My brother in law started talking about how great Trump is after asking what I think of him. Not today, not on Christmas day. I replied with he sucks. No point in arguing over it.
Trump came up at my family Christmas for a very brief moment. My uncle who is a huge conservative said about trump: “well he’s just a fucking asshole. Trying to implement some of the right things but goes about it in the worst ways”.
I hope this is a good sign. I didn’t comment as I wanted the subject to move on (and it did) so I don’t know what the “right things” are that he was referring to but I was very happy to hear him start right off with the asshole remark.
I don't know your uncle...and one man may dodge the statistics...but statistically, he's probably voting for Trump. Just wait until he (and those like him) have to weigh him against a "socialist."
My brother in law is a colonel and teaches at the Naval Academy. He's a lifelong Republican but hates Trump with every ounce of his being. I hadn't seen him in two years because he was in Cuba for his last stint, but I was surprised at Christmas that he said he was supporting Pete. He really likes him. He's a pretty hard core Catholic, so was surprised that he's overlooking that Pete is gay. I have hope...
My brother in law started talking about how great Trump is after asking what I think of him. Not today, not on Christmas day. I replied with he sucks. No point in arguing over it.
Trump came up at my family Christmas for a very brief moment. My uncle who is a huge conservative said about trump: “well he’s just a fucking asshole. Trying to implement some of the right things but goes about it in the worst ways”.
I hope this is a good sign. I didn’t comment as I wanted the subject to move on (and it did) so I don’t know what the “right things” are that he was referring to but I was very happy to hear him start right off with the asshole remark.
i work in medical sales. i work with a lot of assholes every single day. assholes can recognize assholishness in other assholes. they almost seem to respect it.
i imagine they compliment each other behind their backs by calling each other assholes the way i compliment someone behind their back by saying "oh man that dude is such a nice guy."
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
My brother in law started talking about how great Trump is after asking what I think of him. Not today, not on Christmas day. I replied with he sucks. No point in arguing over it.
Trump came up at my family Christmas for a very brief moment. My uncle who is a huge conservative said about trump: “well he’s just a fucking asshole. Trying to implement some of the right things but goes about it in the worst ways”.
I hope this is a good sign. I didn’t comment as I wanted the subject to move on (and it did) so I don’t know what the “right things” are that he was referring to but I was very happy to hear him start right off with the asshole remark.
I don't know your uncle...and one man may dodge the statistics...but statistically, he's probably voting for Trump. Just wait until he (and those like him) have to weigh him against a "socialist."
Oh I’m pretty sure he will still vote republican but at least he voluntarily acknowledged Trump sucks. It’s a start.
https://apple.news/AXIly66NwRn2-iCE_-tkU9Q i bet he won’t care that a large portion on congregation consist of illegals, fucking religious zealots are thee worst humans ..
Do any of you follow Heather Cox Richardson? She is a political historian at Boston College. She writes a daily blog that puts the days news in perspective and offers an insightful view of current events through the lens of history. You can find her on Facebook and at her blog: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ Here is today's message if interested:
If yesterday was about looking backward and taking stock, today is about moving forward.
The biggest story today, by far, is that yesterday, on December 31, supporters of what appear to be an Iranian-backed militia laid siege to the US embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. The immediate cause was the US airstrikes that killed 25 in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed a US military contractor. But the larger protest was anger at American presence in the region. It was significant that the embassy is not simply a building, it is a 104-acre area, and the protesters had to push past Iraqi soldiers to take up their positions, which suggested to observers that the Iraqi soldiers agreed with the protesters.
The protest highlighted the increasing tension in Iraq between Americans, who retain about 5000 troops in Iraq, and Iran, which controls the Iraqi militias. Tensions with Iran ratcheted up when in 2018 Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits to its development of nuclear technology.
The siege conjured up memories of the 1979 seizure of the Iranian embassy by Islamic militants, as yesterday's protesters echoed their calls of “Death to America” and embassy staff hunkered down in a safe room inside the compound. It also invited comparisons to the 2012 attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, as American officials were blindsided by the attack. Nervous about those comparisons, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham repeatedly noted that there would be “no Benghazis” on Trump’s watch.
