I have a hunch, I am thinking that Trump has peaked and will slowly slide down the hill. Carson is likely to have his day for awhile at being allowed to say anything he wants without grief because, "He's a straight talking outsider, and this is how outsiders roll". If indeed it is Hillary, by the time she is chosen as the Dem candidate, I believe Republicans will sigh and acknowledge that while it was fun to revel in the annoyance that Trump and Carson caused to candidates like Jeb! and Rubio, they will have to accept the same mediocrity reality that Sanders fans will face. Trump will ultimately walk away from this like he does everything else and quite likely will wind up with a Fox show on Sunday nights that will be HUGE!
So far I have heard that Trump is going to build a wall along the Mexico Border and make the Mexicans pay for it. A wall along the Canadian border ( not sure who is to pay for that one) He is a Hawk as far as the middle east is concerned and will pump up the military. To go with this we have a vacuum in which thought bubbles form and then exit through his fundamental orifice whenever he changes position.
What is worrying is that I have read or heard nothing from the man other than bombast to deal with the political impasse in your country. How can bipartisanship be encouraged if the Thumper continues to denigrate all and sundry? Carson is not a man who deserves the insults evident in the reference supplied by Mick. Trump heaps more faecal material on his own party than he does on the opposition.
What grasp of Foreign Policy does Trump have? Will he take China seriously or will he try to demonstrate his leadership potential by emulating the last Pub president. Iraq is still a mess but the American people will not allow another fiasco there. Trump however will have little regard for the people and a pre-emptive strike against North Korea may well be something he could get away with.
What worries Australians is that we may have a deranged individual as the most powerful man in the world. Australia is signatory to many important pacts with the US, not least ANZUS.An American led conflagration in the Asian region is too horrible to contemplate.
I have been impressed by none of the potential candidates thus far. I would think however that any candidate who advocates bipartisanship and finds a prospective partner on the other side of the isle, must have a good chance of living in the big house.
Kingston, hopefully our system of checks and balances will temper any excesses coming from the executive branch. This will be particularly true if the Democrats win the Senate, with the Republicans retaining the House.
I am afraid that between the 17th amendment, judicial deference and congress constantly, subletting its power either to the executive or the FED.. we have no checks and balances of any effective measure.
The Scot. TS Many who read your post will accuse you of cynicism and scaremongering .You will be, as the Bible says, A prophet without honor in his own country. We all know about executive power, the President as Commander in Chief and all the rest of the checks and balances. The 17th is the ridgepole of the tent upon which your nation can go to war. Since the Korean conflict, it has become apparent, at least to foreigners, that America has become a hawkish nation. Commercial or political considerations are excuses for waging war and the need to test new weapons in battlefield conditions has been a constant requirement for the most powerful military machine on earth. Conditions are now changing. Russia is becoming a significant ( but not yet great)power again and China will soon be able to flex her muscles and the world will shake. It is good to read that some still rely on the old checks and balances, to me it signifies that so many of the citizens are honest decent people. That the power to override decency is available to the indecent is a frightening thought. I hope there are enough”Micks” in your nation.I hope also that readers will give your post above the consideration it deserves.
Well, when people profess belief in the rule of law and say nothing about indefinite detention, 'free speech zones' or warrantless search along with the many, many questionable things done in the name of our constitutional republic, I would expect nothing less...
Actually, I think quite a few have brought up indefinite detention and warrantless searches, but if it means we can't kick ass and take names, people don't want that impaired
“Actually, I think quite a few have brought up indefinite detention and warrantless searches”
What a limp wristed response. Then change the damn constitution! You don't like the ring fence put around the bill of rights... start a movement and get rid of them. Hamilton said that they were superfluous because the federal government had no right to legislate on any of those things anyway. Others said that if you put those few rights on a pedestal, it would diminish the many that were not listed... by me, thank God for the 10 ‘cause who could hope to name the others! And yet here we are arguing about the expediency of our government arbitrarily violating the law we sent them to Washington to uphold.
It is said here time and time again that people have lost the art of compromise. Actually a growing number of people are starting to wake up to the fact that the Federal government continually oversteps their bounds.... Don’t like the bounds.... change them but don’t get in a kerfuffle when people refuse to ‘compromise’ on a law that is against the law..
