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Tag Archives: current-events

My Opinion


The next few years will be interesting. We have a “business man ” in the White House and his influence in the election has brought out the  worst elements of America. If we compare the varied factions that have appeared in this past election to the factions in the middle east we could find several similarities. These assorted and varied factions on both sides all appear to want  the same outcomes except for the extremes of each. The worst case in each is the “I want what I want and I want to blame someone else for my issues while getting it”. Mr. Trump has tapped into that sense and has gloried in it.  His ascension has unfortunately left us with void that will be filled with the “less than what we need” people to run things. I do not believe  Mr. Trump  expected (perhaps hoped not to) win but now the real job begins, he will have to put up or shut up. Being an entertainer is a world away from Government (regardless of Ronald Reagan). At best we can expect Congress(?) to step up and do something right, at worse we can expect our trading partners and the outlier Nations to get bolder in their interactions with us. The Real issues we as voters need to pay attention to are the one the Congress address and how they address them. The Congress will use the ineptitude of this administration to do their worse to us, the voters. We can only hope that some one in Congress will continue to push back on the issues that will harm us in general. It is especially important that we as voters pay more attention to detail in this administration as well as the 535 seat fillers who really are the Government. Forget about getting the real story from the media, concentrate on reading for your self and ignore what the Congressional leaders say as they have lied before and will continue to do so. Unfortunately too many of us have missed the shift in the separation of Church and State that the Constitution calls for due to the hype put out by the extreme elements of our society. If we  do not press for the return to the real purpose of  the Constitution we will soon find that the extremists will have us all in camps for as simple a thing as being a voter and use the misreading of the Constitution as the reason.

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What will Donald Trump’s Presidency be like? Here are 5 scenarios.


