I’m cleaning up email, and just ran across this one from five days ago. Old as it is, I thought I’d give Mick Mulvaney credit for standing up against Trump on this:
Hello,
Wanted to make sure you saw this article from Talking Points Memo yesterday that highlights Republicans in Congress who oppose Trump’s awful and absurd “plans” for mass deportation. Conservative members such as Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Rep. Renee Ellmers and Senator Rob Portman all reject the idea of rounding up and deporting 11 million people – as do a majority of Americans and Republican primary voters.
Here are some quotes from members who oppose this plan:
‘”Logistically that is an impossibility,” Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC), who has endorsed Trump and is facing a primary challenge from her right in June, told TPM. “It would cost the taxpayers of America. We would never get there… It would be an endless pursuit.”’
“[Rep. Mick] Mulvaney [R-SC] said he never “believed we were going to deport 11 million people.” “Don’t know how you would even go about doing it,” Mulvaney said. “I look forward to having that debate with our presumptive nominee once he comes to meet with us.”’
“Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) says he won’t be supporting Trump at all in part because of his immigration policy. “I called it a fraud from day one, from the day he announced it. It’s not a plan, alright, and it is unrealistic and it’s not a solution. It’s a good sound bite.”’
Here’s a link to the full piece.
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What other laws to they propose ignoring? Do they oppose Obama’s deportation plans as well?
Anyway, we don’t need to round up millions of illegal immigrants. Just remove as many of the incentives they have to stay. 1) Actively and rigorously enforce laws to prevent them from working illegally 2) Prevent any access to taxpayer funded services 3) Deporting anyone who breaks the law and is taken into custody. No papers? Bye bye.
We don’t need a stick. Just need to remove the carrot. Then change the laws to let as many in legally as anyone wants. We are a nation of laws, not men, right?
Yep.
But Trump promises a roundup. The jackboot scene. In keeping with the whole fascism theme…
Yawn.
Trump’s not a fascist, not a racist, and not a misogynist. He’s a bully, a boor, and a loudmouth.
But the bottom line is that he has more right to ENFORCE the existing immigration laws than Obama does to IGNORE them.
You want to stop him? Change the laws. The more you try to demonize him, the more you sound like the Bush is Hitler loons.
Sorry about that. Your comment got held for moderation. Don’t know why.
As for Obama ignoring immigration laws — where do you get that? Last I heard, he was deporting a bunch of folks… like, more than any recent president.
… although the statistics can be confusing.
Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic, captures my view on this election perfectly (probably because he has an engineer’s mindset). It isn’t about nihilism.
“This is another example in which I think citizens are taking a more active role in fixing the world when government isn’t the right tool for the job. There’s something in the air now – maybe because of Trump – that feels intensely American. And by that I mean not waiting around for someone (such as the government) to fix your problem. We’re a nation of problem-solvers. I would argue that problem-solving is the most basic American character trait.
You need something invented? We’re on it.
You need a dictator removed? Can do.
You need economic stability in the world? Working on it!
Don’t like having a king? We can design a better system.
At the moment, citizens see our government as defective and they see Donald Trump as a wrecking ball. Step one: Demolition.
Step two is the scary part. What happens when you break the government? Do we devolve into chaos, anarchy, or dictatorship? Well, that might happen to some countries. In America, when stuff is broken, we fix it. And if it ain’t broken, we’ll break it anyway, just to fix it better. That’s sort of our thing. And we’re good at it.
I predict we’re going to see a wave of citizen involvement that is unprecedented. People everywhere (especially billionaires) are seeing that government can’t do everything. So they are stepping in. Gates is fixing Africa and whatnot. Thiel is planning floating cities to solve some types of immigration issues and more. And Mark Cuban probably has some good work ahead of him.”
Over time, old forests build up with dead trees, decaying plant matter, and old vegetation that chokes out and prevents new growth.
When a forest fire breaks out, it destroys all these things and returns them (and the nutrients they’ve been harboring) back to the soil in the form of ashes. The underbrush is cleared so sunlight can reach the forest floor and new growth can emerge. Invasive weeds are gone, insects are eliminated, and newer, younger growth explodes.
