Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Donald Trump first Address to Congress

If Donald Trump wasn't President... he'd make
 a pretty good reality television producer!

I think even his worst critics have to admit that this was a mesmerizing event.

Carryn Owen in unforgettable moment....


Schumer and Pelosi lead their caucus to the event.... 

First it was fake news...

Now it's fake facts... 

So even as the country becomes less and less trustful of the media, the media portraits themselves more and more as the country's guideline to truth and justice. The glaring irony of the latest NT Times advertising regarding "truth" is astounding. It would be a little like the City of Las Vegas running an advertising campaign on the concept of "restraint" or perhaps the Kardashian clan running an advertising campaign on the concept of "privacy".

But the media has now taken things one step further. It's no longer enough for them to be act as if they are the arbitrators of what opinions are right and which are wrong, they quite literally believe that they now have similar authority to deems what is and is not a fact. Strangely whether or not an obvious statement can be ascertained true or false is no longer the accepted means to determine what is and is not a fact. Apparently the difference between fact and fiction is now a nuanced one that only a media actor can judge. Furthermore, it would seem the credentials for being an authority on fact vs fiction is the actions of purchasing a domain name with the word "fact" in it, and then starting a website that "checks" things.

Let me give you a couple of examples of fact checking that has nothing to do with "facts".

First, Donald Trump stood at the podium and told everyone that his approval rating was 55% according to the most recent Rasmussen poll and it was going up. A quick check of the numbers, and it held true that Donald Trump was at 55% and that 55% was higher than previous numbers.

two plus two equals four

Secondly, Donald Trump stated that the national debt had declined 12 billion dollars over the first month of his Presidency, whereas the national debt went up by 200 billion over the same time period eight years ago. Again, these are numbers gathered by objective sources and the numbers were stated accurately by the President.

two plus two equals four

Neither the actual 55% approval rating or the 12 billion dollar number could be disputed. Yet, in both cases the new arbitrators of "fact" declared these facts to be less than factual. In the case of the debt, one fact checker rated the claim "mostly false" even as he conceded it was 100% accurate.

two plus two equals four? Well maybe not.

Now, it's a given that someone can misuse a fact, to make a larger argument. I could make the claim that two plus two equals four and therefore my coldheartedtruth blog is more popular than Donald Trump's twitter site. Obviously two plus two being equal to four has no bearing on whether or not my blog is more popular than Donald Trump's twitter feed. In this case my conclusion is wrong, even as the fact I used to argue it is factually correct. But would anyone suggest that two plus two equals four is "mostly false" simply because I used it as part of a broader argument that wasn't true?

But here is the rub, what happens when a fact is "stated" by a politician such as Donald Trump that seems to run counter to conventional media narrative about the world in general? The Rasmussen poll runs counter to the media narrative that Trump is historically unpopular. Similarly, the national debt numbers count counter to the media narrative that Trump's first month as a President has been a resounding disaster.

Apparently, the new media definition of a  "fact" must now face the added scrutiny of not running counter to a particular media narrative. The claim that there is a Rasmussen poll showing Trump at 55%  cannot be declared "true" (even if it is) because with that claim comes an unstated implication of something that the fact checker deems to not be true. Similarly the claim that the national debt went down by 12 billion dollars while eight years ago it went up 200 billions dollars... cannot be declared "true" (even if it is) because it implies something that the fact checker in question does not agree with.

The more the fact checker vigorously disagrees with the implication the fact suggests, the fact lower rating the checker will provide. This leads to declaring the 100% accurate claims about the debt to be rated "mostly false". Why? Because the fact itself implies that Trump bested Obama on that particular front. Certainly the media cannot stand for anything like that.

Amazingly they cannot understand why people no longer trust them?

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Being pushed, not pulled towards Trump...

I know several Trump supporters and to a person, they are more than happy with how he has performed his job. His 85% plus approval rating with Republicans proves that he is certainly not turning off his base. In terms of following through on what he stated he would do during his campaign, I think he has been pretty consistent with his efforts... even as he has been less than graceful in his means.


I know several Trump haters and to a person, they are unhappy with how he is performing his job. His 85% plus disapproval rating with Democrats proves that he is certainly not converting many (if any) of his biggest detractors. The fact that his actions are consistent with his campaign doesn't seem to dampen the lack of enthusiasm for them. It's almost as if they expected that somehow, he would push a different agenda that he campaigned on, and the fact he has stuck to his guns is akin to him rubbing salt in the wound.

Personally I wasn't a Trump supporter. I didn't vote for him. I don't necessarily agree with all of his policies or all of his actions. I believe he picks fights that are not necessary, I believe that too many of his actions are boorish, and I believe he could do quite a bit more to smooth out the rough edges.

All that being said... I find myself slowly but surely moving into the Donald Trump camp, and realistically I can honestly say that it has very little to do with how he is performing his job.

The reason I am moving into the Donald Trump camp is very specifically because I am completely turned off by how the rabid opposition is behaving. There appears to be almost no rhyme, reason, or logic. Rather we are witnessing a blind raging opposition to pretty much everything Trump.  Quite frankly, it all comes off as unhinged and irrational. I honestly believe that some people I know could benefit from some therapy.

If Trump came up with a cure for cancer tomorrow, I am positive that these people would suddenly find themselves to be pro-cancer and no doubt would file a lawsuit somewhere in the 9th circuit to protect the rights of cancer cells. All in the name of opposing Donald Trump.

I can't help associating the current "resistance" to Donald Trump with the sort of behavior one might find at a professional wresting cage match event. People wildly booing and berating the bad guy, even as they deep down understand that the whole thing is an orchestrated fictional event.

What has become abundantly clear to me is that if Donald Trump doesn't either start another world war or lead us into another great depression, it's going to be very difficult to take the sides of the pussy hat wearing protesters, Anti-free speech burning random stuff rioters, or those who want to put the concerns of Middle Eastern refugees ahead of the concerns of Americans.

Donald Trump won't pull me in, because he doesn't have to. His opposition is pushing me to him by offering me no reasonable alternative. I simply can't associate with the hatred, anger, and irrational thought process of the so called resistance. They've become a worst version of what they claim to oppose.

More to the point... I am pretty sure I am not alone.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

No support. But minority continues to protest...

