Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread III

2 Scoops

Wasn't McConnell talking about a Presidential election year? Blocking picks every 2 years seems nonsensical.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/dems-misuse-mcconnells-fake-supreme-court-rule-get-scolded.html

“The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

Later, in a Fox News interview, McConnell added, “All we are doing is following the long-standing tradition of not fulfilling a nomination in the middle of a presidential year.”

The Times pointed out that the “tradition” McConnell cited is entirely made up. But it’s important for Democrats to be fair: the majority leader did clearly state that his imaginary rule was about presidential years.

everlast75

2 Scoops wrote: »

Wasn't McConnell talking about a Presidential election year? Blocking picks every 2 years seems nonsensical.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/dems-misuse-mcconnells-fake-supreme-court-rule-get-scolded.html

“The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

Later, in a Fox News interview, McConnell added, “All we are doing is following the long-standing tradition of not fulfilling a nomination in the middle of a presidential year.”

The Times pointed out that the “tradition” McConnell cited is entirely made up. But it’s important for Democrats to be fair: the majority leader did clearly state that his imaginary rule was about presidential years.

1) SC nominations are not every 2 years, or anything like it.
2) we are talking about postponing it for 5 months
3) the Senate vote for the SC and its a Senate election year. McConnell said "the American people deserve to have a voice in their selection of the next Supreme Court Justice". Postponing the vote on the SCOTUS enables the American people to have that voice

You say it's important for Dems to be fair. I addressed that in my post above

2 Scoops

everlast75 wrote: »

You say it's important for Dems to be fair. I addressed that in my post above

That's what the article said, I don't care either way as I don't live there. From the little I've read about it there doesn't seem to be anything the Democrats can do to stop the nomination, fair or not.

everlast75

2 Scoops wrote: »

From the little I've read about it there doesn't seem to be anything the Democrats can do to stop the nomination.

That's true. Unless they can flip a few republicans which is highly unlikely

Christy42

Nah he'll walk through. He is there to protect Trump when the cards start to fall. Still there are worse choices given he seems happy with precedent and so not a terrible outcome given it was a Republican pick.

spacecoyote

Was listening to a bit of talk about him this morning, and he does seem to have a few strongly conservative leanings & opinions that would fit in with Trump's needs.

Remember, Trump specifically said, pre-election, that if he won, and he could get 2-3 SC picks, he would pick judges that would prioritise getting rid of the Roe ruling.

In line with that, he tried to block a pregnant teenage immigrant from getting an abortion, and was supposedly pi$$ed that his colleagues over-ruled him and allowed it.

As mentioned previously, he also has said that a sitting president should not be indicted.

Will be interesting to see if any of the red-state Dems are willing to stand up & be counted, or if the likes of Collins, who has said that she wouldn't approve of any pick who would move against Roe, will be actually willing to go against the party.

Leroy42

There is no point arguing the exact wording of reasoning behind McConnells stated reason for blocking Obama pick. The 'its too close to an election' was just an excuse. If that hadn't been accepted they would have come up with something else. They didn't want to let Obama pick the SCOTUS and time was on their side as he was coming to the end. But they would have blocked it regardless.

There is no precedent, you do whatever you can get away with. And the Dems let them get away with it. That should have been a massive point in the POTUS election campaign, and although I am sure it came up, it wasn't ever the big ticket item for the Dems that the GOP made it for them.

The Dems should have left no liberal.left leaning or whatever label you want to place on them, in any doubt as to which candidate to choose. Pick HC and you get to shape the SCOTUS for years, go with Trump and you face a row back on abortion, LGBT rights etc.

But they singaully failed to do that. All of a sudden they realise that Trump now has two picks, and possibly more to come and they are worried about it.

markodaly

Leroy42 wrote: »

There is no precedent, you do whatever you can get away with. And the Dems let them get away with it. That should have been a massive point in the POTUS election campaign, and although I am sure it came up, it wasn't ever the big ticket item for the Dems that the GOP made it for them.
.

