The Trump Presidency 13: The (James) Baker's Dozen

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Steve said:
The hilites appear contradictory, but I know what you are getting at. Militarily strategic but not a nice place to live.
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Exactly, Any artillery man could tell you why, despite it being totally worthless, Israel does not want to give it back.
That a few settlers did try to set up kibbutzes on the Golan, and gave up tells you how worthless it is.
 
Mumbles said:
I've pointed to two examples that we've already seen - that Milo guy who instructed people at his talk to target a specific student (who did not attend the event) for harassment for being Trans, and Richard Spencer who is simply a Nazi wannabe. Both have had attendies shoot at people.

That Milo idiot was once chased off of UC-Berkley by anarchists who overwhelmed police, as he was supposedly planning to out specific students again. The only other incident Cheeto Benito is referring to is an incident where one non-student punched another non-student for passing out obnoxious flyers on campus - campus police aided in IDing and arresting the first man, and he is currently charged with 3 felonies.

I look forward to the Louis Farrakhan/NOI campus speaking tour, though. We can all sit and listen to him lecture on the savagery of "the white man", and why the Jews are "vermin". Unlike the above idiots, at least he provides a pretty disciplined security team, and doesn't have followers running around shooting people.
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I think that students love to be seen as daring and edgy, and inviting real obnoxious speakers from across the political spectrum is a good way of doing that. I thnk it's sort of akin to trolling;they love the controversy they stir up.
Of course they often miscalculate and create even more of a fuss then they intedned.
 
dudalb said:
Assad is going to love that.......

Golan Heights are a difficult problem;They have become a symbol to Syria, but anyone who has visited Northren Israel will understand why Isreal does not want to give them back. Best solution will be to make is a neutral zone occupied by a peacekeeping force,with a ironclad guarantee they will not be withdrawn except by mutal agreemen of both sides.but I don't see that happening.
Irony is you would find a hard time finding a more totally worthless piece of land then the Golan Heighs;it never had more then a couple of small villages.it's has nothing of economic value.
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Given the fact that they are high ground - I can see that Israel wouldn't want to give them up to the Syrian regime
 
ponderingturtle said:
Actually there are things the government can do in certain circumstances.

In the case of the previously mentioned Coulter speech, organizers had booked a hall for the speech. The university (or other authority in this case) could have said "The venue was legally booked in advance...as such the organizers have a right to set the rules during the time they have booked, and they do not wish to hear your counter-protests".
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Yep like how protesters need to be in fenced in areas blocks away from any public space near a republican convention. It would be wrong to let free speech happen outside of its government sanctions zones.
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We also have laws in places that prevent anti-abortion protesters within a certain distance of an abortion clinic, which is another case of limiting a venue for free speech. (I'm pretty sure many people would agree with those limits.)

The "free speech zones" at things like republican conventions may be overly draconian. But I'm pretty sure that letting protesters on stage or in the audience where they could disrupt things would probably be considered going to far as well.

There needs to be a balance, which would be a valid topic of discussion.

So taking the hint from this we can have enclosed free speech zones at all colleges for people like Coulter to speak where no one can see or hear them.
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Again, if its a venue that was reserved (in some unbiased manner) prior to the event, why should the people organizing the event automatically be forced to conceed?

I have a belief: The right to free speech should not belong to the person with the loudest megaphone.
 
Segnosaur said:
We also have laws in places that prevent anti-abortion protesters within a certain distance of an abortion clinic, which is another case of limiting a venue for free speech. (I'm pretty sure many people would agree with those limits.)
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No, the Supreme court struck those down.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/us/supreme-court-abortion-clinic-protests.html

Of course for some reason their walk into the building isn't allowed to be covered by protesters.

So clearly 35' is to far away.
 
phiwum said:
Who knew Trump was an advocate of squatters' rights?
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Actually there are few if any squatters on the Golan. They are so worthless ecomomically that the attempts to set up Kibbutzes have failed miserably. Isreal has out and out military posts on the Golan, but no settlers.
 
ponderingturtle said:
We also have laws in places that prevent anti-abortion protesters within a certain distance of an abortion clinic, which is another case of limiting a venue for free speech. (I'm pretty sure many people would agree with those limits.)
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No, the Supreme court struck those down.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/us/supreme-court-abortion-clinic-protests.html
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That article applies to a particular law in Massachusetts that was struck down. From what I understand, laws in some other states are still valid (as is the law up here in Canada.) They even left some of the laws intact in Massachusetts.