Only 28 percent of Americans support former President Barack Obama’s pro-transgender claim that the federal government should decide bathroom policies in elementary and secondary schools, says a new poll by Rasmussen Reports. In contrast, 36 percent said local governments should set “bathroom policies” governing youths who say they want to live as members of the opposite sex. Another 28 percent of respondents said state government should set the rules for transgender disputes. 
That adds up to 64 percent opposition and only 28 percent support for federal rule. The two-to-one opposition is bad news for progressives, who are currently campaigning for federal politicians and federal judges to impose a national policy that would allow people to change their legal sex by simply declaring they have the “gender identity” of an opposite-sex person. 
There is a massive amount of weight surrounding how this will eventually play out. I am not hundred percent sure "why" this has become such a big issue for the left, but it appears as if they may have simply run out of other things to "take to court".

At this point in time, there is no scientific consensus on whether or not transgenderism is biological, emotional, or might even cross into a mental disorder such as pedophilia. There seems to be an a whole lot of areas for concern, even above and beyond the massive amounts of people disturbed by the simple concept of young students being forced (by executive decree) to dress and shower in front of people who are biologically the opposite sex.  

Either way, once again it seems as though Donald Trump has simultaneously tapped into the concerns of everyday Americans while causing the left to throw a massive hissy fit.

Is defying conventional wisdom an assault on the constitution?

The sun rises and left attacks Trump again for being President...
(this post was a request from our friend over on the legacy blog)

One of the latest (likely unsuccessful) attempts to declare the President "unfit" is trying to associate media priority with the concept of the first amendment. Apparently, if it cannot be proven that Trump is in cahoots with Putin to tear down the United States, perhaps it can be proven that Trump is in cahoots with Breibart News to do the same. Either way, the crazies on the left believe that Trump is in cahoots with someone to bring down the Country, and they will continue to draw up elaborate conspiracy theories until they figure out which one is real. Next up, will likely have something to do with UFO, aliens, and area 52.

But the latest has to do with the fact that the President just may be re-prioritizing the long standing pecking order of which Press outlets gets what access. Prioritizing the media isn't necessarily anything new. Most Presidents and press secretaries no doubt call disproportionately on outlets that they prefer, and give less attention to outlets they don't prefer. Our previous President refused to go anywhere near FOX News for the first seven years of his Presidency, in spite of the fact it was the number one cable news channel in the country. I don't recall anyone on the left attacking Obama for shunning the first amendment.

The reality here folks is that just because the same media outlets garnered priority over the past few Presidencies, doesn't suggest that it's any sort of constitutional requirement to continue to grant them priority. Especially considering that both the circulation, and the credibility of many of those top outlets have taken huge hits.

What's more, the most popular print newspaper today is the conservative Wall Street Journal. The most popular cable news is FOX News. The dreaded Breibart website now ranks third in a list of internet news outlets (ranking ahead of websites like MSNBC.com and ESPN.com). Just as conservatives are being elected in historical numbers, conservative media outlets are performing at all time highs as well.

The truth is that just because it's conventional media wisdom to suggest that the Washington Post, NY Times, CNN, and MSNBC deserve back stage passes to all political events doesn't make it a constitutional requirement. Donald Trump and his press corps have no more responsibility to provide access to CNN than a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton would have to provide access to Breibart. Does anyone seriously believe Clinton would be answering questions from a Breibart reporter?

A few weeks into his Presidency, Trump is on pace to triple the amount of Press conferences held by Obama. As long as Trump continues to hold these events and continues to answer upwards of forty questions from two dozen reporters each time, he is satisfying the first amendment requirements for a free press.

CNN and the Washington Post have made their choices. Now they can bark at the moon over the constitutional crisis of not being first in line anymore. Their arguments may convince the gullible on the left (who apparently will believe almost anything critical of Trump these days)... but they don't convince me.

Friday, February 24, 2017

Classic example of media dishonesty?

So, the left is completely up in arms over the recent Trump announcement that he is withdrawing the Federal guidance regarding transgender bathroom and locker room use in public schools. Apparently this is one of those seven signs of the apocalypse or something. At least you might believe so, as you read through the media headlines:

  • The White House’s thoughtless, cruel and sad rollback of transgender rights
  • As transgender rights get rolled back, America needs more bathroom cops
  • Trump Administration Halts Federal Protection For Transgender Bathroom Rights In Schools
  • Trump administration withdraws federal protections for transgender students

Let's start with this. The previous Obama order that issued the "guidance" on transgender bath and locker room use had actually been halted in court. So the order in question was not even an order at this point in time, and there is little evidence that the President of the United States can actually unilaterally demand this sort of rule changes to schools in general. 

Obama transgender guidance had been blocked in court

A new rule regarding transgender students should, based on that pesky little thing called the constitution, come from laws created by Congress. But as it generally pertains to our public school system, much of the control comes at the local and state levels. At least that is the way it has been for the first twenty five decades or so here in America.

So President Trump did nothing more than make the decision not to challenge the current ruling from a Federal Justice that decisions on transgender bathroom and locker room use was a state and municipal issue.

There was no "roll back" or "withdraw" or any "halting" taking place of any sorts here, as there was technically no "rights" ever established. But then again, what place does the actual "truth" have with the media these days. 

Should GOP worry about Town Hall Protests?

There are two separate trains of thought on the issue of Town Hall Meeting protests:
  • That this is an organic movement, similar to the Tea Party movement that propelled the GOP to massive mid-term gains. 
  • That this is a top down organized set of planned events, possibly including out of town or even paid protesters. 
My sense of the truth here is that it's a little bit of both. These protests are made up of truly angry liberals being organized by top down planning that likely includes out of town (but not paid) protesters. 

It's like the Tea Party in terms of the fact that it seems driven by the same sort of anger you saw with the Tea Party followers. It's different in the sense that the current anger from the left seems more abrupt and personal, whereas the Tea Party movement seemed as if it slowly grew as an overall reaction to events and policy. In other words, I don't believe that different actions from Donald Trump and the GOP would have avoided any of this, whereas different actions from Obama and the Democrats could have avoided the Tea Party revolution. 


But either way, the question becomes: are these "protests" actually doing more good than harm?

