DogofWar1

Excellent. They will easily be able to battle all the way to the top on this matter, and fight on pretty much everything that comes down the pipe. Trump is gonna get real tired of losing court battles real fast.

Again, greater concerns are in play here. I fully understand the potential damage Pence could do. But that would be within the context of a system that is at least somewhat stable and standing. Yes, the social damage would be tremendous. Yes, the economic harms would be serious. But Pence would, hopefully, expel Bannon and Flynn, and put people in place who at least sorta kinda take things seriously. He'd likely re-affirm NATO. He'd keep the pressure on Russians. He'd likely try to re-establish trading links with SE Asia to slow Chinese economic gains. Trump has the potential to, and seems to want to, totally dismantle the institutions that helped protect the US, and keep it at the top. Social damage can be fixed. Yes, it will suck for that 15-20 years, but the damage can be undone. Economic damage can be fixed, but only if we don't totally become protectionist and kill off our ability to utilize globalization for economic gain. Pence is the sequel to Bush 43. Bigger, badder, more ridiculous in every way. Jaws 2 to Bush 43's Jaws. Trump is "The Room." He's going to destroy everything we hold dear and burn any bridges back.

It's not. Pence will look all too sane after Trump. That ups Pence's chances for election in 2020. But this is no time for political triangulation, there are greater concerns.

Maybe. But he's got to have a spine and act. Rubio slammed Tillerson hard. Then voted to confirm him. McConnell says the right things about 20% of the time, but DOES the right thing 0% of the time. I'm cutting him zero slack until he takes active steps to reign in Trump's excesses. Outside of that, I found this funny, in a "holy crap they are ruining lives but jeebus the sheer INCOMPETENCE":

Mitch McConnell, is, if nothing else, extremely consistent in his terribleness. He has a chance to lead the charge in defending America from Trump, and he's all "eh, courts got it, I got golf or something."

So it's Steve Bannon, Breitbart editor and prejudicial ****wad extraordinaire vs. career con-law Lawyers at DHS. I'm going with career con-law lawyers at DHS. District judges seem to be with the career con-law lawyers too.

I sincerely hope that the Ryan and McConnell and other GOP on Capitol Hill see things the way you two do. I know that being in Congress can sometimes create a bubble, but the outrage here almost certainly has reached all of their ears. The question will be if they heed it. I hope they do. Some laws countering these executive orders could help; if Congress stands up to Trump's excesses early on, perhaps even without extreme options like impeachment, the country could be kept from too many crazy things happening.

While I highly doubt if another election was held right now that Trump would win (a lot of people thought the pivot would be real after he won...it's not), Hillary still did win the popular vote. I'll bet an overwhelming majority of those people DID vote. If you're politically motivated enough to spontaneously go to an airport to protest, using homemade signs, you're probably politically motivated enough to vote. Now, sure, some of those people protesting probably voted for people besides Hillary, but then we have to amend you statement to "solved simply by voting for Hillary," which, while quite true, opens up a political debate about it being people's civic duties to have voted for Hillary.

Congressional Republicans should just implement the next stage of their plan, that is, impeach Trump, put in Pence, now. I get it Congressional Republicans, you want to do it after the mid-terms. GOP loses seats, but due to gerrymandering in House and Dems on defense in Senate the GOP holds them. You blame loses on Trump, drop some info on illegal stuff he's done, and then all the bad will can be aimed at Trump and Pence can walk stuff back to try and drum up goodwill for 2020. And yes, implementing the plan early means that Pence has more time to take blame for things, but you've got to do it sooner rather than later. This nonsense is ridiculous.

The King hath made a proclamation! (no one has any idea how to enforce it in practice and everyone besides the crown agrees it's a bad idea) BUT PROCLAMATION!!! DO IT!

I'm pretty sure an injunction or two on this will come down from District Courts, followed by a flurry of angry tweeting, and eventually it will reach SCOTUS. I'm not the biggest fan of John Roberts, but I think he and Kennedy will do the right thing here. Hopefully.

Donald Trump is going to single-handedly increase illegal immigration more than any President in the last 50 years.

