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Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Regarding the complaints that the refugee ban is not a Muslim ban:
Fox News host Jeanine Pirro asked Giuliani whether the ban had anything to do with religion.
“How did the president decide the seven countries?” she asked. “Okay, talk to me.”
“I'll tell you the whole history of it,” Giuliani responded eagerly. “So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.' "
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/01/31 21:00:00
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
I agree there.
I've said in the past that I think the FBI announcements had an impact and drove her numbers down. But I think it wouldn't have mattered if she ran a solid campaign. If you don't want a blown call by the ref to decide the game in the last quarter, you have to put it away.
Prestor Jon wrote: Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
I suspect many people stayed home because almost nobody thought that Trump could win. He is so obviously unsuited for the job that the assumption was he would depress R votes more than Hils would depress D votes. That assumption was wrong, of course, and now the US is going to dig itself an economic hole similar to the one Reagan put it in.
To quote the great thinker Descartes, "Y'all are fethed!"
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
How was Hillary going to put unemployed rust belt residents back to work? There's no magic solution that would allow a President to just create jobs in those states that would be tailored to those who had lost their jobs.
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
How was Hillary going to put unemployed rust belt residents back to work? There's no magic solution that would allow a President to just create jobs in those states that would be tailored to those who had lost their jobs.
She had a $30 billion plan to revitalize coal communities and retrain coal workers. It would have required work on the part of the workers to learn new skills and modernize. But they wanted their old jobs back. So now no one's going to get jobs, and we're going to spend that money on a useless vanity project in the name of Trump's ego.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/01/31 21:27:54
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
How was Hillary going to put unemployed rust belt residents back to work? There's no magic solution that would allow a President to just create jobs in those states that would be tailored to those who had lost their jobs.
She had a $30 billion plan to revitalize coal communities and retrain coal workers. It would have required work on the part of the workers to learn new skills and modernize. But they wanted their old jobs back. So now no one's going to get jobs, and we're going to spend that money on a useless vanity project in the name of Trump's ego.
Sanders would never have said that. Bill Clinton would never have said that. Johnson and FDR damn well never would have said that.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/31 21:36:20
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
The coal mine I work at is probably not going to be here in 1 to 5 years and that has nothing to do with Obama or Trump.
Our owner, living gak stain he is, has heavily invested inthe oil and gas boom, selling off large chunks of mineral rights. He also bought a lot of newer mines in the next state over. Add to it this mine is 75 years old and producing high sulphur coal, which is bad, and the fact china is moving away from coal and we're boned.
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Sanders would never have said that. Bill Clinton would never have said that. Johnson and FDR damn well never would have said that.
You mean the single quote that was taken completely out of context?
Look, we have serious economic problems in many parts of our country. And Roland is absolutely right. Instead of dividing people the way Donald Trump does, let's reunite around policies that will bring jobs and opportunities to all these underserved poor communities.
So for example, I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?
And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.
Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.
So whether it's coal country or Indian country or poor urban areas, there is a lot of poverty in America. We have gone backwards. We were moving in the right direction. In the '90s, more people were lifted out of poverty than any time in recent history.
Because of the terrible economic policies of the Bush administration, President Obama was left with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and people fell back into poverty because they lost jobs, they lost homes, they lost opportunities, and hope.
So I am passionate about this, which is why I have put forward specific plans about how we incentivize more jobs, more investment in poor communities, and put people to work.
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/31 21:46:30
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/31 21:55:23
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
Why settle for the lesser evil?
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
You said Hils was crowing about putting coal out of business. Infinite Array showed what she actually said. How is that not twisting her words?
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
Relapse wrote: The people who counted were persuaded by his stirring oratory, though, putting him in office. I call that a win.
Let's not pretend that Trump actually did anything to earn his votes. Trump won because ~60 million people will reflexively vote for anyone with an R next to their name, no matter how obviously terrible.
I guess enough of those 60 million moved to blue states from red after the 2012 election to cause those blue states to flip.
Michigan:
Red gained 160,000, Blue lost 200,000
Wisconsin:
Red lost 2,500 votes, Blue lost 24,000
Pennsylvania:
Red gained 290,000 votes, Blue lost 28,000 votes
Ohio:
Red gained 180,000 votes , Blue lost 430,000 votes
In only one of those states did the Republicans gain more than the Democrats lost. And out of those four states, Ohio is the only state where Trump got more votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2012. Trump won, but he really needs to thank Clinton for running a horrible campaign. And people need to stop thinking that he has some sort of mandate. Especially with a narrow electoral college win and a popular vote loss. He had a very narrow win, and the landscape looks good for the GOP in 2018. But if 2016 showed us anything it should be to never underestimate the people you are pissing off.
