POLITICS President Trump: 100+ Mornings After (Term 1 Complete)

Bigly.

 

People would rather waste time [itch bay]ing about Russia than look at what has been done.

 

I don't like virtually anything he's done. That is a pretty common opinion.

 

That's fair. I don't like everything he's done

 

That seems to include Trump.

 

Fair.

What are the least pleasing things he's done, IYO?

 

Illegal participation in the Paris Climate Accord? Is there something unique within our legal system/constitution that makes participating illegal on our part but legal on the part of every state on earth bar Nicaragua and Syria? Or is everyone complicit in this unprecedented law breaking?

 

Paris climate agreement, absence in international affairs frequently, epa protections gutted, steel tariffs, solar tariffs, budget, several executive orders, handling of offshore oil, constant lying about even minor things, not filling or nominating people to important posts, nominating unqualified people to others with conflicts of interest, wasting money on personal travel and parades, everything about his education policies and actions, and most of all his blatant nepotism which is completely unamerican.

 

The Paris Climate Accord (and the Iran Nuclear Deal, for those scoring at home) are treaties.

Our Constitution perfectly defines the necessary process of ratifying treaties.

Obama intentionally usurped that due and necessary process, simply because he knew that it could not pass with 2/3rds of the Senate's support, and as the Constitution requires.

Or, more succinctly and far better explained than anything I can say, on both the Paris Accords and Iran Nuclear Deal:

Did the Obama Admin intentionally seek to do whatever it wanted, in opposition to the Constitution, by merely employing the genius-level logic that you could simply change what you called it, and proceed?

This is, after all, the same Admin who didn't want to call the Obamacare penalty a tax...although it was the compulsory payment of money to the Federal government.

As it's often impossible to determine intent, here's what then SecofState John Kerry said in response to the Obama Admin not submitting the Paris Climate Accord for Senate approval, and you can draw your own conclusions:

1. As the Paris Climate Accord bound the US to observe certain agreements with foreign governments, it was a treaty, by even the strictest and careful interpretation.

2. The Constitution says that the Senate has to ratify any treaty with 2/3rds vote.

3. Obama neither sought nor received this Senatorial approval.

4. The binding of our government in the confines of an unapproved treaty was unconstitutional, and hence, illegal.

For some, there's no good time to have it pointed out that Trump's ability to simply pull out of it was only made possible because Obama didn't pursue the Constitutionally required path of ratifying it as a treaty. Had Obama done that, and as the Constitution required, our continued participation would have been assured and protected with all manners of additional provisions for it's rescission, and which Trump would have similarly had to gain 2/3rds vote of the Senate, to withdraw.

Had he done it correctly, and as the Constitution prescribed, Trump's hands would have been tied, and we'd likely still be in it.

He didn't. Trump could and did withdraw, and he was perfectly correct in so doing, certainly from a Constitutional perspective, at the very least.

Link: https://www.nationalreview.com/2017...-deal-unratified-treaties-trump-should-leave/

 

Are these in any order or rank of unpleasantness?

 

Wait the guy that wanted Sanders doesn’t like protectionism in the market when Trump does it?

 

Here's another way of saying it, more bluntly:

It was only possible to support our joining or remaining in the Paris Climate Accord by removing the preeminence of the United Stated Constitution as the framework of our laws, our nation and of democracy, itself.

Perhaps some believe and will argue that such was necessary, but ultimately, there really is no other possible conclusion to be found.

 

Actually, there is no part of the Constitution regarding whether or not the president can unilaterally remove the U.S. from a treaty, so Trump may have been able to do so anyway based upon Goldwater vs. Carter. The status of Paris Accords as an executive agreement, not a treaty, is still probably a case Obama would have won, but it was much less effective without submitting it to Congress. It was still a poor idea to remove ourselves from the agreement and the rest of the world has moved on without us.

 

To some extent it definitely does.

 

Thanks for the informative posts. I tentatively agree with respect to legality. As for whether or not it was the right thing to do, I can't say.

 

I didn't say I was against all protectionism. I specifically named two tariffs. Why are you making up positions for me (that I liked all protectionism, and now I don't like any)?

 

Not sure it's common opinion that people don't like virtually anything he has done.

 

What protectionisms do you like?

 

1. What does any of this have to do with me personally wanting the US to participate in the Paris Agreement? Nothing. You asked what I didn't like and I answered.

2. What is binding about the agreement? Nothing. You are creating a false narrative to suit your purposes.

 

No, and those are just the ones that rolled off the top of my head.