Curb Your Authoritarianism? The 2016 Conventional Wisdom Thread (Elections, Part 6)

how exactly does Trump think restricting press access is going to help him at all? anyone he restricts is going to go whole hog anti-Trump as a result.

we have a whole thread on it, but it's not so much that repeal "will never happen" as that repealing an amendment is among the most difficult feats to achieve in our political system and there are easier feats that would do almost equal good, such as getting a good case in front of a liberal majority Supreme Court to overturn Heller.

He's not trying to win supporters though. He just wants to consolidate the echo chamber.

It's a losing strategy for sure, but he's a loser.

Are there people who support repealing the second amendment while also agreeing with the Heller reading? I'm not American and haven't studied this closely. The Heller reading seems at least grammatically plausible to me, although I agree that it results in a completely insane law, especially when assault weapons are added to the equation.

The Second Amendment actually strikes me as a perfect illustration of the limits of textualism, specifically the debate over how the "well-regulated militia" clause is supposed to impact the whole. I think both arguments on that point are equally plausible -- it limits the scope of the amendment vs it merely explains the reason for the amendment.

Are there people who support repealing the second amendment while also agreeing with the Heller reading? I'm not American and haven't studied this closely. The Heller reading seems at least grammatically plausible to me, although I agree that it results in a completely insane law, especially when assault weapons are added to the equation.

― jmm, Tuesday, June 14, 2016 3:29 PM (13 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's more to it than the grammar. literally no one whose opinion is worth a damn agrees with the heller reading. the argument was made out of whole cloth a few decades ago and unfortunately there were 5 nutcases on the supreme court at the time the case came up.

Re: Trump's press blockade, in simple terms, Trump is a fucking moron. He makes up his own rules on the fly without ever considering the consequences. Sadly, this has worked out in his favor to a pretty great extent, but some people have made the mistake of attributing this tendency to strategic brilliance or an indication that he's smarter than he seems. Happily, I think these notions will be pretty clearly dispelled among all but his most faithful by November.

It's such a goddamn shame that broad swaths of the country that won't listen to a word he says just because he's the one saying it. oh they will listen to the part where he wants to take away all their gunz of course

And the part where he describes Islam as one of the great world religions because he am secret moslem who are actually terrorist of USA.

keep talkin: http://www.sfgate.com/local/politics/article/Fire-breathing-remarks-are-burning-Trump-in-the-8132531.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-chris-christie-manservant-mcdonalds

"During a campaign event last month in New Jersey, Trump commanded Christie, who was off camera, to stop eating Oreo cookies."

Christie is so pathetic

that's got to be one of this campaign's great moments, I'd wager

oreos thing is so beautiful

the second amendment is (or should be) basically a historical curio with no more contemporary interest or relevance than the third amendment (the one about quartering soldiers in your home). this article has some useful background on how the insane NRA/scalia reading of the amendment gradually took hold:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856

Man I wish that Christie story had come out earlier because "Stop eating Oreo cookies" would be an amazing thread title

By the time he's the veep pick we'll need a new thread title

Every time Trump says something even more disgraceful than the last thing I read, I remember all the Republicans who have publicly lined up behind him and my tummy does a little happy dance

the thing is, trump won't win, but the less likely he is to win, the more he'll up the ante on his craziness, b/c he can't stand to lose. this is going to get uglier and uglier.

i will not be surprised when in november, when he loses, he calls for armed insurrection.

http://i.imgur.com/qqtgpye.jpg

would also not be surprised if this all ends w/ the secret service having to investigate trump for making terroristic threats. (which he has effectively done already.)

The late chief justice Warren Burger, no friend to liberalism and not by any stretch a judicial eminence, said not long before his death, "[The Second Amendment] has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word 'fraud,' on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."

said this upthread but wouldn't be surprised at all if Cruz refuses to endorse Trump (why should he? it would gain him nothing) with an eye on 2020.

If Lyin' Ted refuses to endorse, that may be interpreted as an endorsement; he should endorse, followed by a quick reminder that he's a helpless liar.

Lyin' Ted attempts endorsement, founders upon the venerable liars paradox.