A few things there.

The GOP controlled the Senate, so were able to block any pick by Obama. Them just the hard facts of it. If the Democrats controlled the Senate, we would not be talking about this issue.

The Democrats didn't make a big deal about it, because they underestimated Trump.

The GOP knew how big a deal it was, thus their base came out and voted.

Them the facts.

StringerBell

They didn't even give him a hearing, it's a disgrace what they did. The rest is not fact though, the Dems didn't not focus on it because they underestimated Trump and sure as **** his base didn't have a Supreme Court pick being top of their agenda when voting for him.

So no, them not facts.

RIGOLO

StringerBell wrote: »

They didn't even give him a hearing, it's a disgrace what they did. The rest is not fact though, the Dems didn't not focus on it because they underestimated Trump and sure as **** his base didn't have a Supreme Court pick being top of their agenda when voting for him.

So no, them not facts.

I dont think posters here appreciate or understand how seriously US voters take the prospect of having SCOTUS appointments when casting their POTUS ballot.  
[font=Balto, Helvetica, sans-serif][font=Helvetica, sans-serif]Polling data shows Republicans turned out for Trump in 2016 because of the Supreme Court[/font][/font]
[font=Balto, Helvetica, sans-serif]One of the most underappreciated reasons that Donald Trump won the 2016 election was voters motivated by a vacancy on the Supreme Court.[/font]
[font=Balto, Helvetica, sans-serif]One in five voters told CNN in an exit poll that the Supreme Court was one reason they had cast a ballot. [/font]
[font=Helvetica, sans-serif]https://www.vox.com/2018/6/29/17511088/scotus-2016-election-poll-trump-republicans-kennedy-retire[/font]
[font=Helvetica, sans-serif]Even in 2015 the prospect of having one or possibly 2 Scotus picks , given some judges were in their 80s was something discussed quite openly and frequently. [/font]
[font=Helvetica, sans-serif]https://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/11/politics/supreme-court-2016-election/index.html[/font]
[font=Balto, Helvetica, sans-serif][font=Helvetica, sans-serif]American electorate understand a POTUS is for 4 years , but a SCOTUS could be for  30 years. People should give more credit to Trumps base and stop bashing it. not only have they gotten their man into office but they have also secured the Supreme Court (one of the triumvarates of the US) possibly for their kids generation.  Now thats long term thinking..

[/font][/font]Kavanaugh looks like a well chosen candidate, his selection will feed into the blue wave in november and further undermines the left side on many fronts.

Leroy42

Rigolo, why do your posts come out with such weird fonts, bolds etc.

It makes them incredibly difficult to read, or in all honesty, to take seriously as anything other than a copy and paste job.

In terms of some of the points you made, I agree, and that was the point I raised. Clearly the GOP placed a huge emphasis on SCOTUS, to the extent that they were willing to override all previous precedents to stop Obama getting his pick. So in effect, they said that the House not the POTUS gets the say.

And you are right that the SCOTUS is longer term than the POTUS, but inherent in that you are accepting that Trump goes with flaws, just that these flaws are accepted as a price worth paying to secure SCOTUS.

But that creates a problem. Why do GOP supporters continue to support Trump? He delivered SCOTUS pick, nobody could have reliably known that another one could come up. If there a level that the GOP will not accept. Because it sounds very much like they are willing to basically burn everything to the ground once they get their SCOTUS.

pixelburp

RIGOLO wrote: »

[...]
Kavanaugh looks like a well chosen candidate, his selection will feed into the blue wave in november and further undermines the left side on many fronts.

Just to be clear: do you subscribe to Kavanaugh's belief that a sitting US President "should be excused from some of the burdens of ordinary citizenship while serving in office." or exempt from "time-consuming and distracting" lawsuits? Those are Kavanaugh's words, from a 1998 paper I believe.

