America’s Game of Russian Roulette: Clinton vs. Trump or Revolution vs. War

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I remember in 2008 I told my wife that that presidential election was the most important in a generation. I told her in 2012 that that election was the most important in my lifetime. Both of those statements were completely true. In putting Barack Obama in the White House, for the first time Americans elected a race bating closet Muslim socialist / fascist as the leader of the free world. That is of course unfortunate in many ways for many people around the world. Not only has the American economy been stuck in the worst recession in 65 years, race relations are the worst they’ve been in 50 years, our borders are practically nonexistent, freedom and the Constitution are under constant attack and the image of the United States as a leader on the world stages is in tatters.

Now it’s possible that the election of 2016 is even more important, but sadly there is no relative superhero like John McCain or Mittens Romney on the ticket. I was against both of those squishy centrist candidates from the start and would have much preferred to have an actual conservative on the ticket… but alas it was not to happen.

It was with great expectations that I looked forward to the 2016 campaign as finally an opportunity for a true conservative to emerge from the mosh pit and lead the nation to a victory over the cancer of today’s Democrat party. Unfortunately however that did not happen. Between the GOP establishment’s incompetence and fear of a real conservative, as well as the media’s love of ratings – and that includes the so called “conservative” media – today we have Donald Trump as the standard bearer for the party of Ronald Reagan.

And so it is that Americans, with a population of over 230 million people have put themselves in a situation where the only two people with a realistic chance of becoming the leader of the free world are a lying big government socialist and an uninformed narcissistic thin skinned crony capitalist with no love for freedom. This is essentially the opposite of winning the lottery. Americans have somehow managed to put themselves in a game of Russian Roulette where all of the chambers have rounds in them!

While the elections of 2008 and 2012 set the nation on the road to ruin in terms of economic stagnation, stultifying regulation, the undermining of the Constitution and eviscerating America’s position as leader of the free world, the election of 2016 will have even more devastating effects.

The election of Hillary Clinton will result in the continuation of the policies of Barack Obama, only on steroids. We will get a Supreme Court that will look to the UN charter rather than the US Constitution. We will get continued and increasing regulation which suffocates prosperity and entrepreneurship but which helps big business. We will get increases in taxes, skyrocketing government spending and more race bating. And perhaps most of all, we will surrender our borders and will transform our nation into a refuge from which immigrants can escape the third world only to then work to turn our country into a mirror reflection of said third world.

The election of Donald Trump will give us a crapshoot of broken promises, protectionism, and isolation. At the same time the 1st Amendment may go by way of the dodo bird while regulation will likely grow for the benefit of big businesses and at the expense of entrepreneurs. More ominously, a Donald Trump presidency will create great divisions between the United States and our NATO allies and others who have helped maintain a relative peace for much of the last half century. As the increasingly bellicose Chinese and Russians seek to expand their spheres of influence, the world will watch a President Trump seek to pull back the American footprint. Osama Bin Laden once said “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse”. In this case the strong horses will be China and Russia, and that does not bode well for freedom or peace for anyone.

So at the end of the day, Americans have a choice to make, and neither is a good one.

The first option will put Hillary Clinton in the White House, and that will lead to a fracturing of the nation, along lines of race, along lines of income, along geographic lines and fundamentally about an understanding of the Constitution and freedom. And that fracturing could very well lead to revolution. And not a theoretical revolution played out in newsrooms and college campuses and on the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. No, this may indeed turn out to be a real revolution where people revolt against the tyranny of an economically and culturally oppressive government and a dearth of opportunity of any kind. It won’t show itself by a fife and drum corps marching down Main Street. No, it will be in the shadows as more police are targeted, more citizens take matters into their own hands and order starts to come apart while an increasingly militarized police force seeks to keep things in check. This revolution will look a lot more like the one that started in France in 1789 than the one that started in the colonies in 1776.

The second option will put Donald Trump in the White House and that will lead to a calcifying of the American economy, estrangement between the US and erstwhile allies, and at some point, war. And this war will not be a guerilla war fought against jihadis seeking to bring about the caliphate. No, this war will be against Russia or China. As Trump and his little hands pull back from the world stage, the Russians and Chinese will seek to expand their empires, taking Ukraine and Taiwan respectively. In both cases Trump will likely acquiesce, which will only lead to further expansion such as with the Baltics in the case of Russia and any one of half a dozen other countries or islands in the case of China. At some point the threat will become sufficiently ominous and American allies so vocal that the United States will have to engage. And unlike Korea or Vietnam or Afghanistan in the 1980s, this will not be a proxy war limited to some theater most Americans couldn’t find on a map if their lives depended on it. No, this will be a real, hot war with sophisticated enemies throwing billions of dollars of weapons at one another. One can only hope that such a conflict stays conventional…

So as we stumble towards the 2016 election Americans should be aware… they have left themselves with not only no good options, but only terrible options, both of which will likely lead to much bloodshed, chaos and possibly the end of the Republic. Good job Rush, Matt Drudge and the GOP establishment. When your country needed you, you decided to whore yourselves out to a populist megalomaniac. The citizens of dystopia in America’s future will no doubt be quite grateful to you.