The stats you posted really show how even though a lot of people on Dakka seemed to think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate and that Trump was a terrible one a lot of the Democrat voters in several key states chose not to vote for her. Even with the risk of a Trump victory hundreds of thousands of Democrats would rather not vote than vote for Hillary. Either she ran the worst campaign ever or she was never really a strong candidate at all for her to get rejected that massively by her own base with so much at stake.
Then again, those are four states were the working class where hit hard by closing factories - the people who apparently shifted from Obama to Trump. Clinton didn't promise them their jobs back, but offered other solutions, just like she did with coal workers. Trump promised to wave his magic golden wand and turn back time. Voters chose fantasy over reality. If evidence is worth anything, Republicans have already abandoned their promise to bring back the coal industry, and factory workers should also expect short shrift.
How was Hillary going to put unemployed rust belt residents back to work? There's no magic solution that would allow a President to just create jobs in those states that would be tailored to those who had lost their jobs.
She had a $30 billion plan to revitalize coal communities and retrain coal workers. It would have required work on the part of the workers to learn new skills and modernize. But they wanted their old jobs back. So now no one's going to get jobs, and we're going to spend that money on a useless vanity project in the name of Trump's ego.
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
Why settle for the lesser evil?
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
You said Hils was crowing about putting coal out of business. Infinite Array showed what she actually said. How is that not twisting her words?
because it was Obama admin policy. Lets quit playing games.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
Why settle for the lesser evil?
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
You said Hils was crowing about putting coal out of business. Infinite Array showed what she actually said. How is that not twisting her words?
because it was Obama admin policy. Lets quit playing games.
Your original comment, and the story you linked to, was about Hils comments to coal workers on the campaign trail.
In a nutshell, she said "coal is dying, let's make sure you don't die with it". Which was then twisted into "hahaha coal miners are LOSERS!"
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
Full disclosure: as a kid-you know under 10-he ran away to the merchant marine over working in the mines. So I am a bit biased against coal mines...
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
But hey, you try telling these yahoos who scream all lives matter and hang Obama that Trump isn't gonna save their sorry asses...
Vote Cthulu: #Nolivesmatter
Why settle for the lesser evil?
So we're back to the double standard - Trump got to say whatever, whenever, and recieved a pass. Clinton's words were pulled from context and twisted, and got a massive condemnation.
Except of course they weren't twisted. That was Obama policy.
You said Hils was crowing about putting coal out of business. Infinite Array showed what she actually said. How is that not twisting her words?
because it was Obama admin policy. Lets quit playing games.
We're not the ones playing games. The message was never "This was Obama's strategy," because then the Republicans would have to answer the follow up, "Why didn't it work?" with "Oh, we stopped it." The message was always "She's going to take your jobs!"
By the way, I hope everyone remembers the message that came out of the GOP immediately after Trump's election - that deregulation of the coal industry isn't going to bring back jobs. So much for Trump's promises.
CONFIRMED: Trump will pick Judge Neil Gorsuch tonight, youngest SCOTUS pick in 30 years. https://t.co/lakw5LrAqa — Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 31, 2017
CNN reporting Gorsuch is the frontrunner for SCOTUS. Easy way to unite the GOP...
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 31, 2017
Neil Gorsuch was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit by President George W. Bush on May 10, 2006, and confirmed shortly thereafter. Both his pre-judicial resumé and his body of work as a judge make him a natural fit for an appointment to the Supreme Court by a Republican president. He is relatively young (turning 50 this year), and his background is filled with sterling legal and academic credentials. He was a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford, graduated from Harvard Law School, clerked for prominent conservative judges (Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, as well as Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court), and was a high-
ranking official in the Bush Justice Department before his judicial appointment. He is celebrated as a keen legal thinker and a particularly incisive legal writer, with a flair that matches
— or at least evokes — that of the justice whose seat he would be nominated to fill. In fact, one study has identified him as the most natural successor to Justice Antonin Scalia on the Trump shortlist, both in terms of his judicial style and his substantive approach.