Straight answer, no waffle: do you favour a President with MORE executive privilege, or less? Or indeed feel they have just enough right now.

By your own metrics that you insist we indulge in, there's a clear longer term scenario to be insinuated, where Trump has intentionally picked a judge who favours a President with more power over the executive branch, and is more exempt from checks and balances any healthy democracy should subscribe to (regardless of party affiliation). This is Trump's modus operandi - both as a businessman and continuous demonstrations of his word and deed as president - and it's clear as day he wants to slowly evolve the office of the Presidency into a Erdogan / Putin / Duterte / classic-CEO strongman role.

robinph

I thought you were claiming previously that "all words are my own" and the strange text formatting was just a quirk of the Boards.ie system that nobody else had an issue with?

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/29/17511088/scotus-2016-election-poll-trump-republicans-kennedy-retire

There is a quote function available for when you are quoting from other sources to make it clear what are your words and what is lifted from elsewhere.

RIGOLO

Leroy42 wrote: »

Rigolo, why do your posts come out with such weird fonts, bolds etc.

It makes them incredibly difficult to read, or in all honesty, to take seriously as anything other than a copy and paste job.

In terms of some of the points you made, I agree, and that was the point I raised.  Clearly the GOP placed a huge emphasis on SCOTUS, to the extent that they were willing to override all previous precedents to stop Obama getting his pick.  So in effect, they said that the House not the POTUS gets the say.

And you are right that the SCOTUS is longer term than the POTUS, but inherent in that you are accepting that Trump goes with flaws, just that these flaws are accepted as a price worth paying to secure SCOTUS.

But that creates a problem.  Why do GOP supporters continue to support Trump?  He delivered SCOTUS pick, nobody could have reliably known that another one could come up.  If there a level that the GOP will not accept.  Because it sounds very much like they are willing to basically burn everything to the ground once they get their SCOTUS.

You should really stop infering so much from other peoples posts. Your inferences tend to make up the bulk of your responses and are generally wrong.  I didnt infer anything of the like. You just lead the discussion down rabbit holes and clog up the posts cos  people have to rebuke incorrect inferences you have made. 

As to the copy and paste jibe.. Im used to it and just ignore it.

everlast75

RIGOLO wrote: »

You should really stop infering so much from other peoples posts. Your inferences tend to make up the bulk of your responses and are generally wrong.  I didnt infer anything of the like. You just lead the discussion down rabbit holes and clog up the posts cos  people have to rebuke incorrect inferences you have made. 

As to the copy and paste jibe.. Im used to it and just ignore it.

As a defender of DJT, is there any chance you could reply to my 3 questions re Trump and Putin?

Corkblowin

RIGOLO wrote: »

You should really stop infering so much from other peoples posts. Your inferences tend to make up the bulk of your responses and are generally wrong.  I didnt infer anything of the like. You just lead the discussion down rabbit holes and clog up the posts cos  people have to rebuke incorrect inferences you have made. 

As to the copy and paste jibe.. Im used to it and just ignore it.

Hi Rigolo,

Perhaps you have some people blocked and can't see their posts. Everlast had some interesting questions for you, as a Trump supporter,

1) Do you think Russia interfered in the US Election
2) Do you think Trump aided them
3) Do you think Trump is compromised by Russia.

Any thoughts?

Leroy42

RIGOLO wrote: »

I dont think posters here appreciate or understand how seriously US voters take the prospect of having SCOTUS appointments when casting their POTUS ballot.  
One of the most underappreciated reasons that Donald Trump won the 2016 election was voters motivated by a vacancy on the Supreme Court. One in five voters told CNN in an exit poll that the Supreme Court was one reason they had cast a ballot. American electorate understand a POTUS is for 4 years , but a SCOTUS could be for  30 years.

RIGOLO wrote: »

You should really stop infering so much from other peoples posts. Your inferences tend to make up the bulk of your responses and are generally wrong.  I didnt infer anything of the like. You just lead the discussion down rabbit holes and clog up the posts cos  people have to rebuke incorrect inferences you have made.

