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[Reelya]

BTW are there actually any rules about who can be on the Supreme Court? Basically I'm asking who is the least probable person Trump could put there? He/she are probably going to be the nominee.

I mean, could he up and put Sarah Palin or someone on there?

Better still ... Ann Coulter. She's pro-trump and has a law degree. She'll do. She needs a new gig, too.

Actually it'll probably be Alberto Gonzales.

[wierd]

I am going to pull a 3rd option on that, and say "richard simmons"

[LoSboccacc]

I think he doesn't PLAN anything, he's like impulsiveness squared.

You can say all you want on how bad some policyes are but is all but impulsive, it's following trough on the campaign promises almost one by one.

[Reelya]

Well the thing is he's impulsive, but he's also stubborn. Basically makes up some cockamamie schemes then when people are like "bitch, plz!" he's all "I'll show you!"

The thing is, if you look at dollars spent, Obama kept the budget flatlined during his tenure. The deficit went up because less taxes were collected than before. But the slump in tax revenue predates Obama.

Trump criticized this, but now he's basically like you need to spend your way to the top, money's no object. Massive deficit spending was not a campaign promise but it seems to be the agenda now.

[Sheb]

His immigration ban was the picture child of the impulsive, ill though-off implementation. He could just have denied visas for a while to people from those countries and face 1/10th of the problems.

[Reelya]

But also, there's the wording used then the creep. Creep is not the same as election promises.

e.g. he said "criminal illegal immigrants" before the election, now that's crept to include people with dual cizitenship, e.g. actual US citizens being affected. And they've been hit before even a single criminal illegal immigrant has even been targeted. And there's talk of just immigrants on welfare being deported, but that executive order hasn't been made public yet. However, there were three leaked executive orders last week, which all turned out to be exactly what they said they would be. So that's creep. There are legal immigrants who've committed no crime who are becoming in the shit because of the new rules.

if the wording was specifically "criminal illegal immigrants" and it becomes "fuck all immigrants, basically" that's not the same promise he made.

For example, the Australian-born citizen school kid who was going to "space camp" in the USA denied a VISA because his parents are from Iran - even though they're legal Australian citizens and he's never been to Iran. He's kept out because "ISIS" even though ISIS is Sunni and Iran are Shiites at war with ISIS. Basically, the only reasonable connection is that kid's race.

And the three countries that Trump didn't ban happen to be Turkey, Saudia Arabia and Egypt - which are all full of Sunni's - the same ethnic group as ISIS. Also note that TrumpCo has extensive contracts in those three nations.

[sluissa]

Senate does have to approve of Supreme Court nominees. And while they might be willing to give Trump a bit of leeway in some regards, I'd expect even his own party to balk at something too ridiculous for a position as important and long lasting as Supreme Court Justice.

With all the Trump grandstanding and attention getting lately, what HAS Congress been doing?

H.R. 586: Sanctity of Human Life Act

H.R. 7: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2017
H.R. 175: ObamaCare Repeal Act
H.R. 193: American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017
S. 65: Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act of 2017
H.R. 170: Protect and Grow American Jobs Act
H.R. 21: Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2017


Just a small selection there to take a look at of stuff that... should be noted is not actually law yet and much of it stands little chance.

[Reelya]

You know what, I think progressives should in fact sign the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017.

Basically that means the USA leaves the UN, thus losing their automatic UN Security Council vote as well as their veto on all UN resolutions. The security council vetoes are in fact way out of date and should be abolished. Leaving the UN would basically make the USA not covered by any of the legal protections that other members get, too.

[Sergarr]

I hope that other progressives don't think like you, because UN SC vetoes are one of the main reasons why WW3 didn't happen.

[Reelya]

To be honest, I really doubt that.

There have been plenty of problems that almost took the world to the brink of war, UN majority resolutions that didn't pass aren't really up there.

For example, the US blockade Cuba, and there was the Cuban missile crisis. That almost caused WWIII. There were UN resolutions to compel the USA to end the blockade. USA vetoed those resolutions. But it's kind of ridiculous to say that not being allowed to blockade Cuba would cause a war.
 