With perhaps one notable area of disagreement, Judge Gorsuch’s prominent decisions bear the comparison out. For one thing, the great compliment that Gorsuch’s legal writing is in a class with Scalia’s is deserved: Gorsuch’s opinions are exceptionally clear and routinely entertaining; he is an unusual pleasure to read, and it is always plain exactly what he thinks and why. Like Scalia, Gorsuch also seems to have a set of judicial/ideological commitments apart from his personal policy preferences that drive his decision-making. He is an ardent textualist (like Scalia); he believes criminal laws should be clear and interpreted in favor of defendants even if that hurts government prosecutions (like Scalia); he is skeptical of efforts to purge religious expression from public spaces (like Scalia); he is highly dubious of legislative history (like Scalia); and he is less than enamored of the dormant commerce clause (like Scalia). In fact, some of the parallels can be downright eerie. For example, the reasoning in Gorsuch’s 2008 concurrence in United States v. Hinckley, in which he argues that one possible reading of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act would probably violate the rarely invoked non-delegation principle, is exactly the same as that of Scalia’s 2012 dissent in Reynolds v. United States. The notable exception is one prominent concurrence last August, in Gutierrez-Brizuela v. Lynch, in which Gorsuch criticized a doctrine of administrative law (called Chevron deference) that Scalia had long defended. Even here, however, there may be more in common than meets the eye.
Religion
Some of the most high-profile cases in which Gorsuch has cast a vote have involved the religion clauses of the Constitution (those prohibiting the establishment of religion and creating a right to free exercise), as well as congressional statutes expanding protection for religious adherents (known as RFRA and RLUIPA). Followers of the Supreme Court will recognize two recent cases in which Gorsuch participated on the 10th Circuit, Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius and Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell. In Hobby Lobby, Gorsuch wrote a concurrence in the en banc 10th Circuit that sided with the company and its owners. He stressed the need to accept these parties’ own conceptions regarding the requirements of their faith, and held (among other things) that they were likely to prevail on claims that the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act substantially burdened their religious exercise in violation of RFRA. This position was largely vindicated in the subsequent decision by the Supreme Court. Thereafter, in Little Sisters of the Poor, Gorsuch joined a group of 10th Circuit judges who dissented from denial of rehearing en banc when a panel of the court of appeals ruled against the Little Sisters on their RFRA claims about the same ACA mandate. There, again, the point was that the 10th Circuit had shown insufficient deference to the Little Sisters’ own articulation of the tenets of their religious beliefs. That position, too, was at least partially vindicated by the Supreme Court when it decided that the Little Sisters’ religious beliefs probably could be accommodated while still affording full and equal contraceptive coverage to their employees, and directed the parties and courts to consider such a solution on remand. Simply put, in cases that closely divided his court and the Supreme Court, Gorsuch has shown himself to be an ardent defender of religious liberties and pluralistic accommodations for religious adherents.
Gorsuch has also written or joined opinions – again, largely vindicated by the Supreme Court – that have criticized doctrines that limit religious expression in public spaces. In Summum v. Pleasant Grove City, in 2007, Gorsuch joined a dissent from denial of rehearing en banc in a case in which the 10th Circuit had limited the ability of the government to display a donated Ten Commandments monument in a public park without accepting all other offers of donated monuments. The subsequent Supreme Court decision reversing the 10th Circuit largely adopted the reasoning of that dissent. Gorsuch also has a pair of dissenting opinions in which he criticizes the “reasonable observer” test for establishment clause cases as far too likely to find impermissible endorsements of religion by the government when none was intended, and thus to prevent religious adherents from reasonably participating in public life. These cases are American Atheists Inc. v. Davenport, in 2010, and Green v. Haskell County Boad. of Commissioners, in 2009. The common thread in these cases is one that matters very deeply to conservatives: a sense that the government can permit public displays of religion – and can accommodate deeply held religious views – without either violating the religion clauses of the Constitution or destroying the effectiveness of government programs that occasionally run into religious objections. In his 2009 concurrence in Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, Scalia articulated very similar views. Gorsuch’s opinions on these issues are quite thoughtful, and demonstrate that he would be a natural successor to Scalia in adopting a pro-religion conception of the establishment clause.
Criminal Law
Another area in which Gorsuch has written persuasively in a manner that closely echoes Scalia relates to how to interpret criminal laws correctly, so as to avoid criminalizing potentially innocent conduct. One of Gorsuch’s most notable opinions in this area also happens to overlap with the hot-button issue of gun ownership — although the case is not about the Second Amendment, and doesn’t involve anything like the typical gun-rights groups.
