.
bethree5: I have written a number of times and read what got posted. You’d think I’d forgotten the English language. It happens to us all, at least I hope so.
Diane Aside from Trump’s recent remark about the “phony emoluments clause” in the Constitution (!), here is just ONE of the missing distinctions that infect Trump’s thinking:
All Court and Congressional decisions WILL HAVE political meaning, influence, and effects on one side or the other, or both. However, those decisions may be, but are not necessarily, driven merely by political fiat. The judicial arguments posted online are an expression of a search for justice as a higher viewpoint, under the rule of law that sets the dynamic order for our way of life since The USA came into being. Those arguments are not necessarily a cover for one or the other political identity, e.g., for “Obama or Trump judges.”
This means that a Court decision can be based on a clear case of well-thought-out justice and law UNDER the Constitution; but again, in any case, it WILL HAVE its political influence. There can be and often is (especially in the Courts) a higher viewpoint at work here that obvious escapes Trump, many party-identified Republicans, and more generally the tribal mind; but that doesn’t diminish the truth of the justice that judges and congresspeople can and sometimes do enact, when they are at their best: when their better angels have the floor.
Kudos to Judge Roberts. On the other hand, I wonder if Trump knows, or even cares about, how truly fascist he is. CBK
“All Court and Congressional decisions WILL HAVE political meaning, influence, and effects on one side or the other, or both. However, those decisions may be, but are not necessarily, driven merely by political fiat.”
Yes.
I agree, and that is why I hope that Democrats win federal, state, and local elections and RBG has the staying power needed for that to happen. Trump has packed the judicial system with ultra-conservatives and not just at the Supeme Court level.
Leonard Leo, McGahn and his successor stacked the courts. The official stamp bore Trump’s name.
Linda Do you really not understand what I meant in my note? CBK
Praying for a Blue Wave of tsunami proportions in November 2020.
“Trump has packed the judicial system with ultra-conservatives and not just at the Supeme Court level.”
Why does the president have the authority to appoint judges to the Supreme Court (and other courts) which is supposed to operate independently from him?
It is the Senate Republicans who are ramming through extremists who refuse to admit whether they agree with the Brown decision of 1954. Mitch McConnell (aka #MoscowMitch, husband of highly conflicted Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, whose family has its own shipping business) is making the decisions. Some of McConnell’s selections for lifetime appointment were so totally unqualified and hopelessly bigoted that they had to withdraw their names. Most have sailed through. He loves to be known as “the Grim Reaper,” the one who kills programs that benefit ordinary people.
a crucial question
CK-
Parent-child communication, “Do you really not understand…”
Men who employ the style use it to patronize women. Women communicating with other women who use the style, do so, with similar bias and intent.
Linda Well, that’s one way to avoid answering the question. CBK
No answer owed.
On the other hand, the Catholic Church and those who give it the legitimacy that makes politicians listen, owe an apology to society at large. The apology called for would atone for sexism and homophobia made obvious by the Manhattan Declaration, for flouting the law in a cover-up of widespread priest pedophilia, for undermining the common good- public schools, for undermining the separation of church and state spelled out in the Constitution, for attempting to criminalize women’s medical care and for providing a block of voters for the Republican Party.
Linda: No one “owes” an answer to anyone here that I know of. But a person’s red-herring responses are easily recognized as just that: red herrings. CBK
CK
Your case could be made. Cite an example of your condescension toward a male commenter at this blog.
I shouldn’t have been surprised last week when a convert to Catholicism made an observation that Catholic women, in her experience those 20-75, have great self confidence even when lacking knowledge and the self-reflection required for accurate perception. Ringing true last week at a lunch with an alumna of Catholic K-12, I listened to the pronouncement, “Mark my words, Democrats will select either Hillary or Michelle as their presidential candidate”. Then, there were more pronouncements and still no supporting arguments.
Your certainty makes me expand my prior summary observation, which had been limited to Catholic women who are Republican.
Off topic- how many times must the Nuns on the Bus kowtow to the men in the Catholic church before they say, “enough”? As you wrote, no answer is required.
Linda: What a shock–someone who breaks into your stereotyping. CBK
We will find out soon enough whether Justice Roberts intends to protect the courts from Trump desire to put them under his heel.
Diane I think it comes down to that . . . . we’ll certainly see. CBK
Maybe a ray of hope?
