The MAIN difference here is that GUN RIGHTS are specifically spelled out under the Constitution. If you bother to look even further, and read the Federalist Papers (documents and thought by the founding fathers), you will clearly read that The Founding Fathers of the United States firmly believed it was the right and responsibility of every Citizen to stand against tyranny, and gun ownership was a necessary balance as the last step against a corrupt Government.
The vast majority of Americans who cite the second amendment to me can't even tell me what it says word for word , they can't even convey the general gist of it which is douby funny, firstly, because the 2nd amendment is only one sentence, and secondly because I can recite it word for word and I'm not even an American citizen. What they usually regurgitate is something that boils down to this:
"It being of paramount importance that all citizens of the United States including robbers, pirates, dealers of addictive narcotics, other members of the criminal class and the nations various types of bat shit crazy lunatic have full and unrestricted access to guns there shall be no attempt by the government to control gun ownership or to monitor it in any way. Furthermore the government shall also be forbidden to mandate that gun owners show that they are well trained and disciplined users of firearms as a precondition for owning a firearm."
What the second amendment actually says is:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
What that means is that the constitution guarantees the right of US citizens to own a gun for the purpose of forming a 'well regulated', meaning well disciplined and trained, militia. That's all the 2nd amendment says. Today the largest examples of the kind of militias that the writers of the second amendment had in mind is commonly known as the 'United States National Guard' although the second amendment does arguably also allow states to operate their own militias as long as they are 'well regulated'. The most interesting aspect of this is that the US government could under the second amendment mandate that all aspiring gun owners undergo a training course in fire arms operation prior to acquiring their first gun since the second amendment does say 'well regulated' which effectively means as I pointed out before 'well trained and disciplined'. Furthermore the 2nd amendment might also allow the government to reject people who it deems to be insufficiently disciplined to be part of any 'well regulated' militia.
People are trying to argue that all income should be taxed.
Estate Tax is being repealed in this very same GOP plan. How can anyone argue that inheritance isn't income? And the assets in an inheritance (property, stocks, bonds) have their basis (original cost) magically stepped up to present value and thereby dodging the normal Capital Gains tax.
It appears the Republicans favor old money, the idle rich and trust fund babies than they do scientists, doctors, educators, engineers - you know the people that actually make American Great.
I have never been in favour of inheritance taxes. They lead to massive injustices like people inheriting their grandfather's old house in the city centre which the family has owned since the 19th century and which he inherited just after WWII. Only now that the real-estate prices have risen astronomically and you have to pay an inheritance tax calculated on the basis of ridiculously inflated land values resulting in tax payments that are beyond the means of any normal family. Plus, taxing people for the fact that their mother/father/aunt/uncle had the temerity to die is somehow creepy to say the least. Then there is the issue of double taxation and the fact that the aforementioned phenomenon has led to people of normal means being force do sell off any property they have in high land value areas to finance the death duties. Inheritance taxes are just a vile idea on every level.
The House GOP members are simply delivering what their constituents want.
And by "constituents" I of course mean their rich donors.
Their rich donors? Much as I dislike them let's palace blame where blame is due. This is what the GOP base wants, for the GOP to choke the life out of the 'intellectual elite. I'm talking about those red cap wearing yahoos who think evil emperor and Sith Lord Barack "Palpatine" Obama, Darth Hillary and a whole legion of Zionist Occupied Government storm troopers are coming to take away their rights and it does not seem to disturb their fantasies that neither Obama nor Hillary are in office anymore. It's congress and the GOP dominated SCOTUS that are taking away American's rights. The level of indoctrination is simply astonishing. I just watched an American news crew ask random Americans in the street if Obama and Hillary should be impeached. Only one guy out of the lot realised that they could not be impeached because neither Obama nor Hillary are in office, the rest were all for it because, according to one of them: "Hillary is more dangerous than ISIS".
All you need is 4 or 5 years notice to get ready for a shooting war. No problem.
I don't even get how this is possible. Not only is the UK one of the wealthiest nations on earth, it is one of a few, if not the only one among NATO nations that spends the recommended 2% on defence. Yet their legendary Royal Navy can't even afford ship to ship missiles while nations in the 1-1.5% category seem to be able to afford such missiles.
It would seem you're the one with issues that can't accept the election results. Deal with it or move to Mexico.
In other words you are confirming that I did hit a Fuckface Von Nervestick by pointing out he won even though he was the runner up... note to self: poke that nerve in every future conversations with Trump supporters.
Who is a private company? Twitter, sir/madam, is not private. And as a decently-sized shareholder, their actions affect me.
In other words, you think Twitter is a government agency because you own shares.
If Twitter can kick off Nazis, can Slashdot please kick off idiots?
Kicking the alt-right off sites like Twitter is stupid because it allows them to stand on a soap box with a bullhorn and scream 'I'M A MARTYR TO FREE SPEECH!!' and that war cry will simply attract more recruits to their cause for the same reason that forbidding teenagers to do something is the best way to ensure they'll do it. Free speech guarantees your ability to say whatever fucking pile of half truths, lies and conspiracy theories you want but it does not guarantee your right to call it news. What would be much more effective is to filter any fake news stories their propagandists are trying to spread out of the news section and into the conspiracy theory section on sites like Google, Facebook, et al as well as fact checking and confronting people like Trump over their lies at every possible opportunity. If Facebook really chickened out of their effort to filter out of their news feeds totally fake stories spread by the likes of Breitbart for fear of hurting the feelings of the alt-right then there is something seriously wrong with Facebook.
They weren't competing for the popular vote. They were competing for the presidency and he won it convincingly. Deal with it.
AWWW.... did I hit a Fuckface von Nervestick? Trump didn't win the largest block of popular votes, which, in a functioning democracy is usually what qualifies you as the winner. Lucky for Trump the fucked up and throughly rigged US electoral college system allows the runner up to win.
What about when the SSD craps out? Then it's back to Apple, (or at least to a third-party shop), for an undoubtedly expensive repair job. Great! More stuff that the user has no hope of repairing on his or her own, and more non-renewable materials prematurely tossed into landfill. Tell me again - why in hell would I want a new Apple laptop?
I'll claim the repair on my home insurance policy which covers my laptop among other things. Having said that I have yet to have an Apple SSD crap out on me or for that matter the SSD chips on any mobile device I own. What's normally crapped out on my mobile devices every single time so far was the charging circuit when I was dumb enough to plug the device into a USB socket or cigarette lighter socket on a motorcar and on the Laptops it was usually the battery when it neared the end of its lifespan. As to why I'd buy an ultra compact laptop (either Apple or some other brand) ??... because it is ultra compact, I like ultra compact and I accept that that comes with a price and soldered components are part of that price. If you don't mind carrying a concrete pavement slab of a laptop around with you because you can swap out every single individual component then go right ahead and do that. I won't crap all over you for buying one or using one and I hope it brings you much joy. Just for god sake try to scrounge together the good manners to stop crapping all over those of us who like ultra compact portables Apple or some other brand. There are good reasons to buy an ultra compact laptop even if you can't understand them.
It looks like maybe the Democrats have the issues. When you rig your primary to insure the candidate most hated by all conservative voters is guaranteed the nomination and then wonder why you lost that's called the issue of self delusion. No matter how bad Trump acted. No matter how rude and obnoxious. No matter what dirt was dug up on him. They still lost the election because they picked a bad, bad candidate and when an outsider challenged her they cheated and undercut him in any way they could. All so they could run the Queen. Well they ran her and Americans rejected her. The only people they have to blame are themselves. I'd be willing to bet there were hundred of other politicians they could have run with and won but they wanted the most corrupt one they could find that wasn't in jail at the moment.
I'm probably going to be modded into oblivion for pointing this out (wouldn't be the first time either) but Republican primaries process isn't exactly free of issues by any stretch of the imagination. The same goes for the Electoral College which allows the runner up who lost the election by 2 million bloody votes to become president. People keep telling me that the Electoral College is essential to US democracy and blah, blah, blah... I call bullshit on all of it. The president should be elected by popular vote, period! Then there is the fucked up US electoral system riddled as it is with gerrymandering. I just heard a political analyst on TV recommend that the Dems. should put some effort back into state level politics. The implication of this person's advice seemed to be that if they did that, they could gerrymander the system back in their favour.... seriously?!?! By the looks of it practically every step of the US electoral process from the primaries onwards is in serious need of reform. It's easy for the Republicans to feel smug right about now, they control both houses of congress and they may or may not control the president (the jury is still out on that question). What they should be is worried because this victory they have scored is largely a victory achieved by gaming the system while demographics are slowly working against them. The fastest growing communities in the US are non-white while the Republican voter base is shrinking. If the Democrats spend the next few years rebuilding a grass roots organisation, realise that their most important base is not the Wall Street bankers and tech billionaires they spend most of their time sucking up to but working class white and non-white citizens. If the Democrats go back to their roots and draw some of those working class voters away from the likes of Trump with a Roosevelt style 'New Deal program' the Republicans will be in real trouble because endorsements form the KKK are not going to increase their appeal to that rapidly expanding group of non-white voters. In the end even expert gerrymandering will not be able to save the Republicans from their shrinking voter base. Only a move towards the political centre and away from KKK endorsements can do that. Say what you want, even if the Reps/Trump did not accept the KKK endorsement the mere fact that they got it is a very bad sign for the Reps. As for the Democrats there is an old Norse saying, "Don't mourn, gather men, arm yourselves and avenge" and that is my advice to them. Leave the Republicans to revel in their smugness and schadenfreude. Spend the next two years ousting the old Democrat establishment, bring in some new people, reform the primaries, take your party back to its core message and values and then kick the Reps. in the balls in 2018/2020 with a steel toe boot.
Another Study Finds Earth's CO2 Emissions Have Flattened Over The Last Three Years
I just heard that President Elect by popular vote, Donald Trump has pledged to fix this problem so you can all breathe easier now. The president is hard at work assembling a crack task force from among the ranks of Big Oil and Big Coal to bring CO2 emissions growth back on track.
He did double the national debt and start two brutal and expensive wars that lasted throughout Obama's presidency. A large portion of the stinking mess that is Syria and Iraq are due to Bush disbanding the Iraqi army and supporting that sectarian moron Nouri al Maliki into the Iraqi presidency.
By any measure Obama is center-left. That said, he did deport more illegal immigrants than his predecessor, he did not close Gitmo, and he kept executing wars of aggression against other countries.
Still, let's review this quote from TFA: "I think many Americans are waking up to the fact we have created a presidency that is too powerful,"
I think that was true already even before Obama was president. But, of course much of the debate stopped because the ones making this argument liked Obama and his center-left policies. If electing Trump keeps this debate going that is a good thing - but I suspect most people are just in opposition because their candidate lost, and would not be discussing it if Clinton had been elected.
By any US American standard Obama is center-left, in Europe he'd be center right to moderate conservative. Just about the only US leftie I can point out that would register with a European as a moderate Social Democrat is Bernie Sanders and he scared the whits out of the so-called leftist Democrat party with his beliefs. By European standards vast sections of the Republican party bring back unpleasant memories of fascism and witch-burning 17th century protestant fundamentalists.
Well, if we are in a simulation, can whoever is running it please debug and patch Donald Trump? He's been malfunctioning for years and it's getting worse.
A corrupt liar thinks another corrupt liar would be good for a job he doesn't understand. Details at 11.
Meanwhile, I wonder Trump thinks he can cancel the Paris Climate Accord? WIll he take take some white out to cover over the names of the other signatories?
Obama 'ratified' the treaty by exercising his executive agreement power. That's not technically 'ratification' but de-facto it is the same thing. This leaves Trump with three options. Firstly he can challenge whether this is a legitimate exercise of Legitimate executive agreement power. This can be a lengthy legal process and it might weaken the executive agreement power if it succeeds and that might be bad for trump if he wants to use it later so he may not want to exercise that option for the same reason that nobody has ever attempted to abolish filibustering, they might want to use it later so there is an unwritten agreement that nobody will abolish it. Secondly, Trump can simply withdraw from the UNFCCC which would leave the USA free to pig out on coal within a year. Failing that it would take four years to withdraw. One thing is for sure, he has to do something because the USA will not meet it's emissions targets by 2025 and there is no way he could meet that target with the current congress and senate even if he wanted to reduce emissions and he does not. The Coal lobby will be breathing down his neck along with every ultra right wing, borderline fascist Republican out there. which which these days seems to be about 90% of them so he has do do something quickly. I'm guessing he'll withdraw from the UNFCCC and then pig out on coal. That along with doubts about America's commitment to NATO, his obvious favouritism towards Putin, his rabid Xenophobia and the trade wars he has promised to ignite will in turn will in turn further strain his relationship with his European Allies where pollution reduction and clean energy is an important election issue, as opposed to the USA where the opposite now seems to be true. In the mean time Vladimir Putin will look upon of this series of events play out and smile as he sees Trump take another giant step towards separating itself it's oldest and most loyal allies.
Pollution and deforestation is a bigger problem than CO2 emissions, yet the same groups wanting to take your cash for carbon put forth no projects or proposals to deal with those issues.
From which orifice did you pull that "fact"?
Why? Is he wrong? Or are you just another one of those idiots like Trump who sit there with their hands over their eyes and their thumbs in their ears singing: LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALA I CAN'T SEE YOU.!!
Deforestation is proceeding all over the world at alarming speed and pollution isn't helping either. To take just one example you cannot get any marine seafood anymore that isn't full of microscopic plastic particles and has chemical traces that are not normally found in nature. The result has been a massive extinction wave which makes deforestation and pollution at least as big a problem as climate change.
Projections like this aren't helpful at all. He hasn't even taken office yet and people are trying to do their best to destroy him. Nice of you.
If Trump says so much stupid shit his staff took away your twitter access then 'people' don't really have to do much to destroy him other than listen up and repeat the stupid shit the man said.
Slashdot Mirror
The MAIN difference here is that GUN RIGHTS are specifically spelled out under the Constitution. If you bother to look even further, and read the Federalist Papers (documents and thought by the founding fathers), you will clearly read that The Founding Fathers of the United States firmly believed it was the right and responsibility of every Citizen to stand against tyranny, and gun ownership was a necessary balance as the last step against a corrupt Government.
The vast majority of Americans who cite the second amendment to me can't even tell me what it says word for word , they can't even convey the general gist of it which is douby funny, firstly, because the 2nd amendment is only one sentence, and secondly because I can recite it word for word and I'm not even an American citizen. What they usually regurgitate is something that boils down to this:
"It being of paramount importance that all citizens of the United States including robbers, pirates, dealers of addictive narcotics, other members of the criminal class and the nations various types of bat shit crazy lunatic have full and unrestricted access to guns there shall be no attempt by the government to control gun ownership or to monitor it in any way. Furthermore the government shall also be forbidden to mandate that gun owners show that they are well trained and disciplined users of firearms as a precondition for owning a firearm."
What the second amendment actually says is:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
What that means is that the constitution guarantees the right of US citizens to own a gun for the purpose of forming a 'well regulated', meaning well disciplined and trained, militia. That's all the 2nd amendment says. Today the largest examples of the kind of militias that the writers of the second amendment had in mind is commonly known as the 'United States National Guard' although the second amendment does arguably also allow states to operate their own militias as long as they are 'well regulated'. The most interesting aspect of this is that the US government could under the second amendment mandate that all aspiring gun owners undergo a training course in fire arms operation prior to acquiring their first gun since the second amendment does say 'well regulated' which effectively means as I pointed out before 'well trained and disciplined'. Furthermore the 2nd amendment might also allow the government to reject people who it deems to be insufficiently disciplined to be part of any 'well regulated' militia.
With every day that passes and every pessimistic article like this that I read, doomsday peppers look and sound progressively less crazy.
People are trying to argue that all income should be taxed.
Estate Tax is being repealed in this very same GOP plan. How can anyone argue that inheritance isn't income? And the assets in an inheritance (property, stocks, bonds) have their basis (original cost) magically stepped up to present value and thereby dodging the normal Capital Gains tax.
It appears the Republicans favor old money, the idle rich and trust fund babies than they do scientists, doctors, educators, engineers - you know the people that actually make American Great.
I have never been in favour of inheritance taxes. They lead to massive injustices like people inheriting their grandfather's old house in the city centre which the family has owned since the 19th century and which he inherited just after WWII. Only now that the real-estate prices have risen astronomically and you have to pay an inheritance tax calculated on the basis of ridiculously inflated land values resulting in tax payments that are beyond the means of any normal family. Plus, taxing people for the fact that their mother/father/aunt/uncle had the temerity to die is somehow creepy to say the least. Then there is the issue of double taxation and the fact that the aforementioned phenomenon has led to people of normal means being force do sell off any property they have in high land value areas to finance the death duties. Inheritance taxes are just a vile idea on every level.
The House GOP members are simply delivering what their constituents want.
And by "constituents" I of course mean their rich donors.
Their rich donors? Much as I dislike them let's palace blame where blame is due. This is what the GOP base wants, for the GOP to choke the life out of the 'intellectual elite. I'm talking about those red cap wearing yahoos who think evil emperor and Sith Lord Barack "Palpatine" Obama, Darth Hillary and a whole legion of Zionist Occupied Government storm troopers are coming to take away their rights and it does not seem to disturb their fantasies that neither Obama nor Hillary are in office anymore. It's congress and the GOP dominated SCOTUS that are taking away American's rights. The level of indoctrination is simply astonishing. I just watched an American news crew ask random Americans in the street if Obama and Hillary should be impeached. Only one guy out of the lot realised that they could not be impeached because neither Obama nor Hillary are in office, the rest were all for it because, according to one of them: "Hillary is more dangerous than ISIS".
Jesus fucking Christ.
That must require a really impressive degree of gymnastic talent.
All you need is 4 or 5 years notice to get ready for a shooting war. No problem.
I don't even get how this is possible. Not only is the UK one of the wealthiest nations on earth, it is one of a few, if not the only one among NATO nations that spends the recommended 2% on defence. Yet their legendary Royal Navy can't even afford ship to ship missiles while nations in the 1-1.5% category seem to be able to afford such missiles.
It would seem you're the one with issues that can't accept the election results. Deal with it or move to Mexico.
In other words you are confirming that I did hit a Fuckface Von Nervestick by pointing out he won even though he was the runner up ... note to self: poke that nerve in every future conversations with Trump supporters.
Who is a private company? Twitter, sir/madam, is not private. And as a decently-sized shareholder, their actions affect me.
In other words, you think Twitter is a government agency because you own shares. If Twitter can kick off Nazis, can Slashdot please kick off idiots?
Kicking the alt-right off sites like Twitter is stupid because it allows them to stand on a soap box with a bullhorn and scream 'I'M A MARTYR TO FREE SPEECH!!' and that war cry will simply attract more recruits to their cause for the same reason that forbidding teenagers to do something is the best way to ensure they'll do it. Free speech guarantees your ability to say whatever fucking pile of half truths, lies and conspiracy theories you want but it does not guarantee your right to call it news. What would be much more effective is to filter any fake news stories their propagandists are trying to spread out of the news section and into the conspiracy theory section on sites like Google, Facebook, et al as well as fact checking and confronting people like Trump over their lies at every possible opportunity. If Facebook really chickened out of their effort to filter out of their news feeds totally fake stories spread by the likes of Breitbart for fear of hurting the feelings of the alt-right then there is something seriously wrong with Facebook.
Neither candidate for POTUS in 2016 won a majority of the popular vote.
Ok, ok, if you want to pick knits, he didn't win the largest block of popular votes.
They weren't competing for the popular vote. They were competing for the presidency and he won it convincingly. Deal with it.
AWWW.... did I hit a Fuckface von Nervestick? Trump didn't win the largest block of popular votes, which, in a functioning democracy is usually what qualifies you as the winner. Lucky for Trump the fucked up and throughly rigged US electoral college system allows the runner up to win.
No losers allowed in the Trump Foundation.
.. which covers Donald Trump since he lost the popular vote.
Something else for Syfy to cancel prematurely.
Well, if they cancel The Expanse, I hope Netflix picks it up.
What about when the SSD craps out? Then it's back to Apple, (or at least to a third-party shop), for an undoubtedly expensive repair job. Great! More stuff that the user has no hope of repairing on his or her own, and more non-renewable materials prematurely tossed into landfill. Tell me again - why in hell would I want a new Apple laptop?
I'll claim the repair on my home insurance policy which covers my laptop among other things. Having said that I have yet to have an Apple SSD crap out on me or for that matter the SSD chips on any mobile device I own. What's normally crapped out on my mobile devices every single time so far was the charging circuit when I was dumb enough to plug the device into a USB socket or cigarette lighter socket on a motorcar and on the Laptops it was usually the battery when it neared the end of its lifespan. As to why I'd buy an ultra compact laptop (either Apple or some other brand) ?? ... because it is ultra compact, I like ultra compact and I accept that that comes with a price and soldered components are part of that price. If you don't mind carrying a concrete pavement slab of a laptop around with you because you can swap out every single individual component then go right ahead and do that. I won't crap all over you for buying one or using one and I hope it brings you much joy. Just for god sake try to scrounge together the good manners to stop crapping all over those of us who like ultra compact portables Apple or some other brand. There are good reasons to buy an ultra compact laptop even if you can't understand them.
IDG, Owner of PCWorld and Research Firm IDC, in Advanced Talks To Sell Itself To Chinese Buyout Group: Reuters
That is one piss-poorly constructed headline.
They also failed because...they were way overpriced. .... The battery life sucked. The capabilities also sucked.
Why would these cause it to fail? It already sounds like it's a perfect companion for the new MacBook.
And made by Google, irony abounds.
It looks like maybe the Democrats have the issues. When you rig your primary to insure the candidate most hated by all conservative voters is guaranteed the nomination and then wonder why you lost that's called the issue of self delusion. No matter how bad Trump acted. No matter how rude and obnoxious. No matter what dirt was dug up on him. They still lost the election because they picked a bad, bad candidate and when an outsider challenged her they cheated and undercut him in any way they could. All so they could run the Queen. Well they ran her and Americans rejected her. The only people they have to blame are themselves. I'd be willing to bet there were hundred of other politicians they could have run with and won but they wanted the most corrupt one they could find that wasn't in jail at the moment.
I'm probably going to be modded into oblivion for pointing this out (wouldn't be the first time either) but Republican primaries process isn't exactly free of issues by any stretch of the imagination. The same goes for the Electoral College which allows the runner up who lost the election by 2 million bloody votes to become president. People keep telling me that the Electoral College is essential to US democracy and blah, blah, blah ... I call bullshit on all of it. The president should be elected by popular vote, period! Then there is the fucked up US electoral system riddled as it is with gerrymandering. I just heard a political analyst on TV recommend that the Dems. should put some effort back into state level politics. The implication of this person's advice seemed to be that if they did that, they could gerrymander the system back in their favour .... seriously?!?! By the looks of it practically every step of the US electoral process from the primaries onwards is in serious need of reform. It's easy for the Republicans to feel smug right about now, they control both houses of congress and they may or may not control the president (the jury is still out on that question). What they should be is worried because this victory they have scored is largely a victory achieved by gaming the system while demographics are slowly working against them. The fastest growing communities in the US are non-white while the Republican voter base is shrinking. If the Democrats spend the next few years rebuilding a grass roots organisation, realise that their most important base is not the Wall Street bankers and tech billionaires they spend most of their time sucking up to but working class white and non-white citizens. If the Democrats go back to their roots and draw some of those working class voters away from the likes of Trump with a Roosevelt style 'New Deal program' the Republicans will be in real trouble because endorsements form the KKK are not going to increase their appeal to that rapidly expanding group of non-white voters. In the end even expert gerrymandering will not be able to save the Republicans from their shrinking voter base. Only a move towards the political centre and away from KKK endorsements can do that. Say what you want, even if the Reps/Trump did not accept the KKK endorsement the mere fact that they got it is a very bad sign for the Reps. As for the Democrats there is an old Norse saying, "Don't mourn, gather men, arm yourselves and avenge" and that is my advice to them. Leave the Republicans to revel in their smugness and schadenfreude. Spend the next two years ousting the old Democrat establishment, bring in some new people, reform the primaries, take your party back to its core message and values and then kick the Reps. in the balls in 2018/2020 with a steel toe boot.
Still butthurt you little bitch? Pick a better candidate next time.
Pot, meet Kette..
>by popular vote is it ? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11...
Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Another Study Finds Earth's CO2 Emissions Have Flattened Over The Last Three Years
I just heard that President Elect by popular vote, Donald Trump has pledged to fix this problem so you can all breathe easier now. The president is hard at work assembling a crack task force from among the ranks of Big Oil and Big Coal to bring CO2 emissions growth back on track.
just like its been Bush's fault for the last 8?
He did double the national debt and start two brutal and expensive wars that lasted throughout Obama's presidency. A large portion of the stinking mess that is Syria and Iraq are due to Bush disbanding the Iraqi army and supporting that sectarian moron Nouri al Maliki into the Iraqi presidency.
By any measure Obama is center-left. That said, he did deport more illegal immigrants than his predecessor, he did not close Gitmo, and he kept executing wars of aggression against other countries.
Still, let's review this quote from TFA: "I think many Americans are waking up to the fact we have created a presidency that is too powerful,"
I think that was true already even before Obama was president. But, of course much of the debate stopped because the ones making this argument liked Obama and his center-left policies. If electing Trump keeps this debate going that is a good thing - but I suspect most people are just in opposition because their candidate lost, and would not be discussing it if Clinton had been elected.
By any US American standard Obama is center-left, in Europe he'd be center right to moderate conservative. Just about the only US leftie I can point out that would register with a European as a moderate Social Democrat is Bernie Sanders and he scared the whits out of the so-called leftist Democrat party with his beliefs. By European standards vast sections of the Republican party bring back unpleasant memories of fascism and witch-burning 17th century protestant fundamentalists.
Wake up
Well, if we are in a simulation, can whoever is running it please debug and patch Donald Trump? He's been malfunctioning for years and it's getting worse.
A corrupt liar thinks another corrupt liar would be good for a job he doesn't understand. Details at 11.
Meanwhile, I wonder Trump thinks he can cancel the Paris Climate Accord? WIll he take take some white out to cover over the names of the other signatories?
Obama 'ratified' the treaty by exercising his executive agreement power. That's not technically 'ratification' but de-facto it is the same thing. This leaves Trump with three options. Firstly he can challenge whether this is a legitimate exercise of Legitimate executive agreement power. This can be a lengthy legal process and it might weaken the executive agreement power if it succeeds and that might be bad for trump if he wants to use it later so he may not want to exercise that option for the same reason that nobody has ever attempted to abolish filibustering, they might want to use it later so there is an unwritten agreement that nobody will abolish it. Secondly, Trump can simply withdraw from the UNFCCC which would leave the USA free to pig out on coal within a year. Failing that it would take four years to withdraw. One thing is for sure, he has to do something because the USA will not meet it's emissions targets by 2025 and there is no way he could meet that target with the current congress and senate even if he wanted to reduce emissions and he does not. The Coal lobby will be breathing down his neck along with every ultra right wing, borderline fascist Republican out there. which which these days seems to be about 90% of them so he has do do something quickly. I'm guessing he'll withdraw from the UNFCCC and then pig out on coal. That along with doubts about America's commitment to NATO, his obvious favouritism towards Putin, his rabid Xenophobia and the trade wars he has promised to ignite will in turn will in turn further strain his relationship with his European Allies where pollution reduction and clean energy is an important election issue, as opposed to the USA where the opposite now seems to be true. In the mean time Vladimir Putin will look upon of this series of events play out and smile as he sees Trump take another giant step towards separating itself it's oldest and most loyal allies.
Pollution and deforestation is a bigger problem than CO2 emissions, yet the same groups wanting to take your cash for carbon put forth no projects or proposals to deal with those issues.
From which orifice did you pull that "fact"?
Why? Is he wrong? Or are you just another one of those idiots like Trump who sit there with their hands over their eyes and their thumbs in their ears singing: LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALA I CAN'T SEE YOU.!!
Deforestation is proceeding all over the world at alarming speed and pollution isn't helping either. To take just one example you cannot get any marine seafood anymore that isn't full of microscopic plastic particles and has chemical traces that are not normally found in nature. The result has been a massive extinction wave which makes deforestation and pollution at least as big a problem as climate change.
Projections like this aren't helpful at all. He hasn't even taken office yet and people are trying to do their best to destroy him. Nice of you.
If Trump says so much stupid shit his staff took away your twitter access then 'people' don't really have to do much to destroy him other than listen up and repeat the stupid shit the man said.