People such as yourself act as if the constitution ratified in 1789 was teleported, untouched and unseen from that time and dropped into the lap of ‘modern society’ today. The fact is that it has always been part of America... it’s just that people only want to acknowledge it when it suits their purpose and work tirelessly to circumvent it when it does not... and for better or worse our actions in both under the constitution and working to circumvent it that has lead to the modern society in which we live.
If you cannot operate within the confines of the law... you have no law. If populous whim can ignore the black letter of the law and instead circumvent it’s proper amendment or repeal process for ‘expediency’ then we deserve a president like Donald Trump because he is a reflection of populous reaction to the operation of our federal government... the populous anger is growing, not diminishing. The unfortunate thing is that when people get angry and scared they generally give away even more power to the government.
People are waking up to the fact that the federal government is not only chiseling away at the bill of rights which couldn’t be much clearer but has, certainly since Lincoln and most certainly since FDR far exceeded its proper role in the republic.
"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.... Giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please." -- Thomas Jefferson
“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” - James Madison, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention [June 16, 1788]
We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute." - Thomas Paine
THE UNION - Who Are Its Real Friends Not those who study, by arbitrary interpretations and insidious precedents, to pervert the limited government of the Union, into a government of unlimited discretion, contrary to the will and subversive of the authority of the people. – Thomas Jefferson
Don’t like it.... Change the damn constitution. Want compromise... quite putting forward legislation that is in direct contravention of the established law because at the end of the day, you can’t compromise on the degree by which you should be allowed to violate the law.
I think you are barking up the wrong tree here TS. At the least, it's that typical, "You damn people on the left". Take a look at why a guy like Rand Paul can't get any traction. The media, a favorite whipping boy of many, is not the reason Paul is not doing well amongst the right, it's because a substantial portion of the right, many of whom claim to have to open channel to both God and the founding fathers, have the same view of those on the left, which is that most anything is justifiable in the defense of your beliefs. Kinda like that Malcolm X fella.
It's gotta be tough to be in your spot, in the land of constitutionally blind America, you are the guy with one eye. Those of us here on the left and basically anyone left of center seem like your favorite target to unload on, and that's fair enough, but if you really thought it through, you might see the inadequacy of that line of thinking. Correctly, from time to time, you explain how the right is no better, but conveniently, you avoid ever exploring what drives them off the rails. As you wrote on separate thread, or basically every thread, liberalism is the fountainhead of all that is evil. As are school, government, unions, gay people, and so on. It makes sense that someone like me who supports those things is fucked up in head, and would support laws that steal freedom. But when about when it comes from those who are very far right who believe we should stomp into every country in the middle east and make them adhere to our will? The Democrats were complete spineless pussy's on the patriot act, but where did that bill come from? More importantly, where did the emotion come from that drove that? You also said on another thread that T baggers got lost in the weeds of God, Guns and Gays, what caused that?
There is an untidy aspect of being human TS that you seem to go any length to avoid ever discussing, and that aspect is that humans are not entirely rational beings who squash every powerful emotion by rational thought. It's not a matter that one side of center is as guilty as the other.
Busy again but I just wanted to respond particularly to your last para. I don't discount peoples faults. For the most part people are pretty well self governing but we erected laws which punish those that harm others. These laws need not be particularly invasive or voluminous but they absolutely need to be enforced with regularity and without favor... That is one problem... They aren't. Crimes you and I would be hog tied and tossed into a pit for would see someone else off scott free or with a cost of doing business fine. Obama told the banks that he was the only thing between them and the pitchforks... America doesn't even remember where it left its pitchfork much less have the energy to get off their ass and demand justice.
The other problem is the big government types that seem to think that all of those bad traits do not apply to the people we send to Washington. The constitution was (note I said was) the front line defense for the American people to keep government in check. Seems some people think that the rules that bind congress shouldn't apply and that we shouldn't hold the people we elect to a very high standard. I'm not talking about little personal indiscretion... I'm talking about theft and fraud and lying under oath... If they will lie in the face of perjury... they will lie for any purpose and if they are a thief you don't know what they are capable of doing. Character matters and making them live to the law matters more.