Scott GalupoNovember 21, 2016

1. The Northeastern moderate
Before he discovered birtherism, Trump gave every indication that he was a finger-wetting, wind-direction-checking, big-city Northeastern moderate. In 1999, he described himself as “very pro-choice.” As recently as December 2012, he had urged the Republican Party, still licking its wounds over the re-election of President Obama, to get ahead of the immigration issue and win over Hispanic voters with comprehensive reform. Even during the 2016 GOP primaries, he signaled a break from the Republican mainstream by vowing to protect Medicare and Social Security.
Maybe President Trump will govern like his old self.
Throughout his public life, Trump has maintained a hard-line posture on law-and-order issues. But that’s a posture common to New York/New Jersey moderates like Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, who, not surprisingly, were among Trump’s earliest boosters.
Trump has also been a persistent critic of small-l liberal trade orthodoxy. In this 1988 appearance on Late Night With David Letterman, in which he presaged every major theme of his successful presidential campaign (“Do you want to see the United States become a winner, David?”), he complained about trade deficits with Japan (“They dump the cars and the VCRs and everything else”) as well as the U.S. guarantee of the island nation’s security (“We defend Japan for virtually nothing, which is hard to believe”).
In light of this, it’s possible that all the race-baiting of the 2016 campaign, all the bluster about Mexicans and Muslims, was a crude but necessary ploy to dislodge the Republican base from its fealty to the economic libertarianism of the party establishment in Washington. To get downscale Republican voters to finally vote in their material self-interest, he had to appeal to their basest cultural instincts.
As president, Trump might well prove to be a pragmatic dealmaker. He owes nothing to the Republican congressional leadership. If anything, they owe him for their astonishing good fortune. Consequently, Trump could be as willing to cut deals with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi as he is with GOP leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
In this scenario, a clear truth will materialize: It took a brazen figure like Donald Trump to break the partisan logjam in Washington.
2. The president of pomp
Judging from the incoherent, often downright juvenile way in which Trump spoke about policy, it’s safe to say he knows virtually nothing about virtually everything. The Trump campaign reportedly tried to entice Ohio Gov. John Kasich to join the ticket by promising that he’d be in charge of both domestic and foreign policy — leaving the vaguely momentous job of “making America great again” to the president.
What if Trump does not want to be bothered with the details of day-to-day governance and international relations? As long as he gets the credit for the legislation he signs into law; as long as it’s known that he is vested with final authority; as long as he is the “decider,” he will not sweat the details of public policy or diplomacy.
Under this scenario, the Trump administration’s policy agenda will be farmed out to Vice President Mike Pence (a right-wing conservative in good standing with the movement) and congressional leaders McConnell and Ryan. President Trump will essentially rubber-stamp into law a massive tax cut for the wealthy, the partial privatization of Medicare, the block-granting of Medicaid, plus the repeal of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank financial-industry regulations.
3. The people pleaser
Donald Trump has a deeply felt need for people to like him, to be “nice” to him. As a result, during the campaign he found himself on every side of every issue, often inside the same sentence. It was difficult to keep track of the evolution of his policy positions. (You can peruse an attempt to do so here.)
Trump may well try to govern every which way, in the same way he campaigned every which way. We will get a border wall. Or a fence. Or an “electronic fence.” It will be big and beautiful … and porous … and virtual. And he will countenance a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented “terrific people,” after having made a show of deporting criminals in no greater number than the Obama administration.
He will repeal Obama Care. But not really. Or not immediately. Maybe never. Those with preexisting conditions will still have insurance and the 26-and-under cohort will be able to stay on their parents’ plans. No one will lose coverage and he will maintain the consumer protections of the Affordable Care Act. He’ll call the whole thing “TrumpCare” and declare victory for freedom.
He will cut taxes and make up for the shortfall in revenue by … making American revenue great again. That is, he will deficit-finance his tax cuts in the same fashion as Presidents Reagan and Bush 43.
When faced with a tough choice or politically painful trade-off, he will not choose at all. He will be all things to all people.
4. The pernicious president
The premise of Trump’s campaign was that pluralism has failed. Pluralism has made us less safe. Political correctness has made it impossible to utter the truth. And the law-abiding white Christian majority in this country is under siege from multiculturalists, Islamists, and globalists.
With the installment of Steve Bannon as a top White House strategist and the appointment of Gen. Michael Flynn and Sen. Jeff Sessions as national security adviser and attorney general, respectively, Trump may well intend to run an administration every bit as uncompromising as his most vitriolic campaign rhetoric. We will get a border wall and a ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries. The Trump administration will further gut the Voting Rights Act and make it yet harder for minorities to cast a ballot. Otherwise law-abiding undocumented workers and their families will live in a climate of fear, always looking over their shoulder.
Further, it will become clear that Trump wasn’t bluffing when he threatened to “open up” libel law to combat unfair attacks in the press and initiate antitrust action against Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. He will persecute unfriendly media and opponents in the business world via the vast regulatory power of the executive branch of government.
5. The agent of chaos
What if none of these scenarios entirely comes to pass — but instead, all of them do to one extent or another? Maybe we’ll see a partial realization of and a bleeding between each scenario. It will all depend on who has the president’s ear at any given moment — on who was the last operative to stroke his ego and seduce his narcissism. The incoherent nonsense that issues from his mouth will result in “red line”-like international confusion on a monthly basis, or worse. Our allies will never be sure if Trump can be trusted, if the intelligence we share with them isn’t already known to geopolitical rivals like Russia.
And all the while, Trump and his family will enrich themselves. The line between the Trump Organization and the Trump administration will be blurry at best, nonexistent at worst. The Trumps will co-opt the federal bureaucracy to ensure favorable regulation of their business interests. Authoritarian governments around the world will curry favor with Trump by laundering money through his network of international business contacts.
Terrifying, right? Well, I’m sorry to tell you that it’s all too possible. And this is why America urgently needs to formalize an Independents Against Trump movement — the subject of my next column. Stay tuned.

