Trump v Biden

 An article from Deroy Murdoch        Fox News

(incidentally, we used to be able to get Fox News in the UK on Sky TV.  You may well wonder, as I have, why they decided to discontinue it?)

Para four points out some attractive features to the voter of a Biden President, but asks us to examine the issues.  Spot on.

Next para asserts that a Biden government would be a disaster for schools.  I confess to not being sufficiently acquainted with the American educational system to be able to comment very sensibly.  From what I gather the argument is very similar to the British Academy schools system – championed by and implemented by the Conservative government.  Schools are encouraged to leave the control of the local authorities and become academies under the direct control, through funding, of the central government.  In Britain this is essentially an ideological argument. Successive Tory governments have been convinced that the teaching profession is overwhelmingly left-wing.  (they may be correct) so, the Academy system provides a counter-point to the local left-wing school boards.  It seems the Trump “school choice for every parent” seems to be similar.

(aside) How does this square with Brown v the Board?  Separate but equal is not constitutional.

Next para he contends that Biden would grant citizenship to 11 million illegal aliens, most of whom would vote Democrat.  Supposition.  Free healthcare for illegal aliens?  I’d like to see the proposals.  Seems no more daft that no healthcare for poor citizens who cannot afford insurance.  

(aside) Trump’s attempts to abolish or defuse Obamacare seems to have stopped.  Or am I misinformed?  I’ve no heard him commenting on this issue at rallies.  Have I missed it?)

Fracking.  Not an issue.  Reliance on fossil fuels will inevitably fall.  Fracking merely provides Americans with obscenely low energy prices and to that extent it’s good election policy for Trump to highlight the issue.

The Sandia Laboratories story is beyond the pale -  “According to Breitbart News and as reported on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the men were forced to attend a training course titled, “White Men’s Caucus on Eliminating Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in Organizations,” according to Christopher F. Rufo, an author, writer, and researcher.” - not exactly a balanced viewpoint, from a variety of sources.  

This sort of media sensationalism just reinforces prejudice.  The key word here is “forced”  on what compunction?  Discussing eliminating racism, sexism and homophobia in organisations is surely a good thing.  Or, are we free to be as racist, sexist and homophobic as we like in our private lives?  I suggest we are and the attendees were just trying to save their jobs.  Daft policy by the employer.  

The conclusion concentrates on the far-left agenda of Biden.  My suspicion is that this is overblown.  In the UK the policies discussed here would be seen as fairly mainstream.  The American obsession with labeling (particularly as socialist) shines through. I well remember when I used to teach Animal Farm to 15 year olds.  At the end of the first week the whole class were ready to man the barricades and march on Parliament.  When I asked them why we need Coke and Pepsi, why not just have State Cola Number One and use the millions, maybe billions of dollars, those corporations use to try to generate a 000.1 percent advantage in the buying habits of millions of Cola drinkers they were appalled by the wasted resources.  After reading Orwell’s critique of socialism (or more specifically Soviet Communism) they had all returned to the fold and were able to examine the issues with a critical focus.  That’s education.  He idea that teachers inculcate left-wing ideas in unknowing and unthinking children is a fantasy.  Tell kids how they must think and they will cheerfully tell you to get lost.  Fact.

Sunday Times does the election

The Sunday Times Does the Election

        a view from across the pond

From Camille Paglia

Talentless, venal Clinton deserved to lose. . . . any other Democrat would have won this election because so many people voted for Trump just to stop the utterly sociopathic Hillary from gaining office. . . . Bill Clinton was a skilled politician – I voted for him twice – who knew how to negotiate with people and enjoyed public life - but Hillary had none of these qualities. . . she rose to prominence on her husband's coat tails and never accomplished anything on her own. . . her attempts to reform healthcare as first lady were a disaster . . . she became senator for New York through pure nepotism . . . as Secretary of State she spent a lot of time on airplanes meeting people and shaking hands . . her only legacy was destabilizing North Africa . . . we must terminate all connections with the Clintons . . . they must be consigned to the dustbin of history . . . they have drained too much of our mental and political energy for 25 years.

From John Glancy in Wilkes-Barre. Pa.

77 year old Joe Brown voted for Obama in the last two elections. . . this year he switched to the Republicans . . . why? . . . we need a change . . . Obama did nothing . . . Brown loathes the system and the “Washington elites” . . . people are angry about illegal immigration . . . in Wilkes-Barre the Hispanic population has increased by 523% . . . it would have been difficult to find a candidate worse placed to win in Wilkes-Barre than Clinton . . . academic, dynastic, elite . . . Maureen Frank, 58, believes people voted for Trump because “they're uneducated, they're idiots” . . .

