A lot more oars in that water, including funds that impact a great many smaller fish too.
Justification is often a bit like beauty though and the larger argument over economic systems or how we regulate them is another animal altogether.
I just can't see how to count it to the good without evaluating the total consequences. The tax cut helps a lot of hedge funds, I'm sure, which could benefit the investors in those funds, which includes a number of governments and charities and very worthy causes. But we're mortgaging the future of the country, and potentially undercutting our ability to respond to the next economic crisis, which well could be on the horizon.
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 don't think it really works to approach those sort of things in retrospect, because the considerable damage that can be done cannot easily be undone. That said, I'm neutral with a side of distrusting of this legislation, not adamantly against it. The VA remains the most popular health system in the entire country, despite its many problems, and it's worth remembering that we need to be careful not to destroy it. I worry that the agenda of the administration is to take one of the largest government programs in the country and push it, as well as a considerable chunk of its money, into private hands.
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.
I never liked George W. Bush, never thought he was a very good president, and he wasn't someone I ever supported politically. However, I can point to a number of things he did, or that he tried, that I agree with, that I honor the effort of, and that I was fully behind at the time, that went beyond either the sorts of obvious changes that everyone agrees with once proposed, or the sort of keeping-the-lights-on necessary legislation. This, and the NASA approval fall into those categories, and they are, as far as I can see, the absolute best parts of the Trump administration. He didn't destroy some of the good agencies in the government...so far...and he signed on to some changes that literally everyone in government thought were good.
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.
I find that very strange. You're willing to attribute the drop to Trump's policies, but what immigration policies has he engaged in but additional cruelty? I'm literally not aware of a single one.
Citation to source? Because what I've heard is different.
The reporting I've seen suggests that immigrants are still being pressured to sign away their rights to asylum in order to get their kids back. And those who are being reunited are being asked to pay thousands of dollars to have their children brought back to them, which seems likely to impose a hardship on refugees who may have had to walk through all of Mexico to escape danger.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/us/migrant-children-families.html
I don't know how that's possible unless you're saying illegal immigrants are no longer attempting to bring their children with them.
Even in the face of a court order, the government is still trying to prevent refugees from exercising their rights. I hesitate to say a lot more, because the word coming out is a bit jumbled at the moment, and there will need to be further action in court unless the Trump administration decides to have a change of heart, which seems rather unlikely at this point.
And, again, does every good have to be, and who decides what that threshold is?
No, certainly not. I just don't get the focus, I guess.
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.
The physical ability example isn't a great one, but I'm trying to understand how you're evaluating the administration as better than expected.
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.
Fair enough. I may just not really understand how you're stacking things up.
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.
I don't dismiss his service at all, and my comments aren't related to his relation to my inclinations, but the role of acting administrator is of that nature. It is, by nature, a transitional office. An acting administrator typically holds the reigns while the administrator designate goes through Senate confirmation. We will see what sort of administrator Mr. Bridenstein turns out to be, but we will probably never properly know what kind Mr. Lightfoot would have been. Truth be told, I'd far rather find out the later than the former, but I don't discount either man, despite my suspicion of Mr. Bridenstein. I'm rather encouraged by some of the early signs. But I'm highly conscious of the fact that Earth Science is under attack in the federal government in general, from Trump appointees to the EPA and NOAA, and NASA Earth Science has literally saved the world already. A statement like the one you mention is the sort of pro forma statement that you need to explain to Congress why your agency should keep doing what it's doing, and while it's certainly a good in the sense of keeping the lights on, it's kinda only that.
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.
I mean, I understand that I'm not telling you something you don't know, but there's a difference between making an accusation that simply cannot be true (that Hillary Clinton is a felon, despite never having been charged or convicted) and one that could be and can be interrogated factually.
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,
you have done precisely what must and others do when they try and convict Hillary without legal process.
Treason is a reference to an act. It may be charged by a court at some point in the future, but in the case of a "president", it isn't even the likely first venue to engage the charge. I'm not bound by the rules of procedure that might bind a prosecutor, nor do I purport to be. I'm speaking only to what I believe based on the evidence I can see. And, if that seems dubious from an ethical perspective, I would point out that if you tune in Fox News on any given evening, you will hear much more unhinged rhetoric with far less evidence behind it spouted by people who are at least informally allies of Donald Trump. On some level, our culture has abandoned the niceties of the benefit of the doubt for the opposing side, and I don't think that Trump and his cabal can be defeated by holding back.
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.
I do think he's a traitor. I think he went into the Nobu restaurant in Moscow in 2013, and emerged with an understanding that Putin would help him in certain ways, and he would do certain things to help Putin, like run for President. No lesser word suffices. I could choose an insincerely conciliatory tone, or I could tell the blunt truth as I see it.
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.
I've served on a couple of juries, and truth be told, my experience so far is that I knew how the case would proceed from the
voir dire on. Oh, I listen to the evidence, and keep my mind open, but the truth is that lawyers have a very hard time figuring out who they want to judge their cases without tipping their hands about their strategies.
I'm quite eager to see the full evidence. But what's out there now is quite damning. And it is very likely that the first venue to hear the charges will be the voters in voting booths. Unfortunately, voters do not have the benefit of the subpoena power. To ignore the charges because of a standard of proof that simply doesn't apply to the decision to be made is simply impossible.
It hardly takes any to make a charge. It takes a good bit more to make a conviction. :cheers:
That's my greatest concern about the situation. It's not clear that Trump can be found to be guilty up to a criminal burden of proof. But that doesn't mean he's innocent, and in this case, that still matters.
Fundamentally, this is the reason impeachment is a political process. We could plausibly reach a situation where a president is impeached for treason, but also acquitted for it in a criminal trial, with both results being procedurally correct. As weak as the impeachment provisions are against a president, it's left to a supermajority, but Congress has full latitude to decide what standard they demand for proof.