A federal criminal law prohibits the knowing possession of a gun by a felon. This law has given rise to a debate about how best to read its limitation to “knowing” violations: Does it apply whenever a felon knowingly possesses a gun, or must violators also know that they have been convicted of a felony? This matters, because lots of minor crimes might technically be felonies, and lots of dispositions that seem inconsequential (because they involve no jail time) might technically be felony convictions. And the penalties for violating this law can be very high. In United States v. Games-Perez, in 2012, Gorsuch urged the 10th Circuit to review its rule holding that it is enough to support a conviction that the defendant knew he possessed the gun, whether or not he knew he was a felon. The opinion is an example of Gorsuch’s strong commitment to textualism, and a severe critique of using legislative history — particularly to make criminal what might otherwise be innocent. Accordingly, it is easy to hear clear echoes of Scalia’s views regarding the proper reading of statutes — especially criminal statutes — as well as the importance of focusing on ordinary usage and linguistic rules.
A few examples make the resemblance even clearer. Take this sentence from Games-Perez: “For current purposes, just stating Capps‘s holding makes the problem clear enough: its interpretation—reading Congress’s mens rea requirement as leapfrogging over the first statutorily specified element and touching down only at the second listed element—defies grammatical gravity and linguistic logic.” Or this passage, which contains both an endorsement of Second Amendment rights and a classic Scalia principle about attaching mens rea requirements to the element that criminalizes innocent conduct:
Besides, even if the government could somehow manage to squeeze an ambiguity out of the plain statutory text before us, it faces another intractable problem. The Supreme Court has long recognized a “presumption” grounded in our common law tradition that a mens rea requirement attaches to “each of the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct.” … Together §§ 922(g) and 924(a)(2) operate to criminalize the possession of any kind of gun. But gun possession is often lawful and sometimes even protected as a matter of constitutional right. The only statutory element separating innocent (even constitutionally protected) gun possession from criminal conduct in §§ 922(g) and 924(a) is a prior felony conviction. So the presumption that the government must prove mens rea here applies with full force.
Either of these passages would be perfectly at home in a canonical Scalia opinion about how to read the criminal law. And, it is worth noting, this means that Gorsuch, just like Scalia, is sometimes willing to read criminal laws more narrowly in a way that disfavors the prosecution – especially when the Second Amendment or another constitutional protection is involved.
Death Penalty
Gorsuch, like Scalia, has not been a friendly vote for death penalty petitioners pursuing relief from their sentences through federal habeas. But it is important to recognize that, as in the case of Scalia, this makes plenty of sense in light of Gorsuch’s commitment to reading statutes according to their plain text. During the 1990s, Congress passed a statute called the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that – true to its name – was intended to limit federal habeas in order to make the death penalty easier to carry out. Strict readers of AEDPA are unlikely to find many cases in which a petitioner qualifies for relief. This is particularly true in the courts of appeals, where many of the death penalty habeas cases are uncontroversial —or at least not nearly as close as the cases that make their way to the Supreme Court. Whatever the source of the position, however, it is clear that Gorsuch’s position in death penalty cases is likely to be quite close to Scalia’s, and very unlikely to make the court any more solicitous of the claims of capital defendants.
Dormant Commerce Clause
Another area of the law in which Gorsuch has shown both his writing talent and his similarity to Scalia is in the application (and critique) of doctrines surrounding the so-called “dormant commerce clause.” These doctrines treat the commerce clause not only as a grant of power to Congress to make laws regulating interstate commerce, but as a kind of presumptive limitation on the power of states to make laws that either unduly burden or unfairly discriminate against interstate commerce, without regard to whether Congress has ever passed a law in the relevant area. Because — as its name suggests — the dormant commerce clause cannot actually be found in the text of the Constitution, Scalia eventually came around to the view that it should not be a thing, and refused to endorse any future expansions of the doctrine. For example, in 2015, in a dissenting opinion in Comptroller v. Wynne, Scalia stated: “The fundamental problem with our negative Commerce Clause cases is that the Constitution does not contain a negative Commerce Clause.” Although a court of appeals judge lacks the same freedom to disparage and/or depart from existing Supreme Court precedent, Gorsuch’s opinions also reveal a measure of distrust towards unwritten constitutional provisions like the dormant commerce clause.