From Niall Ferguson

. . . the politics of the Republic has always been a blood sport . . . at least this year we didn't have an actual duel of the sort that killed Alexander Hamilton in 1804 . . . the economist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times, “people like me . . . truly didn't understand the country we live in . . . We thought that the great majority of Americans valued democratic norms and the rule of law. It turns out we were wrong. . . a huge number of white people living in rural areas don't share our ideas of what America is about. For them it is about blood and soil (Hitler's German: Blut und Boden) refers to an ideology that focuses on ethnicity based ideas – my italics) about traditional patriarchy and racial hierarchy. . . I (Ferguson) received an email from my old university, “we have heard from students, faculty and staff who have expressed anger, anxiety and fear . . .take care of yourselves and give support to those who need it” . . . the Founding Fathers provided for this . . . Alexander Hamilton warned “of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants”. . . It will not be like that. This is how democracy in America was and is meant to work . . . the hysteria on the left is partly because being this wrong has to hurt . . . the Princeton Election Consortium gave Clinton a 98-99% chance of winning . . . how did they get it so wrong? . . . it was very close . . . Clinton was predicted to get 47% of the vote, she got 47.7% . . . the pollsters critically underestimated Trump's vote . . . predicting he'd get 44% . . . in fact he got 47.5%. . . most waverers and undecideds chose Trump . . . if just one in a hundred votes chose Clinton over Trump she would have won 307-231. . . nice try, but no cigar . . . Democrats assumed the Electoral College would help their candidate . . .it did not . . .because Trump spoke in so derogatory terms about Mexicans and Muslims, partly because his campaign won the support of white supremacists, the standard liberal answer is race won it for Trump. . . at first sight the whitewash theory seems to be supported by the data. . . Trump beat Clinton 62%-33% in counties that are at least 85% white. . . in placed where 97% of the population was born in America he won 65%-30% . . . yet 29% of Hispanics voted for Trump - same percentage of Asians and 37% of other racial groups – even 1 in 12 black Americans voted for him . . .but, class turned out to matter at least as much as race. . . your income, your education and your distance from a big city were at least as predictive as your colour . .

the hillbillies were not too drunk or drugged to vote. . . for the average American family the last 16 years have been a round trip via a massive financial crisis . . . Yale economist Ray Fair's simple model which predicts elections on the basis of economic performance clearly pointed to a Democratic defeat. . . lots of well-educated Americans voted for Trump . . . more than half of the over 64's voted for Trump, less than third of 18-24's. . . women voted for Trump 53% of them. . . the status quo offered by Clinton can be summed up as SNAFU – but the alternative may well be FUBAR. . . the word “work” featured nine times in Trump's victory speech . . . deal with it.

From Ron Liddle

I see that John Kerry, the US Secretary of State has been on a trip to Antarctica. Good move. Get used to it John – it's where your staggeringly inept party will be, metaphorically, for at least four years. Get used to the silence and the desolation and the whale-blubber sandwiches. . . the list of utterly pointless people ferried to the North or South Pole by the climate change monkeys is so lengthy they even asked me to go on one of these daft beanos . . . why would I do that? . . . it's cold there . . . I do not believe, as does the President-elect that climate change is a “Chinese hoax” . . . I think climate change is probably happening . . . it's all the attendant baloney that makes me wish to reach for my revolver, if I had one . . . perhaps the most stupid policy was the rush for diesel . . . children can now look forward to choking, nausea and turning blue as a consequence of nitrogen oxide poisoning . . there are calls to ban diesel cars from London's roads . . . But nothing beats wind farms . . . nothing comes close . . . the Scots in particular are gung-ho and aim to destroy the beauty of their entire country by planting them wherever . . . they do enormous damage . . . offshore wind-farms are basically Moulinex blenders for gannets and kittiwakes . . . they discombobulate whales and mince bats (I include this article just to show that Mr Trump is not alone in his environmental scepticism!)