This whole situation seems oddly familiar... where have I seen this before...

This entire page of posts is depressing on multiple fronts. It's frustrating that honestly the best solution to the populist-protectionist-Putinist authoritarian streak that has engulfed the west is probably a short term stint of intellectual-elitist-NATOist authoritarianism; that is, UK PM comes out, tells everyone Brexit is off, the UK is staying in the EU and that's that. Ideally such solutions would not even need to be comtemplated, but when you have things like the UK's entire agricultural industry on the line, drastic actions can need to be taken. These kinds of populist waves tend to show up once a generation, as the previously most powerful generation passes the torch (unwillingly) to younger groups, and tends to fade thereafter (see: Perot's following from '92 to '96, dropped 10% of the PV). Similarly this populist wave will likely die down again, but the damage needs to be contained, lest the next generation have to spend a couple decades undoing the mistakes of the past. Of course, there's also the problem that May probably doesn't want to call Brexit off either.

David Davis not only has a silly name, but also looks like a somewhat jowlier David Letterman. So many Davs.

Can I just say how much I love that poster? So simple. Yet unbelievably effective at getting the point across. "Run." "OKAY, I'LL BE DOING THAT RIGHT Nooowwwwwwwwwww"

At this point it's probably best for everyone to just start bracing for the consequences. The battle to limit impact might be a lost cause because the people running the country for the next four years certainly have no interest in trying to limit it. The one positive is that utilities have been transitioning away from dirtier fuels as renewables have dropped in price. http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/11/environmentalists-get-a-dose-of-good-news-000233 May help to mitigate some of the issues, though of course we need that tech to trickle to other countries first to really help slow things down.

These two do not agree with each other* because that which is dead in practice cannot magically just be used because if something is de facto, it, well, IS. If the term is used to denote a state of being at the present time (it IS X) then that state must exist for it to be de facto X. If some action must be taken to create this new state, then something cannot be de facto in that state at that time. I suppose an exception is if the future state is inevitable, but it's not. The GOP does not have to further weaken/destroy the filibuster, indeed, if Graham AND Hatch AND all the Dems agree not to kill the filibuster, the filibuster might not actually be killed even if the GOP tries, which means that the state isn't inevitable and therefore we cannot presently be de facto in that state. *There is only one way these two can agree with each other, and that's if the filibuster was ALWAYS de facto dead. Because at present it's alive for legislation and SCOTUS, and yet you allege it is de facto dead, but stuff has to happen for it to die, so for it to be de facto dead it needs to have always been dead. Which sorta could make sense, philosophically, maybe; the filibuster has existed essentially at the pleasure of the Congress, it has always been able to kill it or change it whenever it wanted. Today, the GOP says it could kill it if it wanted, which supposedly makes it de facto dead, but they said the same thing in 2005. If we're buying your logic though...: - the filibuster didn't "die" in 2013. It "died" in 1917 when the first known proposal of the "nuclear" option was made, essentially meaning that literally any rule of the Senate could be changed with a simple majority vote at the beginning of a term. Infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters; at some future point the filibuster would be, due to this "nuclear" option in the rules, eliminated. - The more modern "death" of the filibuster truly began in 2005, when the GOP and Dems came to a head on the issue. The GOP was prepared to use the nuclear option then. There were basically two options left, Dems could back down, or the GOP could kill the filibuster. Dems backed down that time. But the fact that killing the filibuster was even on the table meant it was not only possible, as established in 1917, but was very much within the realm of probable. Which is where it stands now. If the filibuster is dead because the GOP can kill it, it died a two-part death in 1917 and 2005. If it's not dead because the GOP still has to kill it before it's dead, then the GOP has to kill it has to actually, y'know, kill it, which means it cannot yet be truly dead.

He couldn't though, by the time he said he'd CONSIDER doing it for others if it got in the way, he had already announced he was not seeking re-election. Schumer is the guy we'd need a quote from.

Wasn't for legislation, was for non-Scotus executive appointments only.

