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@dustryder
I presume they do offer the Ukraine aid in some form.
This is a terrible assumption. The point is that Zelensky is not lying or deceiving EU leaders, nor "playing the battered child" fake news card. If that approach does not equate to receiving substantial aid from any of the EU nations, then Zelensky has no logical reason to play that card with America either. It's a childish and ethnocentric view to assume the world outside of America operates largely on foreign appeasement, groveling, and deception, because the opposite is actually true.
While Ukraine may have been used in the past like a giant crony washeteria laundering money from American taxpayers into the pockets of the Clintons and the Bidens and the Obama's, that game is over now.
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@dustryder
I'm sorry, but I just don't agree with your assessment that every political leader either hates or "must hate" Trump and that none of them could possibly actually like Trump and his policies.
It's entirely plausible that Zelensky and the Ukrainian people are logically supportive of a president that has been tough against Russia since 2016.
Unlike other Administrations.
Even if your theory was to hold water, why hasn't Zelensky been deceitful with the other EU nations who do nothing but appease Russia? Probably because Zelensky has far more reason to hate Germany than America right now just looking at policies.
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@dustryder
So is Merkel a shifty Liar? How about Trudeau, is he lying his ass off? How about Macron is he a sea of untruths?
I mean I get the paranoia when it comes to supporting the fake news narrative, but that's a bit much.
It's ok to be skeptical of government in general, but you have to draw the line somewhere instead of seeing every foreign leader as a lying sycophant.
I'm sure more than a few foreign leaders even like Trump and despise people that think like you. Honestly, they do.
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@dustryder
So by that logic, every Nation that receives American aid right now has a motive to have a deceitful leader.
That's not even a remotely sane position to take, and the very worst of prejudices to build lasting national agreements on. "Orangemanbad" and "Zelensky liar" isn't a starting point for foreign policy. It's the end of the discussion.
But isn't that the whole thesis of Orangemanbad philosophy? Burn the world down to spite one man?
I guess it beats screaming at the sky I suppose.
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@dustryder
And the girl with bruises down her back who fervently denies that she is being abused by her father is not being abused.
Attitudes like that are why we can't have responsible dialogues between the leaders of 2 nations without playing the fake media drama card.
You have absolutely no idea how disgustingly patronizing you sound to a proud Ukrainian in your little myopic American bubble.
But that has been the curse of the elites in government, the brainwashing of people to see all other cultures as inferior like a "battered bruised child" that needs "American daddie" to fix it.
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@dustryder
a non-issue if Trump hadn't been dangling military aid as a bargaining chip
it wasn't an issue according to Zelensky. The only people who saw it as an issue was fake news losing power over the government coup.
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@Vader
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@ebuc
Adam Schiff is Sen McCarthy reincarnated.
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@ILikePie5
I'll claim tomorrow, If I am still alive.
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@Lucky
Maybe scum is just a lurking waiting for town to kill themselves off.
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@ethang5
It's so funny Because Trump achieved 2 things over the left's overreaction.
1) wall to wall coverage of the Biden's involvement in Ukraine saturating the media with the Streisand Effect.
2) A huge surge in base support with the failed impeachment.
Trump continues to be the master political troll of all time.
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@Singularity
I think I know who you are but I don't know your affiliation
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@ethang5
He is guessing Fox without all the Democrats like Juan Williams, Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, Neil Cavuto, Donna Brazille, Chris Hahn, Michael Starr Hopkins, and Martha MacCallum.
Also formerly Shephard Smith and Megyn Kelly.
Also, conspiracy theories are just hypotheticals that make you scream at the sky.
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@Vader
China did not automatically close any ports or travel agencies when the cases were growing within the country.
China also does not have a batshit crazy left-wing media inciting the public to raid toilet paper over a flu-like outbreak.
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@Singularity
If you are an alien, I might have to take your picture.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
The bubble is real.
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So I can't seem to find the source, but what fake news outlet instructed people to stock up on a year's worth of toilet paper for a slightly more aggressive version of the seasonal flu?
Don't you need a year's worth of food first to make sure you are able go through that much toilet paper?
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@Dr.Franklin
Trump is living proof that McDonald's protects against Corona.
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@zedvictor4
The gun-toting pasty necks can help out too.