Sunday Times lead editorial page 18

The election of Donald Trump broke so many precedents it is not surprising that the world has been left wondering what will happen next in Washington . . . Mr Trump's victory was not quite a “Dewey defeats Truman moment . . . but it came close . . .pollsters expected a clear win for Clinton, the most optimistic model gave him a 29% chance . . . it is important that Trump's victory should not be seen as the end for free trade, open markets and globalisation . . . the election, after all, was between two candidates notable for their lack of appeal – Mr Trump was regarded by enough people as the lease worst . . . another Democratic candidate might have won easily, just as another Republican might have beaten Mrs Clinton by a larger margin . . . Trump won because he spoke directly to the American working class . . . in the rust belt they probably do not expect him to reopen mothballed steel mills and closed coal mines (I'm not so sure about that!) . . .the Democrats are losing touch with their traditional power-base but have not quite lost it . . . people need to be convinced that open markets benefit them and not just big corporations . . . people do not like open borders and uncontrolled immigration . . . Politicians who ignore, this, as Mrs Clinton mainly did, will suffer . . . Jean-Claude Juncker always strikes the wrong note on behalf of the EU. “We need to teach the President-elect what Europe is and how it works, predicting two wasted years whilst Trump tours a world he doesn't know . . . Angela Merkel, whose open door immigration policy ranks as on of the gravest errors of recent times, offered to work with Trump only on the basis of the values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law and the dignity of man, independent of origin, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views . . . Europe seems determined not to learn anything from Trump's victory . . . our “special relationship” may become rather important again in the next few years.

A snippet Teresa May – better safe than sorry

The Prime Minister wore a sari to visit a temple in Bangalore for the final day of her trip to India last week. It's now traditional for visiting leaders to wear the costume of their host country. George W Bush and Vladimir Putin wore traditional silk jackets in China in 2001 and Chilean ponchos during a summit in Santiago in 2004. So, here is the appeal to Teresa May, when Donald Trump comes to Britain for his first state visit, we beg of you: don't let him anywhere near Brighton beach and its nudist beach.

From Adam Boulton

Donald Trump is making nice . . . He praised and looked forward to dealing with Barack Obama . . . he told Americans they owe Hillary Clinton a debt of gratitude . . . even professional protesters got a backhanded compliment . . . just like Brexit, no-one saw this coming – including the candidate himself . . . several hours after the polls closed the Republican pollster, Frank Luntz stated flatly that Mrs Clinton was the next president . . . (I'm just guessing, but he may now be looking for another job) . . . Nationwide Mrs Clinton got 444 000 more votes than Mr Trump, but Trump won 30 states to Clinton's 20, so nobody (except real hard-core numpties!) is disputing the result . . . the winner has abandoned his claim that the system was rigged . . . an unabashed Nigel Farage hastened to the US offering to the the “responsible adult” in the room when the PM and the President meet . . . nobody in the US was remotely interested in what Britain was saying . . it seems with each new President we have a nervous breakdown over whether we are cringing low enough before our masters and whether they really love us . . . his team: veteran right-wingers who remained loyal to him, many of them failed candidates – Rudy Guilianil, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie . . . these are all establishment figures, not blue-collar insurgents . . . and none is a noted friend of the UK . . . Trump's priorities are domestic . . . Mrs May should be careful . . . hugging the President (watch out for your bum Teresa!) got Tony Blair involved in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . Trump's foreign policy statements have been contradictory, sometimes isolationist, sometimes aggressive . . . to tie the UK too closely to Trump in the hope of scavenging from the billionaires table would be rash.

From Heather MacDonald

America's Republican elite are as stunned by Trump's conquest of the White House as the Democrats and the press . . . They shouldn't be, since they created the conditions that led to his improbable victory . . . for decades the Repubs suppressed the debate about the costs of mass low-skilled immigration . . . questioning the open borders policy led to charges of xenophobia or were simply ignored . . . immigration was said to be unalloyed good . . . however, residents of areas with large numbers of low-skilled immigrants were experiencing a different reality exemplified by California, the state most transformed by mass immigration . . . the majority of babies now born there are Hispanic and Hispanics have expanded their numbers six-fold since 1970 . . . in the 1950's and 60's California led the country in educational achievement, today the percentage of students lacking the most rudimentary maths and reading skills matches those in Miss, Louisiana, Alabama . . . (so why are Californians still voting for the Dems?) . . . Hispanics have the highest rate of unwed teen pregnancy of any group in the nation . . . low-skilled immigrants depress the wages of less-educated workers . . . in 2016 only two in three American adults without a college degree were working . . . thanks to competition from low-skilled immigrants . . . to go by his campaign performance Trump would seem a deeply-flawed national leader – thin-skinned – childishly vindictive and almost pathologically narcissistic but voters were willing to overlook his failings because he voiced their concerns on immigration . . . the Republican establishment could have prevented the Donald's rise years ago by subjecting its open borders orthodoxies to empirical testing and to good faith moral criticism . . . it has fallen to a boorish reality TV star to articulate some basic truths: the citizens possess the right to police their borders; a country's immigration policy should serve first and foremost the interests of its citizens; and lawlessness in one area breeds lawlessness in many others . .