The Tea Party had a message and a reasonable manner in which they expressed it. Largely it was a tangible reaction to both the Obamacare plan, and the means in which it was passed. More philosophically, it was about scaling back an overbearing Government that obviously wanted to take more ownership over the individual's rights to live their lives.

The current movement basically stems from the fact that Donald Trump actually won the election, and is pushed further by the obsessive claims that the "Russians hacked" our election in order to garner a Trump win.  

To me, I see a stronger correlation between the current anger and the similar anger after the 2000 elections than I do between the current anger and the Tea Party movement. Both Clinton and Gore seemingly had the rug pulled out from underneath their prospective Presidencies. Both Trump and Bush were accused of "stealing" the election. The "not my President" mantra of 2017 is much like it was in 2001. In both situations we endured the excessive moaning from the liberal elitist that much better qualified liberal Democratic candidates were unfairly caste aside in favor of horribly unqualified Republicans. 

There is a long ways to go between now and the 2018 election, which strategically sets up about as poorly as it could for the Democrats. If we take the lessons from the 2002 election (where the GOP won seats in both the House and the Senate)... it would be that anything can happen, and post election anger is not a good indication that you will have a successful midterm election. 

Thursday, February 23, 2017

What did you see?

The viral video going around:

This is an interesting case study in perceptions. I think part of this is generational and part of it is purely one of political leanings. Either way there seems to be two ways of seeing this situation. One is to view it through the lens of the events that took place. The other is to view this as a matter of identity.

Second kid takes a swing at cop, prompting gun to be pulled

Events: So it starts with a young teenage boy taking the backpack of another teenage girl, who asks for it back. The boy refuses. An off duty police officer steps in. The boy still refuses. The police officer grabs the boy (who struggles) and girl pulls the back pack away while they are engaged. The police officer and the boy continue to struggle (cop obviously wants to arrest the boy.  The boy threatens to kill him in return) and within a minute or two other members of the group start to push towards the police officer.  The scene culminates with the larger teen taking a swing at the cop (as depicted in the screen shot from the second video). The cop then pulls out the gun, shoots the gun into the ground, and the teens all scatter.

Identity: Many of you will only see teenage minorities and a white cop. In your mind, those are the only facts that matter and in all cases. young minorities are the victims and white cops are the bad guys.
_______

When I grew up, first and foremost you never took anything that wasn't yours. We left our bikes, skateboards, etc around the neighborhood and nobody took our shit. If someone did, they would get a visit from the elder boys who sort of unofficially policed things. You didn't want to see them coming at you. Not only that, but once your parents found out you took something that wasn't yours, you got an ass whipping on top of it.

If a Parent (or any adult) told you do to something you did it. You treated other people's parents as if they were your own.  Never in a million years would I get into a physical altercation with an adult, much less a police officer. If any kid ever took a swing at an officer, they would be sent away to a juvenile detention school so fast it would make their heads spin. Period.

Different time, and a different place.

In my opinion, the fact that people see the problem here as the actions of the police officer is what is wrong with society today. When a police officer (on or off duty) cannot step into a situation where someone has taken someone else's property and refuses to give it back... because the person in question is a young minority and it will look bad... then we deserve all the crime, poverty, and disrespect we have in this country.

Reality vs Liberal Mindset


Among other things, the Trump administration has:
  • Loosened the mandate that requires you to have insurance or pay a penalty. Checking the box on your tax forms regarding whether or not you are insured is now optional.
  • Loosened the mandate that requires every insurance plan to cover a blanket of things. Eventually the plan would be for these requirements to be set at the state, and not federal level.
By next year, there will be many places in the country where "no insurers" are planning on providing plans for the exchanges. In many other places, there is only one choice. It would seem that it's become much less likely than not, that the Obamacare exchange will actually offer you any real "choice" in what you purchase.

Of course, the entire theory of the exchanges was to provide consumers with the ability to go to one place and see multiple options. Sort of like shopping on Amazon.com. Of course mandating that every insurer sell the same three basic plans covering the same three sets of things sort of defeats the purpose of providing a competitive environment. What good would it do to go to Amazon.com to compare televisions, if every seller was selling the same exact product as everyone else.  It was almost as if people who didn't understand the basic concepts of free markets, thought an amazon.com style insurance exchange could be used as a tool to tell people what they should buy? 

Bottom line is that there are approximately eleven million people insured through the exchanges. Approximately three quarters of them receive some form of subsidy to purchase the insurance. One of the main issues moving forward will be what will happen to the ability to garner these subsidies if there are no options within the exchanges to purchase insurance (since those subsidies are currently tied to the use of the exchange). How does one go about doing that, unless those subsidies are replaced with something mobile and flexible (like a tax credit) which Obamacare supporters would never agree to? After all, that would give up government control over individual decision making (gasp!). 

The Democrats have spent the past few years pretending that none of this was happening, and offering nothing tangible to fundamentally fix the flawed system. The only answer Democrats have ever had (and this seems to hold true on almost every issue) is to spend more money on subsidies in order to keep both the sellers and buyers engaged.

Here is a hint for those who apparently failed microeconomics: if you are subsidizing the seller to sell a product, and subsidizing the buyer to purchase the product and the whole thing is still going belly up.  It's a deeply flawed idea. Of course, don't tell a Democrat that. Even after Obamacare has likely directly cost them dozens of congressional seats, cost them control of congress, and possibly even cost them the Presidency... they still stubbornly cling to the notion that the law is somehow popular, if you just read between the lines. 

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Eighty Percent Agree with the President on Sanctuary cities

Poll: Americans overwhelmingly oppose sanctuary cities

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that cities that arrest illegal immigrants for crimes should be required to turn them over to federal authorities. 
The poll shows that President Trump has broad public support in his effort to crack down on sanctuary cities. 
A survey from Harvard–Harris Poll provided exclusively to The Hill found that 80 percent of voters say local authorities should have to comply with the law by reporting to federal agents the illegal immigrants they come into contact with.
Other findings were that by small margins voters approve of the travel ban that has been suspended, as well as his executive order that green lighted building a wall, hiring more border agents, and revoking money to sanctuary cities.


Of all of the individual proposals, the building of the wall seems to gain the least amount of support (opposed by 53-47). I wonder out loud if that number could be moved by focusing on the wall cutting back on the drug trade, rather than the current focus on illegal immigration movement.