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The Real Reason Many Americans Dislike Obamacare


A long read but offers the reason Obamacare is not as successful as it should be MA.
Obamacare has quite a handful of critics, but the majority dislike it because of this reason.
Sean Williams
(TMFUltraLong)
Oct 25, 2014 at 10:11AM
Source: White House on Flickr
It’s no secret that Obamacare, known officially as the Affordable Care Act, is a polarizing law that has drawn a pretty strict divide between supporters and those who oppose it.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Tracking Poll, which takes a somewhat regular look at the public’s opinion of Obamacare, as of September 47% of respondents had an unfavorable view of the law, 35% a favorable view, and 19% were undecided or simply refused to answer. The unfavorable view percentage was down 6% from July, but the favorable view also fell 2%.
Glass half full versus glass half empty
Americans who favor Obamacare tend to focus on the ACA’s easier access to health insurance. In the 28 states that have chosen to expand Medicaid, lower-income citizens who were previously out in the cold now have access to covered medical care for the first time in their life. Additionally, those who favor the law prefer the beefed up minimum benefit requirements that insurers are to provide, as well as the fact that those with preexisting conditions can’t be turned down.
Source: White House on Flickr
On the flip side, Obamacare’s opponents don’t like the idea of being required to purchase health insurance, which is especially true for a younger generation of adults that feels invincible and is unlikely to utilize their physician or a hospital often. Also, some question whether or not Obamacare will really slow the rise in insurance premiums. Keep in mind the ACA wasn’t implemented to stop medical costs and health insurance premiums from rising, but merely to control the rate of inflation at which they rise.
Politics, of course, is one of the more common reasons cited as to why a majority of Americans oppose Obamacare. While there are some clear party divides on who likes Obamacare and who doesn’t, I don’t think this properly encapsulates why the law is viewed so unfavorably by the majority of Americans. Instead, I’d turn to a recent study from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research to get a more complete answer as to why Americans dislike Obamacare.
The real reason Americans dislike Obamacare
AP-NORC’s 1,004-person poll conducted between July and September focused on two key questions:
If offered a choice between the following to health insurance plans, which would you prefer: Option A, a plan with a relatively low monthly premium but higher out-of-pocket costs if you need healthcare. Option B, a plan with a relatively high monthly premium but lower out-of-pocket costs if you need healthcare.
How confident are you that you could pay for medical care if you or someone in your family had an unexpected medical expenses?
In response to the first question, 52% of respondents chose Option B (the plan with a higher monthly premium and lower out-of-pocket costs), 40% chose option A, and the remainder either didn’t know or refused to answer. For the second question, 36% noted that they felt “very confident” in paying for unexpected medical expenses, 39% were “somewhat confident,” and 25% were “not confident.”
Source: Flickr user Jim Simonson
The initial takeaway from this study is that at least one in four Americans (based on question two) find Obamacare to be unaffordable. An additional 39% are also in in a gray area of being “somewhat confident.” Furthermore, of the Americans that AP-NORC polled that had switched plans within the past year, 45% noted that they were paying more than they previously were prior to the ACA being implemented, 29% said they were paying less, and just 11% of respondents believed they were getting better value for their healthcare dollar. The implication here is pretty simple: Americans are unhappy with the price of their plan.
Plan cost is a big problem
As noted by the answers to the first question, more than half of the respondents would prefer a higher premium plan that would result in lower out-of-pocket costs should medical care be needed.
A typical bronze plan, the cheapest of the Obamacare tiered plans on a monthly premium basis, has an annual deductible of around $6,000. By comparison, the average silver plan has an out-of-pocket annual deductible of closer to $3,100, which is probably why it was by far the most selected plan in 2014. In other words, the more people pay upfront, the lower they’ll pay out of pocket should medical care be needed.
Source: Flickr user Dan Moyle
Yet herein lies the dilemma: not everyone can afford a gold or platinum plan. In fact, it would seem based on this poll that a good chunk of Americans (25% who are “not confident” and 39% who are in the gray area) are having a questionable time simply keeping up with their current plan, which is likely of the silver and bronze variety (these two tiers accounted for more than 80% of total plans sold in 2014).
Of course, AP-NORC’s findings also clearly showed that the inability to meet medical bills, or the need to make financial trade-offs in order to pay medical costs, is more pronounced in Americans with high-deductible plans.
Two interesting insurance implications
AP-NORC’s survey results may also have some unexpected implications for the health insurance industry.
On one hand, this survey has to instill some degree of concern in insurers like WellPoint (NYSE:ANTM) and Centene (NYSE:CNC), which have not been shy about targeting lower-income consumers. Thankfully, both companies netted a substantial number of government-sponsored enrollees via the Medicare expansion in slightly more than half of all U.S. states, but there’s clearly the potential here that consumers could run into issues paying their end of out-of-pocket costs should a medical emergency arise. That could leave insurers footing hefty consumer bills, or simply cause consumers to drop their coverage altogether, which would be bad news for these companies and the entire industry.
But if consumers trade up to higher premium, lower out-of-pocket plans it could also wind up stinging insurers. The initial inference would be that higher premiums would lead to healthier insurance profits. However, lower premium and higher out-of-pocket plans are actually bigger margin boosters for insurers since they require less initial money to come out of insurers’ pockets. In reality, silver and bronze plan sales are fantastic for insurers who stand to reap solid rewards as long as Americans continue to pay their bills.
In short, it’s going to be interesting from both an investor and consumer perspective to see whether consumers are able to successfully and affordably move toward higher premium plans in 2015, as well as determine whether or not consumers continue to stay current on their out-of-pocket obligations.