If Roberts dares to even attempt to adjudicate a just-and-proper trial in the Senate similar to the Senate Trial Clinton went through, expect the Grand Constipated Poo-bah Emperor of Lies Donald Trump to viciously attack Roberts on Twitter and behind the bully pulpit of his “Always Trump” hate rallies.
Maybe Trump will compare Roberts to a worn-out, polluting windmill that slaughters birds.
And if McConnel doesn’t step in and change the rules for a Senate trial and muzzle Roberts, Trump will attack Moscow Mitch, too.
It’s easy for Roberts because he knows the Senate won’t convict.
It would only be difficult if he were not sure, in which case, like the majority in Bush v Gore, he would have to choose party over the Constitution to ensure that a Republican was not removed from office.
Trump doesn’t understand why he can’t control all three branches of government. He thinks he was elected dictator.
He hasn’t said anything about the end of his bromance with Kim Ill Jong, who is testing long-range missiles that can reach the US. Trump thought he would win a Nobel Peace Prize for forging a friendship with a brutal dictator. What a fool he is.
I think calling Trump a fool is a compliment. He’s much worse than a fool. He makes fools look good.
You are right. He is no fool. He is malevolent. He knowingly harms people, like separating families at the border and putting children into cages. The cruelty is intentional. Cutting people off food stamps, reducing eligibility for school meals, attacking the health insurance of needy people–not foolish: malevolent
Back before the 2016 election, I read that hundreds of psychologists had signed a letter warning voters that Trump was a malignant narcissist, an extreme bully that enjoys causing both mental and physical pain.
“Donald Trump’s malignant narcissism is toxic: Psychologist”
” … Much has been written about Trump having narcissistic personality disorder. As critics have pointed out, merely saying a leader is narcissistic is hardly disqualifying. But malignant narcissism is like a malignant tumor: toxic.
“Psychoanalyst and Holocaust survivor Erich Fromm, who invented the diagnosis of malignant narcissism, argues that it ‘lies on the borderline between sanity and insanity.’ Otto Kernberg, a psychoanalyst specializing in borderline personalities, defined malignant narcissism as having four components: narcissism, paranoia, antisocial personality and sadism. Trump exhibits all four.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/05/04/trump-malignant-narcissistic-disorder-psychiatry-column/101243584/
Lloyd I remember seeing this psychological report and list of signatures way back then. But THAT was when we were all realizing that, to his apparently mesmerized followers, nothing matters in the face of such mass hypnosis. I have a family member whom I e-mailed the list to and he replied that these (psychologists) “didn’t know what they were talking about.” CBK
I have come to the conclusion that Forever Tumpers have brain damage. They were either born with it or it happened from a bad diet and/or too much booze and/or drugs.
They all eat like Trump.
So many people have stated that they liked, voted for, Trump because he is a business man, not a politician. I told one such friend I wondered if when he needs medical advice he goes to a medical doctor who has studied medicine or needs a lawyer, to whom does he go?
Too, a business man is in reality a dictator, he owns the business. He can do anything with it he wishes, hire, fire ad infinitum. Trump uses the same philosophy now and the presidency has become, at least for the present until the courts MAY decide otherwise a dictatorship also. He selects people who kow tow to his every wish and when, if Congress calls for those surrounding him to testify under oath what he has done, he restricts them from so doing. So Congress has lost the equal powers provision provided by the Constitution.
I think way too many people do not understand what is happening. We can only HOPE that the courts, Roberts included, will bring some semblance of democracy back to our country.
. . . remember when we thought Trump might change if and when he became president? . . . CBK
Congress–the Senate–has willingly surrendered its powers to Trump. They are terrified of death by tweet. Sad.
We woryy about kids’ being taken over by technology, but look at Trump! Yesterday, I was at the movies, and two distinguished looking women in their sixties sat next to me, and constantly checked their phones. They just couldn’t help themselves. At the end, I told them, that my kids on my right not once took their phone out, while I saw screen flashes from the corner of my left eye once a minute.
Trump runs this company called United States as if he was its CEO and majority stakeholder.
Trump’s companies are not on the stock market so he is used to running his businesses without anyone to answer to, even the U.S. justice system. That is how he is running his White House administration.
Most corporations have a board of directors, an audit committee, and a fiduciary responsibility.
The Trump Organization has none of that. It is a one-family business, accountable to no one.