Is there lower rates of crime among immigrants?

There are actually two different answers to this question:
  • Legal immigrants? Yes
  • Illegal immigrants? No 

Your liberal talking points memo will once again toss around a completely dishonest argument as a means to fool their rank and file, who largely (it appears) cannot think for themselves. While it is absolutely true that people who immigrate here by legal means actually commit less crime than those born here... the reality is that this point is completely moot. It doesn't matter. Because nobody is talking about ending legal immigration to this country.

So does that mean by some association of being born in a different country, that those who illegally come here are also prone to be honest, law abiding citizens? Hardly. Some stats: 
The overall perspective of the criminal behavior of illegal aliens is grim. In a 2007 Government Accountability Office study of 55,322 illegal aliens, analysts discovered that they were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about eight arrests per illegal alien: 70 percent had between two and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about 15,000) had 11 or more arrests. Drug or immigration offenses accounted for 45 percent of all offenses, and approximately 12 percent (over 6,600 illegal aliens) were arrested for violent offenses such as murder, robbery, assault, and sex-related crimes.[14] link
An FBI crime study also shows heavy illegal alien involvement in criminal activity revealed these statistics
  • 75 percent of those on the most wanted criminals list in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens.
  • One quarter of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals, as are more than 40 percent of all inmates in Arizona and 48 percent in New Mexico jails.
  • Over 53 percent of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens.
  • 63 percent of cited drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that number, 97 percent are illegal aliens. 66 percent of cited drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66 percent, 98 percent are illegal aliens.[15] 
Similar statistics add up with Federal charges and Federal prisoners. Estimates bring that number to around 20-25 percent of all Federal prisoners are illegal aliens.

So to summarize: 
Legal immigrants - Good
Illegal immigrants - Very Bad

Odd are ten to one that at least one person will post statistics about "legal immigrants" in the comments, almost as if they didn't even read the post. 

Retailers remove Trump line due to lack of sales?


Tuesday, February 21, 2017

RNC has record month of fundraising...

The rumors of the Republican demise are greatly exaggerated
The Republican National Committee filed a record setting $19.8 million January FEC report on Monday, The Daily Caller has learned. The $19.8 million makes January the best post-election fundraising month in RNC history. 
“I am encouraged by the historic support shown by Americans across this country as our Party unites under President Trump,” said RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel. “It is clear our message of bringing change to all people is resonating, and I am committed to harnessing this momentum as we continue to build on the successes we earned in 2016. The RNC has never been better equipped to champion the Republican agenda and use these resources to grow our majorities in 2018.”

Republicans adults don't put on pussy hats, retreat to their safe places, or give speeches about "nasty women". They simply show their support in more mature adult manners, such as donating their hard earned cash to the Party.

As has been pointed out by several people including myself... those who feel like 2018 is ramping up to be some sort of "wave election" for the Democrats fail to see that the so called "Trump revolution" is just getting started. He's not losing any support from his base, and in fact he appears to be converting many conservatives who were once in the opposition.

Wave elections happen when one Party is motivated and the other is not. Now it's entirely possible that Trump will sometime in the future start to bleed support,  and it could lead to a wave of sorts. But anyone who believes that the "current" mood of the Country today is one of liberal motivation and conservative tepidness, is simply choosing to see an alternate reality to the one we live in.  

Sweden - We don't have a problem with refugees?

Alternate Post Title: Timing is everything

Migrants riot in Sweden over man being arrested
“Our officers were attacked by a number of people, some of them masked, who threw stones. They felt under so much pressure that a shot had to be fired”, said police spokesperson Lars Bystrom. 
In the unrest, which began at around 8.30pm after a man was arrested next to Rinkeby metro station, a pedestrian on his way home was beaten and robbed and a press photographer was hospitalised after being attacked by a group of around 15 people. 
“I was hit with a lot of punches and kicks to the body and head, and spent the night in hospital”, the Dagens Nyheter photographer said. 
The riots continued late into the night, with police reporting later that shops were looted, and that a number of cars were set on fire during a second violent riot. 
“I’ve witnessed turmoil and civil unrest before, but this is something else. It looks like a war zone here”, said a freelance journalist working at the site of the clashes with state television outlet SVT. 
The shocking scenes in Rinkeby, where 61 per cent of residents were born abroad, come after Trump told a rally in Florida over the weekend that Sweden is “having problems like they never thought possible” as a result of mass migration. 
At a press conference on Monday, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said he was “surprised” by the U.S. president’s comments, adding: “I think also we must all take responsibility for using facts correctly, and for verifying any information that we spread.”

Indeed Prime Minister. We must all take responsibility for using facts correctly... you know, like maybe not spreading the rhetoric that Sweden has no issues with refugees as if it was a fact.... when clearly it's not.

NATO falls in line

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: 

  • "I fully support what has been underlined by President Trump and by Vice President Pence today, the importance of burden sharing,"
  • "I expect all allies to make good on the promise that we made in 2014 to increase defense spending and to make sure to have a fairer burden of sharing." 
  • "But we agree that the alliance can, and should do more, in the fight against terrorism."

This appears to be one of the clearest differences between President Obama and President Trump. When NATO made the agreement in 2014 to increase their defense spending, there was likely never any real intention of doing so. President Obama wasn't going to push the issue, and neither would have a President Clinton. 

In fact, most of the international agreements made during the Obama Presidency were designed to favor everyone else, at the expense of the United States. I doubt Donald Trump will cut any deals that are not favorable to the United State's interest, and I doubt he will cut any deals that include a wink and a nod that dismisses actual accountability. 

America is no longer dropping their pants and bending over for the international community. While this apparently alarms many of those on the left (who apparently believe that Americans deserve a good anal raping every now and again)... the end result is that our allies and enemies alike are starting to show some long overdue respect again.

Hundreds of thousands
Tens of thousands
Thousands
Hundreds Protest

"Not My President's Day" rallies were staged in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia and more than two dozen other cities across the nation in a spirited display of defiance against a president who has been in power for just one month. 
A mile from the White House, hundreds packed into DuPont Circle singing "This Land Is Your Land." Many took aim at Trump's alleged cozying-up to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin with signs that read "Happy President's Day President Putin" and "My President? Nyet." 
Outside Los Angeles City Hall, hundreds more demonstrators rallying against Trump chanted: "Resist! Resist! Resist!"
Reality here folks: Trump's been President about a month, and the protesters (once in the hundreds of thousands) are now starting to look more like a typical Saturday morning crowd at the local Wallmart.