Trump's famous “wall” is far less important than the enforcement of immigration laws in the interior of the county, including against employers . . . the country watches breathlessly for every hopeful sign that the seriousness of the office he has won will make Trump mature and teach him long-overdue impulse control.

Jeremy Clarkson – as usual had the last word

Almost all my friends are bleeding-heart liberals . . .they host fund-raising evenings t buy padded bras for people with trans-gender issues and they are utterly bewildered and devastated by the Brexit vote . . . they cannot understand why we are leaving because everyone they ever met in their pastry shop and dinner party and on the touch-line of every school sports pitch wanted to remain . . . of course they are completely stunned by the Donald Trump thing, because the Americans they know seem so sensible . . . “I was with Gwyneth only last night trying out some smoothies and she's such a lovely girl . . . they can't understand the US election result because they all go to America a lot and to them the place always seems so reasonable . . . they stay at the Mercer in New York and Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica California . . . all the celebs were for Hillary and she lost . . . (I've been trying for what seems a life-time to explain to the English that the real America lies, in general and in the most part, between New York and California) . . .

Now they are wondering if democracy has had its time . . . if I were to suggest that people with low IQ's (another one of Adolf's great ideas!) should be given less of a say in who runs the country than those in Mensa, most would nod sagely and say pensively, “It may have to come to that, because it's ridiculous that my cleaning lady has the same influence in an election as me.” . . . But I'll let you into a little secret . . . all those words that I cannot use any more in this newspaper . . . all those jokes no-one can say any more on TV . . . all those phrases that are no longer socially acceptable in Notting Hill and the home counties . . . well, up North you will hear all of them, all the time . . . political correctness simply doesn't exist in a Doncaster pub . . . because there is no time to worry about the correct word for “cross-dresser” when you haven't got the money . . .in parts of America there are people who spend all day in a queue for the food bank . . . how much of a shit do you think they give about trans-gender issues or polar bears” . . . in parts of Britain all my friends see from their Range Rover window as they drive to Scotland for a bit of shooting are towns and villages full of young people who have nothing to do all day but reproduce . . . Dims breeding dims, is what my grandfather used to say . . . every time there's an election some politician come on the TV they half-inched (stolen, I translate from British to American – ain't I wonderful!) to say he will make life better, so they vote for him and then find out later that his idea of underprivileged is actually someone who wants to dress up in a frock (dress). . . yes my heart bleeds for those who are bullied because of their sex or their looks or their sexual orientation, but it only bleeds because I've got a ton of money and two houses . . . if I had an empty larder (kitchen cupboard) and a rash and a terrible hacking cough, I assure you of this: I wouldn't care a bit . . . Trump talked a lot of nonsense in his campaign, if I were to meet him I'd probably dislike him on a cellular level; however he said the politicians had let the poor down . . . Ker-ching; he said they would always let the poor down . . . Ker-ching . . . and the only thing that could provide them with jobs and money was business – big business . . . Ker-ching again . . . they said, Yep, the future's bright, the future's orange . . .happily I have a solution . . .The Palace of Westminster is to be closed for essential repairs . . . MP's will have to meet somewhere else and I reckon they should all go to Hartlepool (they hung the monkey – I mean yes they really did hang a monkey – look it up on Wikipedia) . . . after a few years in this former steel town they might start to understand that in the big scheme of things Eddie Izzard's right to wear a pink beret is not that important (look that one up as well)

A House Divided

Trump Trumps All

Well, it's over. After what must surely rank as the strangest, most polarized campaign in history, Donald Trump is now the President-elect.

You have to go back to Abraham Lincoln's election to find an equivalent shake-up to the established order – and we all know where that led us.

Not since Dwight Eisenhower, a war hero with extensive experience of “governing” the most fragile coalition in history, has anyone entered the Oval Office with less governmental experience. This may or may not be a bad thing, but it is certainly unique.

First of all, how did he do it? As more and more information becomes known, it seems that almost anyone except Hillary could have won for the Democrats. In many respects, she lost it more that he won it.

But, it cannot be quite that simple. The fact is she got more votes, but he got them were it mattered. In state after state, he won a majority by simply not being Ms Clinton. Folks were not sure of much, other than that they were fed up with the Establishment and wanted a change. (Remind anyone of Brexit?). Out in the rust-belt where jobs have gone overseas and the blue-collar has not been replaced by the white collar the anger was thick and sloppy enough to cut with a dull butter knife.The more the voters were told about the bullying tactics of Trump, the misogamy, the crazy ideas and the lack of a coherent plan, the less they seemed to care. They wanted change, almost any change, and now they've got it.