For example, a 2015 10th Circuit decision written by Gorsuch, Energy and Environment Legal Institute v. Epel, declined to apply the dormant commerce clause to strike down a clean-energy program created by Colorado on the grounds that it might negatively affect traditional energy producers outside the state. The opinion explains that this result is consistent with the limited reach of the dormant commerce clause’s “judicial free trade policy” even under existing precedent. But while acknowledging that lower courts must take the Supreme Court’s doctrine as they find it, Gorsuch’s opinion shows respect for the doctrine’s “[d]etractors,” like Scalia, who “find dormant commerce doctrine absent from the Constitution’s text and incompatible with its structure.” Though Gorsuch’s personal constitution seems to require him to write clearly about the many unclear aspects of the doctrine, his opinion plainly takes some joy in the act of demonstrating that not only does the dormant commerce clause not apply — the doctrine also doesn’t make much sense. That same instinct is present in a prominent concurrence last year in Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl, in which Gorsuch singled out one aspect of dormant commerce clause doctrine—the Quill rule that exempts out-of-state mail order sales from state sales tax—as an “analytical oddity” that “seems deliberately designed” to be overruled eventually. This opinion aligned him with Justice Anthony Kennedy (who has called for overruling Quill), and again with Scalia, who identified Quill as part of the “bestiary of ad hoc tests and ad hoc exceptions that we apply nowadays” under the dormant commerce clause.
The dormant commerce clause isn’t a particularly hot-button issue, nor does it have obvious liberal/conservative fault lines. But it’s noteworthy that criticism of the dormant commerce clause is of a piece with criticism of the “right to privacy” that undergirds the Supreme Court ‘s abortion jurisprudence, as well as other judge-made doctrines that do not have a strong connection to the constitutional text. Again, Gorsuch’s opinions seem to follow the lead of textualists and federalists like Scalia in expressing great skepticism towards such doctrines, which allow judges to strike down duly enacted local laws on the basis of vague principles that cannot be found in the concrete text of the national charter.
Administrative Law
Finally, there is administrative law—the one area that seems to demonstrate some real distance between Scalia and Gorsuch. Last August, Gorsuch made real waves in the normally sleepy world of administrative law by advocating the end of a doctrine that has been tied closely to the functioning of the administrative state and the executive branch since the mid-1980s — a doctrine called Chevron deference. The basic idea behind Chevron is that, when Congress enacts a broadly worded statute whose precise contours are ambiguous, the courts should permit the federal agencies that are charged with administering the statute to enforce it in any manner that is not clearly forbidden. Scalia was a judge on the D.C. Circuit (which does more agency review than any other court), and he was a strong advocate for Chevron’s basic take on agency review and the flexibility that it preserved in the administrative state: He often warned that the consequences of efforts to limit or tinker with its model could be severe. Gorsuch’s recent opinions in Gutierrez-Brizuela — he wrote both the majority opinion and a concurrence to his own opinion to express his personal views on the doctrine — expressly urge: “We managed to live with the administrative state before Chevron. We could do it again.” Ironically, Gorsuch’s chief complaint about Chevron doctrine was something that would have been close to Scalia’s heart — namely, that it empowers agencies to take the power of statutory interpretation away from courts, and subjects judicial decision-making to administrative review, rather than the other way around.
Gorsuch’s opinion — in which he stakes out ground that few have sought to defend — is a very compelling read, and it is unfair to try to summarize it in a few sentences. But it seems quite clear that: (1) Gorsuch’s views on administrative law are meaningfully different from Scalia’s in a way that could be described as even more conservative; and yet (2) the difference is not as profound as one might think. Unlike Scalia, Gorsuch really does want to apply the basic Gorsuch/Scalia take on ordinary statutes to administrative statutes as well. He believes even these broadly worded enforcement statutes have objective meanings that can be understood from their texts; that it is the job of the courts to say what those laws mean and to tell agencies when they do not have the best reading; and that if the agency disagrees, the only proper recourse is for Congress to change the law or the Supreme Court to correct the error. Scalia, on the other hand, wanted to limit courts to the role of reviewing agency implementations of these kinds of statutes for clear error in order to prevent “ossification,” recognizing that the understanding of these kinds of laws might need to change from time to time to accommodate changing priorities among presidents and changing conditions on the ground.
The reason that difference is less pronounced than you might think is that Scalia’s take on Chevron was always a little different from others’, in part to address the very concerns that Gorsuch so clearly articulates. First, Scalia was much more willing than others to say that a particular agency position was beyond the statutory bounds, even when the words at issue in the statute were ambiguous (at least in isolation). For example, in MCI Telecommunications Group v. AT&T, in 1994, Scalia held that the term “modify” unambiguously excludes major changes. In fact, in a Duke Law Journal piece in 1989 Scalia once said strict textualists like him (and, say, Judge Gorsuch) would be less likely to find statutes ambiguous for purposes of Chevron because of their attention to the details of statutory text and their unwillingness to consider broad purposes and legislative history. Such an approach makes a statute’s delegation to agencies much narrower, notwithstanding Chevron. And second, Scalia wanted Chevron to apply all the time precisely to avoid a situation in which a court would give the statute its best reading and the agency could later revise that understanding with the benefit of newfound deference — one of Gorsuch’s chief complaints. In Gutierrez-Brizuela, Gorsuch criticized the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X, which permitted an agency to bypass a Supreme Court decision through Chevron deference, echoing Scalia’s own dissent in Brand X, in which Scalia criticized the court for having adopted a version of Chevron that led to the spectacle of agencies bypassing Supreme Court readings of statutes.