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What Is Ted Cruzin For??


The award of opportunist of the year goes to Ted Cruz-who can trust any of these forked tongued politicos? MA

Dylan Stableford

Senior editor
Yahoo News
November 17, 2016

Ted Cruz sharply criticized those protesting the election of Donald Trump as hypocrites who cried foul when Trump suggested he might not accept the results if he didn’t win.
“This is hypocrisy on rank display,” the Texas senator said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning. “All of the folks who jumped on their high horse and were lecturing to President-elect Trump, ‘You’ve got to accept the results of the election’ — look, these are now the idiots protesting in the street, laying their bodies down in front of cars and disrupting traffic.”
“We had an election,” Cruz continued. “The people spoke. Democracy is a powerful, powerful way of choosing. And I think Americans across this country — this is across the line of Republicans, of Democrats, of independents, of libertarians — I think Americans are excited about the opportunity to have an administration that actually protects our rights.”
Since Trump’s stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in last week’s presidential election, anti-Trump protests have erupted in cities around the country, some turning violent. In Portland, Ore., on Saturday night, 71 people were arrested after a protest devolved into a riot, police said.
Cruz, whose name has been floated as a potential member of Trump’s administration, met with Trump at Trump Tower in New York City on Tuesday.
“I’m eager to work with the new president in any capacity I can,” Cruz said.

He wasn’t always so eager.
During the Republican primary, Trump frequently referred to Cruz as “Lyin’ Ted,” insulted his wife and suggested that Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. On the eve of the Indiana primary, Cruz unloaded on Trump, calling him a “bully,” a “narcissist,” a “pathological liar” and a “serial philanderer,” among other things. At the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Cruz was booed when he gave a speech while declining to endorse his party’s nominee.
Cruz’s endorsement of Trump didn’t come until September — and it wasn’t exactly full-throated.
“I’ve made the decision that on Election Day I’m going to vote for the Republican nominee,” Cruz said at a GOP phone-banking event in Fort Worth, Texas. “Like a whole lot of voters here in Texas and across the country, this was not an easy decision for me to arrive on.”

Ted Cruz greets members of law enforcement as he leaves Trump Tower on Tuesday. (Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Cruz insisted his endorsement had more to do with his commitment to the party, and his opposition to Hillary Clinton, than his support for Trump. He noted that he signed a pledge to support the nominee.
“A year ago, I stood onstage and promised to support the Republican nominee, whoever that was, and I am honoring my word,” Cruz explained in September. “Although I have long had significant concerns with Donald, by any measure, Hillary Clinton would be an absolute disaster as president.”
But on Thursday, the tea party firebrand sounded more like a Trump surrogate, dismissing reports of transition chaos as “complete silliness.”
“Nobody should be surprised that their are media critics trying to throw rocks at the president-elect and the transition team — they don’t want the president to succeed,” Cruz said. “What I saw from the president-elect on down to every person at the transition team was men and women working hard with an enormous task in front of them of putting together a new administration of hopefully talented principals, effective leaders — leaders who will be loyal to the president, and loyal to the agenda that he campaigned on and that we promised the American people.”
Sen. Ted Cruz phone-banked for Donald Trump at a GOP office in Texas. He has come a long way from his RNC speech this summer where he famously did not endorse Trump. He formally got behind Trump in September.