Now I am sure that the hardcore will continue to act out on their displeasure of being on the losing end of an election, but the air seems to be coming out of this balloon in a hurry. In fact, the size of the President's day protests (or lack thereof) sort of even surprised me. I certainly expected more.

Monday, February 20, 2017

No... Criticizing the Press is not the same as shutting them down...

The press has a logical dilemma. Their entire basis of existence is rooted in the concept of freedom of speech. One where the Press is entitled to critique, criticize, and otherwise question political leaders under the protection of the first amendment. Of course, the concept of free speech is hardly limited to the Press. Anyone who is an American is entitled to the same freedoms.

That freedom extends to everyone, including the President of the United States.
That freedom includes critiquing, criticizing, and otherwise questioning the press itself.



You see, the reality is that the Press has the "freedom" to criticize the President under the first amendment. But based on that same first amendment "freedom" the President has the right as a citizen to criticize them right back. If they don't want to be criticized, then perhaps "they" (and not the President) have skin a little too thin to be in the business. 

Interestingly, it was fine when Obama refused to deal with Fox News. He left them out of press briefings, and for most of his tenure he refused to do any interviews or take questions from anyone working for the network. While he may have not been as boisterous in his public attacks on Fox, he certainly took more tangible action to "shut down" their access to his Administration. Nobody complaining today seemed to think that was a problem back then? 

We are certainly entering a new Presidential reality. Trump will simply not behave like past Presidents, and much of this Country is perfectly okay with that. So I would think that the Press better get used to the idea that if they hit Trump, he is going to hit back. Crying about the unfairness of it all and demanding that it's not Presidential to criticize the press is not going to win them any points with many Americans. 

Bottom line: the press has been losing credibility for some time. They should think about why, and possibly work to improve their relationship to the American public. Here is hint number one: blatantly working every angle they can to bring down a President they quite obviously don't like isn't going to help. 

Happy President's day!


Sunday, February 19, 2017

LGBT Anti-Trump protest attracts dozens....

An estimated two dozen protesters rally in front of Trump International Hotel

Democrats employing the wrong political strategy...

A strong majority of Americans say Democrats should look to cooperate with President Trump to strike deals, according to the inaugural Harvard-Harris poll provided exclusively by The Hill.  
The survey found that 73 percent of voters want to see Democrats work with the president, against only 27 percent who said Democrats should resist Trump’s every move.  
The findings are significant as Democratic leaders in Congress are under growing pressure by their liberal base to obstruct the president's agenda. The poll shows the party is divided on how to deal with Trump: 52 percent of Democrats polled say they should cooperate with him on areas of agreement and 48 percent saying they shouldn't.
Of course, the Democrats are following the advice of pussy hat wearing protesters, nasty women, and celebrities who fantasize about blowing up the white house. Moreover, most of the Democratic office holders appear to close to the issue to see the forest for the trees. All distraction. No big picture.

Much of this is driven from the fact that their ego-driven concept of a changing demographic permanent majority for the Democrats seems to be crumbling around them. It's much easier to believe that Donald Trump somehow high-jacked the Presidency and that they must take the stand against caving in on the ransom demands... than to accept that their Party has driven themselves to century long political lows, that culminated with their chosen nominee for President being beaten by a billionaire reality television star.

One of the many reasons that Donald Trump is sitting in the White House right now is the fact that people felt like he was someone who would do what he said he would and make "getting things done" a priority. When the populist theme of early 21st century is that the political elite put Party and personal ego ahead of actually helping people... becoming absolute obstructionists doesn't appear to be a good strategy.

Friday, February 17, 2017

Largest Victory since Reagan?

By one measure it is....

This is what sort of makes that one map we all see so damned "red". 

While it's not clear that this is what Trump meant when he made the statement about the largest victory since Reagan, of if he meant (what he sort of clarified) that it was the biggest Republican electoral college victory since Reagan... what is clear is that Trump is practically immune to being embarrassed for being corrected on these sorts of facts. He sort of discounted the question as unuseful nit-picking and used the old sales technique of countering with a fairly obvious statement and then posing the ever popular "wouldn't you agree" question. Move on. 

I keep going back to the statement repeated by Scott Adams when he talks about persuasion. "Facts don't matter". The more I look at politics from the standpoint of this distinct understanding, the more I am convinced he is right. Whether it was Barack Obama and his lackeys telling the country blatantly nonfactual information about his stimulus plan or the A.C.A. law; or Hillary Clinton demanding that the F.B.I. was simply providing a routine security probe; or Donald Trump suggesting that his was the largest electoral victory since Ronald Reagan won 49 states... the facts simply don't matter. The biggest difference I can tell is with Donald Trump, he never makes much attempt at pretending differently. 
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Meanwhile Adams makes the point today that half the country saw a Press Conference where Trump was simply being vintage Donald Trump, while the other half saw Donald Trump in complete crazed out of control meltdown mode of epic proportions. The suggestion is that you could ask two people the same question, get two different answers, and put them both up against a lie detector test, and both would likely pass. Of course, all this suggests that one of the two people still has to be hallucinating as there is no real room for two realities.

Adams suggests that there are two pretty good reasons why the "meltdown" version of events is the hallucination. First, the fact is that the anti-Trump people who see a meltdown, have a "trigger" in place to cause the hallucination, while the Trump supporters do not. Simply speaking, the anti-Trump crowd never believed a Trump presidency could occur and therefor reality is clashing with their ego driven idea of what the world should be. This makes people highly likely to attempt to rewrite reality. Those who are Trump supporters have no such clash with reality. Things are just as they believe they should be. There is no reason to trigger a hallucination. 

Secondly, he uses the Purple Elephant analogy. If half the people see the purple elephant in the room and the other half doesn't... it's pretty much a sure bet that those who see it are the one hallucinating. In this case, if half the people saw some wild crazed meltdown of epic proportions, and the other half saw a typical day at the podium for Donald Trump, it's likely that the crazed meltdown is the purple elephant.  Makes sense to me. 

A shot across the bow...