In short, Gorsuch definitely has a different take from Scalia on the administrative state — one that grants it less power, and so accords even more closely with the conservative conception of small government. Indeed, this is an area in which Gorsuch is plainly a thought leader, expressing judicial sentiments many conservatives with similar concerns have rarely voiced, and which even Scalia might have bristled at. But given their parallel commitments to textualism and their parallel understandings of the relative roles of agencies and courts, even this seems like a bridgeable divide between Gorsuch and the justice he might replace. Gorsuch is still a very natural choice for any Republican president to nominate as a replacement for Scalia — someone who would espouse similar principles, stand firm on similar doctrinal commitments, reach similar outcomes, and even fill a similar role as one of the court’s most articulate defenders of conservative judicial theory.
My response if this indeed is going to be Trump's pick?
Spoiler:
He doesn't seem to be anti-gay marriage, or anti RvW, so I'm OK with this. Would have rather a more moderate one, but you can't have everything.
Simply force everyone in the state to "register" every year.
We do this anyway when we declare our personal property taxes (house, cars, if you're a renter)... that is, the state sends you a form of what they think you have, you return it with confirmation/addition so that the state can properly assess what taxes are owed at the end of the year.
Simply piggy back that same function... that's how you truly keep the voter rolls "clean".
That's how we do it in the UK; every time an election is coming up we get a form out with a list of registered voters, do nothing if it's unchanged, or use a code to update it via internet or phone. It's based on address, so if you move away the new resident will replace your entries.
d-usa wrote: Regarding the complaints that the refugee ban is not a Muslim ban:
Fox News host Jeanine Pirro asked Giuliani whether the ban had anything to do with religion.
“How did the president decide the seven countries?” she asked. “Okay, talk to me.”
“I'll tell you the whole history of it,” Giuliani responded eagerly. “So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.' "
I think, more than anything, the thoughts running through my head right now are "Oh god, I'm going to have to deal with Giuliani for four years now aren't I?"
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
No an obviously fraudulent plan. College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family. Partnering with local businesses isn't viable, companies in economically depressed areas with shuttered mines and unemployed miners aren't going to be expanding. Losing the primary employer and economic engine in the community is going to create less demand not create more to fuel expansion. No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand. Pie in the sky window dressing doesn't change the fact that most of Hillary's plan is to re zone federal land being mined and try to sell it off to corporations that will be subsidized by govt infrastructure projects. New federal roads aren't going to magically create jobs in the middle of nowhere W Va when the mines shut down. There is no saving those areas when the mines close, the mines are the reason those towns exist and roads and high speed internet won't fill their void. Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
No an obviously fraudulent plan. College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family. Partnering with local businesses isn't viable, companies in economically depressed areas with shuttered mines and unemployed miners aren't going to be expanding. Losing the primary employer and economic engine in the community is going to create less demand not create more to fuel expansion. No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand. Pie in the sky window dressing doesn't change the fact that most of Hillary's plan is to re zone federal land being mined and try to sell it off to corporations that will be subsidized by govt infrastructure projects. New federal roads aren't going to magically create jobs in the middle of nowhere W Va when the mines shut down. There is no saving those areas when the mines close, the mines are the reason those towns exist and roads and high speed internet won't fill their void. Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
Maybe. My town economy used to be fishing and forestry based. Now it's finance and high tech. Adapt or die.
No amount of Trump is going to change the fact that coal is dying off. Those miners need something more than red hats and yuge slogans.
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
Prestor Jon wrote: College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family.
Not immediately, but it gives you the qualifications to get a job. A person whose only marketable skill requires a dying industry only has one hope: die before the industry does. You either learn something else and change careers, or you desperately hope that you can make enough money scrubbing toilets or flipping burgers or whatever once the coal industry finishes dying.
No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand.