I saw a quasi-poll that had Bernie Sanders running The Donald a close race and maybe winning. Why? Bernie was fresh, he was new, he was seen as a outsider and he was saying unpalatable things that upset the Establishment. Ditto The Donald.

Where do we go from here?

First, back to Lincoln who told us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The protestors currently roaming the streets of New York, Chicago, Seattle and other great cities must be heard, but they must not be allowed to spoil the Trump victory with their vitriolic asserton that they will not accept the result. That is not the American way. Donald Trump has said he intends to be a President for all the people. He must get a chance to deliver.

But, deliver what?

The parties all publish their platforms. (In Britain they are called Manifestos.) What was in the Republican platform and can they deliver it? Here's what they said:

Taxes

The establishment of a pro-growth tax code as a moral imperative. We oppose

retroactive taxation. We condemn attempts by activist judges at any level of government to seize the power of the purse from the people’s elected representatives by ordering higher taxes. We oppose tax policies that deliberately divide Americans or promote class warfare. Because of the vital role of religious organizations, charities, and fraternal benevolent societies in fostering generosity and patriotism, they should not be subject

to taxation and donations to them should remain deductible. To guard against hypertaxation of the American people in any restructuring of the federal tax system, any value added tax or national sales tax must be tied to the simultaneous repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment. (Income Tax – my interjection and explanation) to switch to a territorial system of taxation so that profits earned and axed abroad may be repatriated for job-creating investment here at home. We believe American companies should be headquartered in America.

Well, they would say that wouldn't they. All parties say they are going to simplify the tax system, and raise more money whist actually cutting rates. It's what parties do. I remember The Donald telling the voters that the national debt had to be cut. How? When? Where?

Freeing financial markets

The Republican vision for American banking calls for establishing transparent, efficient markets where consumers can obtain loans they need at reasonable rates based on market conditions.

Hard to argue with this one – you might as well argue against Mom's apple pie. As usual the devil is in the detail.

Increase transport infastructure

Our country’s investments in transportation and other public construction have traditionally been non-partisan. Everyone agrees on the need for clean water and safe roads, rail, bridges, ports, and airports. President Eisenhower established a tradition of Republican leadership in this regard by championing the creation of the interstate highway system. In recent years, bipartisan cooperation led to major legislation improving the nation’s ports and waterways.

This looks like one of the key points that President Trump is going to be able to move on and move on quickly. Infastructure means improved competitiveness for business and lots of construction jobs for Trump supporters. Dare I mention The New Deal – or will many Republicans faint if I do?

Building the Future: America’s Electric Grid:

Our nation’s interstate electric transmission system has long been a catalyst for developing and delivering low cost energy while spurring economic growth throughout the United States. The grid is aging, vulnerable to cyber and terrorist threats, and unprepared to serve our energy needs of tomorrow.

Ditto the infastucture comments. Add the shale gas and the coal question. Can Trump find common ground with West Virginia miners and new-age, mega-bucks shale gas drillers?

Start-up Century: Small Business and Entrepreneurship

A central reason why the 20th century came to be called the American Century was the ability of individuals to invent and create in a land of free markets. Back then they were called risk-takers, dreamers, and small business owners. Today they are the entrepreneurs, independent contractors, and small business men and women of our new economy. Their innovation drives improvement. . .

Standard Republican fare here extolling the virtues of laissez-faire capitalism. But, when we are competing with countries who do not subscribe to this economic model, chiefly the Chinese, it does seem a bit pie-in-the-sky. Interestingly, it seems that the entrepreneurs of small-town America may have been the source of Trump's votes in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Workplace Freedom for a 21st Century Workforce (Republicans are traditionally anti-union or at least as ambivalent towards organised labor as the Conservative Party in the UK)

The greatest asset of the American economy is the hard-working American. That is why our first priority is getting people back to work by fostering the kind of growth that creates jobs.

Can't argue with this! Just tell us what it means.

A Federal Workforce Serving the People

We urge Congress to bring federal compensation and benefits in line with the standards of most American employees. A Republican administration should streamline personnel procedures to expedite the firing of bad workers, tax cheats, and scammers. The unionization of the federal workforce, first permitted by Democrat presidents in the 1960s, should be reviewed by the appropriate congressional committees to examine its effects on the cost, quality, and performance of the civil service. Union representatives in the federal workforce should not be paid to conduct union business on the public’s time.

Standard Republican ideas.

Reducing the Federal Debt

We must impose firm caps on future debt, accelerate the repayment of the trillions we now owe in order to reaffirm our principles of responsible and limited government, and remove the burdens we are placing on future generations. A strong economy is one key to debt reduction, but spending restraint is a necessary component that must be vigorously pursued.