From: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...setts-law-curbing-abortion-protesters-n141531
The justices left intact a 2000 ruling allowing a different restriction, so-called “bubble zones,” in which protesters have to stay at least 8 feet away from people entering abortion clinics....The decision Thursday does not affect the validity of floating “bubble zone” restrictions.
 
dudalb said:
Actually there are few if any squatters on the Golan. They are so worthless ecomomically that the attempts to set up Kibbutzes have failed miserably. Isreal has out and out military posts on the Golan, but no settlers.
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Ah, I was too ambiguous. I didn't mean Israeli settlers. I meant that Trump's tweet said that Israel has acted long enough (52 years) as if the Golan Heights is theirs, so it is. Like laws regarding adverse possession.

It was just a metaphor, playing on Trump's history as a landlord, a group notably unfriendly to squatters' rights.
 
A little business news:

From: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/20/business/federal-reserve-march-rate-meeting/index.html
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday voted to hold interest rates steady and shaved its growth forecast.
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At the March meeting, Fed officials downgraded their GDP growth forecast for 2019 to 2.1%, suggesting they may be more worried than previously about slowing domestic and global growth.

I know Trump is probably happy, given the times he's complained about the Fed raising interest rates. But, it should be a cause for concern:

- It is claimed that "the economy is strong", but if the economy were really that strong, the Fed would be raising interest rates to cool things off and prevent inflation. The fact that they've kept things steady means there could be economic troubles coming

- Rates are still pretty low. If the economy does start to crash, they don't really have much room to cut them further if they need to stimulate things
 
phiwum said:
Right. Stands to follow.

China's claimed the South China Sea for a while too, so I s'pose it's theirs.
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Is anyone willing to go to war with China to stop them?

If not, then yes, it's theirs. We might not like that, but China doesn't need our approval.

(BTW: although the US isn't willing to go to war to evict China from the South China Sea, our patrols in the region are intended to signal that we are willing to go to war to maintain freedom of navigation in the South China Sea).
 
dudalb said:
Actually there are few if any squatters on the Golan. They are so worthless ecomomically that the attempts to set up Kibbutzes have failed miserably. Isreal has out and out military posts on the Golan, but no settlers.
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Golan Heights is an important freshwater source for Israel, Syria, and Jordan... and I think maybe even Lebanon.

Control over Golan Heights means control over the Jordan River and its tributaries, as well as the flow into the Sea of Galilee and ultimately down into the Dead Sea. Thus you gain the upper hand and control over your enemies' ability to supply its citizens with potable water by diverting it all in your direction instead.

Golan Heights is not an economically useless chunk of desert.
 
Segnosaur said:
Well, supposedly the council of Economic Advisors is claiming that it was a deliberate attempt to "lighten up the report".

From: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/19/white-house-report-gets-loaded-with-fake-and-funny-intern-names.html
Thank you for noticing, our interns are indeed super heroes! We’ve thought so all along, but we knew it'd take a little more to get them the attention they deserve. They have made significant contributions to the Economic Report of the President and do so every day at CEA.
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Who said economics has to be a dismal science?

I guess the question is whether you believe they added the names deliberately or whether they're just covering up a mistake. Under Obama, or even Bush, you might believe that they deliberately included some humor. But with Stubby McBonespurs (who made "alternative facts" a thing) its harder to give the benefit of the doubt.
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I’m on the fence as to whether they let the names slip through or whether they did it on purpose. If it was a joke then it was at the expense of the real interns - insulting someone through cluelessness is well within the Trump administration’s SOP.

On the other overlooking details because of incompetence is something they excell at.
 
I think they are trying to cover incompetence because (off the top of my head) J T Hutt, Aunt May, Jon Snow, John Cleese are not Superheroes.
 
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