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JFK’s warnings about television, money and politics ring true today


Interesting facts about elections and television. MA.

On November 14, 1959, TV Guide published a brief essay about politics and television by Senator John F. Kennedy that contained some prophetic words about the influence of money and public relations on presidential campaigns that still seem true today.

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Ironically, within a year of the TV Guide article, Kennedy would be president-elect of the United States, in no small part helped by his ability to use television as a campaign tool. And Kennedy’s effectiveness as a “TV candidate” would become a template for future politicians.

But in 1959, Kennedy said that campaign contributions and the presentation of candidates for a mass television audience were two trends that voters needed to watch closely.

Kennedy’s articles appeared as part of a series called “Television As I See It,” and his article was titled “A Force That Has Changed The Political Scene.”

“It is in your power to perceive deception, to shut off gimmickry, to reward honesty, to demand legislation where needed. Without your approval, no TV show is worthwhile and no politician can exist,” concluded Kennedy.

Kennedy spent much of his essay stating how television, in the right hands, could help politicians bring out their best moments.

“Honesty, vigor, compassion, intelligence—the presence or lack of these of other qualities make up what is called the candidate’s ‘image,’” he wrote. Kennedy then states that despite a candidate’s public record on issues, “My own conviction is that these images or impressions are likely to be uncannily correct.” But in the wrong hands, television could be used for “manipulation, exploitation and gimmicks,” Kennedy said. “It can be abused by demigods, by appeals to emotions and prejudice and ignorance,” he said.

Kennedy then railed about the potential takeover of campaigns by public relations experts. “Political shows like quiz shows can be fixed—and sometimes are,” he said. The other problem Kennedy warned about was the item of “financial cost.”

“If all parties and candidates are to have equal access to this essential and decisive campaign medium, without becoming deeply obligated to the big financial contributors … then the time has come when a  solution must be found to this problem of TV costs.” Kennedy was particularly upset that a total of $5.8 million had been spent on TV advertising during the 1956 presidential campaign.

In the following year, as a presidential candidate Kennedy would come under criticism for allegedly employing some of the tactics he warned about in the TV Guide article. Kennedy and Richard Nixon each raised and spent about $10 million in the 1960 campaign, about $2 million more than President Dwight Eisenhower needed in 1956. Kennedy, as the richest person ever elected president, also didn’t lack for resources.

In 1964, the price of a presidential campaign jumped to $16 million for contender Barry Goldwater and the era of big spending in campaigns started.

By 2012, the presidential campaign between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney cost an estimated $2.76 billion, with much of that money going into media buys. The 2016 contest featuring Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton cost about $2.65 billion.

To relate those numbers to the Nixon-Kennedy era, Nixon and Kennedy combined spent about $161 million in 2016 dollars on their campaigns, using the CPI to calculate inflation. It was the 1968 race featuring Nixon, Hubert Humphrey and a slew of primary candidates that set the tone for future campaign spending, with a total of nearly $600 million in current-dollar spending. It would be the most expensive presidential election on record until the 2004 Bush-Kerry race.

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A Bell Unrung?


Donald Trump’s  60 minutes interview covered a lot of campaign issues and statements. Some statements were walked back and some were not. In a nutshell (my opinion) the bell once rang cannot be unrang! The statements made on the campaign trail that rallied the Alt- Right and Racists to him caused an uptick  in Racial violence on the streets of America. This all on top of the tension over police shootings. The folks who voted for Trump because “he tells it like it is”, fail to understand that this is not how the world works. In the real world and on the streets a person who tells it like it is will probably end up in a fight! The tension in America was already high in that the White extremists were already in a Lynching mood because of President Obama’s election now they are emboldened and ready to attack anyone who is not with them. These are the same people who stole people from Africa, decimated the native American population and attacked anyone who is not “white American”. These are the folks who uplifted Trump but for their own purposes not the country’s. It will be interesting to see what occurs in these  post-election years. Recently after announcing some staff selections there has been some talk of these selections being Racist or otherwise questionable. People who say some folks are not Racist may be people who have never experienced first hand Racism. When that happens to them perhaps the thinking will change. The real issue here is that many alt right, conservatives , liberals or any of the many labeled factions fail to realize that they have many more commonalities than they realize , with that realization can come some better election outcomes in the future. Remember the change that was mocked in Obama’s first election?, that change was openly mocked and challenged by the “establishment” politics  and Trump (which Trump has vowed to disrupt if elected). This election was based on change but what is the nature of the change?, will it be business as usual under the guise of making it better? Pay careful attention to what comes out of Washington in the next few years as the New Government has the same Congress that has performed so poorly for 20 plus years.  The alt-right and extremists who want to take America back have now been emboldened but have not improved their knowledge of the effects these changes will have on them as well as the “other” Americans that they so detest.