The veto was possibly necessary before the Soviet Union fell but I doubt it that having a UN veto actually made the Soviets less aggressive. if they sanctioned one of the big 5 nations, those nations had the power to ignore the vote anyway.

[Helgoland]

Expanding on what Reelya said: I reckon the main use of the veto power is preserving the legitimacy of the UN by making resolutions impossible that would just be igored anyway. It's like that old saying: Never give an order that won't be followed.

[martinuzz]

EU president Donald Tusk condemns the first executive actions of Trump as 'a danger to the European Union', and compares the 'worrisome statements' from Washington with the aggressive policies of Russia and China, the terrorism of IS, and with the violence in the Middle East and Africa.

This remarkable sneer at the US, the EU's main ally, is written in a letter that Tusk will discuss with the 28 European heads of government, coming friday.
Tusk calls upon the leaders to 'show European pride'.
"Today, we need to stand firm for our dignity, the dignity of a united Europe, regardless whether we speak with Russia, China, the US or Turkey."

He writes that the EU has entered the most dangerous time of it's history. According to him, the EU is besieged from 3 sides.
The first threat is external: Russia, China, IS and the Trump administration. The outside world has never been as anti-European, or, at best, eurosceptic.
"Especially the change in Washington puts the EU in a difficult position, with a new government that appears to question the last 70 years of US foreign policy".
He reminds Trump of the old motto: 'United we stand, divided we fall".

The second threat to the EU is internal: the rise of anti-European, nationalist parties. Tusk blames European federalists for estranging the public from them, with their federalist dreams, and with that, helping parties like PVV and Front National gain momentum.

As a third threat he points at the traditional pro-European parties, whom, in their effort to appease the voters, are forgetting their European ideals.

"In a world of tensions and conflict, courage, dedication and political solidarity is required for Europeans.", Tusk writes. Next month, when celebrating the 60th birthday of the Treaty of Rome, leaders will need to reconfirm their faith in European cooperation. "If we don't believe in ourselves, believe in the nescessity of integration, who will?"
According to Tusk we have all the reasons to be proud. "We turned our continent into the best place on earth".

Further cooperation between EU-countries is the only way forward, says Tusk. "We need to make absolutely clear that unraveling of the EU does not lead to a mythical return of complete sovereignty of the member states, but instead leads to a complete dependence on superstates like the US, China and Russia. Only together can we be independent".

Tusk pleads for 'impressive' steps to be taken by member states to reinvigorate the European feeling with the citizens. To accomplish this the EU will need to guard her outer borders more strictly, it's intelligence agencies need to cooperate more, defense budgets need to be increased, and last but not least, member states should start speaking more as one, in diplomatic discussions.
http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/eu-president-plaatst-verontrustend-beleid-trump-op-een-lijn-met-china-rusland-en-is~a4455961/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/donald-tusk-donald-trump-existential-threat-europe-brexit-eu-theresa-may-a7555061.html

[smjjames]

Seems more of an EuroPol thread post, but Trumps policies are intertwining American into everything atm.

BTW, theres now a rival petition that backs Trump's visit to the UK and it has over 100,000 signatures. Meanwhile, the anti-Trump visit one has over 1.68 million signatures.

[Sheb]

I wouldn't pay too much attention to those petitions. They don't even check you're a UK resident. I just signed with a stupid name and the Buckingham palace postcode to check and no problem. Also, it's great that they didn't even check the spelling of their petition.

[smjjames]

I wouldn't pay too much attention to those petitions. They don't even check you're a UK resident. I just signed with a stupid name and the Buckingham palace postcode to check and no problem. Also, it's great that they didn't even check the spelling of their petition.

lolokay.

Just thought it was interesting that there is an opposing petition, and apparently the UK parliament is going to talk about both of them, in two separate sessions, on the same day. Talk about dissonance there. Though I guess it would just be like one extended session debating the pros and cons of allowing or not allowing the State visit. Meanwhile, the Queen is neutral as heck.