 

You stated that US take it very seriously. You pointed out that one in 5 stated it was a reason for their vote choice. There is no implication from that other than voters look at all the options and SCOTUS plays a part. By extension, if faced with a choice, SCOTUS plays in part in the decision and thus cna override there feelins other items.

You then claimed that as POTUS is term limited and SCOTUS is much longer, then the long game is chosen. The only implication being that short term issues can be overlooked for the longer term goal. I merely pointed out that that suggests you accept the short term issues of Trump.

I'm sorry that your own logic places you in an ackward position, perhaps consider your position more closely before posting.

RIGOLO wrote: »

As to the copy and paste jibe.. I'm used to it and just ignore it.

It is not a jibe, it a serious question. Why would you post in a way that is both difficult to read and leads to annoying people? If your point if trying to get your point across then surely you would want to concentrate on that rather than spending time inserting all those different fonts? Because either you are CnP or you are doing it yourself on purpose.

I don't see any reason why anybody would make their posts in such a strange fashion deliberately. I also cannot see why you would simply ignore a concern brought up by fellow posters, as it is clearly having an impact on the view of your posts.

weisses

everlast75 wrote: »

As a defender of DJT, is there any chance you could reply to my 3 questions re Trump and Putin?

I have a couple of open questions as well .... Don't hold my breath though ...

FrostyJack

RIGOLO wrote: »

Y
As to the copy and paste jibe.. Im used to it and just ignore it.

It makes my eyes bleed and my head hurt, the only benefit is I know what is posting is going to coming from a pro-Trump daily dump which always sounds like it from the news network on Starship troopers. "Greetings citizens"

I have a problem with how Kennedy is being reported in the news this week, it really shows how divisive everything is now. I don't know a whole lot about him, I presume he will he will be bad, as Trump wants him in, but as Manic posted earlier his writings from 1998 where when Clinton was in power, so you would think he would want to limit executive power if he was so far right, or was it a long play as he knew at sometime the GOP would be in office. Doesn't really make sense as it always tends to swap every 8 years. There are worse picks and if someone has to get in, they are just going to pick someone equally as bad so I don't see the point of making such a dance about him in particular.

Harika

Trump threatening to reduce the US defence budget if the NATO states don't up their game. Good luck with that, this will costs jobs jobs jobs biggy.

Also how the trade war affects the economy globally. German Article. But in short, in retaliation for the tariffs, car imports from the US to China have been hit with a 40% tariff and reduced the tariff from the rest of the world from 25 to 15%. At first that makes BMW cars for Chinese more expansive and BMW will apply it to their chinese customers as 90k of those cars are build in the US and exported.
To appease the Chinese, they will invest in China and increase their production by 120k there. Another action that will cost jobs jobs jobs in the US, as those cars won't be build in the US anymore.
Same with Soy, instead of importing the tariff burdened Soy from the US, India promised to jump in and replace most of it. The US farmers where growth of the plants is under way and cannot be stopped will be punished with far lower prices than expected. Again jobs jobs jobs lost

RIGOLO

Harika wrote: »

Trump threatening to reduce the US defence budget if the NATO states don't up their game. Good luck with that, this will costs jobs jobs jobs biggy.

Also how the trade war affects the economy globally. German Article. But in short, in retaliation for the tariffs, car imports from the US to China have been hit with a 40% tariff and reduced the tariff from the rest of the world from 25 to 15%. At first that makes BMW cars for Chinese more expansive and BMW will apply it to their chinese customers as 90k of those cars are build in the US and exported.
To appease the Chinese, they will invest in China and increase their production by 120k there. Another action that will cost jobs jobs jobs in the US, as those cars won't be build in the US anymore.
Same with Soy, instead of importing the tariff burdened Soy from the US, India promised to jump in and replace most of it. The US farmers where growth of the plants is under way and cannot be stopped will be punished with far lower prices than expected. Again jobs jobs jobs lost

He isnt threatening to reduce the US Defence budget, whats he is threatening is to reduce the amount the US contributes to NATO. 