This is not true. Most industries don't need local demand to survive. If, say, you're making cars you're selling across the country. Who cares if nobody in the adjacent town is buying, all that matters is the cost of manufacturing there vs. the cost elsewhere. If the government offers subsidies to put that factory in a West Virginia coal town and brings the cost of running the factor down below the cost of building it elsewhere then that's where the factory goes. And that factory needs workers, who then spend their money on local businesses, and so on.
Of course it's possible that those incentives won't be enough, and the coal towns will die. In that case it goes back to education: if you have a college degree and marketable skills you can move elsewhere and get a job. If you have nothing but "I worked in a coal mine" to offer you get to sit in your dying town in crippling poverty until you finally join the coal industry in death.
Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
No, Clinton offered a plan to replace the coal industry jobs. It might work, or it might not work. Trump offered nothing but lies and wishful thinking about magically making the coal industry continue to exist. As a plan it doesn't even reach "might work" level, it's almost guaranteed to fail. But apparently people would rather believe a comforting lie about coal mining jobs coming back than face the hard truth of an uncertain future in some other industry.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/01 00:03:59
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Prestor Jon wrote: College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family.
Not immediately, but it gives you the qualifications to get a job. A person whose only marketable skill requires a dying industry only has one hope: die before the industry does. You either learn something else and change careers, or you desperately hope that you can make enough money scrubbing toilets or flipping burgers or whatever once the coal industry finishes dying.
No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand.
This is not true. Most industries don't need local demand to survive. If, say, you're making cars you're selling across the country. Who cares if nobody in the adjacent town is buying, all that matters is the cost of manufacturing there vs. the cost elsewhere. If the government offers subsidies to put that factory in a West Virginia coal town and brings the cost of running the factor down below the cost of building it elsewhere then that's where the factory goes. And that factory needs workers, who then spend their money on local businesses, and so on.
Of course it's possible that those incentives won't be enough, and the coal towns will die. In that case it goes back to education: if you have a college degree and marketable skills you can move elsewhere and get a job. If you have nothing but "I worked in a coal mine" to offer you get to sit in your dying town in crippling poverty until you finally join the coal industry in death.
You're a coal miner in your early 40s and the mine you work at in W Va shuts down and lays you off. Pres Hillary Clinton gets legislation passed through congress that qualifies you for a college scholarship for retraining. You have a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, what happens while you're enrolled at college for the next 2-4 or even 6-8 years? Where do they live? What do they eat? How do you pay your bills? Getting a scholarship doesn't take away a laid off coal miner's responsibilities and dependents.
The specific program mentioned and hyperlinked to in Hillary's policy paper is for a local construction company that builds houses. How does a shuttered mine and thousands of laid off workers create demand for more homes to be built or generate economic growth to enable people to buy them?
Hillary's idea that she could just have the federal govt cut a $30 billion check and magically turn anytown usa into a thriving community is a mirage. Govt money isn't an economic panacea. Hillary couldn't buy rural W Va prosperity with federal funds. If this is a workable plan why isn't it working anywhere else? Suffering communities all across the country have been the beneficiary of govts programs for years and the problems persist. We can't fix Youngstown or Cleveland in OH or Camden in NJ or Harrisburg in PA or Flint in MI but it'll work in rural WVa when the coal industry closes shop?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/01 00:21:02
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
No an obviously fraudulent plan. College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family. Partnering with local businesses isn't viable, companies in economically depressed areas with shuttered mines and unemployed miners aren't going to be expanding. Losing the primary employer and economic engine in the community is going to create less demand not create more to fuel expansion. No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand. Pie in the sky window dressing doesn't change the fact that most of Hillary's plan is to re zone federal land being mined and try to sell it off to corporations that will be subsidized by govt infrastructure projects. New federal roads aren't going to magically create jobs in the middle of nowhere W Va when the mines shut down. There is no saving those areas when the mines close, the mines are the reason those towns exist and roads and high speed internet won't fill their void. Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
Maybe. My town economy used to be fishing and forestry based. Now it's finance and high tech. Adapt or die.
No amount of Trump is going to change the fact that coal is dying off. Those miners need something more than red hats and yuge slogans.
That is my opinion on the whole "Our manufacturing jobs are disappearing!!!!1!!one" front. Those jobs are disappearing unless we want to make automation illegal. It's better to re-train those those who lost their jobs.
You're a coal miner in your early 40s and the mine you work at in W Va shuts down and lays you off. Pres Hillary Clinton gets legislation passed through congress that qualifies you for a college scholarship for retraining. You have a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, what happens while you're enrolled at college for the next 2-4 or even 6-8 years? Where do they live? What do they eat? How do you pay your bills? Getting a scholarship doesn't take away a laid off coal miner's responsibilities and dependents.