In one of history's little twists, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on whose watch this has happened, was on the House Select Committee on Benghazi when it investigated Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the sixth time in the House (and, for the sixth time, found no wrongdoing). This was the investigation Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) now House Minority Leader, told Fox News personality Sean Hannity was intended simply to keep Benghazi in front of voters to hurt Clinton before the 2016 election. (It has recently been revealed that McCarthy took Russian money from indicted political operative Lev Parnas.) And now, Pompeo and Trump have their own incident.
The larger crisis is that it is falling into Trump’s lap to deal with the fallout of a war that began in 2003 and has cost more than a trillion dollars, and which seems to have accomplished very little except to strengthen the hand of Iran in the area. And it is happening at a time when he is facing an impeachment trial and is more and more erratic.
Today, unexpectedly, the protesters ended their siege out of deference to Iraqi leaders, they claimed. “You have won a victory,” one of the leaders told the militias. “You have delivered your message. We will take our fight to expel U.S. troops from our land to parliament, and if we don’t succeed, we will return."
Also on the table today is that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared that he will no longer be bound by his self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range ballistic missile tests since talks between him and Trump have not resulted in an end to the sanctions crippling his country. Kim appears to be jockeying for a better position at home and against Trump, who is weakened by impeachment and his growing unpopularity.
Both of these issues illustrate the problem of trying to engage in international relations without the steady hand of professional diplomats and without allies. Both of these situations are critical, and Trump is now facing them without a strong diplomatic corps and without the support of our former allies.
The other big today story is that last night Chief Justice John Roberts released the annual report on the federal judiciary.
Roberts is in a touchy position right now. As the head of the Supreme Court, he is responsible for the health and well-being of the entire judicial system, and he cannot be unaware of the disdain Americans have conceived for Chief Justices who used the court to achieve unpopular political decisions. Roger Taney, for example (whose name is pronounced “Tawney,” for unfathomable reasons), led the court in the years before the Civil War, and has been consigned to the dustbin of history for his role in deciding the 1857 Dred Scott decision in such a way that it gave elite slaveholders control of the newly acquired American West while both denying the humanity of African Americans and the rights of poor white men. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who presided over a slew of horrid decisions at the turn of the last century, including the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that rubberstamped “separate but equal” justifying segregation, was such an embarrassment that virtually no one even remembers him: we call his court the “Lochner Era court” rather than the “Melville Fuller court.”
Roberts was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush and presided over Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which gutted the Voting Rights Act, as well as Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (2010), which said that the government cannot restrict the amount of money corporations can invest in political speech. He is a firm believer in a small federal government and the power of corporations, but he is also an intelligent man who cares about his legacy.
Roberts will preside over the upcoming Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, and he has already exchanged words with Trump over the independence of the judiciary: Trump has tried throughout his administration to sow distrust of judges appointed by Democrats, while Roberts has countered that judges must be impartial.
So Roberts’s introduction to the annual report was not idle. He began by attacking the use of propaganda and mob rule and went on to defend the independence of the judiciary. He went out of his way to praise Judge Merrick Garland-- although not by name--, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court whom Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an unprecedented attack on the presidency, refused to consider.
But most interesting to me in his report was that when Roberts talked at great length about the role of the courts to educate Americans about the rule of law, his primary example was the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation. That case is pivotal in American history not only because of its role in desegregation, but because it sparked an outpouring of scholarship suggesting that society changes not because of social trends or economic or politics, but because of court decisions. In the wake of Brown v. Board, the great historian C. Vann Woodward argued that segregation itself came only after Jim Crow laws, and that popular acceptance of civil rights would come only after legal desegregation.
Roberts seemed to me to be saying that the job of reclaiming democracy and the rule of law belonged to the courts now—a major declaration at a time when Trump has a number of court cases pending, as well, of course, as his impeachment trial. I absolutely could be reading too much into Roberts’s declaration, but it seemed to me significant.
What exactly Roberts means by the rule of law, though, remains to be seen.
Kind of a rocky start to 2020, but I'm guessing it's going to be a rocky year.
Are we getting something out of this all-encompassing trip?
Seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned...
President Trump's allies on Capitol Hill rushed to praise the operation, saying the killing sent a strong message to Iran and could be a strong deterrent to Iranian proxies in Iraq.
"Wow - the price of killing and injuring Americans has just gone up drastically. Major blow to Iranian regime that has American blood on its hands. Soleimani was one of the most ruthless and vicious members of the Ayatollah's regime. He had American blood on his hands," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a prominent foreign policy hawk who often speaks with the White House, said in a series of tweets.