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US Professor Who Called Trump’s victory now predicts he will be impeached


The article  below falls in line with my own perception of the looks and actions of the establishment Dupublicans. After condemning Donald Trump, the Ryan- McConnell coalition are waiting for The New President to step on his tie so to speak and then pounce on him like the rabid dogs they are. MA 
Rediff.com  » News »
November 12, 2016 15:24 IST

A United States-based professor, who was among the few prognosticators who had predicted Donald Trump’s victory, has made another stunning prediction that he will be eventually impeached by a Republican Congress and replaced by a leader who can be trusted and controlled.

Professor Allan Lichtman has predicted that if elected, Trump, 70, would eventually be impeached by a Republican Congress that would prefer a President like Mike Pence — someone whom establishment Republicans know and trust, the Washington Post reported.

“I’m going to make another prediction. This one is not based on a system; it’s just my gut. They don’t want Trump as president, because they can’t control him. He’s unpredictable. They’d love to have Pence — an absolutely down-the-line, conservative, controllable Republican,” Lichtman said.

He said he is “quite certain” Trump will give “someone grounds for impeachment, either by doing something that endangers national security or because it helps his pocketbook.”

The stunning prediction is similar to what an op-ed columnist for the New York Times David Brooks said about Trump’s future within the next year.

“Trump’s bigotry, dishonesty and promise-breaking will have to be denounced. We can’t go morally numb. But he needs to be replaced with a program that addresses the problems that fuelled his ascent. After all, the guy will probably resign or be impeached within a year. The future is closer than you think,” Brooks said in an NYT column.

The Washington Post report said few prognosticators had predicted a victory for Trump and polls had shown Hillary Clinton comfortably ahead with much of America failing to anticipate the wave of pro-Trump support that propelled him to victory.

Lichtman, however, had insisted that Trump would win due to the idea that elections are “primarily a reflection on the performance of the party in power.”

Lichtman uses a historically based system of what he calls “keys” to predict election results ahead of time. He had outlined how President Barack Obama’s second term set the Democrats up for a tight race, and his keys tipped the balance in Trump’s favour

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The Constitution Is Built To Protect The Losers