The laughable liberal Press thought they had Trump on the run here. They were likely expecting to put the President through a genuine pressure cooker. Make him sweat. Make his stutter. Force him into mistakes. Attack him from all angles, like a pack of coyotes converging on prey. This was going to be a blood bath. Russia this, chaos that, etc, etc...

Maybe they could get him to cry if they were just mean enough...

Coyotes howl and regroup after tough loss...

Sorry folks.  Donald Trump is not going to roll over and play dead. He will not play defense. He will not allow the Press to dictate terms. He will not give up the bully pulpit. You hit Donald Trump. He will hit back. He showed the press that Donald Trump is in charge, not them.

The best thing about it? HIS SUPPORTERS LOVED IT! They were cheering from rooftops like all those Muslims on 9/11 [sic]. Moreover, his performance has seemed to revive many who had become somewhat taken in by all of bad media attention, wondering when and how Trump would respond. Ironically, his response was probably what we should have expected but still didn't. But think about it. What are people talking about this morning? Yeah, the Donald has manipulated the talking points once again. 

My guess is that his next press conference will be a rating banana. I'd recommend you clear your schedule, pour a drink, pop some popcorn, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

(please add comments to original press conference thread

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Trump attacks Press...
Heads explode en masse...

This is not a way to conduct the presidency

Reality here folks. Trump is seventy years old. He turned a million dollar loan into a multi-billion dollar empire. He's been a successful reality television star. He won the GOP nomination over a loaded field, and went on to win the general election and become President. What's worked has worked, and he is unlikely to change. If I was a betting man, I'd wager that Donald Trump will likely change the Presidency more than the Presidency will change Donald Trump.

So the concept that reporters and authors and academics and historians (or whatever it is that some of these people want to call themselves) will be able to somehow shame Donald Trump into becoming what they would like him to be is pure nonsense.

Trump is sitting north of 85% approval with Republicans. Those who support Donald Trump, believe this sort of confrontation with the media is actually a good thing, overdue, and maybe even necessary. I only expect more of this sort of "conduct" from the President. Those who are offended by all of this, probably better just stay clear.

Losing political control makes one susceptible to suggestion...

Even as Democrats decry the false claims streaming regularly from the White House, they appear to have become more vulnerable to unsupported claims and conspiracy theories that flatter their own political prejudices. The reason isn’t just that a Republican now occupies the White House. Political psychology research suggests that losing political control can make people more vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories.


Research suggests that people embrace conspiracy beliefs as a way to cope with perceived threats to control. In particular, Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent at the University of Miami have argued that conspiracy theory beliefs increase in response to group threats, including among losers of elections. These beliefs can help rally groups and coordinate action in response to a decline in status or power.


So "this" is what makes people believe it's a good idea to put on pink "pussy hats" and listen to Ashley "Nasty woman" Judd and Ma "I want to blow up the White House" donna give silly speeches about the Nazis, rapists, bigots, molesters, and Cheetos dust. I suppose this also makes one susceptible to believing that every little event is the next "Watergate". I suppose this is also the reason people dream up elaborate plans for how you could go about convincing Republicans (87% of which approve of Trump as President) to impeach one of their own in the name of prudence.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Classic media manipulation...

So when hackers wandered their way into the private email accounts of the D.N.C. and the Hillary Clinton campaigns, exposing embarrassing and politically damaging information about the Democratic Party and the Democratic candidate for President...

The leaked information itself was buried by most media outlets, there were attempts to shut down Wikileaks, and the media for the most part focused on the actions of the hackers, Wikileaks, and how unfair it was that this information may have damaged Clinton's election chances.

Oh, and none of the information leaked was classified, detrimental to the country, or otherwise carried any sort of national security risk. It wasn't even Government information, but rather information from private political organizations that had little or no cyber-security in place. Those responsible for the hack did not commit any real criminal behavior above and beyond the actions of hacking a private email server.
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But when the FBI is monitoring the phone calls of a future National Security advisory (possibly illegally since he was a private citizen at the time)... and information regarding these phone calls was leaked to the press (which is by all standards a crime)... the same media went full blast in an attempt to report on the subject, using their own interpretation of events to suggest that the phone calls themselves are a huge scandal.

They, of course, have no interest in assailing those that instigated the leaks, as they did with the DNC and Clinton campaign hacking. They have no interest in challenging the fact that the gathering of this information may have been illegal NSA or FBI monitoring. They have no interest that Government employees broke the law by leaking classified information to the press. They have no interest in the motivation or anything else to do with the government employees involved either in the monitoring or the leaking.
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So what we can be sure of:
  • When we have third Party hackers exposing embarrassing information from private non-government emails: the hackers are the culprits, and the exposed private Party are the victims.
  • When we have government employees with access to classified materials... leaking information that was possibly illegally gathered by intelligence sources: the employees and the intelligence gatherers are the good guys, and the exposed party in this case is the culprit. 
Go figure... 

Biggest story since Watergate


Some of what used to be known as your major news outlets are wide eyed and bushy tailed over recent leaks that reveal the fact that some of the Trump campaign staffers had been in contact with Russian officials. Sounds ominous until you consider:
  • CNN admits that they were told by officials that communication between Presidential campaigns and foreign officials is "not unusual".
  • NY Times admits that they have been told (by their sources) that there is no evidence that any of the contact between the Trump campaign and Russian officials had to do with election hacking or anything otherwise illegal. 
So, if we read between the lines here, we can pretty much deduce that there was likely similar contact between the Clinton campaign and foreign officials. There was likely similar contact between the Obama campaign and foreign officials. There was likely similar contact between the Romney campaign, the McCain campaign, the Bush campaign, the Kerry campaign and foreign officials. We can also deduce that such communications (in and of itself) is neither illegal or even unethical.  

But none-the-less... this is still the biggest story since Watergate. At least till next week, when something bigger and better comes along.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

This is like the Vietnam era protests!

Just remember, it could be argued that the protests of that time period didn't exactly translate into political victories for Democrats. In fact, what we saw in the aftermath of all of those protests and mass organizing of the liberal cause was massive electoral college landslide victories for Richard Nixon over anti-war candidate George McGovern and Ronald Reagan over two liberal Democrats. The only Democrat who won during that time period was the Southern born again Baptist Jimmy Carter. Perhaps that is something worth remembering for those excited about the current protests and riots? 