Doug’s on team Burn It Down. However, I don’t think he’s just on team Burn It Down just to watch it burn and laugh. I think Doug wants to burn it all down because the old growth is choking the forest and he wants to see new growth.
I have to say, I’m not totally opposed to it.
Correct, Bryan. The proper fixes for the IRS, the VA, Social Security, Medicare, etc. are not incremental tweaks over decades. The first step would be to scrap them all and start fresh using lessons learned. Replace the IRS with the Fairtax. Could it really be worse? Replace the VA and Medicare with a voucher system. Could it really be worse? Replace Social Security retirement checks with individual accounts with actual dollars in them? Could it be worse?
Yes, yes and yes.
So you’re in the “all we need is a few tweaks” camp? How many decades will it take to achieve mediocrity?
I’d hardly call wholesale government restructuring, comprehensive tax reform, or, on the national level, a single-payer health care system “tweaks.”
But if by that you mean I’m not in Bernie’s “we need a revolution” camp, you’re right. We don’t.
None of your ideas will ever happen with the same politicians in office, Mr. Quixote.
What’s the biggest idea that any of your favorites has ever pushed to restructure government, do comprehensive tax reform, or enact single payer? McCain? Nada. Obama? Zip. Sheheen? Please – he’s still working on getting 4 year olds more coloring time.
You want single payer? Vote for Bernie.
You want tax reform? Vote for Gary Johnson.
You want government restructuring? Vote for Trump.
You want more of the same? It’s Hillary.
Actually, just a year or two ago, Vincent Sheheen, with a big boost from Nikki Haley, got a significant chunk of government restructuring done — doing away with the Budget and Control Board as it existed.
My great disadvantage as a politician (and Vincent has the same problem) is that I don’t appeal to people on an emotional level. We look at something that needs doing, and then look for the best IDEA, not the best FEELING, to get it done, and we get behind that.
Nikki, on the other hand, is very good at emotion, but often not that great with the ideas.
Very rare is the person who is good at both the ideas and the emotion. Bill Clinton is one. His wife, unfortunately for her and us, is totally about ideas.
To elaborate a bit…
Last summer, we finally did something I’d been pushing hard on for 21 years — we took down the flag. That was something that, to an idea-oriented person, should only have taken two seconds to decide to do, and about five minutes to do it.
But it didn’t happen, and wasn’t GOING to happen, because of the mountain of emotion in the way.
It took another mountain of emotion — the outpouring after the slaughter at Emanuel AME — to push the obstructing one out of the way.
Then, we just went ahead and did the reasonable thing.
Well I am. Because I’m a conservative guy.
Yeah, I’m a change agent and a reformer. There are SO many proven, commonsense (that is, sensible, or if you will, conservative) policy changes we could institute (especially on the state level, but nationally as well) that our elected leaders reject for lousy reasons.
But I will always stand in the way of a destroyer when he is an idiot who doesn’t have a clue what Step Two would be.
I’m seeing a howling mob led by an idiot, and that definitely puts me into conservative mode…
You’ve been harping on the same policy changes for years. At some point, most people recognize a lost cause and are willing to start over. Being stubborn doesn’t produce results.
I’ll refer you to what I said above in response to your “tweaks” comment.
We don’t need a revolution.
We need some pretty serious changes to address problems that are crippling us politically — for instance, we need to completely reform reapportionment, which is probably the one factor most responsible not only for the nastiness of our politics, but for the gridlock that renders our representative bodies ineffective.
We need change. But neither Trump nor Bernie talk about the kind of change we need, because the kind of change we need doesn’t get people excited — largely because too few people understand the problem. I’m pretty sure Trump doesn’t, and I’d be surprised if Bernie does.
Again, these are guys who don’t even understand what the job is that they are running for. Rather than pick on Trump again, let’s use a Bernie example. The Democrats had a debate right after the Paris attacks. Quite sensibly, the debate organizers decided they’d better spend the first part of the debate on foreign affairs and security (the outrage in my mind was that they’d originally intended to have a PRESIDENTIAL debate with no reference to such things).