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First, 339 Million people in America.
Next,

[t]he election of Donald Trump….. regulation will likely grow for the benefit of big businesses and at the expense of entrepreneurs.

Weird that people continue to tout this talking point.
Donald Trump has been interviewed many times and given many speeches including a variation of this:
“We’re going to be getting rid of a tremendous amount of regulations,” Trump said in an interview with CNBC.

@Nanny G:
I am tired of our side looking at Trump through the lens of the lsm.

The authors problem is that he is Doctrinaire, but cant list the actual doctrine…

Between the GOP establishment’s incompetence and fear of a real conservative

what is a REAL conservative? isnt that the way the left labels people? he isnt REAL presidential material? she isnt a REAL woman? he isnt a REAL conservative, and of course the author is a REAL conservative, and all conservatives have the same laundry list, which they dont…

unlike the dems and the left there was no comiterm moment where the advised all the factions to team up under one front unbrella.

an uninformed narcissistic thin skinned crony capitalist with no love for freedom

really? who made the case for those things? the same press you bitch about not teling the truth, siding with socialism communism, and who has been caught lying over and over and over again?

narcisistic? Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes.

egotistic: Egotism is the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself, and generally features an inflated opinion of one’s personal features and importance. It often includes intellectual, physical, social and other overestimations

arrogant: having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities

you realize your talking about a self made billionaire… how much are you worth? half a billion? how about 200 million? how about 100 million? are you worth 10 million?

the terms arrogant, narcisistic, and egotistic are CONDITIONAL…

to be arrogant the person making the claim has to not accept your succeses as counting. how convenient. so in order to say trump is arrogant, you have to lay claim that he is making a larger claim than a successful billionaire should be allowed to claim, and you have to disqualify his actuall succeses in life (And you do this by holding him to a standard you cant even get near!!!!!!!!!!)

as to egotistic, well, at what point can a person claim to be a self made success and not have some loser who has a lot less, achieved a lot less, done a lot less, not claim that your an egotist?

its one thing to claim X and not make it, its another thing to claim X and surpase it.

There are 1,645 on the billionares list out of 7,400,000,000 people
.0000022% of the population of all humankind…

how many more zeros does he have to add in order to get the respect that he achieved something without someone who isnt part of that club, or the next one down, or the next one down, or even the next one down, says he hasnt?

lets say he has $4.5 billion fortune…

that means that htis one man has self achieved more than any of the whole countries of Liberia (GDP 3.7 billion), cabo verde, gambia, belize, antigua, st lucia, greneda, st kitts, the solomon islands, tonga, micronesia, tuvalue, and on and on

just liberia alone shows he is more productive than 4.2 million people… but yet, he is an egotist… arrogant… etc… and we are supposed to listen to that from someone who isnt even larger than the smallest country in the world in assets. (vatican city, monaco comes second)

you lose everyone from that point on..

its like some homeless person teling me im arrogant/egotist/narcisist because i have an apartment… or a job that is six figs…

what is he supposed to do, pretend he does not have 560 companies in dozens of countries, and assets in excess of 4 billion? what would he talk about if that was his whole life effort?

by the way, the way you talk above your basically making claim to know what woudl happen, if this was so, you could be a billionaire too… and i hope your investing all you own behind your own surity and no room for error future telling!!!!!

why bitch, either one wins and your so sure, your future is nothing but gold and huge money dreams… or are you like those fortune tellers who say they cant earn money from their own predictions cause some great force in space and time prevents this????

Some of my Christian friends tell me they can’t in good conscience vote for Donald Trump because, when faced with a choice between “the lesser of two evils,” the morally right thing is to choose neither one. They recommend voting for a third-party or write-in candidate.

As a professor who has taught Christian ethics for 39 years, I think their analysis is incorrect. Now that Trump has won the GOP nomination, I think voting for Trump is a morally good choice.

-=-=-=-=-

I think some of the accusations hurled against him are unjustified. His many years of business conduct show that he is not racist or anti-(legal) immigrant or anti-Semitic or misogynistic – I think these are unjust magnifications by a hostile press exaggerating some careless statements he has made. I think he is deeply patriotic and sincerely wants the best for the country. He has been an unusually successful problem solver in business. He has raised remarkable children. Many who have known him personally speak highly of his kindness, thoughtfulness, and generosity. But the main reason I call him “a good candidate with flaws” is that I think most of the policies he supports are those that will do the most good for the nation.

http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564

want to know what teddy roosvelts kids said of their father?
he wants to be the bride at every wedding and the deceased at every funeral
[so teddy was even MORE of an egotist, and was a lot less successful and accomplished, but GREAT at making large things out of small acheivements]