Hard to square this one with the promise of infastructure improvements. In common with all governments, the reduction in debt is really tied to pie-in-the-sky improvements in the overall economy. If this happens debt can be repaid. If not?

We the People

We reaffirm the Constitution’s fundamental principles: limited government, separation of powers, individual liberty, and the rule of law. We denounce bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic prejudice, and religious intolerance. Therefore, we oppose discrimination based on race, sex, religion, creed, disability, or national origin and support statutes to end such discrimination. As the Party of Abraham Lincoln, we must continue to foster solutions to America’s difficult challenges when it comes to race relations today.

Anyone against this one? I should hope not.

The Judiciary

The rule of law is the foundation of our Republic. A critical threat to our country’s constitutional order is an activist judiciary that usurps powers properly reserved to the people through other branches of government. Only a Republican President will appoint judges who respect the rule of law expressed within the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including the inalienable right to ife and the laws of nature and nature’s God, as did the late Justice Antonin Scalia. We are facing a national crisis in our judiciary. We understand that only by electing a Republican President in 2016 will America have the opportunity for up to five new constitutionally-minded Supreme Court justices appointed to fill vacancies on the Court. Only such appointments will enable courts to begin to reverse the long line of activist decisions — including Roe, Obergefell, and the Obamacare cases — that have usurped Congress’s and states’ lawmaking. . .

This is a tough one. Reading it one way, you could be excused for thinking that the Republican party has lost its sense of the historical, constitutional process. The Constitution makes it clear that the three branches, President, Congress and the Judiciary are co-equal. Any attempt by any party to tamper with this principle is not only bound to fail but will simply garner the opprobrium of the American people. Even FDR found this out when he tried to pack the Supreme Court to get his New Deal legislation passed.

Reading it another way, it is true that the President can nominate Supreme Court judges who he thinks will see things his way. (This doesn't always work) Congress will scrutiize their appointment. The Donald made great pay in the campaign about Hillary appointing Supreme Court judges and how this must be opposed. He may well get some of his own medicine.

Administrative Law

We call on Congress to begin reclaiming its constitutional powers from

the bureaucratic state by requiring that major new federal regulations be approved by Congress before they can take effect, such as through the Regulation Freedom Amendment.

That's the way it's supposed to work. Just need to know what “major” is?

Defending Marriage Against an Activist Judiciary

Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values.

This echoes Roe v Wade – another part of the circle which is going to be difficult to square as many of Trump'ssupporters will not, I believe, support restictions on either gay marriage or abortion. States rights?

It has always surprised me that either and/or both political parties seem to want to legislate public morality. Did they not learn from the Prohibition debacle?

On a personal level, I oppose on-demand abortion. But, I don't believe I have the right to impose my morality on others. The Republican-led federal government should stay out of the morality game. They can't win.

The First Amendment Religious Liberty

We pledge to defend the religious beliefs rights of conscience of all Americans and to safeguard religious institutions against government control.

Amen.

The First Amendment: - Constitutionally Protected Speech

We believe the forced funding of political candidates through union dues and other mandatory contributions violates the First Amendment. Just as Americans have a First Amendment right to devote resources to favored candidates or views, they have a First Amendment right not to be forced to individually support individuals or ideologies that they oppose. We agree with Thomas Jefferson that “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Fairly typical Republican anti-union stuff here; however I agree – except workers who benefit from “closed-shop” agreements lawfully entered into by unions and employers, Workers can not opt-out simply to become cheap-skates! BTW the sound you may hear is Jefferson spinning rapidly in his grave when he is the subject of praise from a party whose ideas he would certainly oppose if he were alive.

The Second Amendment: Our Right to Keep and Bear Arms

We oppose ill-conceived laws that would restrict magazine capacity or ban the sale of the most popular and common modern rifle.

Nonsense. I support the Second Amendment. I do not believe the right to bear arms is unqualified. I'm presuming this is in the platform to pander to the NRA. This is a good example of why some people voted for Trump. People supported him for a variety of reasons.

The Fourth Amendment: Liberty and Privacy

Affirming the Fourth Amendment “right of the people to be secure in their houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” we call for strict limitations on the use of aerial surveillance on U.S. soil, with the exception of patrolling our national borders for illegal entry and activity.

Typical politicians fudge. No unreasonable searches except when we think it's a good idea.

The Fifth Amendment: Protecting Human Life

. . . we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.

As I said, I support this philosophically, but it is a classic example of “Lord make me holy! (But not quite yet, please!)