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@bmdrocks21
As it currently stands, I would probably only be on board with 3rd-trimester bans outside of life-or-death situations.
This is also very rare, about 1% of abortions in the USA. Most of them due to extreme fetal abnormalities like organ and brain atrophy.
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@Alec
None of the people Biden insulted were objectively disgusting like Rosie O'Donnel or Jim Acosta.
They were just average American voters who had the audacity to ask a question.
The party of the anti-deplorable marches onward.
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@Alec
I appreciate the compliment, but I don't know if anyone here is looking for a fight, although I might be wrong. I haven't read too much of what other people have been saying here.
The trolling on this site is way, way lower than the old DDO site.
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@Barney
Prude is pragmatic. All sex should consider the consequences.
I am just pointing out the extension of the pro-choice government policies in order to circumvent the consequences of sex has a societal price. Lives of the unborn for women and the elimination of child support and fatherhood for the men are that price.
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@fauxlaw
The only real room for criticism on Trump was with his tariffs. His long term plan was to take the political capital he earned by building up the economy and invest that capital with tariffs in order to gain something far more valuable. A shifting of production markets out of China and back home domestically and the shifting of supply chains from China to more reliable countries along the Pacific Rim like Vietnam and South Korea.
With the recent virus outbreak, you can see why it's of vital national interest.
In fact, every president before him did absolutely zero to stop the shifting of markets and supply chains into China, some even encouraging it.
Presidents before Trump were locked into a ridiculous paradigm where the only two politically viable choices to get other countries to align with the USA, were either defensively through monetary appeasement or offensively through strength in arms and conflict.
Trump opted for neither and used the offensive strength of the Dollar, Tariffs, and Sanctions to get countries to cooperate.
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@fauxlaw
Most economists credit Trump for improving the basic foundations of the economy by enacting policies that encourage domestic investment and lower unemployment.
While Obama may have targetted a handful of industries with targeted subsidies (like green energy and GM), Trump gave every industry a hand up with a combination of tax cuts and deregulation, which are the polar opposite of Obama's policies. There is no sane reason to credit Obama for the state of the economy today since Obama enacted polar opposite economic policies from the ones in effect today. (almost all of Obama's economic policies have been reverted or nullified by Trump)
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@ILikePie5
Charles and David Koch are two of the richest men in the world. Each is worth tens of billions of dollars. Some of their money is inherited. Much they made themselves. But the Kochs have never been content merely to get richer. They’re engaged intellectuals, with a sincere desire to change the world. For years, the brothers have been the single most important funders of Republican politics in Washington.
The Koch network of donors spends hundreds of millions of dollars every election cycle. Virtually every major conservative non-profit in DC takes Koch money. Koch organizations train political organizers and candidates. Many Republican lawmakers owe their careers to the Kochs. For people whose main business is making fertilizer and paper towels, the Kochs have been remarkably effective in politics. Not surprisingly, the left hates them for it. Both the Koch brothers and their families, who by the way are very nice people, have been repeatedly and grotesquely maligned by the media. This, in turn, has convinced many conservatives that the Kochs much be on their side. Anyone who’s been slandered by the New York Times has got to be doing something right. That’s the idea. It’s not a bad standard.
But in the case of the Kochs, conservatives might want to pause and rethink the relationship. As it turns out, the Kochs don’t have much in common with conservatives. They are totally opposed to most conservative policy goals. The Kochs are libertarian ideologues, passionate and inflexible. America first? The Kochs find the very notion absurd, if not fascist. An economic policy that seeks to strengthen families? The Kochs denounce that as “crony capitalism,” or “picking winners and losers.” They think it’s immoral. Controlling our borders? The Kochs consider that racist. A few years ago, Bernie Sanders noted that the Koch brothers are far to the left of him on immigration. Open borders? Quote: “That’s a Koch brothers proposal,” he said.
Bernie wasn’t wrong. But it’s more than a proposal. It’s in effect what we have now, thanks in part to the Kochs. The overwhelming majority of Republicans want a secure border and less immigration. That’s why they voted for Donald Trump. Two and a half years later, the border is more porous than ever. A tide of humanity is flooding in illegally. Republicans in Congress have done almost nothing to help. Why? You can thank the Kochs for that. In 2018, Koch-backed organizations, Freedom Network and Americans for Prosperity, pressured Republicans in Congress to use their post-election lame-duck session to pass an amnesty for the so-called Dreamers. Going into the 2020 race, amnesty remains the Kochs' top legislative priority.
