Wouldn’t this time around, but it would move the window. “GOP denied the extra justices it deserved by Democrat obstructionists” would become the baseline GOP talking point for the next nomination.
But it was not to be. Instead my daily quota of nightmare-come-to-life turns out to be seeing the words “Falwell,” “presidential task force,” and “get the government off the backs of higher education” in the same story.
Clay
1892
So what are the Dems going to do here? If this keeps up, there’s no way any Dem will raise the $ that Trump will have.
Because of his ongoing fundraising this year, Trump easily reached the $5,000 threshold that requires filing an official statement of candidacy for the next election, a letter he submitted to the FEC on Inauguration Day. The president emphasized that the paperwork “does not constitute a formal announcement of my candidacy for the 2020 election.
How does this work in the US? Is he allowed to continue to accept donations, even though the letter filed explicitly stated it was not a notification of his candidacy, only that he had passed the minimum reporting threshold? I thought the US had quite strict rules for campaign donations. How can he accept donations if he is not campaigning? Even putting aside the ludicrosity of filing hours after his inauguration and years away from an election cycle…
Clay
1894
This is a good site for getting an overview of what Trump is up to.
Ultimately, the answer here is that the only people who could stop him are his cronies, so there’s little to no chance that he’ll be called on it. I think what he is doing likely is legal as the law is defined, though the law was not written in anticipation of somebody looking for loopholes in this type of situation.
Well conservatives are certainly celebrating this morning with Gorsuch as the SCOTUS pick. His history of support for conservative views on 2nd Amendment rights, religious rights and government involvement in business and administrative regulation has to make standard conservatives pretty happy.
On the other hand, we knew when Republicans blocked Obama’s appointments and Hillary lost that we were going to get a conservative justice, and in that respect Gorsuch is at least very well qualified to hold the position and looks to be somewhat predictable in how he rules. He’s essentially Scallia-light, so the overall makeup and decisions of the court should not change much with his appointment. He’s also a staunch Constitution guy, which means he’s highly unlikely to start voting to hand over additional powers to the Executive Branch and allow Trump/Bannon to become dictator of America. Barring the appointment of another Anthony Kennedy, it’s probably one of the better outcomes we could have hoped for, especially given the Trump Administrations penchant for picking seriously unqualified people to fill high positions. I suspect someone other than the Trump team had A LOT of input into this pick.
What we need to be worried about is Anthony Kennedy’s intentions. He’s said he would like to retire soon, and if he does it would give conservatives an opportunity to get a 5-4 hard lock on the SCOTUS for at least a decade or more. While that still wouldn’t be likely to result in Trump being declared President for Life, it would nonetheless be a bad thing for forward progress in this country.
Quaro
1896
Just close your eyes and imagine if Michelle Obama had declared that she would live permanently at the top of a Penthouse in New York City instead of the the White House, costing the taxpayers there somewhere between 500k and a million dollars a day in security.
But Trump isn’t taking his 400k salary!
Someone needed to bring class back to the White House.
That one hurts even to just joke about.
Nesrie
1898
Also, she’s black… which changes everything.
I wish no one believed this but they do.
Scuzz
1899
I think you are right. However, moving from a New Yok Penthouse to the White House doesn’t really seem like a step up in living quarters to me. Also, security for a Penthouse suite doesn’t seem like it would that tough compared to the actual White House. I would think they had security to begin with.
Clay
1901
And… here we go. Iran will give us the middle finger, Trump’s ego will be bruised, and we’ll attack.
Nesrie
1903
It’s not just the suite though… it would have to be the whole building and all the buildings around it and maybe anything underneath it?
Great, we have 5th graders at NSA.
Remember how Hillary was a warmonger who was going to start WWIII?
ShivaX
1906
Pretty much.
You have to deal with snipers and the like, hell, potential RPG attacks. That means securing all the other buildings with line-of-sight. In downtown New York. Buildings literally made of windows. The White House is a fortress with a giant kill zone around it. Trump Tower is a big building surrounded by big buildings in one of the most populated cities on the planet.
Plus the Secret Service isn’t there to protect people or their rights. They’re there to protect the First Family. The potential for something bad happening is pretty high. They take everything seriously and your due process is barely even on their radar.
LMN8R
1907
I remember showing everyone this over and over again but people liked to ignore it:
Clay
1908
ShivaX
1909
I’m rapidly coming around to Timex’s “someone just kill him” position.
You guys can hold me to this: I’ll get a tattoo of whoever does it.
Wait, were you talking about Trump or Spencer? Eh, fuck it, either way.