If we want to seriously understand Trump’s management style, I think we can rely on Gearge Lakoff’s assessment
When John Lengacher and I closely analyzed language coming out of the White House, it became clear that Trump has internalized and has been living by a central metaphor: THE PRESIDENT IS THE NATION.
Trump, of course, is not the first to live by this metaphor.
ouis XIV, King of France, was famous for saying, L’état, c’est moi — I am the state — a metaphor that a king could live by, or at least try to. Roger Cohen, on May 19, 2017, in a NY Times op-ed titled L’état, c’est Trump, pointed out ways in which Trump has acted as if he had absolute power, like a despot.
Lakoff explains how to fight this metaphor.
https://georgelakoff.com/2017/08/01/the-president-is-the-nation-the-central-metaphor-trump-lives-by/
stockholder
One can be both a fool and malevolent. They are not mutually exclusive concepts.
I really think most of the Trumpistas just want a leader who is convinced he knows what he’s doing – because they want to believe there’s a simple way out of our difficulties – don’t wanna hear about nuances or use critical thinking because nobody from Reagan to Obama seems to have been able to stop the economic free-fall since late ’70’s.
Oh please. Roberts is just as much of a right-wing extremist as Trump. He’s just more dignified about it Name me once that he has ever ruled anything other than the extreme right-wing position on any case. If (heaven forbid), Trump were a Supreme Court justice, there would be no daylight between his positions and Roberts’.
I’m getting tired of people who believe the same things as Trump and support the same policies acting so horrified by Trump. The only thing they’re horrified by is that Trump exposes how grotesque their beliefs and policies really are.
Roberts cast the deciding vote in a case that threatened Obamacare. He voted with the liberal justices. A true conservative doesn’t throw out precedent on a whim.
Obamacare was actually UNprecedented because the “individual mandate” was really a penalty imposed on those who failed to buy insurance. That was the way even the Obama administration lawyers originally argued it, as a penalty. It was only after they realized that their original argument was actually unconstitutional (and that Roberts would not go along with it) that they changed their argument to call it a tax, which Roberts went along with.
Roberts also cast the deciding vote in Citizens United which threw out precedent and has cast his vote to throw out precedent in several other cases as well.
http://www.pfaw.org/report/the-roberts-court-conservatives-efforts-to-override-precedent/
Roberts promised in his confirmation heading to respect precedent but do far has a poor record in that regard.
“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase.” — President Obama in 2009
But his position flipped by 180 degrees when he realized ( was told by Roberts?) that calling it a penalty would not pass Constitutional muster.
Yes, it’s a crying shame that John Roberts now seems somewhat less of a right wing conservative because Donald Trump was able to appoint two even more far right wing political hacks to lifetime appointments on the Supreme Court and pack the federal judiciary with judges who could have found a welcome home in the John Birch Society a few decades back.
Of course, if you are one of the people who insisted that Trump was no worse than an evil Democrat, then lifetime appointments to Supreme Courts and federal judiciary are issues that you believe are not very important.
And that gives us John Roberts, who may yet join with his new right wing Trump-appointed colleagues to announce that yes, the President is now above any silly Constitution and can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue if he wants. Some of us hope he doesn’t. Others believe that there is so little difference between Roberts and Ruth Bader Ginsburg that why even care as they were both appointed by evil and corrupt parties and if the one who appointed Roberts gets to appoint more, then it doesn’t matter one whit and they will sit back and enjoy this.
We will see what Roberts does.
He might turn out to be someone who cares about his place in history.
Surely some of those who have served this vile man know that they have made a deal with the devil and will be written into the history books as knaves, fools, and worse.
SDP: all of which seems some kind of word salad denying the obvious premise of healthcare insurance, which is that you’ve all got to be in – young to old – or it doesn’t work.
All this Trump bashing!!! My Lord!!! I’m sure he has his good qualities, I mean, aside from being cretinous, narcissistic, racist, ignorant, lying, criminal, treasonous, crude, boorish, stupid, childish, vain, clueless, thuggish, rude, inarticulate, heedless, autocratic, sniveling, loud-mouthed, arrogant, insane, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, authoritarian, anti-democratic, swaggering, foolish, vain, boorish, sociopathic, pampered, fascist, low-life, cowardly, semi-literate, crass, puffed-up, bombastic, demagogic, amoral, uncultured, dishonest, blubbering, disloyal, slimy, cruel, dim, hateful, hate-filled, indolent, crass, orange, clownish, moronic, idiotic, unread, unrefined, haughty, blundering, backward, benighted, thick, ugly, twisted, corrupt, shady, senseless, petty, and predatory.
and, ofc, simultaneously humorless and laughable
erratic and dangerous
Have you considered t-shirts? billboards? full page ads? Millions would be raised on a crowd sourcing site to do all three with your words – – – and your post could be the stuff of a back-to-school new decade grammar lesson on adjectives. and that every word has several news items that could be used to support it makes it EVIDENCE-BASED which is all the rage these days –
LOL. This list, with footnotes. It would make quite a book!