Fallibilism: the principle that propositions concerning empirical knowledge can be accepted even though they cannot be proved with certainty

which leads to:
Infallibility: Advocates of reason and rationality claim that one can gain certainty of knowledge, through a process of extreme refinement measures unlikely to be perfected enough for someone to assurably say “certainty of this knowledge is absolute”, yet also assume by chance that one could land on the objective without the knowledge being confidently described as “universally certain”, thus as a result, advocates tend to avoid this altogether and instead rely upon Occam’s Razor as a suitable means for obtaining knowledge.

all these infallible people who tell us scare stories… after 50 years of scare stories that make the science channel scarier than world wars in the idea of bad things with high death totals, we are quite innured to scare stories as a way to beleive the infallible Fallibilists and their fabulism…

Folly consists in drawing of false conclusions from just principles, by which it is distinguished from madness, which draws its just conclusions from false principles. John Locke

As so often happens in philosophy, clever people accept a false general principle on a priori grounds and then devote endless labour and ingenuity to explaining away plain facts which obviously conflict with it.
C. D. Broad

Oh good grief. The US economy has recovered better than any other nation from the Great Recession. Total taxes per GDP are the lowest since WWII. Total violent crime is the lowest in 25 years. Race relations are just fine and what problems there are arise from cell phone videos, which is a new technology that will eventually make things better, rather than worse.

The business community supports liberal social policies, as do the nation’s younger voters.

Not one honest law abiding citizen has lost his gun.

God still answers prayers and helps people in 12 step programs.

Debt load is finally again manageable with the improvement in the economy.

And Madam President will do a darn good job.

@Larry Weisenthal:

The US economy has recovered better than any other nation from the Great Recession.

Unemployment is over 10%, once you remove the 9 million person “correction” the administration put in without any corroborating data. I am currently unemployed, for example, and know for a fact that I am not counted as unemployed, even though I continue to send out resumes on a daily basis. Wall Street might be doing well – but consider why. Easy money – The Fed has been pouring on the funds in a way normally reserved for times of crisis, and has been doing so for the past 8 years. All the economic tools for recovery have been going full blast for all this time, and economic growth has only been about 15% over the past 8 years. By comparison, economic growth was over 38% from 1982-1990. and over 42% from 1991 to 2001 (although the latter featured the dot-com boom, which was something of a one-off), and those were without all the stimulus we’ve had recently.

Basically, it’s like being in a car with your foot flat on the gas, but the engine is still just lugging. God help us when we get to a hill (another slowdown, which is due soon).

Total taxes per GDP are the lowest since WWII.

Where do you get this? Taxes per GDP are the highest since 2007 (they were even higher in 2006-7)

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/source-revenue-share-gdp

Total violent crime is the lowest in 25 years

With a very marked uptick over the past couple of years – not sure it’s a longlasting trend yet, but it’s no cause for celebration.

Race relations are just fine and what problems there are arise from cell phone videos, which is a new technology that will eventually make things better, rather than worse.

Just fine? Where have you been lately? I tend to agree with you about your latter point about cell phone cameras etc, but Fergeson just erected a monument to Michael Brown, who got shot after robbing a store and trying to steal a cop’s gun. BLM refuses to even consider talking about the true reason for black deaths. The Democratic Party has committed itself to feeding the BLM narrative that no introspection or taking of some responsibility is needed – just blame “racism”.

The business community supports liberal social policies

Sure, when Foodstamps, SNAP etc are basically a direct subsidy for them (at least businesses that pay minimum wage levels). Support for these policies is not so great among companies that pay all their employees well.

as do the nation’s younger voters.

You mean the same idiots who got a professor fired at Yale because he felt that the whole point of a university is to learn, rather than “establishing a home” for students?

Debt load is finally again manageable with the improvement in the economy.

Take out a calculator and tell me what the debt payments will be if interest rates go up just 2% (they went up 20% in the 70s). Tell me again that it is “manageable”.

No, this may indeed turn out to be a real revolution where people revolt against the tyranny of an economically and culturally oppressive government and a dearth of opportunity of any kind.

There is no tyranny in the United States. There are only delusional people who have lived their lives in such a free and open society that they have no real understanding of what tyranny means. Freedom does not mean that you always get your way, can do whatever the hell you want, and get to impose your own views on others. It does not mean that you have no societal responsibilities and obligations, some of which you may not like. It doesn’t mean that rights are guaranteed without constraining conditions. There’s always a balance. There are always compromises, because any person’s unrestrained exercise of absolute freedom invariably results in someone else’s being diminished.

“Idiots with guns, determined to have their way” is not a definition of the word patriots. Talk of armed revolution in the most free nation on earth is the talk of lunatics. It would be a direct attack on liberty and constitutional principles, threatening to erase it all. The fact that we don’t do things that way is why this is America, and not the Middle East, eastern Ukraine, or any number of other internally warring regions.

Hi Dread, I won’t argue the squishy stuff (the state of race relations, etc.); we’ve each offered our own perspectives.

Let’s just stay with the objective numbers, if that’s OK with you.

