monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

@ehBeth,

From your USA Today link...

Quote:

Former South Carolina senator Jim DeMint, ousted last month as head of the Heritage Foundation think tank, is joining a fast-growing, conservative movement that is pushing states to seek a constitutional convention to rein in federal spending and power.

DeMint, a prominent figure among the Tea Party activists who helped Republicans seize control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, will serve as a senior adviser to the Convention of the States Project, providing a jolt to its efforts to marshal grassroots support for a state-led movement to amend the U.S. Constitution.

Let's bear in mind that DeMint is as dependable a reflection of what the Koch crowd wants as anyone. And in case anyone is wondering, DeMint made more than half a million each year he headed up Heritage.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Now who in hell wouldn't be optimistic about this?

Quote:
Trump Team Begins Drafting Middle East Peace Plan

Perhaps Mr. Trump will relieve pressure on Israel to not complete the Security Fence around the greater Jerusalem area and a few other sensitive areas. If Israel completes the Security Fence, they can declare it as an official border and forcibly annex all land on their side of the Fence.

Then Israel can concentrate on maintaining military control over Areas B and C east of the Security Fence, leaving the Palestinians Area A alone to form their "state" out of.

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@blatham,

This is the entire text of Article V of the Constituion:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

They'll need to pull a rabbit out of their collective hat. The two-thirds provision is a pretty tough hurdle to get over--but the three-quarters bar for ratification is what would sink them if they even got that far.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Quote:

Often, one’s hatred of an opposing tribe—what political scientists call “negative partisanship”—is enough to overcome any doubts about one’s own.

This is clearly what's going on. I notice it even in myself, for example, when I see a photo of some political person and mistake his/her political allegiance and immediately form a negative or positive opinion of them, then, finding the truth, will re-evaluate my first impression. It's embarrassingly non-objective.

But this tendency is most evident, I think, in political/ideological extremists. Because such people tend to hold and forward their ideas/values regarding behavior with a strident certainty (it's very authoritarian, usually) and because they commonly claim to be motivated by profoundly righteous principle, when they then turn and discard the principle for tribal convenience, it's very evident.

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@wmwcjr,

Quote:

Liberal Republicans?! It is to laugh. lol

How extreme this party has become in my lifetime is clearly demonstrated by Eisenhower's letter to his brother Edgar.

Quote:

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Snopes

Try to imagine a Republican politician who would say such a thing now. Try to imagine him getting anywhere in his party.

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@hightor,

Quote:

If I recall, Murdoch had his dirty hands in this. It might have been his debut.

You recall correctly.

Quote:

Rupert Murdoch ordered editors to 'kill Whitlam', according to US envoy

Guardian

No single individual over the last 50 years has degraded political discourse in Australia, Britain and the US as this guy. He is a truly evil man.

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@Lash,

Quote:

Reminiscent of the way democrats try to shield Bill Clinton from accountability for his rapes and sexual assaults.

Hopefully, he’ll be brought to account for it during the current purge.

Lash, the "Sanders supporter", finds another opportunity to troll the site with right wing talking points (and failing, again, to speak about Republican guilt, RNC guilt) Such a surprise.

A ps in here... for those who wish to understand the duration and dimensions of the right wing attempts to bring down Bill Clinton, Jeff Toobin's "A Vast Conspiracy" is the best account of this story that I've read. And it is very important history to know. Lash is carrying on this project today.

But there is a valid point, Lash's trolling notwithstanding. Of course, there's a difference between a 32 year old male messing with a 14 year old and two mature adults messing around, but we do need to give initial credence to women's reports. We can't discount them out of emotional convenience.

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@Setanta,

Yes. Iran was the first example that came to my mind (well, second, after Chile).

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

Trump said he is "with our agencies" in the intelligence community regarding the question of whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

Yeah, I saw that. It's not very difficult at all to distinguish when Trump is talking and when his staff are pretending to be him talking.

It has only been a year (though doesn't it seem far, far longer?) and as bad as things are now, they could get much worse. It's correct to say that this guy is "unfit" but that word doesn't really carry an adequate sense of how dangerous and destructive to America and the world he is.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

Sorry, my bad. I should have done so. But I was rescuing puppies from a burning barn and then there was a meteor that hit our house just as the river was flooding into our prayer room.

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@blatham,

Quote:

It's correct to say that this guy is "unfit" but that word doesn't really carry an adequate sense of how dangerous and destructive to America and the world he is.

Yeah, it's a shame that for the Republicans, the urgency about that threat does not overcome the concern they have about keeping their jobs.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Yes, that's my take on it too. But because it is such a very bad idea given the nature of the GOP presently and given their success at gaining power at the state level, we'll probably be keeping an eye on this one.

2 Replies

@snood,

Quote:

Yeah, it's a shame that for the Republicans, the urgency about that threat does not overcome the concern they have about keeping their jobs.

Yes. That is perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of what's going on now. This party now is so corrupted that find it in their interests to behave as they are.

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@blatham,

Even if they get two-thirds of the states to demand an amending convention, it only takes 13 states to block ratification by simply not ratifying.

1 Reply

Quote:

A few months after Harvey, Houston’s long recovery quietly heads inside

WP headline

This really frightens me. New Orleans is still suffering. New Jersey is still suffering. God knows when the disasters across the Caribbean will be remedied. Probably sooner rather than later, Florida is going to really get it bad.

As climate change increases along with rising sea levels, the consequences in the US and around the world will, inevitably I think, push us toward a deeply destabilizing future. This isn't an original or unique set of worries, they are what the Pentagon has suggested will happen.

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@Setanta,

And that does seem insurmountable. But permit me to reserve a small spot in my paranoid cortex for this possibility.

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Psychopaths are not fond of the country song "Wayward Wind" or "My Sharona or "Money For Nothing"

Which, I guess, makes me 2/3 psychopath. My mother will be soooo angry.

1 Reply

Quote:

ProPublica‏Verified account
@ProPublica
Republican tax bill will give a multi-level, multi-generational bonanza to Trump administration's mega-wealthy appointees.

And there are a lot of them.

Story here

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Roy Moore
"I am completely, totally, 100% innocent of these accusations, for the most part"

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Just one more example (did we need one?) of Donald Trump's honest populism and deep affinity for the common people

Quote:

On foreign trips, Obama tried to use his charisma to promote American “soft power” to persuade foreign nations to move closer to the United States through means other than military might or trade. Obama conducted town-hall-style events with young people and delivered speeches at universities.

Trump, by contrast, has refrained from mingling with the general public. Over the past week, he has golfed with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, spoken to troops at military bases and joined Xi on a private tour of the Forbidden City in Beijing, where he and first lady Melania Trump were treated to Peking opera performances of scenes from “The Monkey King” and “The Drunken Beauty.”

WP

0 Replies

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