Trump deserves a victory lap for getting all the Mideast parties to the table and getting the hostages released. However, there are significant challenges before the champagne corks are ready to be popped. This Washington Post article, Why the Gaza ceasefire won’t lead to lasting peace, details those challenges better than I ever could. It is an unlocked gift article by Max Boot.
Goose and I think the toddler in chief should take a victory lap and then find his rightful place in a jail cell where he belongs.
The whole Republican party has become unhinged including refusing to restrain Trump’s murders on the high seas. Republican complicity in these acts where we act as judge, jury, and executioner is unprecedented. “By a 51-48 vote, the Senate blocked debate on a measure to limit President Donald Trump’s authority to order military strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean.” -William Jackson.
That isn’t even the worst of Republican excesses. When the Speaker of the House refuses to seat a duly elected representative, the train is off the tracks.
It is an unprecedented abuse of procedural power on the part of the speaker, one that has had the effect of silencing a political opponent and denying representation to the citizens of her district. In refusing to seat Grijalva, Johnson has defied the will of Arizona’s voters, and effectively nullified, at least for the time being, a legitimate congressional election. He has persisted in this even in defiance of his own promises, after saying on Friday he would seat her this week once the House returned to session – and then telling lawmakers they wouldn’t reconvene this week after all.
Apparently all of this is being done in the hopes of preventing the motion to release the Epstein files receiving the last vote it needs to be passed.
It occurs to me that if the Republicans spent half time they spend defending Trump actually working to make their constituents’ lives better, we would all be in a world where people could focus on creating the community that we need to face the challenges of this century.
Then there is the shutdown. The Republican offer, “Just give us the money to reopen the government and we will talk about healthcare later” is laughable. Explain to me how anyone could be dumb enough to trust a deal with the political party who allowed the president to claw back bipartisan funding that had already been approved. The Republicans haven’t taken the time to have any meaningful negotiations with the Democrats since they won the last election, what has changed that they now will talk with Democrats. There has been no sign of good faith.
Good news is still in short supply but MIT has refused Trump’s academic deal. Hopefully, that will lead to others standing tall. Protestors in frog costumes have managed to stand up to Trump’s thugs in Oregon.
Goose says that Trump has violated so many norms and lied about so much that he doesn’t deserve any of the deference often given to presidents. My opinion, if you act like a mobster, we should treat you like mobster.
“But how much deference should you give a president who constantly lies?”
“The right answer is that a president can forfeit judicial deference through his own conduct. In Newsom v. Trump, the Ninth Circuit also said that the president’s determinations must be made in ‘good faith.’ If there’s no good faith, there should be no deference.”
“As the judge observed, at a moment of ‘minimal activity’ outside the Portland ICE facility, Trump was calling Portland ‘War ravaged’ and saying federal facilities were ‘under siege.”
“The president’s determination,” she wrote, “was simply untethered to the facts.”
“Judge Immergut understands this reality clearly. She understands that there are traditions that predate court precedent, that predate any deference to the executive. ‘This country,’ she wrote, ‘has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs.’”
“’This is a nation,’ she continued, ‘of constitutional law, not martial law.’
DAVID FRENCH-How a Trump Judge Exposed the Trump Con -NY Times
We just celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. Trump makes me question our wisdom in moving back to the states in 1987. We had good reasons, but never in our wildest dreams did we expect to be living with a president who makes Nixon look almost saintly.
Goose Speaks is approaching its first anniversary. I will be making some decisions on its future soon.