If you’re wondering why the Republican Party often seems so out of synch with its own voters, this is why. And not just on immigration. The Koch network has also successfully pushed Republicans to join the left in going soft on crime. The Kochs aggressively backed the First Step Act, which is currently allowing drug traffickers to leave prison early. They support the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which would cut required penalties for heroin and cocaine traffickers in half. They’re doing all this, remember, in the middle of the deadliest drug epidemic in American history. The Kochs don’t even argue that these so-called reforms will help law-abiding Americans in any way. They just believe it’s the libertarian thing to do.
On economics, meanwhile, you won’t be surprised to learn that the Kochs hold views that bear no resemblance to those of most Republican voters. The Kochs have pushed for cuts to social security and Medicare. A vast majority of Americans are opposed to that. Like everyone else, most Republicans want lower drug prices. Yet the Kochs are working to kill a bill introduced by Senators Josh Hawley and Rick Scott that would prevent drug companies from charging Americans more than they charge the people of Canada or France. Then the Kochs helped craft the 2017 tax cut, which was far better for corporate America than it was for the middle class. A majority of Republicans support capping interest rates on credit cards and payday loans. The Kochs think that’s ridiculous. Some years ago, when David Koch ran for vice president as a libertarian, abolishing all usury laws was part of his platform.
There’s nothing surprising about any of this, or illegitimate. It’s what many rich liberals believe. It’s just not what most Republicans think. And that’s a problem, given that the Kochs are the single most powerful figures in the Republican Party. The Kochs don’t seem interested in hearing you complain about that — or anything else.
Remarkably, they’ve now joined the leftwing campaign against free speech. Next month, the Charles Koch Institute will be holding a summit with the Anti-Defamation League and executives from major tech companies, including Pinterest, AirBNB, Patreon, and Mozilla. The stated purpose of the meeting is to formulate, quote: "best practices on the fight against hate and extremism online." You know exactly what that really means: censorship of your views. For the left, fighting "extremism" always entails crushing normal conservatives. That's why Pinterest has censored Live Action. It's why Patreon banned Milo Yiannopoulos. It's why Mozilla drove out Brendan Eich for donating to the wrong political campaign. Big tech has become a far bigger threat to your freedom than the government is. The Kochs don’t care. Nothing Google does violates libertarian orthodoxy.
More to the point, the Kochs don’t care about Republican voters or what happens to them. Ok. But then why are they running the Republican Party? That’s a question Republicans should start asking themselves.
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@ILikePie5
Also, another thing I missed, he used the Koch Brothers as an authoritative source, not mentioning that Koch earns profits on how much illegal slave labor they can import into the country, and therefore has a financial motive to misrepresent groups that could hurt their profits.
Debunking ideas with debunked sources.
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@ILikePie5
No, the funny thing is how he uses debunked sources to debunk things.
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Fun fact: SPLC is actually a hate group that has used its political hate list to condone and justify violence against its enemies while bilking people out of hundreds of millions of dollars deposited into private offshore accounts. A truly disgusting cancer on the planet and a wart on society.
After years of smearing good people with false charges of bigotry, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has finally been held to account. A former Islamic radical named Maajid Nawaz sued the center for including him in its bogus “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists,” and this week the SPLC agreed to pay him a $3.375 million settlement and issued a public apology.
The SPLC is a once-storied organization that did important work filing civil rights lawsuits against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. But it has become a caricature of itself, labeling virtually anyone who does not fall in line with its left-wing ideology an “extremist” or “hate group.”
Nawaz is a case in point. Since abandoning Islamic radicalism, he has advised three British prime ministers and created the Quilliam Foundation, to fight extremism. He is not anti-Muslim. He is a Muslim and has argued that “Islam is a religion of peace.”
So how did he end up in the SPLC’s pseudo-guide to anti-Muslim bigots? His crime, apparently, is that he has become a leading critic of the radical Islamist ideology he once embraced. Thanks to his courage, the SPLC has been forced to pay a multimillion-dollar penalty and acknowledge in a statement that it was “wrong” and that Nawaz has “made valuable and important contributions to public discourse, including by promoting pluralism and condemning both anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist extremism.”
