The big fish have a lot of vested personal interests in the tax cut.
A lot more oars in that water, including funds that impact a great many smaller fish too.
How it can be justified in the context of a lopsided economy where the rich are already taking home the lion's share while people working full time can't afford basic necessities and the deficit balloons is unclear to me.
Justification is often a bit like beauty though and the larger argument over economic systems or how we regulate them is another animal altogether.
That's all well and good as far as it goes, but it's pretty hard to view the administration as a good-faith actor when they have a pretty dramatic history of attacking people who might place a check on their authority, and who often vilify the voiceless, faceless people who serve in the civil service.
Absent an abuse, which can be addressed, it's a good and one that advances the interests of people in need of it. Meaning that advancing that good is a good in itself.
I just don't see a good reason to give him credit for it unless he had some real important role in crafting or advocating it.
I understand that, but what I'm saying is that it's an arbitrary bar. What is that role and who decides it? Either you're for a thing or you oppose it. If you do anything to advance the good then you've done good, whatever else you may do or have done.
The two are of a piece. I don't think it's justifiable to celebrate a 27% drop in illegal immigration if it's achieved by a policy of cruelty toward immigrants.
I wouldn't say that to note a good thing is to celebrate it. In fact, while I'm strongly opposed to illegal immigration, I understand the driving force for many making the attempt to enter this country and the role some employers play in that to their profit, along with the ways others benefit from the cycle of human misery... I also don't believe that anyone has established the drop to be the result of cruelty, though the measure we've spoken to certainly qualifies and has been condemned by people of either political camp, which is the likely reason for it ceasing.
Except that it wasn't ended.
Citation to source? Because what I've heard is different.
There seems to be a bit of a shell game going on. And much of the damage has been done.
I don't know how that's possible unless you're saying illegal immigrants are no longer attempting to bring their children with them.
Sure. Regardless, not exactly a game-changer.
And, again, does every good have to be, and who decides what that threshold is?
I also don't especially celebrate Trump's ability to walk up and down stairs, although some men would struggle at it.
The whole celebrating business is goofy, rex, as is the idea that physical ability is a parallel to a willful act that results in a public good.
No. There's virtue in simple good governance. But good governance has been the exception rather than the rule, which makes it a bit odd to point it out in the context of trying to balance the scales.
Who said it balanced scales? I believe in rational objection and valuation. I opposed his election. I'm not a supporter of his reelection and I've been fairly public in my criticism, to the point where a number of the right have been in my teeth beyond the rational. But none of that alters my ability to see good where good is to be found and it shouldn't.
No, I was asked a question and gave an honest answer. He surprised me, did some things I count to the good. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. Perhaps anyone in that position will out of necessity, if not virtue, endorse any number of public goods and I let my personal disdain color my anticipation, but if so I'm content that when moved on the point I could see what I was disinclined to credit as a matter of personal feeling.
Well, Mr. Lightfoot is a good man, but as a transitional administrator, he's largely been a placeholder.
You should have stopped at the first part. His long and distinguished service to NASA and the nation warrants more than that sort of dismissal because his comments don't serve your inclination. And as he was outgoing he had no reason to attempt to curry a favor he didn't need, if that was within his character, which isn't a thing established by any stretch of the imagination...or is a fault that only exists at present as an example of that sort of exercise.
And he's an Obama administration holdover.
Which underscores my point. But he's been with NASA since 1989. Along with ably serving in a number of positions, he has received the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executives in 2006, and the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, in 2007.
The key difference is, treason is an act, whereas felon is a specific legal status. You cannot be a felon without a conviction from a court. Treason can be committed whether or not it's ever caught or punished.
Thank you. I hope when I attend law school, pass the bar, practice before federal benches, on the appellate level, and find my certification for standing before the Supreme Court before...wait, I already did that.
Pushing on, a felony is a charge until it is sustained in a court of law. The same is true for treason. So when you write, as you did,
... it's hard for me to get past the treason.
you have done precisely what must and others do when they try and convict Hillary without legal process. Not the charge of treason, or even the apparent act, but with treason itself, which is tantamount to calling him a traitor no matter how you attempt to couch it.
There will be a time for the acts to be judged more fully, but there's no difficulty commenting on it as a matter of the evidence that's in the public domain, and it may be that the only court that can reach a verdict in this case is the electorate in their voting booths.
That's what they said, sort of. Or, everyone thinks they know any number of things are certain before they serve on a jury and meet the whole facts under scrutiny.
Meeting with Russian emissaries as part of a campaign with the intent of getting help with the campaign is, at minimum, treason adjacent. And most of the top tier of the Trump campaign did just that. It doesn't take much of a court case to make the charge.
It hardly takes any to make a charge. It takes a good bit more to make a conviction. :cheers:
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