Liberals like to suggest that Trump protests rival the Vietnam era protests!

175-0

Justice Gorsush has written 175 majority decisions, and not one of those 175 were overturned by a higher court.  


One can make a lot of different arguments about what sort of Justice you want sitting on the Supreme Court. But almost nobody is going to argue that you don't want someone who proves over and over again that his understanding of the law is such that it has stood above any legal questioning or legal review.

You want a justice who get's it right above all else. At 175-0 it would certainly appear that Gorsuch understands the importance of getting it right.

Flynn resigns...

Lt. General Joseph Keith Kellogg, Jr., was named President Trump’s acting national security advisor. Retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward and General Petraeus are considered also to be in the running for permanent replacement of Flynn.


I don't have much of an opinion on this one. The Administration is making this about Flynn lying to the Vice President (sending the message to everyone that transparency and honestly are necessary), more so than they are making it to be about the actual actions of talking to the Russians.

I have no doubt that if Flynn had the full absolute support of the President on this, that they would have all been more than willing to weather the storm. So I am not sure this is a voluntary resignation.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Never Presidential to criticize Justices or the Court?

Except, of course, when it's done by Obama... then it's all justified and good.

Phantom powers replaced with phantom checks...

So for the lion's share of eight years, the left, the media, and the Democratic Party worked overtime in an attempt to expand the powers of the executive branch. There is little question that if your progressive movement would have had it's way, they would have crowned Obama King, and done away with the checks and balances nonsense.

Liberals cheer President Obama's pen and phone comment!

Now, the same people who demanded for eight years that the constitution, the voters will, the congress, and the courts were simply silly roadblocks preventing the ultimate power of the Presidency have done a drastic about face. It's now become clear that those phantom powers of the Presidency have conveniently disappeared and been replaced by new phantom "checks" on that same office.

Not that this sort of change in attitude isn't somewhat typical political behavior, or that historically it's exclusive to this particular generation of liberals. It's just that it's never been quite so obvious, quite so transparently hypocritical, and quite so blatantly illogical in the manner in which it has been argued.

Let's start with the basic concept that the separation of powers provides the legislative branch with the relatively exclusive powers to create domestic laws and statutes, while providing the executive branch with relatively exclusive powers to act on national security and foreign policy issues. Tell me how it is possible to support the claim four years ago that the President has the power to act on legislative issues if Congress refuses to do so.... but claim today that the President does not have the power to actually specifically follow explicit statutory laws regarding national security issues?

A better way to answer this question would be to reverse the situation. Would the same progressives argue that Donald Trump has the authority today to use a pen and a phone to create legislative orders if congress fails to do what he wants them to do. Should he be allowed by executive fiat to simply order tax cuts or maybe write an executive order that repeals Obamacare simply because Congress might not otherwise have the votes to pass the legislation?

Assume President Obama had made a decision, based on the information gathered by the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the Director of Homeland Security, and the various military brass to write an order restricting travel from a particular area of the world deemed dangerous. Assume he used existing statutory legislation to guide him, had the order written by immigration lawyers, reviewed by the NSA, Homeland Security, and the Office of legal council from the DOJ before rolling it out. How many people would have questioned President Obama and his decision? The answer (of course) is one of historical reality. He did in fact restrict travel during his tenure, and exactly zero people questioned his authority to do so.

The reality here is one that the left just doesn't want to accept. Donald Trump is as much President as Barack Obama was. Trump has the same Presidential powers and the same Presidential limitations as Obama did. An attack on Donald Trump's powers is simply an attack on the powers of the Presidency and executive branch itself.

Personally, I am fine with the abrupt halt in the expansion of Presidential powers. Everything Donald Trump gets fought on, ultimately restricts executive powers well into the future. Long term, we are looking at it becoming harder and harder for Democrats to garner congressional powers. Thirty red states and twenty blue states provides a built in GOP Senate advantage, and consolidation of liberal voters into dense urban areas provide a similar House advantage for Republicans. Considering the USSC could ultimately end up 5-4 or even 6-3 conservative by the time Trump leaves office, not to mention he will be appointing a bus load of federal justices without any chance of filibuster... it would seem that the other two branches of the Government may end up being conservative for the foreseeable future. Creating more "checks" on the Presidency would seem to be a bad long term political move for the left, considering the Presidency is still their best hope of getting their foot in the door.

But then again, when it comes to politics... most people can't see anything other than what's in the news today. Angry mobs filled with hatred and loathing are not exactly strategic thinkers.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

No Senator Schumer, the courts are not designed to be a policy check on the President...


This appears to be the next piece of the "if we can't win elections, we can decide to fundamentally change the rules" strategy employed by the Democrats. File it under #dotheyeverexpecttowinagain.

First it was Senator Feinstein who suggested as much, and now the claim has been repeated by Senator Schumer that the courts owe it to the world to basically oppose the President. According to the Senate Minority leader it's up to Justice Neil Gorsuch to "prove that he can be an independent check" on the President before he should warrant support.

Reality here folks. There is no such constitutional requirement for the Courts to provide "policy checks" on the executive branch anymore than there is a requirement of any kind for a Supreme Court Justice to garner 60 votes to be confirmed. The Congress and the People are both there (by design) to provide policy checks against the executive branch, either by passing specific legislation, overriding a veto, or by ultimately working with the electorate to replace a President who is attempting to push policies that are ultimately harmful.

The courts are there to determine whether or not what the executive and legislative branches do are "constitutional and statutorily legal"... but they do not exist in any manner, shape, or form to make any determinations as to whether otherwise legal orders or laws are ultimately good or bad.

Friday, February 10, 2017

Lawsuit on behalf of corporations "right" to save money by hiring foreign workers for less money moves forward?

9th Circuit Court rules against restating travel ban.

Do Democrats really intend to win any more elections? 
From the court:
"The government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States." 
Never before have I seen a case where the Justices are arguing the political (not legal) merits of a case... based on basically completely on factually incorrect information. There have been literally dozens of cases in recent years where aliens of these countries have been "convicted" of terrorist activity. In fact, we have convicted an alien from these countries (on average) every 90 days since 9/11.  