With regard to taxes per GDP, I was doing this from memory. I was correct with respect to the Federal Income tax part of it and also the inheritance (“death”) tax. These are the lowest since WWII:

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history

State and local and what not as well as Social Security and Medicare are not the “fault” of the administration.

And, even including these, our tax burden is very low, compared to the rest of the developed world:

http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2013/04/the_us_continues_to_be_one_of_the_least_taxed_of_the_developed_countries.php#.V5-yQY5us3M

Budget deficit to GDP — which was a raging monster as Obama took office — is now down to pre-recession levels.

http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/federal_deficit_percent_gdp

Employment was also a raging monster — losing 750,000 jobs a month. By any measure you choose there have been enormous improvements:

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/03/charts-whats-the-real-unemployment-rate.html

I know and you know that the real challenge is automation and globalization. Businesses shed tons of jobs during the recession. They found that they could get by without replacing the losses as the economy recovered. This is a global challenge. We are headed for a time where there won’t be full time work for everyone who is willing and able — out into the future.

Finland is experimenting with a guaranteed income for everyone — kind of like over age 70 Social Security here in the USA — where you get your pension and can supplement it with all the money you are able to make from outside income. This is pretty radical, but at some time in the future, something like this will probably have to get done.

No force on earth can stop globalization. It’s foolish to resist. If Trump ties can be made better and cheaper in Bangladesh, that’s where they’ll get made — and I don’t blame Trump one bit for doing it that way. As a nation, we need to figure out what we are really good at and have our economy based on what we can do better than everyone else.

By the way, I don’t agree with a lot of my Democratic friends, who think that the best health care systems are the cheapest. Health care jobs are good jobs — relatively recession proof. So what if we spend 16% of GDP on health care, while the Euros spend only 10% or whatever. You can drive from Denver to Chicago in a Fiat or in an Escalade. Same thing with health care. The Swiss and Dutch have the best systems — both are quite similar to ObamaCare, which was a brilliant Heritage Foundation idea.

P.S. Thanks for the thoughtful and politely respectful tone of your rejoinder.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach

@Artfldgr: You forgot the part where those who “accept a false general principle on a priori grounds” accept that principle because they tend to profit from it.

@Dreadnought: You forgot what happens if students default on the $1.2 trillion college loans .

Back to Vince’s article:

The consequences of a Trump victory are accurately expressed BECAUSE a Trump victory would place the Presidency, the House of Representatives AND the Senate all in the hands of the one party, and the power-corrupting mischief that George Will dreads would erupt from within the wicked walls of Washington.
This horrible scenario would be AVOIDED in the case of a Clinton victory, as while a Hillary win MIGHT shift the Senate’s balance of power toward the Democratic side of the isle, the House WILL remain in Republican hands. Thus no Triple-Crown-winning party and no free-fall into the depths of partisan legislative depravity.

Hillary CAN’T do the mischief that Vince expects one way or the other, because our government can’t budge without consensus, and Hillary can’t turn the House on a blue dime.

That pretty much settles which candidate should be elected in November – the one who can do the least harm. And that would be Clinton.

@George Wells:
Sorry, but the damage the hildebeast WILL do is far worse than you seem to be able to imagine. Obozo studied under alinsky’s disciples and the hildebeast studied directly under him.

@George Wells: a Trump victory would place the Presidency, the House of Representatives AND the Senate all in the hands of the one party, and the power-corrupting mischief that George Will dreads would erupt from within the wicked walls of Washington.

Have you not been paying attention, George?
Republicans are divided like CRAZY!
The GOPe wing of the party spent millions trying to defeat TEA Party Republicans.
The GOPe wing of the party also is quite divided against Trump/Pence.
So-called ”true” conservatives (some in elected offices) oppose Trump for not being an ideologue.
There are many blue-dog Democrats voting pro-Trump who probably will not vote straight R ticket.
So, the battling will continue even if Trump is elected.

@ Nanny G:

If what you claim ends up true, then there isn’t anything to worry about either way. But I won’t place my faith on the GOP remaining fractured in order to avoid a disaster. I am CERTAIN that the GOP will never mend the rift between the House Republicans and ANY Democratic president, that much is written in stone. So there isn’t any reason to gamble on whether or not the GOP can REMAIN in a civil war with itself.

@George Wells:

That pretty much settles which candidate should be elected in November – the one who can do the least harm. And that would be Clinton.

NO! The Supreme Court is down to 3 conservatives. We CANNOT allow HRC to nominate Scalia’s successor.

@Dreadnought:

The Supreme Court is down to 3 conservatives.

Thomas and Alito make two. Who’s the third?

@Dreadnaught:

YES.

I’d much prefer to keep a president in check with an opposing party’s control of congress than to give the crooks of EITHER party the run of the place. Democratic presidents have placed SCOTUS justices who turned out conservative, and Republican presidents have put liberal justices on the same bench. That issue isn’t cut and dry. I’ll take Clinton over a time bomb any time, no matter WHO she nominates. Remember that the Senate has to confirm him (or her.)
Trump’s insane, or haven’t you noticed YET???
I’m giving you a pre-emptive “I TOLD YOU SO” right now.
You can go down with his ship if you like, but you can’t say you weren’t warned.

