Discussion > President Trump
One thing liberals can hope for in the Supreme Court appointment is that history repeats itself. There have been several previous cases where an appointee chosen for their rightist views and previous judgments has, upon appointment to the Supreme Court, voted much more liberally. This change has been attributed to the successful nominee being appointed for life and being beholden to no-one. They can vote according to their conscience. They can be, perhaps for the first time in their lives, apolitical in their judgements and not to enhance their chances for a more senior position.
If Cav' is elected tomorrow, I wish him well and hope he realizes his independence as soon as possible.
Supertroll
Oct 5, 2018 at 2:45 PM | Supertroll
As and when the US Political Wind blows from a different direction, a series of unfortunate precedents has now been set, that may come back to haunt Trump's opponents.
How do you explain to kids in nursery school that bad behaviour may be raked up in evidence against them throughout their remaining lives?
golf charlie
gc raking (imaginary even..... ) stuff up seems a rather poor sustitute for actual constructive criticism - as ST says - the enduring tenure of a SCOTUS judge has resulted in unexpected outcomes in the past.
I've seen a few of the "interviews" with the rent a mob and deranged fwits who are purportedly protesting in the US senate building on random TVs around a London hotel this weekend - ostensibly mostly from purportedly "supporting networks" - the interviewees I saw were plainly bonkers - and people's reaction looks almost wholly negative once the idjits speak ....
It will be interesting to see how much more of a hole Mz. Ford gets to dig for herself and if really annoyed US voters will reward this episode of unalloyed pisstaking
tomo
rehearsals....
https://twitter.com/w_terrence/status/1048398813097078786
A Craigslist concert party?
tomo
ABC7 News:
Ms. Blasey-Ford Legal Team: No Further Plans To Pursue Allegations Against Brett Kavanaugh…
https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/abc-news-tweet-meme-christine-ford.jpg
clipe
tomo & Supertroll
Kavanaugh has been appointed, and I hope he will use his position responsibly.
US Politics has just got significantly dirtier, and Trump is now more powerful than he was before. The US Electorate now gets to be Judge and Jury in the Mid Term Elections, which is what Democrats had been looking forward to, all year to make Thanksgiving 2018 special.
How are US Opinion Polls judging it?
golf charlie
GC, IMO, it is a measure of the dirtiness of US politics that the opinion polls are seemingly less reliable than previously. It's an excellent essay question as to what the reasons may be, but I think it is a reflection on much, but not all, of the media.
Of course media bias on either side is nothing new, but I subscribe to the idea that the MSM is increasingly seen for what it is by the-man-on-the-street, as partisan element of the political system it often purports to be merely reporting on. Including the BBC, of course.Traditional media is losing the power it once had, yet is itself becoming more political and lashing out against the alternative information sources we now have access to. One interpretation is that voters notice this, conciously or no, and are more likely to mistrust pollsters and not give helpful answers. Or maybe the advent of the newer sources of information/news just results in people changing their thoughts/voting intentions more rapidly, thus leading to increased volatility in poll results. I dunno, but it's interesting stuff.
michael hart
Oct 7, 2018 at 1:38 AM | michael hart
Thank you, I share your scepticism!
Traditionally (and very roughly) in the UK, 15% would always vote orange, 25% red, and 25% blue, so two thirds were never going to change their voting intentions, and election results depended on one third of the electorate being "floating voters" but only within the "marginal" constituencies.
I wonder whether the under 30s are more likely to be floating voters, and influenced by subtle, and not so subtle campaigning on social media. The substantial expenditure on social media by wealthy individuals and groups does not necessarily show up as political party expenditure. Restrictions on expenditure do not apply in the US, and the professional rent-a-mob activists have been out in force (and getting arrested) over Kavanaugh.
Blair targeted Mondeo Man. Trump has targeted the people who want to work.
golf charlie
Perhaps if the media made more effort to do reportage and informed commentary rather than trying to sell a particular partisan viewpoint they might start clawing back some credibility and audience.
If the legacy media continue trying to sell partisan tat dressed up in threadbare and contrived sales pitches it's all too easy for challengers to simply pick on inconsistencies and dishonesty which dilute or negate the MSM's narratives.