The only “good quality” I can think of is Donald Trump contributes to the fast-food industry supporting poverty-wage jobs that have few if any benefits.
But, how could that be a “good quality”?
Lloyd One good thing: many people have become politically aware and aware of their government workings since Trump was “elected” when they were totally ignorant of these before. Of course, Fox-informed right-wing awareness is hardly something to crow about. CBK
I dunno about that. In Europe, we have strong gun control because of WW2, still I would attach the word “good” to this causation. 🙂
Mate Insofar as this is a democracy we live in, the revival of political awareness a good thing, but not a guarantee–until all of the powers-that-be become perfect human beings. CBK
I do not think, people should have to deal with politics under normal circumstances. Politics should be the politicians’ job, as teaching is the teachers’ job. It’s truly unfortunate that things are so bad in this country that outsiders have to learn quite a lot about the confusing and dark art of politics.
Politicians are not better people in other countries either, but in many cases, like in Scandinavian countries, they have a system which controls people in power better during these modern times.
Mate I think you may be overlooking the relationship between the people and their representatives in a democracy. We vote. How can we vote well without knowing the issues and knowing who we vote for?
Being politically aware is what gives us the potential to know and to keep the democracy we have–WE have the power, and we de facto relinquish it when we lose touch with our political responsibility.
In that sense, being a politician IS a job, but it’s not a job like working as a teacher or other professions.
Teaching to not only an understanding of politics, but also to students’ responsibility to their democracy when living in one is probably what’s missing in education in K-12? CBK
Understanding of politics? How far would you go with that? Don’t kids learn history? Do you think they should learn about current affairs? Should they learn about politicians?
What’s my hesitance? It’s one thing to learn about biology in school and it’s another thing entirely to learn about living biologists and what they do.
Mate There are lots of relevant courses, age-appropriated, that can make students become aware of the political responsibility–without propagandizing the material. Again, in a democracy “if we can keep it,” we are obliged to become so-aware. It’s a part of the whole idea of “power in the people” (demos/cratic). CBK
He hasn’t started any new wars, yet. But his handler, Putin, wouldn’t exactly allow that, would he?
What kind of wars are you talking about?
Trump has started a lot of “trade” wars and a war against immigrants that are not rich and/or white.
Is this the war to distract people from the impeachment? Trump is much smarter than any generals because his wonderful gut is guiding him.
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Airstrike at Baghdad airport kills Iran’s most revered military leader, Qassem Soleimani, Iraqi state television reports
Jan. 2, 2020 at 7:23 p.m. CST
BREAKING: It was not clear who carried out the strike, but the death of Soleimani, the Iranian Quds Force commander, seems certain to send tensions soaring between the United States and Iran. This story will be updated.
…Tensions between the United States and Iran have been building. The Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and has since imposed new sanctions that have devastated the Iranian economy…The Trump administration has already sent thousands of troops and additional assets to the Middle East, including missile defense systems, in response to the perceived Iranian threat….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/defense-secretary-says-iran-and-its-proxies-may-be-planning-fresh-attacks-on-us-personnel-in-iraq/2020/01/02/53b63f00-2d89-11ea-bcb3-ac6482c4a92f_story.html
It is called Wag the Dog.
Trump is gearing up for a war with Iran. It is the ultimate diversion tactic against kicking him out in time of war. Remember, ONLY HE can ‘fix’ EVERYTHING. /s
Nobody as stupid as Trump should have this power. He should be eating hamberders and golfing ONLY AFTER having served a lifetime in prison.
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President Trump ordered the killing of the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, in a Baghdad drone strike early Friday, American officials said. It was a major escalation of Mr. Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.
General Suleimani was one of Iran’s most cunning and autonomous military figures, and some saw him as a potential future leader of the country.
“Trump is gearing up for a war with Iran.”
And hence all those who want his impeachment will be called antipatriotic.
Starting a war with Iran will not work. Once the initial “shock and awe” with high body counts for Iranians is over and Trump has beaten his chest claiming a faux victory, the guerrilla-style war that already happened in Iraq and Afghanistan that can never be won will drag on for years, for decades.
Spreading that style of war to Iran will add fuel to the already burning fires of hate in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of gaining allies, the U.S. will end up with more enemies to deal with.
I think the majority of Americans (most if not all of them are Never Trumpers) are exhausted by war and starting a war will not change their minds about Trump.
And Trump cannot cause his deplorable followers to blindly worship him more than they already are.
After the bloody stalemate in Korea, fighting 19 years in Vietnam (and losing that war after killing millions of people in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam), starting the wrong war in Iraq, based on lies of WMDs, then bungling the justified war in Afghanistan (where the Taliban was protecting al Qaeda), war is not a popular option in the U.S.
Like everything else Trump has done in his life, this will end up being another one of his many failures, but this failure will cost millions of innocent people their lives and totally bankrupt the United States.
The U.S. cannot afford to fight another unwinnable war.
I agree with the assertion that a majority of people in the US are tired of the ‘wars that never end’. Adding one more country isn’t in our best interests. However, Iranians are being called to retaliate by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Not good but a distraction that Trump wants.
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Iran promises revenge, as Trump defends strike.
Iranian leaders issued strident calls on Friday for revenge against the United States after the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in an overnight airstrike at the Baghdad airport.
His death is a considerable blow to Tehran, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for retaliation and for three days of national mourning.
“His departure to God does not end his path or his mission, but a forceful revenge awaits the criminals who have his blood and the blood of the other martyrs last night on their hands,” the supreme leader said in a statement.
Trump would risk anything, including a terrorist attack on the U.S., to distract voters from his impeachment.
I do not think Iran meant they want to declare a shooting war with the United States when they said they would retaliate.
Iran already supplies political support and weapons to Hamas, an organization classified by Israel, the United States, Canada, the European Union, Egypt, Australia, and Japan as a terrorist organization. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, has said “Hamas is funded by Iran.
To retaliate, Iran will use Hamas or other Islamic fundamentalist groups or individuals to retaliate. The victims will probably be American businessmen and tourists in the Middle East. Maybe, if Iran has sleeper agents in the U.S., it will activate a few of them to shoot up some U.S. churches or synagogues where more innocent people will get wounded or murdered.
Unless Iran has access to a nuclear backpack bomb of some kind and can smuggle it in the U.S. and set it off in New York or Washington D.C. near Congress or the White House, I don’t think Iran can do worse damage to the U.S. than our own homegrown Trump Loving white supremacists are already doing.
Nice words from the Chief Justice. But just remember, Roberts helped to gut the Voting Rights Act.
Roberts was very involved in the citizens United decision, which places him either squarely on the side of modern conservatism or a champion for everyone’s right to speak up, depending on how you look at the matter.
One of the ironies of the Citizens case was that Mitch McConnell was one of the people who tried to undo McCain-Feingold before the Citizens case. Now that McConnell is in power, he has demonstrated that his interest was not so much about freedom to speak as it was about freedom of the few to dominate the many by suppressing information that is in the public sector. He has been doing this by preventing legislation from coming to the senate floor, where senators will have to go on record by voting for it. Thus his people can campaign without giving their opponents any ammunition.
Will Roberts move a bit as he is joined by the two new extremist judges appointed by trump? Will their stridency scare him? More importantly, will the power accorded to him as the deciding vote make him see this role as an avenue to his greater power?
There are no powerful figures whose visible behavior is totally altruistic. The well-intentioned must themselves take into account the prospect of their ideas being consigned to the scrap heap of history in the absence of power. Thus politics doth make cowards of us all (sorry Shakespeare). It will be interesting to see how Roberts reacts to the conservative attempt to strengthen the presidency, which a vote against conviction will surely accomplish. Will Roberts give up power in the long term to achieve power in the short term?
Because they can decide the law (or even make it up as in the case of Bush v Gore), Supreme Court justices have a huge amount of power, some might say inordinate.
And to their life appointment makes them effectively immune from accountability, not unlike a king.
The latter is undoubtedly one of the greatest flaws in the Constitution (although those who put it there undoubtedly considered it a saving grace to keep the riffraff (aka, the populace) from watering down the power of the elites)
“What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”
Well, why does he say it like that? The statement is inaccurate. What we have is a group some of whose members are extraordinary. Some of members are far from extraordinary, and some are politically committed, contrary to what the Chief Justice claims about the independence of the jucidary.