"The defensive actions the U.S. has taken against #Iran & its proxies are consistent with clear warnings they have received. They chose to ignore these warnings because they believed @POTUS was constrained from acting by our domestic political divisions. They badly miscalculated," added Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
"Qassem Soleimani masterminded Iran's reign of terror for decades, including the deaths of hundreds of Americans. Tonight, he got what he richly deserved, and all those American soldiers who died by his hand also got what they deserved: justice. America is safer now after Soleimani's demise," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) echoed.
Cue BS and the other Israeli hawks to pop in and proclaim what a brilliant brilliance of brilliancy stroke of foreign policy Team Trump Treason’s airstrike was and how this will give America the standing that Obama squandered. Gee, can’t wait for the massive truck bomb attack on innocents in a few months. Wag the dog and start a slow burn proxy war. Brilliant.
The guy was in Iraq leading attacks on the US embassy. Seems like fair game for the US to respond. I am not going to feel bad that one less evil person is gone from the world.
I guess Iran won’t like the US now.
Post edited by bootlegger10 on
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,802
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
i saw a headline earlier that manafort has stated that hannity was his back channel to trump when manafort was overseas committing his financial crimes. why are they not hauling hannity's ass in front of the judge where manafort was tried?
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
The other big today story is that last night Chief Justice John Roberts released the annual report on the federal judiciary.
Roberts is in a touchy position right now. As the head of the Supreme Court, he is responsible for the health and well-being of the entire judicial system, and he cannot be unaware of the disdain Americans have conceived for Chief Justices who used the court to achieve unpopular political decisions. Roger Taney, for example (whose name is pronounced “Tawney,” for unfathomable reasons), led the court in the years before the Civil War, and has been consigned to the dustbin of history for his role in deciding the 1857 Dred Scott decision in such a way that it gave elite slaveholders control of the newly acquired American West while both denying the humanity of African Americans and the rights of poor white men. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who presided over a slew of horrid decisions at the turn of the last century, including the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that rubberstamped “separate but equal” justifying segregation, was such an embarrassment that virtually no one even remembers him: we call his court the “Lochner Era court” rather than the “Melville Fuller court.”
Roberts was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush and presided over Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which gutted the Voting Rights Act, as well as Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (2010), which said that the government cannot restrict the amount of money corporations can invest in political speech. He is a firm believer in a small federal government and the power of corporations, but he is also an intelligent man who cares about his legacy.
Roberts will preside over the upcoming Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, and he has already exchanged words with Trump over the independence of the judiciary: Trump has tried throughout his administration to sow distrust of judges appointed by Democrats, while Roberts has countered that judges must be impartial.
So Roberts’s introduction to the annual report was not idle. He began by attacking the use of propaganda and mob rule and went on to defend the independence of the judiciary. He went out of his way to praise Judge Merrick Garland-- although not by name--, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court whom Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an unprecedented attack on the presidency, refused to consider.
But most interesting to me in his report was that when Roberts talked at great length about the role of the courts to educate Americans about the rule of law, his primary example was the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation. That case is pivotal in American history not only because of its role in desegregation, but because it sparked an outpouring of scholarship suggesting that society changes not because of social trends or economic or politics, but because of court decisions. In the wake of Brown v. Board, the great historian C. Vann Woodward argued that segregation itself came only after Jim Crow laws, and that popular acceptance of civil rights would come only after legal desegregation.
Roberts seemed to me to be saying that the job of reclaiming democracy and the rule of law belonged to the courts now—a major declaration at a time when Trump has a number of court cases pending, as well, of course, as his impeachment trial. I absolutely could be reading too much into Roberts’s declaration, but it seemed to me significant.
What exactly Roberts means by the rule of law, though, remains to be seen.
Heather should be a little careful thinking Robert's can be some sort of friend of democracy and the rule of law.
Roberts has had a heavy hand ripping these apart with his Court's 5-4 party line votes in 3 significant cases involving citizen rights:
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Shelby County v. Holder
Rucho v. Common Cause
2 of the 3 cases are the Court overriding existing law to cede obscene power to the federal govt and the wealthy. And allowing the several states to use racism to take away voting rights
The 3rd case is the 5 republican Justices allowing the states to use race as a weapon to draw election district maps.
These 3 cases are pivotal in overriding congress and granting unchecked power to the white and wealthy.
Lastly, Robert's has very little power to have any material impact on an impeachment trial. Senate rules give that power to 51 senators.