The specific program mentioned and hyperlinked to in Hillary's policy paper is for a local construction company that builds houses. How does a shuttered mine and thousands of laid off workers create demand for more homes to be built or generate economic growth to enable people to buy them?
Versus not having anything? I know which one I'd pick. Because those jobs are sure as hell not coming back. Coal has been going down as a percentage of US power since the mid 80's, and coal exporting is dropping as well (down nearly a quarter in 2015) as much of the world looks to alternatives.
As far as I'm concerned, a plan that's not perfect is better than none at all. And if those scholarships can go to the children of said coal miners, it's still the same effect economically, just a generation later. And who doesn't want their children to be better off than them?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/01 00:21:47
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
Reading through it looks like mostly real estate redevelopment, govt projects and federal subsidizes for corporations. The only parts about addressing unemployed coal miners is a program for free College and an apprenticeship program with a residential construction company.
So an actual plan, maybe not the greatest plan, but something real. Versus the empty promises from a serial fraudster.
No an obviously fraudulent plan. College scholarships aren't jobs going back to school doesn't support your family. Partnering with local businesses isn't viable, companies in economically depressed areas with shuttered mines and unemployed miners aren't going to be expanding. Losing the primary employer and economic engine in the community is going to create less demand not create more to fuel expansion. No amount of govt subsidies for expanding companies can make it viable when there is no demand. Pie in the sky window dressing doesn't change the fact that most of Hillary's plan is to re zone federal land being mined and try to sell it off to corporations that will be subsidized by govt infrastructure projects. New federal roads aren't going to magically create jobs in the middle of nowhere W Va when the mines shut down. There is no saving those areas when the mines close, the mines are the reason those towns exist and roads and high speed internet won't fill their void. Hillary just invested more effort in her lies than Trump.
Maybe. My town economy used to be fishing and forestry based. Now it's finance and high tech. Adapt or die.
No amount of Trump is going to change the fact that coal is dying off. Those miners need something more than red hats and yuge slogans.
That is my opinion on the whole "Our manufacturing jobs are disappearing!!!!1!!one" front. Those jobs are disappearing unless we want to make automation illegal. It's better to re-train those those who lost their jobs.
You can't make technological progress illegal. You're not putting the automation genie back in the bottle.
Prestor Jon wrote: You're a coal miner in your early 40s and the mine you work at in W Va shuts down and lays you off. Pres Hillary Clinton gets legislation passed through congress that qualifies you for a college scholarship for retraining. You have a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, what happens while you're enrolled at college for the next 2-4 or even 6-8 years? Where do they live? What do they eat? How do you pay your bills? Getting a scholarship doesn't take away a laid off coal miner's responsibilities and dependents.
Maybe you have to send the kids to live with their grandparents and your wife has to get a minimum-wage job to pay for basic needs. Maybe instead of a four-year degree you take evening classes at a community college. Obviously it's not an ideal situation, but it's certainly better than the alternative:
You're a coal miner in your early 40s and the mine you work at in W Va shuts down and lays you off. Pres Donald Trump says some magic words about job creation and saving the coal industry, but coal is no longer profitable and the mine is still dead. You have a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage, what happens while you're unemployed for the next rest of your life? Where do they live? What do they eat? How do you pay your bills? Getting a tiny welfare check (which Trump's party wants to abolish) doesn't take away a laid off coal miner's responsibilities and dependents.
I don't know about you, but if I was in that situation I'd certainly prefer Clinton's plan to Trump's.
The specific program mentioned and hyperlinked to in Hillary's policy paper is for a local construction company that builds houses. How does a shuttered mine and thousands of laid off workers create demand for more homes to be built or generate economic growth to enable people to buy them?
That's just one example. I don't think anyone believes that one example from a policy paper is the entire plan, or that it excludes other businesses.
Hillary's idea that she could just have the federal govt cut a $30 billion check and magically turn anytown usa into a thriving community is a mirage. Govt money isn't an economic panacea. Hillary couldn't buy rural W Va prosperity with federal funds. If this is a workable plan why isn't it working anywhere else? Suffering communities all across the country have been the beneficiary of govts programs for years and the problems persist. We can't fix Youngstown or Cleveland in OH or Camden in NJ or Harrisburg in PA or Flint in MI but it'll work in rural WVa when the coal industry closes shop?
Again, it's a hard problem and any solution is working against strong opposing forces. But a flawed plan that may not work is infinitely better than lies and promises to cast a magic "make some jobs" spell.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