The Fifth Amendment: Protecting Private Property

We call on Congress and state legislatures to enact reforms to protect law-abiding

citizens against abusive asset forfeiture tactics.

Sensible if applied sensibly. Not sensible if large landowners are allowed to milk the public purse.

The Fifth Amendment: Intellectual Property Rights

Today, the worst offenses against intellectual property rights come from abroad, especially in China. We call for strong action by Congress and a new Republican president to enforce intellectual property laws against all infringers, whether foreign or domestic.

Trump has already strongly hinted that the party is over for the Chinese. Good. Easy, quick and poular policy – except for the fact that they might ask for the debt to be repaid, like now.

The Ninth Amendment: The People’s Retained Rights

We welcome to our ranks all citizens who are determined to reclaim the rights of the people that have been ignored or usurped by the federal and intrusive state governments.

I suspect that what they mean is the things that they don't like.

The Tenth Amendment: Federalism as the Foundation of Personal Liberty

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

States rights? Not again, surely! The Congress must not attempt to usurp the powers of the Supreme Court.

Honest Elections and the Electoral College

We oppose the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and any other scheme to abolish or distort the procedures of the Electoral College.

I agree, despite the fact that Clinton won the popular vote. Remember Lincoln only won the popular vote in 1860 because he was not on the ballot in many southern states. The electoral college is a guarantee of state's legitimate rights.

Honest Elections and the Right to Vote

In order to preserve the principle of one person, one vote, we urge our elected representatives to ensure that citizenship, rather than mere residency, be made the basis for the apportionment of representatives among the states.

Unconstitutional.

The rest of the platform is really just a list of aims and ideas. Nothing wrong with that but it does occupy more than half of the platform pages with waffle.

When the dust settles what have we got?

A Republican President and a Republican controlled Congress should be able to get things done. People will be waiting, not very patiently, for them to get on with it. All Presidents get 100 days to get moving. President Trump will be no different. He has already hinted that big things are going to happen. Can he turn the rhetoric into action? The Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, has said he is ready to seize the initiative, work with the adiministration and get things moving. Can he carry the house with him?

In the Senate it's 48 Dems and 52 Repubs. Trump should have support in the Senate, but Senators are notorious for their independence. Could be interesting.

The same can be said for the Supreme Court. Congress should be able to ratify any Trump nominees, but any really overt political ones may have problems.

The Bottom Line

I'm encouraged by most of the noises coming out of the President-elect's camp. Perhaps the reality of his achievement has just sunk in, but he certainly looks and sounds more presidential. He wants to be everyone's President and although all Presidents-elect say that I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Only time will tell if he can bridge the gulf between rhetoric and reality. Perhaps, as a reality TV star he will find it easy. Somehow I've got my doubts.

An Election Like No Other

The most entertaining take on the Presidential race this week was from Niall Ferguson, writing in the Sunday Times under the headlline: Serial lecher Trump finally blows up. But that's not why he deserves to lose.

He compares the candidates to mobile phones. “Donald Trump is the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 of US politics – a phone so hurriedly assembled that it spontaneously combusts. That would make Hilary Clinton the iPhone7. She's essentially the same as your current President but harder to connect to and with inferior email security. . . . The American public is fascinated by Trump, but in the way people are fascinated by a really gruesome car crash. It is bad enough to boast that you have groped women. It is fatal to deny it only to have numerous women appear within days to state that oh yes you did. In March, I observed that Trump's “caveman politics” was based on a deeply phoney machismo. A man who has to reassure the world about the size of his genitals is not macho he wrote.

Yet it will be tragic if history records that Trump lost the 2016 election because he confessed to, and was then accused of, sexual assault that he then denied. . . . After all we have had sexually hyperactive Presidents before. Quite apart from the dalliances of Bill Clinton, recall the priapism of JFK, still among the most revered Presidents in US history.

(I interject the following from Wikipedia, "" But Warren G. Harding is really in a category of his own. No other philandering chief executive had the 29th president’s way with words (he termed the vagina of one of his mistresses “Mrs. Pouterson”) or his sense of scenery (he and Nan regularly had sex in a White House closet). And, as was underscored this week, when news broke that Harding did in fact father a child with Britton as she had claimed, no other was quite as reckless with his libido."")

The reason we should pray for Trump to lose is not for the future safety of female air travellers or beauty queens, but for the future security of the western world. . . the most shocking aspect of the Trump campaign is not the revelation that he is a serial sexual harasser, but rather that he is the dupe, if not the pawn of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

As November 8^th approaches, the mud-slinging will intensify. So, will the cyber-warfare. And the more complicated the allegations become, the more voters will tune out and make their decision on the basis of feelings, rather than facts that they no longer trust.