Trump has actually increased the US Defence budget by more than 10% , giving the Pentagon 700 billion to spend, an increase of 94billion on last year. 
Most defence stocks aer riding high since Trump took office, riding the general increase in he stock market but also on a positive outlook for defnce spending , so yes .. jobs jobs jobs, lots of jobs in the defence sector and a promise of more if he gets his Space force off the ground.  (pun intended).

Harika

RIGOLO wrote: »

He isnt threatening to reduce the US Defence budget, whats he is threatening is to reduce the amount the US contributes to NATO. 

While it is true that the US pays the most to Nato with 22% overall, Germany pays 15% and France 10 but for the US that is 66 million dollar a year. Compare that to a defence budget of 582 Billion! Dollar, this is peanuts.
The Nato goal is that every country spends 2% of their GDP in defence, not in NATO fees or anything. This is only achieved by US; UK; Poland and some other small countries. Germany and France spend something like 1% on it and this is what Trump is pointing out. Nato is aware of it and there is the commitment from all countries to up this until 2022. So if Trump whines every month about it, it makes no sense.
Cutting those 582 billion will hurt jobs jobs jobs.

Quin_Dub

Harika wrote: »

While it is true that the US pays the most to Nato with 22% overall, Germany pays 15% and France 10 but for the US that is 66 million dollar a year. Compare that to a defence budget of 582 Billion! Dollar, this is peanuts.
The Nato goal is that every country spends 2% of their GDP in defence, not in NATO fees or anything. This is only achieved by US; UK; Poland and some other small countries. Germany and France spend something like 1% on it and this is what Trump is pointing out. Nato is aware of it and there is the commitment from all countries to up this until 2022. So if Trump whines every month about it, it makes no sense.
Cutting those 582 billion will hurt jobs jobs jobs.

I don't quite get the utter focus on the monetary value.. Surely a more relevant measure is Military readiness, equipment levels , headcount etc..?

Obviously those things cost money but if a country can meet it's physical requirements in terms of staffing and readiness levels then surely if they manage to do that by spending less money that's a good thing. I will confess to not knowing if Germany and the others are actually hitting those sort of real measurements at their current spending levels , but it's still a better measure in my view..

US Military spending is hardly a watch-word for fiscal prudence and efficiency..

Or is it less about Military readiness and more about big dollar contracts for the Northrups et al of this world???

Leroy42

Also, military spend is not the only gauge. Diplomatic spend can be a far better use of money. What about spending on refugees, Europe is spending billions each year on that, saving the US from having to deal with it.

Also, what exactly is Trump looking for increased spending for? NATO traditionally has been a bulwark against Soviet aggression. But Trump believes that Russia is now the friend of the US, which the EU being the enemy?

Rjd2

Manic Moran wrote: »

Yes, but of interest, he wrote that after his own experiences of investigating Bill Clinton, who was in office at the time. He is fine with the impeachment process for keeping Presidents in line, and the writing was not particularly far from the mainstream, despite he current focus on it in the current news cycle.

Definitely conservative, as if we expected otherwise, but his reasonings in his opinions at the circuit level have been using more moderate argument. Strong believer in precedent, which is riling up conservatives who want him to overrule Roe, and tends to be a believer of Wheaton’s Law.

https://twitter.com/cjscalia/status/1016470261053485056



Yep the idea he will protect Trump is a misguided, but its out there now and a lot of people who believe this have little interest in fact checking.

Roe v Wade is fine as if they wanted to over turn that then Barrett would have got the gig. That's why some conservatives will be a little underwhelmed.