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,298
The Institute of Supply Management's index of manufacturing activity released Friday hit its lowest level since the end of the Great Recession in December.
Why it matters: It shows worsening conditions for the U.S. manufacturing sector, which has been in contraction for five straight months, and reignites concerns about the trade war's impact on the economy. Stocks, already in the red after a U.S. airstrike killed a top Iranian general, fell near the lowest levels of the day following the release of the data.
By the numbers: The index came in at 47.2 in December — worse than the 49 economists expected — falling 0.9 points from the prior month's reading. (Any reading below 50 suggests the manufacturing sector is in contraction.)
Respondents to the survey, which manufacture goods in 18 different industries, noted sluggish demand for products, as well as suppliers passing tariff-related costs on to manufacturers.
The bottom line: "Global trade remains the most significant cross-industry issue, but there are signs that several industry sectors will improve as a result of the phase-one trade agreement between the U.S. and China," ISM chair Timothy Fiore said in a statement.
The other big today story is that last night Chief Justice John Roberts released the annual report on the federal judiciary.
Roberts is in a touchy position right now. As the head of the Supreme Court, he is responsible for the health and well-being of the entire judicial system, and he cannot be unaware of the disdain Americans have conceived for Chief Justices who used the court to achieve unpopular political decisions. Roger Taney, for example (whose name is pronounced “Tawney,” for unfathomable reasons), led the court in the years before the Civil War, and has been consigned to the dustbin of history for his role in deciding the 1857 Dred Scott decision in such a way that it gave elite slaveholders control of the newly acquired American West while both denying the humanity of African Americans and the rights of poor white men. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who presided over a slew of horrid decisions at the turn of the last century, including the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that rubberstamped “separate but equal” justifying segregation, was such an embarrassment that virtually no one even remembers him: we call his court the “Lochner Era court” rather than the “Melville Fuller court.”
Roberts was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush and presided over Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which gutted the Voting Rights Act, as well as Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (2010), which said that the government cannot restrict the amount of money corporations can invest in political speech. He is a firm believer in a small federal government and the power of corporations, but he is also an intelligent man who cares about his legacy.
Roberts will preside over the upcoming Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, and he has already exchanged words with Trump over the independence of the judiciary: Trump has tried throughout his administration to sow distrust of judges appointed by Democrats, while Roberts has countered that judges must be impartial.
So Roberts’s introduction to the annual report was not idle. He began by attacking the use of propaganda and mob rule and went on to defend the independence of the judiciary. He went out of his way to praise Judge Merrick Garland-- although not by name--, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court whom Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an unprecedented attack on the presidency, refused to consider.
But most interesting to me in his report was that when Roberts talked at great length about the role of the courts to educate Americans about the rule of law, his primary example was the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation. That case is pivotal in American history not only because of its role in desegregation, but because it sparked an outpouring of scholarship suggesting that society changes not because of social trends or economic or politics, but because of court decisions. In the wake of Brown v. Board, the great historian C. Vann Woodward argued that segregation itself came only after Jim Crow laws, and that popular acceptance of civil rights would come only after legal desegregation.
Roberts seemed to me to be saying that the job of reclaiming democracy and the rule of law belonged to the courts now—a major declaration at a time when Trump has a number of court cases pending, as well, of course, as his impeachment trial. I absolutely could be reading too much into Roberts’s declaration, but it seemed to me significant.
What exactly Roberts means by the rule of law, though, remains to be seen.
Heather should be a little careful thinking Robert's can be some sort of friend of democracy and the rule of law.
Roberts has had a heavy hand ripping these apart with his Court's 5-4 party line votes in 3 significant cases involving citizen rights:
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Shelby County v. Holder
Rucho v. Common Cause
2 of the 3 cases are the Court overriding existing law to cede obscene power to the federal govt and the wealthy. And allowing the several states to use racism to take away voting rights
The 3rd case is the 5 republican Justices allowing the states to use race as a weapon to draw election district maps.
These 3 cases are pivotal in overriding congress and granting unchecked power to the white and wealthy.
Lastly, Robert's has very little power to have any material impact on an impeachment trial. Senate rules give that power to 51 senators.
I am not making any statement regarding these cases, but just going to comment that you mention these were party line votes. So does that mean that both sides put party over law, or is party line only a negative connotation when conservatives vote together?
