What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[viper37]

If the police think that you are sitting at home and "likely to commit a crime," they can arrest you under your own rules.

If I am sitting at home, calmy making bombs, yeah, I'm likely to commit a crime.  I dout claiming I was collecting them can be used as a valid legal defense, but I'm no lawyer, so it's possible.

Again, there's a question of timing you seem to ignore.  And the legality of protests.  If a city has a rule allowing protests on condition that an itinerary is submitted 4hrs before said protest, at least, I'm ok with police rounding up people who disembark from their bus without having submitted such itinerary.  The protest is illegal, people go to jail.  They are gradually released during the night and the next morning, anything that can be used as a weapon or projectile is ceased and people are free to petition a court to have their baseball bats back, because it's one of Canada's favourite past time, playing baseball in the streets with hundreds or other people.   A judge will decide on the validity of their claim.  I fail to see how this is Gestapo and how it leads to people being arrested in their homes while watching tv.

Once a protest is deemed illegal by the police, due to rioting, I have zero problems with the police rounding up everyone and arresting everyone, regardless of wether or not they were commiting violent acts.

I also have zero sympathy for the front line idiots who provoke the police into action and then complain they were seriously injured by a rubber projectile.  You want to commit a violent action, you have to be prepared to suffer the consequences.  A Hell's Angels know he will likely be killed before reaching the age of retirement, either by a rival or by his best friend.  He has to accept the consequences of his actions.  Simple.

[The Minsky Moment]

A comparison between Rosenstein and Whitaker is instructive.  Rosenstein entered government service through the prestigious DOJ honors program and his entire career is a procession through the legal cursus honorum - from editor of the law review to a clerkship on the DC Circuit to a series of promotions through DOJ.  He is a product of the merit-based civil service system that replaced the old spoils system that dominated the federal government in the 19th century.

Whitaker, in contrast, had a completely undistinguished academic and legal career, the principal highlight was an appearance at a college football bowl game.  After working as an associate at a few firm law firms, he was suddenly tapped to be the US Attorney for the District of Iowa, despite having virtually no federal court experience.  His Senate questionnaire listed two accident cases and a contract dispute over home remodelling as his most significant legal experience. After leaving the US attorney position in semi-disgrace in 2009, he spent most of the past decade in political activities and some fraudulent business ventures.

How does a man like Whitaker rise to be the top federal legal officer in Iowa by his mid-30s and then the top law enforcement officer in the country before age 50?  Simple.  He has a very close relationship with Iowa's senior Senator Chuck Grassley and has very strong ties to the Federalist Society.  Grassley used his clout to get him the US attorney nomination and the Executive VP of the Federalist Society personally recommended him for AG chief of staff job.

Rosenstein's critics would say that he represents the "Deep State".  If the "Deep State" is understood to mean the non-partisan merit based civil service system then the charge is true. Rosenstein has impeccable conservative credentials, but was entrusted with significant responsibilities by Democratic and Republican administrations alike. His conservative personal views are subordinate to his professional duties.  Right wing zealots see such professionalism as an institutional liberal bias, because they find existing laws and constitutional arrangements unpalatable and the mechanisms for changing them too cumbersome. They share with their Marxist-oriented counterparts of the far left a distate for the rule of law as "superstructure" deployed to justify and maintain a distateful status quo. 

Whitaker, in contrast, is product of the antebellum old spoils system of political patronage, repressed in waves of civil service reform efforts but never really eliminated from Amercian public life. He represents the view that all poltics is a struggle for raw power, nothing more. His virtues are ideological purity and complete and unwavering loyalty to his patrons.  The fact that he is manifestly unqualified for any position more responsible than junior associate - or any position in the DOJ at all -is thus no bar from service as the nations chief legal officer.   

[Grey Fox]

Yeah, that's what the Deep State is.

[Razgovory]

And letting them spread their hate has resulted in the spread of their ideology.  The risks are too great.

If you forbid them to spread their ideology, you also have to prevent the far left from doing the same. 

Why?  In Canada did the eco-terrorists shoot up a Mosque?

[viper37]

And letting them spread their hate has resulted in the spread of their ideology.  The risks are too great.

If you forbid them to spread their ideology, you also have to prevent the far left from doing the same. 

Why?  In Canada did the eco-terrorists shoot up a Mosque?

Eco terrorists have different targets than lone wolves radicalized by US thrash talk radio
They do plant explosives on pipeline, burn cars&houses though.
Left wing activists don't have a problem attacking people too.  There was a recent case like this, in Montreal, people attacked as they just exited a heavy metal show, not even a black nazi metal thing, just a regular metal show.  Wrong place, wrong time, apparently. These dudes were just looking for nazis, they found metalheads.  Close enough.