@another vet:

Thomas and Alito make two. Who’s the third?

Roberts. Kennedy is the wild card.

@George Wells:

Democratic presidents have placed SCOTUS justices who turned out conservative, and Republican presidents have put liberal justices on the same bench.

Name one democratic-appointed justice who turned out conservative. I cannot find one, and I looked all the way back to the Truman administration. Democrats, especially since LBJ, put in reliable progressives.

You are right about Republican-nominated judges. Kennedy is an example. Maybe Republicans simply try to find good judges more than simple ideologues…

As for Trump being “insane”, it sounds to me like you have been brainwashed. Define what makes him insane.

@Another Vet:

I’m a gay vet, AV.

Had Scalia had his way, vets like me would still be getting drummed out of the military.

Had Scalia had his way, vets like me would still be subject to imprisonment for who we are and what we do in states like Texas.

Had Scalia had his way, vets like me would still be denied marriage rights to the people we love.

In case you are following my reasoning, Scalia was no friend of gay vets like me, and neither Alito, Thomas nor Roberts have ever lifted a finger to lighten the oppression of gay citizens, so forgive me if it seems like I DON’T want any more of the same.

I will gladly embrace the Republican Party when it – once and for all – lightens up on its war against gays. Considering how much the RNC has recently pushed back the clock on progress for gays’ civil rights, I don’t anticipate any changes in my voting record in the near future.
So don’t hold your breath…

@Dreadnought:

Roberts. Kennedy is the wild card.

Not sure about Roberts. He changes with the wind. He seems to vote one for this side, one for that side that way he can be “fair” instead of basing his vote on the Constitution which is what the standard is supposed to be. His Obamacare vote proved that.

Here’s a homework assignment for Vince.
Fact-check this.
Actions do speak louder than words.

@George Wells:

Had Scalia had his way, vets like me would still be getting drummed out of the military.

Had Scalia had his way, vets like me would still be subject to imprisonment for who we are and what we do in states like Texas.

Had Scalia had his way, vets like me would still be denied marriage rights to the people we love.

You don’t seem to understand the function of a court. The court is not the place to decide what is right or wrong, what is allowable and what isn’t. The court is there to apply the law, assuming that the law passes constitutional muster. Even if the law is stupid or simply lacking.

Now if Congress passes a law that bans discrimination against gays, I”m certain that Scalia would not have ruled against it – because there would not be any grounds to nullify the law in the Constitution – and would have applied it.

The court is not supposed to make up law just because Congress is lazy and won’t do it themselves. nearly a half century has passed since Roe v Wade, and it is still an issue in every election because legislators refuse to sit down and come up with a legal compromise that everyone can live with – for example no restrictions 1st term, some restrictions 2nd term, a lot of restrictions 3rd term. Each side sacrifices something, a law is passed, and the court applies it.

@Larry Weisenthal:
your still living under a rock. Intel is crap. This country has had the worse growth since WWII. right, you live in hunting ton beach-you and the idiot brown, your good friends? does jerry still answer the door in his underwear?

@ Dreadnought #24:

The problem I have with your comments is that they take the same perspective that Scalia took to bully the PRESENT by arguing that what the founding fathers SAID 250 years ago TRUMPS what we understand to be true today. Scalia’s brand of constitutional originalism left absolutely no way to ADJUST save for the terribly difficult process of producing amendments to the Constitution. I’m perfectly fine with not changing the Constitution every time something new comes along, but that leaves you with no way to deal with those new things if your legislature is paralyzed and your courts can’t FIND wiggle room in their evolving interpretation of the Constitution, which is exactly what they DID do with the same-sex marriage issue.

“Now if Congress passes a law that bans discrimination against gays, I”m certain that Scalia would not have ruled against it.”

I’m not sure what your logic is in stating this. Texas had passed a law against “sodomy” that they used to persecute homosexuals with, never mind that heterosexuals perform plenty of sodomy too. Scalia argued that not only was Texas within its states’ rights to write such a law, but that the law was justifiable ON PRINCIPLE. The same argument that he used to justify Texas’ discriminating against gays THAT HE ACCEPTED would also apply to any attempt to challenge a law banning discrimination against gays crafter by the federal legislature. Given the chance, he’s have argued that such an ANTI-discrimination statute would fly in the face of traditional reason and, as is amply demonstrated by the fierce opposition to gay marriage and the firestorm of “religious freedom” laws being crafted to counter it, he would have OPPOSED it FOR THAT REASON. Do you honestly think that Scalia would side with a legislature that wrote an anti-discrimination law that DIDN’T carve out a religious loophole big enough to accommodate every citizen in the land? LOL!

And congress passing that law? That’s a null case. Not in MY lifetime. So your certainty of Scalia’s response is equally null. About as useful as speculating on what Christopher Columbus would tweet. We HAVE got Scalia’s judicial record, and we find in it that he DID wiggle on some issues to FIND new rights not expressly articulated in the Constitution, such as he did in the Citizens United decision. That was just as big a bend as the one Kennedy fashioned for the Obergefell case. Kennedy tends conservative, but he has his progressive moments. Roberts tends conservative, but likes the role of the occasional foil if he FEELS that the court is trending too far one way or the other. Pity that the other justices are rarely so complex.

“The court is not the place to decide what is right or wrong, what is allowable and what isn’t. The court is there to apply the law, assuming that the law passes constitutional muster.”

That’s an assumption you cannot make. And it IS up to the courts to make that call. The Texas sodomy laws were found to be UNCONSTITUTIONAL a decade after they were found to be constitutional, and the anti-same-sex-marriage laws were found to be UNCONSTITUTIONAL a decade after they were found to be constitutional. “Stare Decisis” carries weight only if nothing changes, and in the REAL world, change is more the rule than the exception.

“Even if the law is stupid or simply lacking.”

Well, not really. The SCOTUS is all the time sending laws back to legislatures with the admonishment that said law is too vague (lacking). And when the SCOTUS out-right invalidates a law, it’s because the law did something that was unconstitutional, and the crafters of THAT flawed law were either STUPID (i.e., ignorant) or produced INTENTIONALLY unconstitutional “law” out of spite. We’ve had plenty of the latter here in the Republican-dominated Virginia legislature. When these STUPID laws get dragged before the SCOTUS, they are patiently dissected, and the dissembled parts get carefully discredited individually, but you can usually read between the majority opinion’s carefully emotionless lines to sense that the court found the losing side’s arguments to be distinctly STUPID.

@Dreadnought #20:

“As for Trump being “insane”, it sounds to me like you have been brainwashed. Define what makes him insane.”

REALLY?
Are you LISTENING to this guy?
OK, let’s back up.
Trump is an imbedded Democrat, YOUR worst nightmare.
He’s infiltrated YOUR party, and he’s not ONLY in the process of intentionally self-destructing his OWN “campaign,” he’s ALSO doing everything he can to take the GOP down WITH HIM!
He never wanted to be president. Although that’s self-evident to a majority of Americans today, I’m guessing that you won’t even believe it when Trump himself explains it in his next BOOK! When you read it, try and remember that…
I TOLD YOU SO!
Trump isn’t REALLY insane.
He’s just sounding more and more insane as each day passes, because the SLIGHTLY insane things he started saying after he’d gotten the intended boost to his brand by jumping into the Republican primaries more or less as an inside joke didn’t work. He keeps turning up the crazy dial, figuring that at some point, Republicans will bale like rats off a sinking ship, and that’ll give the election to Hillary. Why do you suppose that he isn’t throwing his own money into his race? He COULD. But he doesn’t want the job, so he isn’t TRYING to win.

Really funny how many people can’t see this blindingly obvious fact.
But don’t take my word for it. Read it in Trump’s next book. It’ll be out well before the end of Hillary’s first term.

@George Wells:

The problem I have with your comments is that they take the same perspective that Scalia took to bully the PRESENT by arguing that what the founding fathers SAID 250 years ago TRUMPS what we understand to be true today. Scalia’s brand of constitutional originalism left absolutely no way to ADJUST save for the terribly difficult process of producing amendments to the Constitution.

That’s not an excuse. Just change the law. You don’t necessarily need an amendment. A law would suffice in most cases – everywhere in fact where the Constitution does not specifically contradict it – and as far as I can remember, the Constitution said nothing about sexuality.

I’m not sure what your logic is in stating this. Texas had passed a law against “sodomy” that they used to persecute homosexuals with, never mind that heterosexuals perform plenty of sodomy too. Scalia argued that not only was Texas within its states’ rights to write such a law, but that the law was justifiable ON PRINCIPLE.

And he was right – the state had the power to do it, and the voters apparently wanted that law. Sorry you disagree with it, but that is the way democracy works. However if the Federal Congress passed an act that banned discrimination against gays, that would trump state law.

There is a process in place. Use it.

We HAVE got Scalia’s judicial record, and we find in it that he DID wiggle on some issues to FIND new rights not expressly articulated in the Constitution, such as he did in the Citizens United decision.

He did not “find a new right”, he simply saw no Constitutional basis to eliminate a natural right. Any corporation is a voluntary collection of people bound into a legal entity under law. Under that law, corporations can be sued, acquire other companies or be acquired, have the power to enter into contractual relations etc. They clearly have rights. They also have the right to free speech – which usually involves them saying “buy my product”. But what law is there that says that they are not allowed to exercise free speech in other matters?

Remember, according to the 9th amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In other words, anything that is not expressly prohibited is implicitly allowed to the people. The Courts, to remain true to the Constitution, must always err in favor of the people when such vagaries of law are concerned.

Related to what we talked about earlier, I don’t think an amendment would be needed. A Congressional Act saying that Corporations, Unions, PACs and other associations may not have political activity. If you are going to ban one, you would have to ban the other two as well.