The scariest thought of all is that if they don't like the ultimate result, they won't trust that either. For proof that this election is rigged, download the Sputnik app to your smartphone today.”

Niall may be correct, but if not he is at least very entertaining!

Obama Rescued?

Can he survive the healthcare onslaught?

A follow-up to my recent in depth look at the problems besetting Obamacare finds me indebted to the Sunday Times again this week.

In a editorial by Andrew Sullivan, the difficulties facing the President are analysed and prognostications proposed.

He starts out by reminding us that second-term crises are not new. Reagan, Nixon, Clinton and Dubbya all suffered from malaise in their second term. What seems to be different is the fact that Obama has painted himself into a corner with his own mouth (pardon the chillingly daft mixed metaphor) by promising that people can keep their healthcare plans if they like them. They cannot and if your plan does not meet minimum standards then you have to get a new one.

Question is – can Obama recover?

Nixon, of course, could not. His crime? He lied to the people. Is Obama any different? Categorically? Possibly? Inadvertently? The answer rather depends on you political persuasion.

Sunday Times: “The first issue is indeed healthcare. He is attempting something transformative and immensely difficult in the American context, even though every other developed country has long since passed the threshold of universal care.

Americans, after all, are a conservative bunch – and no-one likes to feel as if their health, of all things, is being jeopardised by a law that Obama need never have passed. Many will see their premiums rise. If the federal website isn't fixed, more and more people are going to go nuts as the “computer says no”.

If confidence collapses, the critical cohorts of young people may not join the system, tipping it into an insurance death spiral, in which there are too many sick people enrolled and not enough healthy people to balance them out. . . . .

If he succeeds, then, it will be by the skin of his teeth, and the odds of him clawing back to more than 50% approval are low. But it's worth remembering that the healthcare law has been declared dead several times. It was never expected to pass the Congress in 2009, which was already grappling with stimulus for the Great Recession. It survived – just – but then nearly collapsed again as the Republicans seized the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat and the votes were suddenly in question. After that the Supreme Court, in a surprise decision, upheld it. The law is close to being zombie – dead but still alive, and staggering ominously forward.”

Can the Republicans kill it? Hard to do up against the Presidential veto.

Moreover the Republicans have yet to propose any kind of alternative except a return to the status quo – which has very little support. Even now in the law's darkest hour there does not seem to be anywhere near a majority for repeal – according to the Sunday Times.

Back to the Sunday Times: “For all those currently without adequate healthcare provision it will be a godsend. For those whose plans are randomly cancelled or changed just when they need them most it will offer peace of mind.”

Second-term Presidents are always looking to their legacy. Obamacare is going to be this President's legacy like it or not. He has no fall-back position – he must make it work.

Taking the Oath

Constitutional Questions

The election is over. Barack Obama won. Much has been made of how the results show how divided the nation was and the legacy which may ensue.

I have been particularly struck by some of the comments of the losers – the Republican party and its supporters. I detect a kind of historical and anti-constitutional amnesia engulfing some the commentators and politicians. They should know better.

Time to get back to basics, perhaps.

I have sworn the oath of allegiance.

At the Induction Center in Kansas City I raised my right hand and said:

"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

The President swears his oath in a slightly different form:

US Constitution, Article II, Section 1

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Fine. So what exactly is the President to preserve, protect and defend? It's the Constitution stupid!

Have a look at the Preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The important part here, in this context, is “promote the general Welfare”. The Founding Fathers were no saints, they were no real democrats either. But they what they believed in - “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”.

It's the powers given by consent that they were so keen on.

We have JKK to blame for some of the confusion. His famous contention that - "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country" is exactly and precisely wrong. The men who made the constitution knew this. The only reason to give up some powers to the government is because you expect to get something back. Otherwise all bets are off.

Anything which promotes the general welfare is part and parcel of what the constitution is about. People expect that the government will do things for them. They have a perfect right to expect this.

The Republican party seems to have lost sight of this fundamental idea. Their election campaign seemed to focus on small government (or no government at all). Their attempts to equate government plans and programs with some kind of socialist plot were misguided in the extreme.

The electors know this without being told.

They want the government to help them when they are in need. They want those with lots to be taxed lots. They want opportunity for all – but not at the expense of the people suffering hardships for which they are not really responsible.

To try and pretend that these principles are wrong is unconstitutional. Simple as that.

In order to rebuild a strong Republican party (essential for having a productive debate and a real two party system) the leaders and people with influence must stop blaming the electors and examine their principles. Let's get back to basics.

Support and defend the constitution. That's the American way.