And we're not even talking about the bomb menace, not carried out, against any venture who dares have a black metal show were one band may or may not be associated with neo nazi movements.  The last time, it was about a band mocking nazi sympathizers that was deemed too close to the real thing.  So, it was canceled due to threats.  The famous "mass of the dead" ("popular" (in as much as we can use that for black metal) is held under close police surveillance due to numerous threats and vandalism acts.

Thankfully, they frown on firearms, what with it being a capitalist weapon, so they're less likely to commit mass shootings.  But at some point, I wouldn't be surprised of a mysterious explosion during a black metal concert.  All they need is to recruite some smart people.  Granted, it's going to be tough since they frown on intelligence, a segregationist tool, but it can happen.

[Razgovory]

You're going to have to do better than that.  I'm not particularly interested in vandalism.

[viper37]

You're going to have to do better than that.  I'm not particularly interested in vandalism.

Ok.
Then we'll just let the far right wingers set fire to whatever they want

[jimmy olsen]

Hmm...

https://hmmdaily.com/2018/11/14/the-president-is-missing/

The President Is Missing
PUBLISHED ON NOV 14, 2018 10:07PM EST

Tom Scocca

The Los Angeles Times broke away from other major newspapers yesterday by reporting that, since the midterms, Donald Trump has refused to (or been unable to) perform even his usual minimum duties as president—that he "has retreated into a cocoon of bitterness and resentment" and "has been increasingly absent in recent days—except on Twitter." The fact of the cocoon of bitterness was attributed to "multiple administration sources," but the news of his absence was simply a matter of compiling, end to end, all the things that he was visibly not doing: his canceled cemetery appearance in France, his failure to go lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Veterans Day, his refusal to meet with heads of state or schedule a trip to Asian summit meetings or go visit the troops he'd dispatched to the border in his failed election stunt.

It was always obvious that if Donald Trump was unlucky enough to actually win the presidential election, things would get to this point. He is an elderly, out-of-shape tax-fraud heir who has spent his life doing nothing more effortful than yelling at people on the phone, lying to contractors and the press, and playing golf. The presidency is an endless grind that leaves vigorous, healthy men haggard and gray. Trump taking the oath of office to be president was as realistic as him saying he wanted to be the Kool-Aid man and trying to run through a cinderblock wall.

In this case, the wall appears to have been the two-year mark. Until now, he was faking his way through by blowing off most of the real work of the job—learning anything about anything, and making policy decisions—and just making ceremonial gestures toward being in charge. Now he's blowing off even easy ceremonies. Whether it's his physical, mental, or emotional reserves (the Los Angeles Times focused on the emotional side), he's used something up and can't function anymore.

Meanwhile, the New York Times was still running a story about him as if he were actively being president. "Trump Assails Macron and Defends Decision to Skip Cemetery Visit," the headline read, above a 26-paragraph story in which Trump's actions were confined entirely to Twitter.

Today, the Washington Post moved a little closer to the Los Angeles Times, devoting a story to Trump's "five days of fury," including how "the president told aides he felt disconnected from the action in his suite at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Paris—even as he consumed countless hours of television news on the trip." Still, though, the Post treated Trump's no-show at the French cemetery as a bad logistical decision about the weather, after which he "told aides he thought he looked 'terrible' and blamed his chief of staff's office...for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a public-relations nightmare."

If that were the case, one logical way for the president to recover from the misstep would have been for him to show up at Arlington National Cemetery two days later, for Veterans Day. But the Post doesn't mention Trump's empty holiday schedule, let alone connect it to the spectacle of him traveling all the way to France only to huddle indoors and watch TV. Presidential dysfunction is a story the press is prepared to tell. A non-functioning president is still too much to grasp.

[garbon]

Okay, go to town, Tamas.

[Admiral Yi]

Someone alert the Pulitzer committee.

[Razgovory]

You're going to have to do better than that.  I'm not particularly interested in vandalism.

Ok.
Then we'll just let the far right wingers set fire to whatever they want

No.  We won't.

[jimmy olsen]

Someone alert the Pulitzer committee.

You only get those for breaking news, not for being the first one to say what everyone already knows deep down.

[Eddie Teach]

Someone alert the Pulitzer committee.

You only get those for breaking news, not for being the first one to say what everyone already knows deep down.

Grumbler has been saying it since the election.

[Habbaku]

I think that op-ed is generally correct.

[Barrister]

The Op-Ed is fine, but I think Tim should have linked to the original LA Times piece the Op-Ed is commenting on.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-absent-20181113-story.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter