Diplomacy

A: Republicans: "All lives matter!"
World: "Cool here are some refugees from Syr..."
Republicans: "lolol not those lives"

B: not all Republicans voted for Trump, let alone support these type of statements. There must be another word that can be subbed here instead of Republicans

A: You are right, no need for the word Republican there.

I disagree. There is some need for the word Republican here, because, of all the Republican elected officials in office who criticized Trump before the election, almost all of them -- not all of them, but almost -- immediately got a brand-new, supportive attitude about him as soon as he won. If you're thinking, "It's like they were sure he was going to lose, and they were just distancing themselves from a loser, instead of sincerely distancing themselves from policies they could never support," Then I agree. It's a lot like that. It's exactly like that.

I'm talking about Republican Senators and Republicans in the House of Representatives. If you look at all Republicans, including former office holders and never-office-holders, it's easier to find criticism of Trump. The thing is, if Trump is to be regarded as unfit to rule, it doesn't matter how many rank-and-file Republicans and Republican governors and mayors want him out -- it's going to take some Republican Senators and Congresspeople in order to impeach, convict and remove him.

That's why it's so important that so many Republicans in the Senate and the House became so much more supportive of Trump as soon as he was elected.

Also, of course, it means that they were either being completely insincere before, or they are completely insincere now: either, before the election, they didn't really think he was unfit to rule, and only said so because they were sure he was going to lose -- or, they really thought he was unfit now, and they still think so, but getting some bills passed and appointments filled is more important to them that the President is -- all of those things they said he was: despicable, unbalanced, dangerous, utterly unfit to lead...

Of course, the diplomatic thing for me to do right now, as a Democrat, would be to forget about that insincerity for now, and practice some insincerity of my own, and be friendly to the Republican Senators and Congresspeople who criticized Trump before the election, because we need them in order to impeach, convict and remove Trump.

So: nevermind what I said before: there's no need for the word "Republican" in that joke. Do I mean that? No, I'm lying, because this is politics. But maybe, if I think it over, I'm actually not lying, because politics is very important, and the main thing right now, the political priority, is dealing with Trump. And maybe those Republican Senators and Congresspeople will seem much more like allies again very soon, when they can't pretend to like Trump anymore. And maybe I'm actually having a little bit more understanding for their shifts in position. I mean, if I want to whip out the l-word, there's the President and his people lying much more egregiously on a daily basis than any Senator or Congressperson of any party does in the average month.

You know how I'm always talking about moral relativism in relation to philosophy and especially in relation to Nietzsche? Well, it also applies to the actual real world, like this. What is truth? Good question, Pilate! Good question!

Trump' s Executive Orders

The Supreme Court can rule that an Executive Order made by a President is unconstitutional. And Congress can effectively nullify an executive order by not funding the action ordered.

I think Trump is up to 11 executive orders now. The first one, as you may know, did or didn't do something to Obamacare, it's not yet clear. The most recent one I know of orders that that wall be built (I'm not sure whether Donald has actually ordered Mexico to pay for it), and also orders tougher measures against illegal immigration. Others have rescinded funding for abortions provided by international organizations, put gag orders on EPA employees and peer-reviewed articles by USDA scientists, and approved construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Pipelines.

Do we still have checks and balances in this country? How extreme and crazy will Trump get before (a Republican-majority, I know) Congress and the (deadlocked, 4 to 4, I know) Supreme Court begin to oppose him?

This page on Paste Magazine's website says they'll be keeping track of all of Trump's executive orders. I'm not familiar with Paste Magazine or how well they keep their promises, but that's what they say they'll do. They're at least one order behind as of 3 PM, 25. January 2017: they don't mention the order about the wall yet. Maybe the page is a one-time thing, not a running list updated as we go.

How About Suing Congress For Unconstitutionally Tying the Debt Ceiling to Budget Proposals?

This occurred to me just now as I was reading an editorial about the possibility of Obama invoking the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution in order to raise the debt ceiling on his own authority and thus stave off default and a huge worldwide economic crisis, and the probability that someone would sue him if he did.

Am I really the first person to have thought of this? It's clear that Congress' current stand, tying the debt ceiling to budget proposals, is unprecendented. Until now, a raise in the debt ceiling whenever necessary has been routine.

Get Obama off of his butt and get him to invoke the 14th Amendment, and then sue the GOP Senators and Congresspeople who put him in the position where he had to do that. Not necessarily in that order, as long as the debt ceiling is raised quickly. Like, today.

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