And by the way, if we do pass that law, that would mean that any editorial by a newspaper or TV program might find itself in trouble. Any time an item appears that seems to favor one side of the argument over the other, and the lawsuits start flying. Is that what you want?

Well, not really. The SCOTUS is all the time sending laws back to legislatures with the admonishment that said law is too vague (lacking).

And I would like to put teeth in that relationship. Let’s say that the SC demands that Congress address an issue within a certain amount of time, say 5 years. If such a deadline passes without resolution, everyone sitting in congress at the time that deadline was issued is no longer eligible for re-election. That’ll get their attention.

@George Wells:

Trump isn’t REALLY insane.

Glad you admit that.

Here is a question for you. After the FBI delivered its verdict a few weeks ago, which showed 100% conclusively that Clinton lied to the public with all her email excuses, HRC goes on Fox News Sunday and adamantly repeats all the lies the FBI disproved, and then even goes so far as to say that the FBI agrees with her.

So is she insane?

@Dreadnought #28:

“So is she insane?”

No. She’s a politician. (Trump isn’t.)
Politicians operate under some time-tested “rules of engagement” that include:
1. NEVER admit making a mistake. It’s a sign of weakness, and such signs are deadly.
2. NEVER apologize. Apologizing is a sign of weakness, and such signs are deadly.
3. Any lie you get caught saying must be repeated as often as it takes to brainwash the public into believing it. (Thus the House Republicans’ 50 some votes to vanquish Obama-Care.)
(And similar crap that flies in the face of what your Momma taught you way back when.)

“I’m not sure what your logic is in stating this. Texas had passed a law against “sodomy” that they used to persecute homosexuals with, never mind that heterosexuals perform plenty of sodomy too. Scalia argued that not only was Texas within its states’ rights to write such a law, but that the law was justifiable ON PRINCIPLE.”

“And he was right – the state had the power to do it, and the voters apparently wanted that law. Sorry you disagree with it, but that is the way democracy works. However if the Federal Congress passed an act that banned discrimination against gays, that would trump state law.”

Well, first off, ours ISN’T a “DEMOCRACY.” (I KNOW that you understand this, so I won’t bother to RE-educate you on this point.

Yes, Texas had the power to write a discriminatory law, or at least to USE an intrusive law selectively to persecute gays. And YES, Texans, being the bigots they collectively are (not all of them, mind you) generally supported that law. However, the SCOTUS exercised ITS appropriate function by reviewing that law for constitutionality, and IT found the law UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

“There is a process in place. Use it.”

There IS, and we DID.

“the Constitution said nothing about sexuality.”

Correctomundo. And in the absence of any constitutional proscriptions, people would be free to marry their mailbox or their favorite pair of dark glasses save for local and state laws enacted to eradicate abominations. Only, those state laws have to not infringe upon constitutionally guaranteed rights, and as both the Citizens United and the Obergefell cases proved, exactly what the Constitution guarantees is subject to an Ark-full (that’s a REALLY BIG boat-full) of interpretation. If the language was perfectly precise (it isn’t) and if our laws were perfectly written (they aren’t), then we wouldn’t need the courts to sift through them constantly in a never-ending effort to make sense of – and to settle conflicts fairly.

“In other words, anything that is not expressly prohibited is implicitly allowed to the people. The Courts, to remain true to the Constitution, must always err in favor of the people when such vagaries of law are concerned.”

Again, with the proviso that whatever laws that the people choose to enact must not infringe upon rights otherwise guaranteed by said Constitution. Note that the 14th Amendment’s guarantees are rather broad. The notion of “Equality” is about as general as they come. And guaranteeing “equality” was the goose that laid the golden egg for the legal profession. (Would you expect anything less from a bunch of lawyers setting this whole thing up?) The potential for conflict – conflicting “rights” – is infinite, and THAT is the bread-and-butter of the courts.

THAT, my friend, is the “process that is in place,” and THAT, my friend, is how minorities find relief from the tyranny of the majority that would otherwise manifest. Gay people DO use the courts exactly for this reason, AS WAS INTENDED (or so Jefferson would have you believe.) “Just changing the law” isn’t always an option to an unpopular minority, and please note that American gays waited many generations, hoping that the majority would find room in their hearts to NOT persecute them, to allow them some of the things that make heterosexual life bearable… like marriage. Note that for decades, gays asked for “civil unions” without ever getting any support for them from ANYONE. The Christian Church, having already vilified homosexuality in the scriptures (“BAD homos” (Corinthians blah-blah-blah)), was not about to grant gays ANY quarter, and conservatives held to the same line of objection. It was only after the public began to shift, to “evolve” on gay rights, to SUPPORT gay marriage, did conservatives finally start asking “How about civil unions? What’s wrong with them?” By then, it was too late, and the rest is history. History, like the end of slavery, like the end of segregation, would not have happened in our lifetimes had it not been for an Ark-full of violence to get folks’ attention and a court system that was capable of fairly adjudicating (not legislating) the issue.