The founding fathers were not as naïve as you may think. Remember the Constitution is a living document and possibly many Congress members do not understand that even now after serving multiple terms. MA 
Nov 9, 2016 9:56 AM EST
( Updated
Nov 9, 2016 1:52 PM EST)
By
Noah Feldman
It’s all about the Constitution now. Republicans will control the White House and both chambers of Congress. They will be able to pass — or repeal — their preferred laws, because that’s democracy. But to the Donald Trump opponents worried about what his presidency will bring, know this: There will still be limits to congressional or executive action, limits dictated by the Constitution and enforceable by the courts. The Constitution is designed to resist the tyranny of the majority. James Madison’s machine of constitutional protection is about to kick into gear.
The Bill of Rights and the principle of equal protection give the main limits on government action, but the list of enumerated rights alone doesn’t capture the purpose of the system. Most crucially, free speech and equal protection are supposed to preserve the capacity of electoral losers — Democrats this time around — to continue to participate in government.
That means Trump and the Republican Party can’t stop their political opponents from expressing their views. They can’t jail opponents in violation of habeas corpus. And they can’t adopt laws that discriminate on the basis of race or sex or religion or national origin.
The good news is that the courts as presently configured are overwhelmingly likely to enforce these restrictions. Start with the First Amendment jurisprudence. Today’s judicial conservatives are more likely to be free-speech absolutists than judicial liberals. I have great confidence that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for example, would continue to apply his strongly speech-protectionist reading of the free-speech clause against laws passed by a Republican Congress, and that he would have no trouble getting a majority for his approach.
As for equal protection, the deepest judicial divisions for several decades have been over affirmative action, which conservatives say amounts to prohibited discrimination. There’s been much less disagreement about whether laws that facially discriminate on the basis of race are permitted: The consensus is that they are not unless justified by a compelling interest and narrowly tailored to it. A Republican-passed law that discriminated overtly would almost certainly be struck down.
True, the justices have sometimes divided about whether laws that are facially race-neutral are actually discriminatory. It might be hard to get consensus about such laws. But once the Supreme Court is back to full strength with the appointment and confirmation of a conservative to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat, the swing vote is going to be Justice Anthony Kennedy once again. And as the gay-rights cases demonstrated, Kennedy is acutely attuned to the value of human dignity. He’s also made it extremely clear that he has no interest in reversing Roe v. Wade.
If Trump gets to replace a liberal justice — Ruth Bader Ginsburg (age 83) or Stephen Breyer (78) — then the court would have an outright conservative majority. Conceivably, that could lead to revisiting decisions like Roe v. Wade or the gay-marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges.
But it’s extremely unlikely that the court would fundamentally roll back either of these rights. Despite its unpopularity, Roe has proved stunningly durable over the 43 (!) years since it was decided. Reversing it at this point would mark the court as wildly disrespectful of precedent. Chief Justice John Roberts has repeatedly signaled that he considers such extreme activism to be distasteful. And as a practical political matter, a reversal of Roe would fuel backlash against Republican candidates.
Gay marriage is, of course, a much newer right, and it would be easier for a conservative majority to overturn Obergefell, which has not yet acquired the patina of precedent. Yet the small-c conservative aspect of the Obergefell decision, with its celebration of the bourgeois institution of marriage, renders it much safer than might otherwise be thought. There would also be the tremendous practical problem of what to do about thousands of gay people who are already married — not to mention the further practical difficulties associated with gay marriage being recognized in some states but not others.
This is not to deny that a conservative Supreme Court could render strongly conservative decisions on a wide range of issues. It could, and it would.
Rather, the point is that even a conservative court would police the boundaries of legislation to preserve the basic structures of fundamental democratic rights. It might not do so aggressively, but it would still impose limits on Congress and the president.
Why am I so confident the courts would play their designated role of protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority? The answer lies in the power of the institutional culture of the judiciary and of the rule of law.
There are many controversial issues in American legal thought, and there exist strongly conservative views on all of them. But even the most conservative judges and lawyers believe today that one purpose of the Constitution is to protect against majority oppression and that it’s the job of judges to make it do so.
There is good reason for legal conservatives to celebrate the election results and for legal liberals to deplore them. And if the court goes conservative, there will be plenty of opportunities for conservative justices to push their agenda.
The crucial takeaway, however, is that the basic rights and the rule of law aren’t going to disappear because Donald Trump was elected. The Constitution was built for our situation. It will endure, whatever challenges it may face.
(Corrects age of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in seventh paragraph. Corrects first paragraph to remove inaccurate reference to the last time Republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House.)
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
Noah Feldman at nfeldman7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Stacey Shick at sshick@bloomberg.

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Congressional Republicans



Mitch McConnell is elated(?) or does he now have the foil he needs to continue his divisive and self serving ways. As an aside : would you trust this person with your children’s future? MAERICA WERNER
Associated Press November 9, 2016