Let’s hope this settlement is the first of many, because this is not the first time the SPLC has done this. In 2010, it placed the Family Research Council (FRC) — a conservative Christian advocacy group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage — on its “hate map.” Two years later, a gunman walked into the FRC headquarters with the intention to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches in victims’ faces.” He told the FBI that he had used the SPLC website to pick his target.
Unfortunately, many in the media still take the SPLC seriously. Last year, ABC News ran a story headlined: “Jeff Sessions addresses ‘anti-LGBT hate group,’ ” in which it reported that “Sessions addressed members of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which was designated an ‘anti-LGBT hate group’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2016.” The Alliance Defending Freedom is a respected organization of conservative lawyers dedicated to defending religious liberty, and it just argued a case before the Supreme Court, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. It won, 7 to 2. It is not a “hate group.” If anything, it is fighting anti-Christian hate.
In 2014, the SPLC placed Ben Carson — later a Republican presidential candidate and now the current secretary of housing and urban development — on its “extremist watch list,” alongside neo-Nazis and white supremacists. After an uproar, the group removed him and apologized.
The SPLC also lists Charles Murray, a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute and one of the most respected conservative intellectuals in the United States, on its website as a “White Nationalist.” Last year, an angry mob of students, many citing the SPLC’s designation, physically attacked Murray during a speech at Middlebury College. He escaped unharmed, but the liberal professor who invited him ended up in the hospital.
Little wonder that Nawaz was not just angry but also afraid about being designated an extremist by the SPLC. He told the Atlantic in 2016, “They put a target on my head. The kind of work that I do, if you tell the wrong kind of Muslims that I’m an extremist, then that means I’m a target.”
Unfortunately, the settlement that the SPLC reached with Nawaz is not likely to deter it from smearing others — $3.4 million is a drop in the bucket for the center, which raised $132 million between November 2016 and October 2017 and has a $477 million endowment, including a reported $92 million in offshore accounts. Sliming conservatives is big business.
The only way to stop the SPLC is if people stop giving it money and the media stop quoting it or taking it seriously. The SPLC once did important work fighting the Ku Klux Klan. But when it declares Maajid Nawaz, the Family Research Council, Ben Carson and Charles Murray as moral equivalents of the Klan, it loses all integrity and credibility.
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@Barney
I think there should also be a pro-choice for men as well, forcing the pro-life woman to offer a child for adoption rather than have his wages garnished for 18 years.
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This OP should clearly have been edited to read "conflicting equivalencies"
Looking only at social outcomes:
Flooding orphanages with unwanted babies =/= flooding the slave labor industry with culturally incompatible illegal invaders.
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@fauxlaw
The problem with healthcare is that it is a flawed concept, in that we can't make people immortal with infinite resources. So when you say health care is a right, you have to define a certain level of flawed healthcare as a right. Is Tylenol a right? Are infinite organ transplants at age 95 a right?
Maybe something in between? It has to be defined since healthcare is flawed.
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@fauxlaw
As a notable scholar, what are your thoughts about the SCOTUS rulings on the Commerce Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3)?
Specifically, what do you think the original intent was and where do you see the SCOTUS going with this clause based on recent interpretations?
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@fauxlaw
Wow. lol, I didn't know you literally wrote the book on this subject.
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@fauxlaw
We just recently had a ranking member of Congress do something publicly along these lines. He publicly called out 2 SCOTUS judges by name in an attempt to intimidate the judges to vote his way. This is also clearly a violation of the separation of powers. There are some people who want to fundamentally change the government to resemble a parliamentary system like Britain has. Where mob rule IS the rule. They want the Consolidation of power and not the separation of power.
This "6 ways from Sunday" method to run the government as Schumer famously said is not what the founders had in mind when they constructed the constitutional three branches of government.
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@fauxlaw
The case is pretty simple cut and dry. If you reverse the situation and ask yourself if the President has the constitutional authority to imprison a member of Congress, use a FISA warrant to get his FBI to investigate a member of Congress, get the IRS to target a member of Congress, or ask for sworn testimony, finances, or anything else he could ask in order to intimidate a sitting member of Congress. Clearly, the SCOTUS would say that it is a violation of the constitutional separation of powers in all of these cases.