I don't think I have one eye as you say... We erect laws for a reason.... they are constantly flaunted by Washington. Currently, short of some kind of revolt, congress, the president and the judiciary are really accountable only to the people who pay them cause voting patterns suggest that they are safe with the vast majority of voters.
I will follow up with a thing about why I 'pick' on the left as much as I do.. I think that at least part of the answer will surprise you....
There is no desire to unite America from either party.
The Dems chose a divisive candidate to run as do the Repub's. You cannot unite a country with a divisive president. The last 7 years is a perfect example.
There will be no bipartisanship in America King. not this time. We are too divided. This is my take on the repubs. Trump is bombastic and little else. When he doesn't win a primary we will see what his staying power is. I think two losses and he will go away. if nothing else we can be sure of about Trump: he doesn't like to lose. In Carly Fiorina the third place candidate at this time we have a fact checkers dream. Fiorina will just say anything, facts be damned. Huh a liar but suddenly being loose with the truth seems to be a positive quality. Ben Carson; soft spoken, calm, no drama, inexperienced: to many that is exactly what we have in the white house now but with doctor Ben all of Obama's qualities are now acceptable. It's actually hilarious on these shores to be living through this fiasco. The hypocrisy is thick in the air.
I just saw an ad here today from Ben Carson wherein he said Washington is broken and he needs to go there to, and I quote, "To drain the swamp". Not sure that's a uniting message.
Carson said said the theory of evolution of the species and the Big Bang theory, which the Standard Model of cosmology is based on are false and he gives a bunch of reasons which are really stupid, demonstrating his ignorance of basic science. He blames both on Satan so I suggest he visit the man himself and check it out in person.
I have a hunch, I am thinking that Trump has peaked and will slowly slide down the hill. Carson is likely to have his day for awhile at being allowed to say anything he wants without grief because, "He's a straight talking outsider, and this is how outsiders roll". If indeed it is Hillary, by the time she is chosen as the Dem candidate, I believe Republicans will sigh and acknowledge that while it was fun to revel in the annoyance that Trump and Carson caused to candidates like Jeb! and Rubio, they will have to accept the same mediocrity reality that Sanders fans will face. Trump will ultimately walk away from this like he does everything else and quite likely will wind up with a Fox show on Sunday nights that will be HUGE!
ReplyDeleteYOOGE!!!
ReplyDeleteAh, mistress of Funk weighs in!
DeleteSo far I have heard that Trump is going to build a wall along the Mexico Border and make the Mexicans pay for it. A wall along the Canadian border ( not sure who is to pay for that one) He is a Hawk as far as the middle east is concerned and will pump up the military. To go with this we have a vacuum in which thought bubbles form and then exit through his fundamental orifice whenever he changes position.
ReplyDeleteWhat is worrying is that I have read or heard nothing from the man other than bombast to deal with the political impasse in your country. How can bipartisanship be encouraged if the Thumper continues to denigrate all and sundry? Carson is not a man who deserves the insults evident in the reference supplied by Mick. Trump heaps more faecal material on his own party than he does on the opposition.
What grasp of Foreign Policy does Trump have? Will he take China seriously or will he try to demonstrate his leadership potential by emulating the last Pub president. Iraq is still a mess but the American people will not allow another fiasco there. Trump however will have little regard for the people and a pre-emptive strike against North Korea may well be something he could get away with.
What worries Australians is that we may have a deranged individual as the most powerful man in the world. Australia is signatory to many important pacts with the US, not least ANZUS.An American led conflagration in the Asian region is too horrible to contemplate.
I have been impressed by none of the potential candidates thus far. I would think however that any candidate who advocates bipartisanship and finds a prospective partner on the other side of the isle, must have a good chance of living in the big house.
Cheers from Aussie.
Kingston, hopefully our system of checks and balances will temper any excesses coming from the executive branch. This will be particularly true if the Democrats win the Senate, with the Republicans retaining the House.
DeleteI am afraid that between the 17th amendment, judicial deference and congress constantly, subletting its power either to the executive or the FED.. we have no checks and balances of any effective measure.
DeleteThe Scot.