If Roberts was the devil he would have ruled against Obamacare.
What’s the over under on the amount of time before a Team Trump Treason Tower is collapsed and it what country? Sure am glad I don’t have to go home to one of those.
What’s the over under on the amount of time before a Team Trump Treason Tower is collapsed and it what country? Sure am glad I don’t have to go home to one of those.
that would be an interesting development. he would go to war for sure if that happened.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
What’s the over under on the amount of time before a Team Trump Treason Tower is collapsed and it what country? Sure am glad I don’t have to go home to one of those.
Comments
i imagine they compliment each other behind their backs by calling each other assholes the way i compliment someone behind their back by saying "oh man that dude is such a nice guy."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
What about humanity? Decency?
i bet he won’t care that a large portion on congregation consist of illegals, fucking religious zealots are thee worst humans ..
If yesterday was about looking backward and taking stock, today is about moving forward.
The biggest story today, by far, is that yesterday, on December 31, supporters of what appear to be an Iranian-backed militia laid siege to the US embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. The immediate cause was the US airstrikes that killed 25 in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed a US military contractor. But the larger protest was anger at American presence in the region. It was significant that the embassy is not simply a building, it is a 104-acre area, and the protesters had to push past Iraqi soldiers to take up their positions, which suggested to observers that the Iraqi soldiers agreed with the protesters.
The protest highlighted the increasing tension in Iraq between Americans, who retain about 5000 troops in Iraq, and Iran, which controls the Iraqi militias. Tensions with Iran ratcheted up when in 2018 Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits to its development of nuclear technology.
The siege conjured up memories of the 1979 seizure of the Iranian embassy by Islamic militants, as yesterday's protesters echoed their calls of “Death to America” and embassy staff hunkered down in a safe room inside the compound. It also invited comparisons to the 2012 attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, as American officials were blindsided by the attack. Nervous about those comparisons, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham repeatedly noted that there would be “no Benghazis” on Trump’s watch.
In one of history's little twists, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on whose watch this has happened, was on the House Select Committee on Benghazi when it investigated Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the sixth time in the House (and, for the sixth time, found no wrongdoing). This was the investigation Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) now House Minority Leader, told Fox News personality Sean Hannity was intended simply to keep Benghazi in front of voters to hurt Clinton before the 2016 election. (It has recently been revealed that McCarthy took Russian money from indicted political operative Lev Parnas.) And now, Pompeo and Trump have their own incident.
The larger crisis is that it is falling into Trump’s lap to deal with the fallout of a war that began in 2003 and has cost more than a trillion dollars, and which seems to have accomplished very little except to strengthen the hand of Iran in the area. And it is happening at a time when he is facing an impeachment trial and is more and more erratic.
Today, unexpectedly, the protesters ended their siege out of deference to Iraqi leaders, they claimed. “You have won a victory,” one of the leaders told the militias. “You have delivered your message. We will take our fight to expel U.S. troops from our land to parliament, and if we don’t succeed, we will return."
Also on the table today is that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared that he will no longer be bound by his self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range ballistic missile tests since talks between him and Trump have not resulted in an end to the sanctions crippling his country. Kim appears to be jockeying for a better position at home and against Trump, who is weakened by impeachment and his growing unpopularity.
Both of these issues illustrate the problem of trying to engage in international relations without the steady hand of professional diplomats and without allies. Both of these situations are critical, and Trump is now facing them without a strong diplomatic corps and without the support of our former allies.
The other big today story is that last night Chief Justice John Roberts released the annual report on the federal judiciary.
Roberts is in a touchy position right now. As the head of the Supreme Court, he is responsible for the health and well-being of the entire judicial system, and he cannot be unaware of the disdain Americans have conceived for Chief Justices who used the court to achieve unpopular political decisions. Roger Taney, for example (whose name is pronounced “Tawney,” for unfathomable reasons), led the court in the years before the Civil War, and has been consigned to the dustbin of history for his role in deciding the 1857 Dred Scott decision in such a way that it gave elite slaveholders control of the newly acquired American West while both denying the humanity of African Americans and the rights of poor white men. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who presided over a slew of horrid decisions at the turn of the last century, including the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that rubberstamped “separate but equal” justifying segregation, was such an embarrassment that virtually no one even remembers him: we call his court the “Lochner Era court” rather than the “Melville Fuller court.”