Then we have Trump. I still don’t know why. How bad does the collective judgment of a political party have to be, to nominate someone like Trump. It’s equivalent to suicide bombing – you make the point that you’re angry but you blow yourself up in the process. That end-game has an exceedingly short shelf-life, does it not? And for conservatives (I’m not sure that conservatives actually nominated Trump…), this nightmare is just beginning. Clinton will win in November IF is she is still alive (Trump is making sure of that victory) and she will get to load up the Supreme Court up with liberal justices who will outlive most of us. (They get better healthcare.) THAT’S the best argument for voting for Trump, but not enough Yahoo’s out there look far enough ahead to worry about that. If they DID, they’d have nominated someone better than Trump.

RANSOM: Obama Paid $400 Million in Cash at the Same Time US Hostages Were Released

The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Obama forgot to mention the transfer of $400 million.

“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.


White House Caught Secretly Airlifting $1.7 Billion US Taxpayer Cash To Tehran To Ensure Iran Nuclear Accord Success

What Donald Trump has proclaimed the worst deal ever made, may just have become worst-er. The shocking truth behind the US-Iran nuclear deal, as WSJ reports, is that John Kerry and the Obama Administration airlifted $1.7bn of cash in ‘compromise’ payments (read – bribe) to Tehran to ensure the release of 4 captured sailors coincidentally the same weekend as the signing of the nuclear deal.

NEW JUDICIAL WATCH MEMOS REVEAL OBAMA LIES ABOUT BENGHAZI

Thanks to Judicial Watch obtaining new memos, Fox News is now reporting that the Obama administration knew that Benghazi was being used as a hub for the transfer of lethal weapons to Syria back in 2012. Former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell suggested to Bret Baier that the CIA wasn’t doing the transferring, but was watching someone else do it.

According to another memo dated September 16, 2012, just FIVE DAYS after the attack on the ‘consulate’ in Benghazi, the Obama administration via the DNI concluded that the terrorist attack had been planned at least 10 days before the attack occurred and that it wasn’t a coincidence that it happened on the anniversary of 9/11. If you recall, the Obama administration was lying about it, saying it was a demonstration against a film about the Prophet Muhammad that got out of control. They were saying this on the very same day this DNI memo went out to different agencies including the National Security Council and the State Department.

They not only concluded that it was planned ten days in advance, they also wrote why the attack was planned in this same Sept. 16 memo:

Meanwhile…

Obama Threatens to De-Fund Military Unless Terrorists are RELEASED!

On Monday, the Obama administration announced that President Obama would veto a defense authorization bill if it did not close down Guantanamo Bay. White House press secretary Josh Earnest explained that the House funding bill would be vetoed “principally because…of the irresponsible way that it funds our national defense priorities, but also because of the efforts to prevent the closure [of] the prison at Guantanamo Bay.” He added that Democrats would sustain Obama’s veto, and defense authorization would die.

@George Wells:

No. She’s a politician. (Trump isn’t.)
Politicians operate under some time-tested “rules of engagement” that include:
1. NEVER admit making a mistake. It’s a sign of weakness, and such signs are deadly.
2. NEVER apologize. Apologizing is a sign of weakness, and such signs are deadly.
3. Any lie you get caught saying must be repeated as often as it takes to brainwash the public into believing it. (Thus the House Republicans’ 50 some votes to vanquish Obama-Care.)

It really sounds like you are holding Trump to a higher standard than Clinton. So in the end, you would prefer the professional criminal rather than a normal person who made a mistake.

@Dreadnought #31

Your Post #28 was well-crafted and entertaining, and I appreciate the effort you put into making it so.
Not so #31.
Your pedestrian use of the “criminal” label is too partisan to bother addressing.
Trump is no “normal” person, and you know better than to call him such.
I’d be happy to continue a lively discussion, if that’s what you want, or we can cut to the quick and simply predict how this grand mess will resolve in November, and let’s see who’s right.
Ball’s in your court.

Vince, your post reminds me of this infamous saying, “Other than that, Mr. President, how was the play!?” : ))

Vince, I have a lot of respect for you, period. Having said that (people always say ‘having said that’ to preface their disagreement, lol), I think and believe Trump is espousing a newer understanding recently– perhaps, since he’s been briefed on national security issues and is more aware of the stakes at hand. I also heard him yesterday say (and yes, I know it’s possibly just rhetoric, but that’s all we have right now) speaking about lowering corporate taxes (spoke on that quite a bit, actually), and also spoke about eliminating LOTS of small business killing regulations as well as supporting other conservative policies. As a former Cruz supporter, this is a lot for me to be defending or advocating Trump, but Hillary is out of the question and… Trump may just surprise all of us.

‘The Real Donald Trump Story’:

Trump platform erasing 50 years of antisemitism progress, and 30 years of antidiscrimination progress, but why?

The culture wars continue, and nothing resolved!

Back to the future wasn’t necessary to revitalize the American economy, & restore uncorruptible government.