I suspect some of the grifters in the resistance:pac: will be secretly annoyed as they would have wanted Barrett as a culture war is a great setting for them to make hay.

robinph

Harika wrote: »

While it is true that the US pays the most to Nato with 22% overall, Germany pays 15% and France 10 but for the US that is 66 million dollar a year. Compare that to a defence budget of 582 Billion! Dollar, this is peanuts.
The Nato goal is that every country spends 2% of their GDP in defence, not in NATO fees or anything. This is only achieved by US; UK; Poland and some other small countries. Germany and France spend something like 1% on it and this is what Trump is pointing out. Nato is aware of it and there is the commitment from all countries to up this until 2022. So if Trump whines every month about it, it makes no sense.
Cutting those 582 billion will hurt jobs jobs jobs.

Think that the money paid directly to NATO by the US would mean they are not paying their fair share. They are paying more than anyone else, but they also have a far greater GDP and if GDP is the measure of how much each country should be spending on their own defence, then would only be fair for it to be the measure of how much cash they hand over to NATO directly as well.

If Germany, France and UK are all paying 10% of the NATO budget and the USA GDP is five times greater then the USA should be paying more.

Captain Obvious

8 GOP senators travel to Russia to meet sanctioned individuals. They refuse to reveal most of the people they are meeting. They claim sanctions were not discussed. It also turns out that the presidents personal lawyer is also representing foreign persons including a political figure in the Ukrainian civil war and an Iranian terrorist.

There is absolutely no question in my mind if the Obama administration had engaged in anything like what Trump and the GOP have been up to there would be violent protest from the right. The hypocrisy is just astounding.

And on the topic of hypocrisy, Mitch McConnell, who has stated his proudest moment was telling Obama he wouldn't get to a Supreme Court nominee, has attacked democrats for being too partisan on judge selection.

everlast75

Captain Obvious wrote: »

8 GOP senators travel to Russia to meet sanctioned individuals. They refuse to reveal most of the people they are meeting. They claim sanctions were not discussed. It also turns out that the presidents personal lawyer is also representing foreign persons including a political figure in the Ukrainian civil war and an Iranian terrorist.

There is absolutely no question in my mind if the Obama administration had engaged in anything like what Trump and the GOP have been up to there would be violent protest from the right. The hypocrisy is just astounding.

No wonder Rigalo won't answer my questions on Putin.

Btw I'd be happy to hear from any DJT supporter

Harika

Quin_Dub wrote: »

I don't quite get the utter focus on the monetary value.. Surely a more relevant measure is Military readiness, equipment levels , headcount etc..?

Obviously those things cost money but if a country can meet it's physical requirements in terms of staffing and readiness levels then surely if they manage to do that by spending less money that's a good thing. I will confess to not knowing if Germany and the others are actually hitting those sort of real measurements at their current spending levels , but it's still a better measure in my view..

US Military spending is hardly a watch-word for fiscal prudence and efficiency..

Or is it less about Military readiness and more about big dollar contracts for the Northrups et al of this world???

TBH military readiness is also lacking with the EU countries as there is no real threat atm, that’s why the defence spending has gone down since the 80s. The eastern European countries are more aware of Russia so they tend to invest more. Anyway that is why PESCO is needed, even more if Putin’s lap dog kills NATO off. The NATO summit will be a disaster like the G7 summit and even more EU will need to grow up.
Trump is only fuelling the downfall of the US, as the affronts the decade long partners in the EU and Canada. When he says the trade deficit is bad, the global hegemony and the might to dictate the world policies are beneficial to the US.

There are several ways how everything pans out:
A: USA wins the trade war against China and EU. Unlikely but if that happens it will stay in the memory of the countries and at the first opportunity it will relapse
B: China and EU “win” and the US caves in. Unlikely but would mean the end of the US hegemony.
C: Economic pressure will force a stalemate and return to earlier status quo. Most likely but with Trump you don’t know how long it will take that the moderate advisors will convince him to do that or if the 2020 elections will be run on that

brickster69

https://twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1016627917915348993

Looks like Tusk has got involved on twitter. Never knew the EU was a member of NATO