Roberts was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush and presided over Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which gutted the Voting Rights Act, as well as Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (2010), which said that the government cannot restrict the amount of money corporations can invest in political speech. He is a firm believer in a small federal government and the power of corporations, but he is also an intelligent man who cares about his legacy.
Roberts will preside over the upcoming Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, and he has already exchanged words with Trump over the independence of the judiciary: Trump has tried throughout his administration to sow distrust of judges appointed by Democrats, while Roberts has countered that judges must be impartial.
So Roberts’s introduction to the annual report was not idle. He began by attacking the use of propaganda and mob rule and went on to defend the independence of the judiciary. He went out of his way to praise Judge Merrick Garland-- although not by name--, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court whom Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an unprecedented attack on the presidency, refused to consider.
But most interesting to me in his report was that when Roberts talked at great length about the role of the courts to educate Americans about the rule of law, his primary example was the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation. That case is pivotal in American history not only because of its role in desegregation, but because it sparked an outpouring of scholarship suggesting that society changes not because of social trends or economic or politics, but because of court decisions. In the wake of Brown v. Board, the great historian C. Vann Woodward argued that segregation itself came only after Jim Crow laws, and that popular acceptance of civil rights would come only after legal desegregation.
Roberts seemed to me to be saying that the job of reclaiming democracy and the rule of law belonged to the courts now—a major declaration at a time when Trump has a number of court cases pending, as well, of course, as his impeachment trial. I absolutely could be reading too much into Roberts’s declaration, but it seemed to me significant.
What exactly Roberts means by the rule of law, though, remains to be seen.
Kind of a rocky start to 2020, but I'm guessing it's going to be a rocky year.
Seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned...
I AM MINE
President Trump's allies on Capitol Hill rushed to praise the operation, saying the killing sent a strong message to Iran and could be a strong deterrent to Iranian proxies in Iraq.
"Wow - the price of killing and injuring Americans has just gone up drastically. Major blow to Iranian regime that has American blood on its hands. Soleimani was one of the most ruthless and vicious members of the Ayatollah's regime. He had American blood on his hands," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a prominent foreign policy hawk who often speaks with the White House, said in a series of tweets.
"The defensive actions the U.S. has taken against #Iran & its proxies are consistent with clear warnings they have received. They chose to ignore these warnings because they believed @POTUS was constrained from acting by our domestic political divisions. They badly miscalculated," added Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
"Qassem Soleimani masterminded Iran's reign of terror for decades, including the deaths of hundreds of Americans. Tonight, he got what he richly deserved, and all those American soldiers who died by his hand also got what they deserved: justice. America is safer now after Soleimani's demise," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) echoed.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/476612-congress-reacts-to-us-assassination-of-iranian-general
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
But don’t imply the leader of Iran’s military is not an evil guy because he wasn’t killed with his hand on a trigger at that moment.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Remove him, already.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Heather should be a little careful thinking Robert's can be some sort of friend of democracy and the rule of law.
Roberts has had a heavy hand ripping these apart with his Court's 5-4 party line votes in 3 significant cases involving citizen rights:
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Shelby County v. Holder
Rucho v. Common Cause
2 of the 3 cases are the Court overriding existing law to cede obscene power to the federal govt and the wealthy. And allowing the several states to use racism to take away voting rights
The 3rd case is the 5 republican Justices allowing the states to use race as a weapon to draw election district maps.
These 3 cases are pivotal in overriding congress and granting unchecked power to the white and wealthy.
Lastly, Robert's has very little power to have any material impact on an impeachment trial. Senate rules give that power to 51 senators.
U.S. manufacturing activity hits worst level since 2009
The Institute of Supply Management's index of manufacturing activity released Friday hit its lowest level since the end of the Great Recession in December.
Why it matters: It shows worsening conditions for the U.S. manufacturing sector, which has been in contraction for five straight months, and reignites concerns about the trade war's impact on the economy. Stocks, already in the red after a U.S. airstrike killed a top Iranian general, fell near the lowest levels of the day following the release of the data.
By the numbers: The index came in at 47.2 in December — worse than the 49 economists expected — falling 0.9 points from the prior month's reading. (Any reading below 50 suggests the manufacturing sector is in contraction.)
The bottom line: "Global trade remains the most significant cross-industry issue, but there are signs that several industry sectors will improve as a result of the phase-one trade agreement between the U.S. and China," ISM chair Timothy Fiore said in a statement.
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