The case isn't about feelings or wrong or right. It's all about constitutional authority. No one branch should have special extra powers over the other branches.
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@dustryder
Chief Justice William Howard Taft, writing for the Court, noted that the Constitution does mention the appointment of officials, but is silent on their dismissal. An examination of the notes of the Constitutional Convention, however, showed that this silence was intentional: the Convention did discuss the dismissal of executive-branch staff and believed it was implicit in the Constitution that the President did hold the exclusive power to remove his staff, whose existence was an extension of the President's own authority.
The Court, therefore, found that the statute was unconstitutional, for it violated the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. In reaching this decision, it also expressly found the Tenure of Office Act, which had imposed a similar requirement on other Presidential appointees and played a key role in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, to have been invalid; it had been repealed by Congress some years before this decision.
Basically, the SCOTUS says the President can fire any executive branch appointee at whim.
Trump is having a very similar case regarding the question of the separation of powers being heard by the SCOTUS at the moment and will most likely have a favorable ruling early this summer.
The gist of the case can be gleaned from the introduction.
This is a case of firsts. It is the first time that Congress has subpoenaed personal records of a sitting President. It is the first time that Congress has issued a subpoena, under the guise of its legislative powers, to investigate the President for illegal conduct. And, itis the first time a court has upheld any congressional subpoena for any sitting President’s records of any kind.
Now, under the D.C. Circuit’s decision, Congress can subpoena any private records it wishes from the president on the mere assertion that it is considering legislation that might require presidents to disclose that same information. Given the obvious temptation to investigate the personal affairs of political rivals, subpoenas concerning the private lives of presidents will become routine in times of divided government. It is unsurprising, then, that the one thing the district court, the panel, and the dissenting judges all agreed upon is that this case raises important separation-of-powers issues. At its core, this controversy is about whether—and to what degree—Congress can exercise dominion and control over the Office of the President. The Committee on Oversight and Reform of the U.S.House of Representatives takes the view, supported by the D.C. Circuit, that every committee of Congress may subpoena the President’s personal records, that the Necessary and Proper Clause allows Congress to investigate the President’s wrongdoing so long as it also promises to consider remedial legislation, and that Congress can statutorily require presidents to disclose their personal finances.
These are profoundly serious constitutional questions that the Court, not Congress should decide. But not only are these weighty constitutional issues, the D.C. Circuit incorrectly decided them. The Committee’s investigation of the President lacks a legitimate legislative purpose. It is a law-enforcement investigation about uncovering whether the President engaged in wrongdoing. Nor can the investigation possibly result in valid legislation.
The Constitution—not Congress—created the Office of the President. Congress, accordingly, cannot require the President to disclose his finances or otherwise expand or alter the office's qualifications. Yet the D.C. Circuit never should have reached these issues because the Committee lacks express statutory authorization to subpoena the President.
An express statement from the Court should be required given the separation-of-powers issues that are raised by unleashing every committee to subpoena every president for his personal records. This Court traditionally grants certiorari when the President has been subjected to novel legal process and seeks review. The Court has recognized that the President’s objections merit “respectful and deliberate consideration.” Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 689-90(1997). This approach is not out of concern for any“particular President,” but for the sake of “the Presidency itself.” Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392,2418 (2018). This case should be no exception.
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@ILikePie5
I’m concerned even after Joe insults voters, he gets a free pass. If it was Trump they’d crucify him
Biden supporters are used to being abused.
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@fauxlaw
Of course, it is inevitably a circus when impeachment is used by the Congress to counter the checks on the Congress from the Presidency.
Congress had zero constitutional authority to subpoena Trump, and the SCOTUS ruled as such after the impeachment. If the Congress would have waited for the SCOTUS ruling, there would have been no "Obstruction of Congress" impeachment.
The office of the President has a DUTY and constitutional Obligation to act as a check on Congress, even if you call it "obstruction"
Andrew Johnson was impeached for essentially the exact same thing, and the law they tried to impeach Johnson over was essentially repealed by the SCOTUS.
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@ethang5
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So it looks like Sanders most likely won't have the delegates to get the nomination at this point. Once again, for the 2nd election in a row, the socialists won't have a real candidate in the race. The DNC will remain divided until socialism is allowed a place on the ballot. Their supporters are only growing.
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