More Elated congressional Republicans pledged swift action Wednesday on President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda as they heralded an extraordinary new era of unified GOP control in Washington.
“He just earned a mandate,” House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin declared of Trump. “We are going to hit the ground running.”
Said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky: “We would like to see the country go in a different direction and intend to work with him to change the course for America.”
Republicans saw their majorities in the House and Senate reduced, but not by much, as Democrats’ hopes of retaking Senate control vanished. And though Ryan and McConnell both had well-publicized reservations about Trump, both were quick to declare that the newly elected president deserved the credit.
“Donald Trump pulled off an amazing political feat. He deserves tremendous credit for that,” said Ryan, who initially refused to endorse Trump and only last month declared he’d no longer defend him. “It helped us keep our majorities, but it also showed the country that people don’t like the direction we were going.”
First up would be repealing President Barack Obama’s health care law, something Republicans have already shown they can get through Congress with just a narrow Senate majority. What they haven’t done is unite around a plan for ensuring that the 20 million who achieved health care coverage under the landmark law don’t lose it.
Republicans also celebrated the opportunity to fill the existing Supreme Court vacancy, and potentially more to come, with “constitutional conservatives.” McConnell was being widely praised for his strategy, once seen as risky, of refusing to act on Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last February.
And Republicans pledged to try to unwind any number of executive moves by Obama, including tougher clean air rules on power plants, looser restrictions on travel to Cuba, and tougher rules on sleep for long-haul truckers, among others — “Every single one that’s sucking the very life out of our economy,” GOP Sen. David Perdue of Georgia said in an interview.
That threatened to wipe away key areas of progress highlighted by Democrats under the Obama administration.
Some of Trump’s goals could be harder to achieve. A wall on the southern border is estimated to cost $10 billion to $20 billion, money that Congress may be unlikely to provide given that cooperation from Democrats would be necessary.
Indeed the Senate Democratic minority stood as the only legislative barrier to Trump’s goals, since 60 votes are required for most consequential moves in the Senate.
Republicans were poised to end up with 52 Senate seats after Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., conceded to Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan in their close race. That assumes the GOP wins a December runoff in Louisiana, as expected. Democrats managed to pick up only one other GOP-held Senate seat, in Illinois, a devastating outcome for a party that went into Election Day with high hopes of holding the White House and winning back Senate control.
In the House, Republicans were on track to lose a maximum of nine seats, an unexpectedly modest reduction to a wide GOP majority that now stands at 247-188, including three vacant seats.
“We kicked their tails last night,” said GOP Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, head of the Republicans’ House campaign committee.
Trump’s extraordinary win appeared to be going far to heal divisions within the GOP, as even Republicans who’d long harbored doubts about him offered warm pledges of support.
Here and there, notes of caution were sounded, as a few Republicans made clear that Congress would be asserting its constitutional prerogatives as a check and balance on the executive, following what Republicans viewed as overly expansive use of executive power by Obama.
“It’s just our constitutional duty to keep the executive branch in check,” GOP Rep. Todd Young, the newly elected Republican senator in Indiana, told reporters in Indianapolis.
Yet McConnell appeared to invite executive action by Trump, suggesting he should be exploring what kinds of “unilateral action” he could take — to undo unilateral actions by Obama.
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Associated Press writers Brian Slodysko in Indianapolis and Matthew Daly and Andrew Taylor in Washington contributed to this report.

Gear Up For Change


The beginning of a change has begun. The recent elections have brought protests across the country but more important is the reality of a Trump Presidency. There are many things the President can change unilaterally but as many or more that cannot be altered without Congress. The real issues (so to speak) are the statements made during the election, the alt-right and Racist groups emboldened by Trump along with the potential conflicts of interests with Trump’s business interests. It must be made clear that Donald Trump has dealings with  many of the countries that he has listed as the cause of lost jobs in America. The campaign rhetoric is out there and cannot be retracted or altered to suit. The issue now is preparing  or perhaps pushing for change in the Congress. The Congress is the real cause we all need to sign on to. The long serving Congress has the sense that their positions are a calling and not a service position (no difference than hotel worker). It is unfortunate that we cannot fire the Congress without an election where the lies sound good but hide what is really happening.  Look at some of the things our Congress has done to persuade (?) us that they are open and above board: C-Span-there is nothing happening on C-span that is of consequence, the real work ids done in the halls and back offices. You may or may not remember when the issue of cameras in the Senate and House of Representatives, there was much resistance to it by Congressional leaders but eventually the cameras were put in place. With the country satisfied on that issue the Congress went underground to continue doing THEIR business, not OURS. If we as ordinary people cannot see the fallacy of this past election and the gleeful hand wringing   of  a Congress that feels they have a shill to do what they want, then we are already lost. I am stating here and now that my goal is to vote against any politician who cannot definitively tell me what they have done good or bad. Sound bites and politispeak  will not work for me and they should not work for you. Congress should!

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