Trump is careless with his words, the Chief Justice is too careful with his words to make them stick.
Decision by evidence and law – not loyalty. What a concept!
Robert’s reference to Merrick Garland speaks volumes. Lawyers and justices select every word with purpose. That subtle reference was as intentional as it gets and clearly a shot at a president who wants loyalty oaths from justices.
The GOP CONGRESS sold their souls and they sold their role in “check and balance” to lobbyists and fear of being the subject of a tweet. Justice Roberts is saying he’s not selling out and the president knows that.
Of course justices rule conservatively or liberally – but at that level hopefully (one can only hope) not blindly. At least Justice Roberts is saying “I’ll vote in reference to the Constitution, not the president.” If it plays out conservative or ultraconservative, I expect he could defend that on law, not loyalty.
As for the president’s state of mind – – from NPR: “There were 298 tweets and retweets in the week ending Dec. 22 — and 416 tweets and retweets the week before. Most of them concerned impeachment.” What do the psychiatrists say about that?
It is unclear just HOW MUCH influence Roberts will have on the outcome of the impeachment hearings. McConnell has, i think, more power over the proceedings. Be that as it may, Roberts is absolutely correct in his statements here and I take back SOME of my thoughts concerning him.
This is a real catastrophe in the making. Chuck Todd admitted that he has now, finally, after all these years, realized that Republicans come on his show and others specifically to tell lies and spread disinformation. What are reporters going to do about this?
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RollingStone : How Disinformation Spreads, According to Chuck Todd
DECEMBER 20, 2019
…I think our biggest problem going into 2020 is that we have two sets of standards simply on political advertising. If you choose to advertise on cable or television, on linear television, there’s a certain set of standards on fact that you have to surpass in order to get your ad on television. Not the case on social media. And we have seen the Trump campaign literally use two different ads — one that allows them to say their misinformation about Biden in the areas that they can. So part of this is putting it all in one place as almost as an educational exercise, if you will, to show we have a systemic issue here.
Let me bring you back a little bit. Were you surprised by the consistency that the Trump administration was willing to spread disinformation with Sean Spicer’s initial press briefing when he lied about the crowd size at the inauguration? Were you surprised that the president and other administration officials and their allies just kept it going?
I fully admit, listening to you ask that question now, and me giving you the honest answer of, yeah, I guess I really believed they wouldn’t do this. Just so absurdly naive in hindsight. Donald Trump’s entire life has been spent using misinformation. His entire life. I’ve spent years studying him now on trying to figure out how did this guy even learn politics? Where did he learn?
And the more you learn, you realize he learned at the feet of a master of deception in Roy Cohn, who learned at the feet of the original master of deception of sort of the modern political era in Joe McCarthy…
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/how-disinformation-spreads-according-to-chuck-todd-interview-929912/ – How Disinformation Spreads, According to Chuck Todd
Carolmalaysia: I appreciate your posting this–I missed it. CBK
Wag the Dog, 2020
As dim as he is, even Trump knows that as things now stand, he’s going to lose the election, and if he does, he looses his Presidential immunity and is subject to more than a hundred criminal cases waiting to be filed against him, and his economic advisors are telling him that the crest of the business cycle that he has been benefiting from is about to run its course. He needs a war–short term stimulus, and a cause to rally people around him as he struts and talks tough for the cameras. Private Bone Spurs gets to play Commander in Chief. Then he and his pal Putin can step in together and negotiate (enforce) a peace with Iran. (Iran depends on Russia big time.) Now, IQ45 is barely smart enough to figure this out on his own (see the tweets below). But Putin is a lot smarter and can fill in the details. So here we are. Ready, Player Orange.
Check out all the tweets citizen Trump made, before he became President, about how Obama would doubtless start a war with Iran because his poll numbers were declining.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/23/trump-accused-obama-of-wanting-war-with-iran.html
Trump has no real friends because he is totally into himself and no one else. Trump is appointing people from a list that comes to him directly or indirectly through ALEC and/or the Walton and Koch families. Moscow Mitch is also part of this plot.
Knowing Trump’s corrupt history, I think the odds favor that Trump made a deal. After he is out of the White House, a lot of money is going to flow his way from the people he is serving and those people do not represent the interests of the United States.