DeleteTS Many who read your post will accuse you of cynicism and scaremongering .You will be, as the Bible says, A prophet without honor in his own country. We all know about executive power, the President as Commander in Chief and all the rest of the checks and balances. The 17th is the ridgepole of the tent upon which your nation can go to war. Since the Korean conflict, it has become apparent, at least to foreigners, that America has become a hawkish nation. Commercial or political considerations are excuses for waging war and the need to test new weapons in battlefield conditions has been a constant requirement for the most powerful military machine on earth. Conditions are now changing. Russia is becoming a significant ( but not yet great)power again and China will soon be able to flex her muscles and the world will shake. It is good to read that some still rely on the old checks and balances, to me it signifies that so many of the citizens are honest decent people. That the power to override decency is available to the indecent is a frightening thought. I hope there are enough”Micks” in your nation.I hope also that readers will give your post above the consideration it deserves.
Cheers from Aussie
Well, when people profess belief in the rule of law and say nothing about indefinite detention, 'free speech zones' or warrantless search along with the many, many questionable things done in the name of our constitutional republic, I would expect nothing less...
DeleteActually, I think quite a few have brought up indefinite detention and warrantless searches, but if it means we can't kick ass and take names, people don't want that impaired
Delete“Actually, I think quite a few have brought up indefinite detention and warrantless searches”
DeleteWhat a limp wristed response. Then change the damn constitution! You don't like the ring fence put around the bill of rights... start a movement and get rid of them. Hamilton said that they were superfluous because the federal government had no right to legislate on any of those things anyway. Others said that if you put those few rights on a pedestal, it would diminish the many that were not listed... by me, thank God for the 10 ‘cause who could hope to name the others! And yet here we are arguing about the expediency of our government arbitrarily violating the law we sent them to Washington to uphold.
It is said here time and time again that people have lost the art of compromise. Actually a growing number of people are starting to wake up to the fact that the Federal government continually oversteps their bounds.... Don’t like the bounds.... change them but don’t get in a kerfuffle when people refuse to ‘compromise’ on a law that is against the law..
People such as yourself act as if the constitution ratified in 1789 was teleported, untouched and unseen from that time and dropped into the lap of ‘modern society’ today. The fact is that it has always been part of America... it’s just that people only want to acknowledge it when it suits their purpose and work tirelessly to circumvent it when it does not... and for better or worse our actions in both under the constitution and working to circumvent it that has lead to the modern society in which we live.
If you cannot operate within the confines of the law... you have no law. If populous whim can ignore the black letter of the law and instead circumvent it’s proper amendment or repeal process for ‘expediency’ then we deserve a president like Donald Trump because he is a reflection of populous reaction to the operation of our federal government... the populous anger is growing, not diminishing. The unfortunate thing is that when people get angry and scared they generally give away even more power to the government.
People are waking up to the fact that the federal government is not only chiseling away at the bill of rights which couldn’t be much clearer but has, certainly since Lincoln and most certainly since FDR far exceeded its proper role in the republic.
"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.... Giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please." -- Thomas Jefferson
“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” - James Madison, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention [June 16, 1788]
We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute." - Thomas Paine
THE UNION - Who Are Its Real Friends
Not those who study, by arbitrary interpretations and insidious precedents, to pervert the limited government of the Union, into a government of unlimited discretion, contrary to the will and subversive of the authority of the people. – Thomas Jefferson
Don’t like it.... Change the damn constitution. Want compromise... quite putting forward legislation that is in direct contravention of the established law because at the end of the day, you can’t compromise on the degree by which you should be allowed to violate the law.
I think you are barking up the wrong tree here TS. At the least, it's that typical, "You damn people on the left". Take a look at why a guy like Rand Paul can't get any traction. The media, a favorite whipping boy of many, is not the reason Paul is not doing well amongst the right, it's because a substantial portion of the right, many of whom claim to have to open channel to both God and the founding fathers, have the same view of those on the left, which is that most anything is justifiable in the defense of your beliefs. Kinda like that Malcolm X fella.
DeleteIt's gotta be tough to be in your spot, in the land of constitutionally blind America, you are the guy with one eye. Those of us here on the left and basically anyone left of center seem like your favorite target to unload on, and that's fair enough, but if you really thought it through, you might see the inadequacy of that line of thinking. Correctly, from time to time, you explain how the right is no better, but conveniently, you avoid ever exploring what drives them off the rails. As you wrote on separate thread, or basically every thread, liberalism is the fountainhead of all that is evil. As are school, government, unions, gay people, and so on. It makes sense that someone like me who supports those things is fucked up in head, and would support laws that steal freedom. But when about when it comes from those who are very far right who believe we should stomp into every country in the middle east and make them adhere to our will? The Democrats were complete spineless pussy's on the patriot act, but where did that bill come from? More importantly, where did the emotion come from that drove that? You also said on another thread that T baggers got lost in the weeds of God, Guns and Gays, what caused that?
There is an untidy aspect of being human TS that you seem to go any length to avoid ever discussing, and that aspect is that humans are not entirely rational beings who squash every powerful emotion by rational thought. It's not a matter that one side of center is as guilty as the other.
Busy again but I just wanted to respond particularly to your last para. I don't discount peoples faults. For the most part people are pretty well self governing but we erected laws which punish those that harm others. These laws need not be particularly invasive or voluminous but they absolutely need to be enforced with regularity and without favor... That is one problem... They aren't. Crimes you and I would be hog tied and tossed into a pit for would see someone else off scott free or with a cost of doing business fine. Obama told the banks that he was the only thing between them and the pitchforks... America doesn't even remember where it left its pitchfork much less have the energy to get off their ass and demand justice.
DeleteThe other problem is the big government types that seem to think that all of those bad traits do not apply to the people we send to Washington. The constitution was (note I said was) the front line defense for the American people to keep government in check. Seems some people think that the rules that bind congress shouldn't apply and that we shouldn't hold the people we elect to a very high standard. I'm not talking about little personal indiscretion... I'm talking about theft and fraud and lying under oath... If they will lie in the face of perjury... they will lie for any purpose and if they are a thief you don't know what they are capable of doing. Character matters and making them live to the law matters more.
I don't think I have one eye as you say... We erect laws for a reason.... they are constantly flaunted by Washington. Currently, short of some kind of revolt, congress, the president and the judiciary are really accountable only to the people who pay them cause voting patterns suggest that they are safe with the vast majority of voters.
I will follow up with a thing about why I 'pick' on the left as much as I do.. I think that at least part of the answer will surprise you....
There is no desire to unite America from either party.
DeleteThe Dems chose a divisive candidate to run as do the Repub's. You cannot unite a country with a divisive president. The last 7 years is a perfect example.
There will be no bipartisanship in America King. not this time. We are too divided. This is my take on the repubs. Trump is bombastic and little else. When he doesn't win a primary we will see what his staying power is. I think two losses and he will go away. if nothing else we can be sure of about Trump: he doesn't like to lose. In Carly Fiorina the third place candidate at this time we have a fact checkers dream. Fiorina will just say anything, facts be damned. Huh a liar but suddenly being loose with the truth seems to be a positive quality. Ben Carson; soft spoken, calm, no drama, inexperienced: to many that is exactly what we have in the white house now but with doctor Ben all of Obama's qualities are now acceptable. It's actually hilarious on these shores to be living through this fiasco. The hypocrisy is thick in the air.
ReplyDeleteI just saw an ad here today from Ben Carson wherein he said Washington is broken and he needs to go there to, and I quote, "To drain the swamp". Not sure that's a uniting message.
DeleteCarson said said the theory of evolution of the species and the Big Bang theory, which the Standard Model of cosmology is based on are false and he gives a bunch of reasons which are really stupid, demonstrating his ignorance of basic science. He blames both on Satan so I suggest he visit the man himself and check it out in person.
DeleteI would ask the good poorfessor to prove the Big Bang "theory."
DeleteLet's hear your proof prof.
A scientific theory can't be proven. It can only be disproven. Learned that from the Doc.
DeleteGravity's a scientific theory. Does Carson believe that it's little devine mangnets that keep the moon in orbit & hold us to the Earth?
OK moombeam, let me rephrase.
DeleteWhere did the energy come from that enabled the theoretical "big bang?"
Did that evolve also? And from what?
Tic tic tic, crickets
Delete