My god, the guy who knifed the nine people at the St Cloud Mall a few months ago here in Minnesota was a Somali refugee. It begs the question: do any of these Justices even read the news?? 

The President of the United States leads the executive branch, and has the FBI, CIA, NSA, Dept of Homeland Security, and all of the branches of the military answering to him, briefing him on security concerns on a daily basis.

The people overruling him have "fake news" where they read somewhere that none of the countries have any terror activities. Quite literally this is how they are openly coming to their decision.  


Thursday, February 9, 2017

Why original constitutionalism is the only real "fair" way to rule...

Let's focus on what things we should all agree on when it comes to our judicial system:
  • That everyone should be treated fairly.
  • That the law should be objective and fair.
  • That there should be consistency in the process. 

Now, admittedly not everyone probably agrees with these principles, but I am more than convinced that they should. At least they should if they were truly honest about wanting a fair and impartial judicial system. Problem is that I don't believe that everyone actually wants a fair and impartial judicial system. I thinks some people see the judicial system as a means to an end that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with fairness.

But let's assume that I am wrong about my suspicions, and that everyone really would like to see a fair judiciary process.
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Let's start with a quick analogy regarding the arbitration of rules. Everyone inherently knows that when it comes to things like reffing football, that there are going to be calls that are clearly subjective. The referees are many times forced to make a judgement call. But those judgement calls are supposed to be made based on the rules set in place at the beginning of the season.

Now at the end of every football season the "rules committee" meets and discusses changes to or possibly even new rules. Pass interference has been one that the rules committee has gone back and forth on. In many ways, the rules on pass interference has been like the "living document" that many on the left would like the constitution to be. One year, it's okay to face mask, the next year not so much. One year you are allowed to initiate contact in certain situations, the next year it's a penalty. The only constant to pass interference seems to be change.

But... those rules are set at the beginning of the season, everyone is given the opportunity to learn about the changes, and the calls for that season are designed to use whatever new set of rules are currently in place. What doesn't happen, and would never happen, is that sometime during the third quarter of a game one of the referees decides on his own that the meaning of pass interference should be changed at the core, and that he will now decide to make his judgement based on the new meaning he just came up with.
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Now we can all see why it would be unfair for a referee to change the rules in the middle of a football game. Quite obviously we inherently understand that the players need to know the rules they are playing under when the game starts, and they should be able to rest assured that those rules are not subject to the whims of another person's singular opinion on how those rules should be evolving. This is a fundamental basic common ideal of fairness that we all should have learned when we were in grade school. (You don't get to change the rules in the middle of a game).

Can anyone tell me why life should have any less protection from arbitrary rule changes than a football game does?

You see, when a Justice takes it upon himself to decide that there is something in the constitution that requires an interpretation or decides that a legal statute means something different than what is actually written into the statute, he or she is quite literally changing the laws of society on the fly. Unlike a rules committee, which discusses rule changes, and then lets everyone know what the new rules will be... this Justice provides no such advance warning that the rules and laws of society have changed.

Moreover, the Justice is literally changing the laws "after" the events that are in question have taken place. There would be no way for the Parties involved to have known that the Justice in question was going to reinterpret the meaning of the law, that in nearly all cases had historically been already set. They were living and behaving under the old laws, and the Justice is expecting that they should have behaved as he or she would like to see the law interpreted. 
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Now if we all agree (and again we all should agree)  that the fair way to go about any arbitration of rules or laws  is to let people know when a rule or law has been changed prior to changing them, so that the people involved understand what rules they are living by: then it's clear that it should no more be up to a "justice" to change the interpretation of  rules or laws, than it would be for a football referee to do so. In fact, unless anyone is willing to suggest that "life in general" is less important than a football game, then we should be "more" inclined to demand that Judges and Justices follow the rules as written (not as they would otherwise interpret them).

So how do you solve this? You require your Justices to rule on the purest simplest most easily agreed upon factual reading of the constitution, the precedents, and statutory laws. If the statute says something specific. That's your statute.

This resolves two problems. First and foremost, the Judge doesn't get to declare that a statute meant something different than it states, because that is simply not fair to the people following it. Secondly, the best way to guarantee consistency of judicial reasoning is to take the constitution, precedent, and laws at their simplest and most obvious meaning. Wouldn't it be nice to believe that a Federal Judge on the First Circuit nominated by George W Bush would generally rule the same way as a Federal Judge on the Ninth Circuit nominated by Barack Obama?

At the end of the day, if the Country is not happy with how a law or statute is actually written, then they get the rules committee (Congress) to change it. If they are not happy with how something is written into the constitution, then they can amend it. Then, everyone understands the law of the land is different, and they can live and behave accordingly to the changes.    

Tell me why I am wrong?



Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Thoughts on the 9th circuit appeal...

So we have the original plaintiffs making their case, there has been several states weighing in, as well as former Government officials providing friends of the court briefs, all making the same basic argument.

This law is unnecessary and therefor unjustified.

Reading some of the transcripts from the oral arguments reflects similar debate on the merits of the law, and whether there were unwritten intentions of  this being some sort of "Muslim ban". There is discussion surrounding why these Countries were chosen, what evidence there is that there is actual security concerns, and there was even discussion regarding newspaper articles about what so called surrogates of the President may or may not have said.



What has become increasingly apparent is a total disregard for the actual laws that govern this case. In fact, there is a basic concession even by the plaintiffs that the right exists for the President to create a travel ban, that there is legal precedent, and that there is statutory laws that back it. But the overall attitude is that the legality of the action is not what the court needs to be deciding.

As Senator Feinstein stated over the weekend, the Courts job is to provide "oversight" to runaway policy making. In other words, the left now believes that the Courts are no longer an arbitrator of legal disputes, but in fact they are also arbitrators of policy disputes.

To be abundantly clear here folks. This is a policy dispute disguised as a legal dispute. The Robart ruling offered as much, as do the arguments coming from the plaintiffs (and friends), as did much of the oral arguments being heard yesterday.

I would ask everyone here if that is really how they want the three branch checks and balances to evolve? That we now settle policy disputes, not through elections or congressional consensus, but rather we decide to provide the ultimate say to unelected Justices with lifetime appointments?  I would ask especially those who may be cheering today, but will be starting down a 5-4, 6-3, or possibly even a 7-2 conservative USSC for the foreseeable future.