“Iran,” “The United States”–these are abstract entities. In reality, each is an aggregation of people. When politicians talk about “Going to war with Iran,” what they are actually talking about is a group of people who include babies, toddlers, children, grandpas and grandmas, daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, and so on. People. People who sing their kids to sleep and play chess and go to the market just like you and me. and “going to war” with them means that a lot of them will die. Babies will die. Sorry to be so blunt about this, but the real question always is, “How many dead babies is THIS worth?”
The answer to that question would be clear if we freaking thought about what we are actually proposing.
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I do not think Iran will declare a conventional war with the United States. That would be suicide for Iran. Trump would use that declaration of war as an excuse to bomb Iran back to the stone age and murder millions of Iran’s civilians while destroying the country’s infrastructure and cities until all that was left was a smoking ruin.
No, Iran will retaliate through terrorism across the Middle East, in the EU, and maybe the United States.
But Iran is already doing that through Hamas. The only thing they can do is increase the terrorist attacks and attempt a big one like 9/11.
Declarations of war and even consultation with or notification of Congress are evidently long passé in the United States, like letter writing or shoulder pads for women. And, ofc, the other country doesn’t have to. We are quite capable of volunteering them.
OK, just read the Roberts statement, and one thing that hasn’t been discussed above at all is the throw-away line he includes on education, civic education to be precise. His recommendation? Online resources for teachers: https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/educational-activities
I took some time to look through some of it and it’s a bunch of pablum garbage. Another example of looking for easy shortcuts instead of investing in teachers with the skills, experience and passion to do the job.
$40 million for a pile of CR*P. Now we are supposed to be ready to fight for dominance in space. Why not put $40 million towards Medicare for ALL? Add in the $118+ million that Trump has wasted on his golf trips.
Peace does not come through ‘strength’. We can never kill our way to peace. Now we can sleep at night because the US can protect us from all the aliens in deep space who are planning to attack.
‘American superiority in space is absolute vital”. [BS] Generals, and Trump’s gut, always want to spend on the military. Democrats messed up on this one.
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‘With Space Force, Congress Hands Trump a Major Victory’
JAN 02, 2020
…In an op-ed published in the Washington Post last March, Vice President Mike Pence — with a heavy dose of revisionism about the U.S.’ military role — wrote, “The United States will always seek peace in space as on Earth, but history proves that peace only comes through strength. And in the realm of outer space, the Space Force will be that strength.”
Brig. Gen. Thomas James, director of operations for Space Command, reinforced this notion, explaining his objective to Foreign Policy as, “No. 1 is to deter conflict to extend into space.” He added, “Then, if it does extend into space, are we able to defend our assets?” Finally, he expressed what is likely the U.S.’ main objective: “And the third is our ability to defeat an adversary, and that could be through any means, not just in space but through multidomain operations.”
Gen. John E. Hyton, one of the originators of the idea of Space Force, spoke in far more honest terms when he said in March 2018, “We must normalize space and cyberspace as warfighting domains.” In his recent speech before signing the NDAA, Trump echoed that hawkish desire, saying, “Space is the world’s new war-fighting domain. … American superiority in space is absolutely vital.”
Currently, Congress has appropriated $40 million to jump-start Space Force as a part of the existing U.S. Air Force…
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/with-space-force-congress-hands-trump-a-major-victory/
This is off topic, but something that is unbelievable. Why is there NO respect for our health or the environment?
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Trump Rule Would Exclude Climate Change in Infrastructure Planning
Jan. 3, 2020
The administration will propose that federal agencies be allowed to disregard climate change when assessing the environmental effects of major projects.
…According to one government official who has seen the proposed regulation but was not authorized to speak about it publicly, the administration will more narrowly define the type of project that requires an environmental review. That could make it likely that more projects will sail through the approval process without having to disclose effects like hazardous waste discharges, the removal of trees or increased air pollution.
The new rule also would no longer require agencies to consider the “cumulative” consequences of new infrastructure. In recent years courts have interpreted that requirement as a mandate to study the effects of allowing more planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. It also has meant understanding the impacts of rising sea levels and other results of climate change on a given project…
“Evangelical church elders have portrayed environmentalism as anti-Christian,” NPR WOSU 11-4-2019.
Imagine if the progression of climate change had been halted by religious leaders who directed their congregants to vote Democratic instead of Republican, starting with Gore. Imagine if the Catholic church elders had taken stage to say the evangelicals were wrong.