Everyone understood why. Everybody was on board. Everybody but Bernie, who was INDIGNANT that he was going to be expected to talk about anything other than how he’s going to go after the “billionayuhs.”
I’ve met candidates like that in my career — utterly clueless people who really don’t get what the job is about. But they are usually people you’ve never heard of because they never went anywhere. They ran, in their innocence, for something like county council, knowing nothing about it. Sometimes they’re very nice, sweet people and you feel for them. When you endorse their opponents you say nice things about their good intentions, because you don’t want to be mean to them.
But when they think they know everything, and are unwilling to learn, and are obnoxious and arrogant about it, and they are running for POTUS, and a significant number of voters can’t tell the difference between them and someone who has a clue, we have a very serious problem.
“I’ve met candidates like that in my career”
And how many of them have actually won elected office? Isn’t that the only measuring stick? You think they’d prefer to lose following your priorities of what they should be clued in about?
Bernie’s cluelessness has him close to winning the Presidency. For all your love of Lindsey Graham’s intelligence in certain areas, the American people looked at “smart” Lindsey and said “Not interested”.
I agree with everything Adams says. I just don’t think Trump is the appropriate agent of change; neither is Clinton. Cuban? Perhaps; he needs more “vetting.” Ms. Clinton apparently is vetting Cuban for the VP slot on the Democratic ticket.
If Trump had acquired his wealth without the “head start” from his father, or if he showed finesse in his approach to increasing his net worth (such as investing in an index fund), I might feel differently about him. His sense of privilege/entitlement and a “bull in the china shop” approach greatly concern me.
Wow! What a Pollyanna!
All that’s happening right now is destruction — destruction by utterly clueless people who wouldn’t know a solution if it bit them on the posterior.
There is absolutely NO indication that there is a fix coming behind the destruction.
This is a completely mindless, destructive impulse. (Hence my repeated references to nihilism.)
If James Madison were saying let’s tear it all down because I know how to build it back up, I’d believe him. Not Trump — he’s an idiot. He doesn’t even know what it is he’s tearing down; he has demonstrated NO understanding of governmental systems or policy. None at all. He’s just an idiot swinging an ax…
Trump actually has an extensive track record for tearing things down and building something better (arguably) in the same place.
For example, Wollman Rink in NYC:
“The rink was closed in 1980 for a proposed two years of renovations at $9.1 million. Six years and $13 million later, after the problem-plagued work was still not completed by the city, Donald Trump persuaded Mayor Ed Koch in 1986 to let him complete the work in four months at $2.5 million in order to have it open by the end of the year. Koch initially objected to Trump’s proposal when Trump offered to pay for the renovations himself with the stipulation that he be allowed to run the venue and an adjacent restaurant and use the profits to recoup his costs. Public pressure prompted Mayor Koch to reverse his position. The rink reopened to the public on November 13, 1986, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and press conference attended by Koch and Trump, covered by national evening broadcast television news.[ Total cost of renovations by Trump came in under budget at $2.25 million.”
He has a record of DOING things. Hillary has a record of SAYING things.
And building an ice rink is what you count as “doing things,” within the context of wanting to be president of the United States?
Seriously?
Why isn’t Steve Benjamin running for president, then?
I thought I’d give you an easy one where he accomplished something the government couldn’t do. And did it in 1/10th the time for 1/6 the cost.
But if you’d like me to post images of buildings, hotels, golf courses, beauty pageants (yeah!!), I can do that. He’s created multi-million dollar grossing television shows. He’s done stuff. He’s an egotistical bully but he’s done stuff. There are plenty of people who value that over someone who has done a lot of talking.
Steve Benjamin’s “rink” is a temporary sheet of ice with some boards around it.
Building things? More like stealing. Check out the thievery involved with Trump University. The skating rink is one very tiny example of something he got right. His overall success as a businessman is much less than he claims.
Using the term idiot to describe Trump weakens your argument … same as using fascist. The hyperbole kills the message. Just as your misuse the word nihilism misstates the objective of those who want to improve the way government works, your misuse of idiot and fascist to describe Trump detract from your message. Trump is not an idiot. He is not stupid. He may be uniformed but that doesn’t imply he is incapable of learning.