Finally, gawker Trump descriptions in list form:

Seagull dipped in tikka masala
Bursting landfill of municipal solid waste
Mountain of rotting whale blubber
Sputum-filled Orange Julius
Gangrenous gaping wound
Racist, sexist block of aged Cheddar
Oversized wasp exoskeleton stuffed with old mustard
Neo-fascist real estate golem
Abandoned roadside ham hock
Bewildered, golden-helmeted astronaut who’s just landed on this planet from a distant galaxy
Monument to human hubris crafted out of rotting Spam
A walking pile of reanimated roadkill
Heaving carcass
Stately hot dog casing
Flatulent leather couch
Swollen earthworm gizzard
Narcissistic bowl of rotten gazpacho
Yellowing hunk of masticated gristle
A human/Komodo dragon hybrid
Blackening scab artfully hiding in your Raisin Bran
“Taco truck”
A man who could one day become the first hobgoblin to enter the White House
A pair of chapped lips superglued to a hairball
Horsehair mattress stuffed with molding copies of Hustler
Malignant corn chip
Human Kinder Egg whose inner surprise is a tiny pebble of rat shit
The sculpture your three-year-old made out of soggy ground-up goldfish snacks
A man with the hair of a radioactive skunk
Roiling Cheez Whiz mass
Cryogenically frozen bog man
A glistening, shouting gristle mass with a history of saying terrible and stupid things
Screaming giant cheese wedge
Republican frontrunner and 250-pound accumulation of rancid beef
Day-Glo roadside billboard about jock itch
Temperamental gelatinous sponge
Sentient hate-balloon
A Rumpelstiltskin inflated with a bike pump and filled with bacteria
Sun-kissed ass plug
Self-tanning enthusiast
An enraged, bewigged fetus blown up to nightmarish size
Parental pile of burnt organic material
Human-shaped wad of Gak
Walking irradiated tumor
Uncooked chicken breast
KKK rally port-a-potty holding tank
Neon-tinted hellion
A plentiful field of dung piled into the shape of a presidential candidate
Malfunctioning wind turbine
Seeping fleabag
Sloshing styrofoam takeout container filled with three-day-old mac and cheese
A sticky, grabby, Cheeto-hued toddler with no sense of adult deportment
Figurative rubber, and also literal rubber
A carnivorous plant watered with irradiated bat urine
Sentient waste disposal plant
A disappointment
Poorly-drawn fascist
Racist teratoma
Lamprey eel spray-painted gold
A hair that you pluck, causing a cluster of hairs to sprout in its place
Sunken, corroding soufflé
Nacho cheese golem
Undead tangerine
A cartoon representation of Irritable Bowel Syndrome in a pharmaceutical ad
Fossilized meatball
Horking mole-creature suffering from radioactive spray-tan
Tattered Craigslist sofa
A full-grown Monopoly dog carefully balancing a spongecake atop his head
Play-Doh factory explosion
A new superfood made of finely-ground clown wigs
Unkempt troll doll found floating facedown in a tub of rancid Beluga caviar

Seagull dipped in tikka masala
Bursting landfill of municipal solid waste
Mountain of rotting whale blubber

Captain Beefheart sure could be vicious!

dinah shore's shoes

Seagull dipped in tikka masala

I'd surprised if you follow Welsh news reports over there, but it's a reference to this. This passes for news in Wales.

facebook mate, it's worldwide, orange fuckin bird

"Stop eating Oreo cookies" is the new "please clap"

Captain Beefheart sure could be vicious!

LOL

I really hate Ted Cruz but his shade game is on point

otm, dude is bringing a very cold game to the table

Captain Beefheart sure could be vicious!

LOL seconded. A+

running Hillary's twitter acct seems like a fun job

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/742894093366333440

The Song Remains The Same
http://web.archive.org/web/20071213024912/http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2007/12/hillary-on-obama-fear-and-hatr.html

A lot of people are saying Trump has tiny man-baby hands.

"The clarity between the two nominees is very clear." – Herman Cain, introducing Trump just now

lol @ Return of Cain

it's the best clarity, so clear, you won't believe it

https://twitter.com/RosieGray/status/743109707263533057

Rosie Gray
‏@RosieGray

Cain: "this sounds like a shucky-ducky kind of crowd on a shucky-ducky kind of day, here to support an awww-shucky ducky kind of candidate"

Trump/Cain please please please

can totally see Trump selecting Cain to prove he's not a racist, has the best African Americans etc.

he's an ideal VP pick

one thing we really need is for an accomplished neurosurgeon to play Stepin Fetchit to a racist toupee running for President

Cain sells pizzas iirc