The filibuster is like a hammer, it can be used for good or ill. In the hands of a good man, a hammer can build many homes. In the hands of a bad man, a hammer can kill many yakuza in a tight corridor over the course of a 3 minute action sequence that is downright awesome.

Tshile, two key points on Reid: 1. he did not go beyond 2013, which I think has been covered. 2. Reid would not be in Congress at the start of the 2017 Congress. His statements should not be used to justify anything extra. It'd be like if in 2008 GWB had said he would expand the Supreme Court in 2009 if it served the GOP's purposes. Like, okay, that's not great, but he's not gonna be President in 2009 so unless McCain chimed in and was like "yup, that's the plan," I think we need to take it with a grain of salt, and certainly Obama could not use it as justification to expand and pack the court. Reid is out. We should, as such, stop trying to use his post-retirement-announcement words as justification for further filibuster changes. The 2013 changes came as a result of a real, unreasonable, stimulus. We don't have a real and unreasonable stimulus yet. The idea of the filibuster being killed should be some far flung hypothetical, not something discussed as likely to happen early next year. You should also note that this whole filibuster debate mostly stemmed from the contention that the filibuster was already dead. I'm blasting that contention as justification for further action, which blocs of the GOP are advancing, NOT blasting the GOP for doing it, as obviously they haven't done it yet. Nor am I blasting any changes regardless of circumstances. If Trump magically turns out to be great for the USA and democrats obstruct him like the GOP did Obama, I would not be so angry at the GOP's rule changes. And I take issue with your characterization of me here. I have always been for judicious use of the filibuster. If I have not already stated somewhere, and I am fairly certain I have, let me state here that I oppose blanket use and abuse of the filibuster. The appropriate use of the filibuster is to stop highly inappropriate legislation and appointees. If that is how the democrats wield it in the coming Congress, then good. If they emulate the GOP from 2011-2014, then I will be much more understanding of GOP action on that front. And I also will note that you again do actually partake in false equivalency in your last paragraph. The history of the filibuster is sufficiently nuanced that it can not really be fit into the "hypocrisy" mould you establish at the end. Not yet at least.

...with conditions. Reid: “Unless after this election there is a dramatic change to go back to the way it used to be, the Senate will have to evolve as it has in the past,” It's vague, sure, but it's clearly not unconditional. It's speculation to assume the conditions would he met. Also, Reid won't even be there next Congress. Schumer is in charge, and would have been in charge, and was mum on the matter. So again, speculation, because Reid, while he would still be an influential figure among Dems, would not have any actual power to do anything.

I like how all these justifications for pre-emptive action by the GOP use some combination of counter-factuals on past actions and speculation re: intent and future actions. Whether they needed to remove the legislation filibuster or not is somewhat moot when you consider that the filibuster still exists either way. "The filibuster is already dead." That is factually false. But the narrative that it is, is absolutely one the GOP wants. You know, it's funny, when the first filibuster "crisis" of this millenium happened during the Bush presidency (a "crisis" which was magnitudes smaller in scope than the 2013 "crisis"), the GOP threatened to kill the filibuster and said it'd be the democrats fault if they had to do it. Fast forward to 2013, and the GOP acted in a manner magnitudes worse than democrats from 02-06. Democrats did what Republicans threatened to do for much less, and yet now, fast forward to today, and it's all the democrats fault. The GOP laid the groundwork to blame the obstructing party back in 2006 for far lesser offenses, and then became a much worse example of obstruction by 2013, but don't want the blame! It's absurd.

If the filibuster was killed by Reid what the hell were all those Democrats doing about gun laws a little while ago? http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-live-democrat-mounts-gun-control-filibuster-1466014395-htmlstory.html It is disingenuous to suggest the filibuster is "dead." It's not. Not for legislation and SCOTUS. Of course, by framing it as "dead" you can then say Reid killed it and put all the responsibility on him when the GOP actually kills it for real real. And I fail to see how it's a different argument, the events are inextricably intertwined in terms of cause and effect. The GOP was objectively unreasonable in their actions and the limited removal of certain filibusters was the effect.