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The exiling of Chris Christie from a position of responsibility in the transition team, and the termination of many (or all?) of his people on the transition te
by hga 10y ago
The exiling of Chris Christie from a position of responsibility in the transition team, and the termination of many (or all?) of his people on the transition team. That was very much a drain the swamp thing. So are the various bans on lobbyists/lobbying for some years after holding a position.
Putting Sessions' top dog or thereabouts in operational charge of the transition team. See the next item for why this isn't an establishment pick.
Nominating Sessions as AG; his position on immigration alone puts him way outside the establishment.
His Education Secretary, not so much or at all, I'll admit. But I'm in the "putting your children in today's public school is child abuse" camp anyway, so....
Picking Steve Bannon as his "Karl Rove". That's very much a sign this is not going to be a business as usual administration, as you can see from the Left's and the establishment's (but I repeat myself) total freak-out over that.
Citizens United ended a ban on core political speech, quite literally the government in oral arguments said it could be used to ban books, and it was specifically used to ban a movie about a candidate while she was running for office. Getting "money out of politics" is a pipe dream, but this was about silencing certain segments of the nation, and absent that decision by the Supremes it's hard to see how a civil war wouldn't have resulted sooner or later. That's the sort of thing that happens when you make it impossible for people to participate in the political process, at least, people who aren't going to surrender once that sort of thing happens. TL;DR: don't mess with the Bill of Rights.
That overturning Roe v. Wade is a consideration of his picks is hardly "solely"; long ago he published an initial list of suitable candidates, they're not one dimensional.
But while we're at it, you're eager to kill a core 1st Amendment political speech right while supporting a right literally conjured from the "penumbras" and "emanations" of other constitutional rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut). I don't see how there can be any meeting of minds between the two of us.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> The exiling of Chris Christie from a position of responsibility in the transition team, and the termination of many (or all?) of his people on the transition team. That was very much a drain the swamp thing. No, it was very much a personal score settling thing. If it was a drain the swamp thing, the people left behind after the purge wouldn't have been just as covered in muck as those purged.
- dispose13432 10y agoIt bothers me how people don't understand (or don't believe in) the principles of law. Law means that there are objective rules to behavior, which don't take into account positive intent, goal, or player. That's why we have to put up with hate speech, so that not "politically correct" regular speech will be legal. Same thing here. If you don't want there to be a "truth committee" which clears all news before publication, you better hope that corporations have freedom of speech. If corporations don't have freedom of speech, then neither does the EFF, ACLU, or your posts on Facebook.
- hga 10y agoThanks for your boost to my point about freedom of speech, but mine was more narrow, i.e. almost all large groups of people acting in concert form corporations for all the usual reasons. Exceptions include institutions that far predate corporations, like the Roman Catholic Church, where each Archbishop personally owns the resources of his see for the duration of his holding the position, which was why the Church entered an amicus curiae in the prosecution of Sun Myung Moon, the precedent established would allow the government to throw every Archbichop in prison, and they have far too much experience with that and worse happening.... So these include the National Rifle Association, a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation, which is one way America's gun owners combine for collective political action. And which as I recall also filed an amicus curiae in Citizens United, McCain-Feingold very specifically targeted them (McCain, and I assume Feingold, hated it, and if not then, then I would assume for the latter now, after his unexpected failure to return to the Senate).
- donw 10y agoI believe the ACLU works in a similar fashion.
- hga 10y agoIndeed they do, the national ACLU proper is a 501(c)(4) like the NRA, and both have 501(c)(3) charities for stuff that fits with and is legal to do under those constraints. E.g. the NRAs' does pro-bono legal work and the other "raises and donates money to outdoors groups and others such as ROTC programs, 4-H and Boy Scout groups" and in general funds education (and has been a contributor to the remarkable improvement in gun safety statistics). Heh, and on the ACLU Wikipedia page, "In 2006, the ACLU of Washington State joined with a pro-gun rights organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, and prevailed in a lawsuit against the North Central Regional Library District (NCRL) in Washington for its policy of refusing to disable restrictions upon an adult patron's request." I'm sure this happened because a) the Second Amendment Foundation's 2 activities are running an important annual conference and b) lawsuits, and they're in Washington state. And in either case, government censorship of their core political speech, which in theory reflects that of their members (not always entirely true for the NRA), is intolerable and why Citizens United was absolutely necessary.