The whole anti Trump thing seems to have picked up more energy by dint of the fact that there is actually no clear opposition yet - so effectively did Obamah / Clinton do down any challenges to their position - that's hardly DJT's fault - but is is a bit of a problem when all you've got is a pressure cooker full of TDS and you keep turning up the gas.
tomo
Now that they're all transported and trained and rehearsed and everything - the show must go on.
I hope that the people behind this get exposed sooner rather than later.
tomo
tomo, sounds like incitement under UK Law.
The reason for panic?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/06/claim-judge-kavanaughs-adherence-to-rule-of-law-will-impede-climate-action/
"What Brett Kavanaugh on Supreme Court Could Mean for Climate Regulations"
"Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee has a history of opposing regulations Congress didn’t explicitly authorize. That could be a problem for greenhouse gas policies."
BY MARIANNE LAVELLE
OCT 6, 2018
"In his dozen years on the federal appeals court that hears the most disputes over government regulatory power, Judge Brett Kavanaugh compiled an extensive record of skepticism toward the government’s powers to act on climate change.
In particular, while Kavanaugh has repeatedly voiced the belief that global warming is a serious problem, he challenged the argument that Congress has given the Environmental Protection Agency authority to do something about it."
golf charlie
gc
some things are pretty clear - the Democrats are at the present moment quite leaderless but still have traction via sympathetic players / activists inside the federal bureaucracy and an almost wholly client/puppet MSM
One wonders if there is any actual strategy beyond the petty obstructionism of the Schumer, Feinstein, Pelosi and Booker et al crew who are not I suspect endearing themselves to swing voters. Perhaps more importantly they and their Federal chums are "resisting" via disruptive and dishonest antics - but not actually offering credible, easily understandable alternatives - activism is being pursued for its own sake.
"Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee has a history of opposing regulations Congress didn’t explicitly authorize. That could be a problem for greenhouse gas policies."
Administrative dictatorship, for your own good etc., etc. is a strategy that the eco-zealots, environmentalists and yes "progressives" have been exploiting over a couple of decades - if that starts getting rolled up - well, in the immortal words of Battery Sergeant Major Williams "Oh Dear, How Sad, Never Mind".
tomo
It would be nice if the Supreme Court was in a position to reverse the dangerous insanity of the CO2 endangerment finding, but I don't yet see how that could happen.
As I understand it, they are not in the position of being able to simply rock up at court and say "What previous decision shall we reverse to day?" without reason unless something is brought before them with due cause and process. Nor do I think Trump could just phone them up and say "I'd like you to think about this one again, please." At least, that is what I have read elsewhere. Not having any real legal knowledge, I don't really know how it would be done. Perhaps someone in authority could point out that their previous decision was based on being supplied with fake evidence from the EPA. However, I've not yet heard of any specific attempts to address that particular tapestry of lies. Only a more general approach to stop the EPA using it's own secret evidence again in the future.
The same thing goes for Roe vs Wade, or so I have heard. It's not something they can simply wash away just because they might want to. I have no particular interest in the US abortion debate but I've also heard that some of the Conservative judges are not particularly keen to revisit it either. It mostly seems to be more scare-mongering again from the "literally Hitler" brigade.
michael hart
Antifa demonstrators demonstrating - about lack of wages
tomo
"I don't really know how it would be done. Perhaps someone in authority could point out that their previous decision was based on being supplied with fake evidence from the EPA. However, I've not yet heard of any specific attempts to address that particular tapestry of lies. Only a more general approach to stop the EPA using it's own secret evidence again in the future.
Oct 8, 2018 at 6:49 AM | michael hart"
There was no point in attempting to rectify anything Legally or Politically, whilst SCOTUS would have returned the same Verdict.
golf charlie
gc , michael hart
It might just be that Kavanagh gets to deal with the matter of the EPA actually poisoning Colorado rivers literally hours before "discovering" 2 year old docs where VW faked their emissions testing - I'm guessing that the complainants will take the EPA's claim of "sovereign immunity" all the way to the SCOTUS. That would be entertaining.
tomo
The BBC is now considering the possibility that the Democrats have not done very well out of their bad publicity campaign aimed at Trump
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45766820
tomo, Kavanaugh knows where the EPA has been keeping its skeletons locked away, and he therefore knows the identities of Lawyers and EPA Operatives involved. Some redundancies and targeted budget cuts may follow.
A few high profile Law Cases involving bad publicity for former EPA officials over the next few years would not need to get to SCOTUS.
golf charlie
gc
"partisan hack" is the first thing that comes into what's left of my mind wrt the BBC's Zurcher.
I don't care for his choice of language - Alistair Cook he ain't and his customary bias runs through the piece like "Blackpool" through a stick of seaside rock. He'd have to be quite incredibly dense to miss the spike in sentiment driven by the toxic farce of the SCOTUS selection - what he won't acknowledge is the #walkaway and "democrat to deplorable" movements in the voter base - the Democrats have poisoned their own brand in the eyes of quite a lot of US voters I reckon - and if they do not pull those voters back - the mid terms will see them lose seats....
When it comes to the EPA - what we are looking at is an out of control bureaucracy with activist (or just plain corrupt) officials leveraging the legal system to pleasure themselves in the knowledge that an ordinary Joe or even a medium sized company will have to have extraordinarily deep pockets and some considerable determination to effectively challenge administrative whim - just like the UK's Environment Agency in fact.
A few officials have been removed but the organisational culture is still intact.
tomo
tomo, it started with Pruit
Then Myron Ebell
Then this:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/06/who-is-andrew-wheeler-epa-environment-trump-weapon.
The offensive era of EPA officials is over. This does NOT mean all legislation is flushed immediately, but its sustainability is looking fragile if challenged.
golf charlie
Looks like while Melania's touring Africa, Donald's been Twittering
The paid D.C. protesters are now ready to REALLY protest because they haven’t gotten their checks - in other words, they weren’t paid! Screamers in Congress, and outside, were far too obvious - less professional than anticipated by those paying (or not paying) the bills!
top trolling
tomo
Hillary Clinton rejects calls for civility in an interview with @CNN:
"You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for"
= a bit of a headscratcher given Hils' succession of positions on a broad range of topics.
sore looser hardly does her justice - if she repeats this sort of stuff and ratchets up the ante on the upcoming tour with 'him indoors' complete with bussed in Soros funded demonstrators things could get quite rough.
What an evil old bat.
tomo
I'm just catching up after being away for a few days.
Was that post a few days ago from the real Alan Dershowitz? If so, how did he find us and why did he post here? If he is the real Alan Dershowitz, then I would suggest he should be made most welcome, and I am grateful for his thoughtful and non-partisan contribution.
Mark Hodgson
Mark Hodgson, I seriously doubt that the real Alan Dershowitz would take the time to comment on one particular thread of a UK anti-global-warming blog who's owner no longer posts on it at all. (Though that does sound like a curiously strange arena). Of course he would be welcome, and I'm sure the Bish would welcome him too.
GC/Tomo, Whatever we may wish about a supreme Court now that it has Kavenaugh on board, they are still just a bunch of judges who make rulings on the legal cases that come before them (to accept). They are not the executive branch in charge of the funding and day-to-day hiring & firing and policy-setting at the EPA.
It may sound cruel, but the best thing Trump can probably do is walk into the EPA like a (young) Darth Vader going into the Jedi Temple. Head count culled by a carefully selected 90%.
They have built a corrupt government agency which no amount of conservatives on the Supreme Court can quickly remedy. A scorched earth policy will not cure it completely, but stern actions to shrink their empire now, may take the green communists a decade or three to rebuild from.
michael hart
Mark Hodgson, the logic presented by "Alan Dershowitz" works equally well in the UK.
Unfortunately, "Trial" by media and mob rule works equally badly, but people keep trying it.
golf charlie
Some would say that he is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and that it is the job of the IRS to scrutinize his tax returns. I'm sure he gets a lot more attention from the IRS than most US citizens. (Another thing I learned in the US was that the mention of attention by the IRS seems to strike the fear of god into so many people). I expect we are just going to differ on the main value of such disclosures.
I also have no interest in whether he is really just a multi-millionaire rather than a billionaire. It seems to make no practical difference. Some like to assert that he is really a rubbish businessman irrespective. Probably the same people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere who also say you don't count as an entrepreneur until you've had at least one bankruptcy. What he does have, apart from growing up in a business environment is a degree in finance/economics from an Ivy League US University.