I think you see the writing on the wall… President Trump has moved from a fantasy to a possibility in six weeks. A month from now it may be a foregone conclusion.
Fascism isn’t hyperbole. I refer you again to Robert Kagan’s point-by-point explanation of what we’re looking at.
And he is the very worst kind of idiot. He’s not some person of low intelligence who is eager to learn but has trouble doing so. I wouldn’t use such dismissive language to describe someone like that.
He is an ignoramus who is PROUD of his ignorance. He is clueless and revels in his cluelessness and demonstrates that he has no intention of learning any better.
If you have a better short word than “idiot” for that, I’ll be glad to use it.
Billionaire? President?
My guess is he has a higher IQ than Bush, Reagan.
I do feel bad calling anyone an “idiot,” even Trump.
The Bible, after all, specifically forbids calling someone a “fool.”
But it’s hard to come up with words with sufficient force, and words that everyone understands, for describing just how far Trump is from being anyone who should be considered, even for a second, for POTUS.
The reason it is hard is because I’ve never, ever had occasion to describe anyone like Trump, certainly not in the context of a presidential campaign. So better words just aren’t there.
It’s an embarrassing thing to admit, for a guy who’s all about words. I guess I need to keep searching for something better.
There’s never been anyone like him in such a position. I suppose if someone like him ever crops up again, the word we will use to describe how beyond the pale he is will be “Trump.” The way we use Quisling now, for instance.
But for now, I’m having to improvise…
Spy Magazine had it right first: vulgarian
High intelligence? Perhaps. A strong streak of sociopathy? Absolutely. Trump is in it for Trump. His contradictions, generalizations, and bullying tactics make that clear. He’s realized that he can hook into current anxiety, and manipulate it to get him into a very powerful position. His slogan “Make America Great Again” reminds me too much of another one, involving Germany. He continues to scare me. Amassing money is no indication of intellect or moral superiority.
Oy vey… Sociopath, fascist, scary. Would you have called him any of those words a year ago?
How are Trump’s methods any different than those of Hillary, Bernie, Obama, McCain, et al? They all try to play on the fears of their base.
On the sociopath level, I would bet there is little difference between Trump and Hillary. She will do anything and say anything to win (and her minions are far, far worse). She is a liar and an enabler of Bill’s horrific behavior.
I didn’t use any words to describe him a year ago because there was no point. There was NO reason to think anyone would ever vote for anyone like that.
I would feel embarrassed for being so wrong, but my only mistake was thinking too highly of the American people. And besides, I have a LOT of really good company in being wrong on that.
And there is NO comparison with any of those people except, to some extent, Bernie. He and Bernie have a good bit in common.
And before this, NO ONE like either one of them ever got into a position like this.
It amazes me that you can compare him to normal people. He’s not technically a member of a different species, but he certainly seems like it.
And as I’ve said a number of times. THAT is what people need to understand. This is not a normal election. Trump is not a normal candidate. He is a nightmare, and neither the Republicans nor the Democrats (nor the media) should for a moment act like he’s any other candidate who has ever gotten the Republican nomination for president. Ever.
But they’re going to do that. It’s already started. It’s because that’s what they always do, and they’re too thick to see that this is the one case in which they must not do what they always do.
Normalizing Trump, pretending that he can seriously be considered for president, is extraordinarily dangerous. And any of us who can see that need to keep shouting it. Otherwise the tide of normalization will roll right over us all, and wash our republic away…
Trump and Bernie are not even remotely alike. Now George W and Trump, that’s an appropriate comparison. Now there was a bonafide idiot.
You’re normalizing Trump with this sort of comment.
Do this at your peril.
Y B NRML?
Chaos theory has created chaos in the world of change. Taking risks, small scale changes, studying through data what works, and spreading success is the model. Plan, Do, Study, Act (thanks to Edward Deming). It takes time to change the course of the aircraft carrier called the United States Government; it just takes some time …
I understand Trumpism and the need for change; he’s just not the man to do the job.