Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

[D.W.]

While Kasandra sounds familiar, I am confused. I'm hearing Marnie's sociopolitics but Kate's poise and dignity.

With the lack of participants here I don't think we need to question the identity of past or new posters.  Not everyone chiming in is someone we already know messing with one or more of us. 

[NobleHunter]

Don't know that case but agreed that's wrong.

In the case I heard, she was an elected official, not a bureaucrat, and she was jailed even though she offered to let someone else sign the documents. 

An elected local official making a merely nominal token rejection to a new Supreme Court ruling, is federalism working as designed.  You don't have a right to silence people or force them to bow to the new tin god in town.

I don't know if it was the case that may be under discussion, but I think she refused to have her name on the license which may have made it invalid. So her attempted compromise may have still prevented the couples from getting married.

[Kasandra]

Election implies representation, and unless you are from Kentucky, you have no stake nor say in whether her actions represented the feelings of constituents.

Not sure how her feelings or those of her constituents factor into her fulfilling her role to carry out and enforce the laws under which her office is chartered.

[Pete at Home]

Don't know that case but agreed that's wrong.

In the case I heard, she was an elected official, not a bureaucrat, and she was jailed even though she offered to let someone else sign the documents. 

An elected local official making a merely nominal token rejection to a new Supreme Court ruling, is federalism working as designed.  You don't have a right to silence people or force them to bow to the new tin god in town.

I don't know if it was the case that may be under discussion, but I think she refused to have her name on the license which may have made it invalid. So her attempted compromise may have still prevented the couples from getting married.

Horse poo, and you're too smart for that, NH.

" With the lack of participants here I don't think we need to question the identity of past or new posters.  Not everyone chiming in is someone we already know messing with one or more of us"

K challenged me to guess so I guessed. Then K asked me to stop guessing so I stopped. What's the problem?


@K, I have already answered that:
" Your analysis assumes totalitarian efficiency and fails to appreciate that the inefficient safety valves of a representative federalist system keep a large country from blowing apart without the mind numbing  might makes right nationalism of Russia or the systematic fact suppression of the People's Republic of China. For Frack sake let it go.  As Mr Burns said, "let the fools have their tar tar sauce.". Left washed suppression of dissent in respectable places is what gave us Trump and the Apt Right.  And as someone recently said, things are going to get worse before they get better."

[Seriati]

How about the right not to discriminated against based on race, religion, sex or sexual orientation?

Let's.  What is your right not be discriminated against based on race, religion, sex or sexual orientation, and who does it protect you from?  Generally speaking it applies directly to your interactions with the government, but otherwise it's been filtered through innumerable interpretations. 

And why is that?  Because these rights are often in direct conflict with each other.  The baker case is a good to highlight that, religion versus sexual orientation, only one of those is in the Constitution, yet somehow "right thinking" people believe the other should be given primacy.

There are other examples, you cite a few:

How long before someone says that they don't need to rent to a person, sell to a person, or allow in a public place a person because they are of the wrong race, religion, sex or sexual orientation and there are "separate but equal" (i.e. other) facilities they can use?  That the hovel down the street is just as good as the nice apartment they are renting?

Of course discrimination in housing is long settled law.  Your fears would require a bigger shift than any President can manage, even if he replaced several SC justices.  And the backlash would be tremendous if they did.

It's not as clear cut though as it appears.  You can't discriminate on race in housing, right?   Can't refuse to rent an apartment based on race, right?  Can't refuse to rent a hotel room, right?  Of course not.  But you can refuse to rent a room in your house based on race or another prohibited basis, why the difference?  Because, that protection against discrimination can't overwhelm the Constitutional rights of the homeowner.  Would that be decided the same way in the post Baker world?  Maybe not.

While I respect a person's religious beliefs, just how different is not selling them a cake from not selling them food, or renting them a house, or allowing them in their schools?

Selling a cake?  Not different at all.  Preparing a wedding cake and delivering it to a wedding, very.  I mean honestly, its a basic tenant of our law that you can not force someone to do work for you, even if they sign a contract you can not make them actually show up.   You can sue for damages (but you have to mitigate), but personal services are inviolate.  How is it then that you can force some to spend hours on custom building a product for you?  I think you are under the mistaken impression that they would be making the cake anyway?   Or that it's no big deal for them to make it?  But neither of those has ever been the test.  I can't force someone to dig my ditch if they decide not to, whether or not they take that Saturday off or build someone else's ditch.  I certainly can't force someone to sign a contract with me.  Except, now under this interpretation I can do so, and if they refuse to sign a contract and work for me, I not only don't have to mitigate (which is literally an economic test entitling me to the difference in costs), I can punish them by adding on non-contractual damages and even force them to close?

[Seriati]

Same question as my noble predecessor AI Wessex asked, chefs are artists of a different sort, but not much different from a pastry/cake chef.  Can they refuse to serve a gay customer if s/he requests to leave the mushrooms out of the risotto?

What a bizarre formulation.  Do they have a religious object to mixing mushrooms and risotto?

The relevant test is whether and when they can treat a gay customer differently.   If they have a policy of agreeing to leave the mushrooms out, except that they won't do modifications if you're gay, that would be discrimination.  If they had a policy of not making any modifications even if you're gay, then no.

Note this is different from a pharmacist refusing to sell a commodity to a customer, which should never be allowed to happen.  Odd that recent court tests rule in favor of the pharmacist and against the pastry chef.

I'm still debating the Pharmacist issue.  I don't think a Pharmacy should be able to deny a medicine to a customer, not sure about a Pharmacist.  Of course, to implement that a Pharmacy would have to be able to hire on a discriminatory basis to ensure that they have a Pharmacist who will issue the meds.

[Seriati]

While Kasandra sounds familiar, I am confused. I'm hearing Marnie's sociopolitics but Kate's poise and dignity.

With the lack of participants here I don't think we need to question the identity of past or new posters.  Not everyone chiming in is someone we already know messing with one or more of us. 

I didn't think it was supposed to be a mystery, he announced the name change and referenced the old handle in the new account.

[D.W.]

It's just a game that's been going on since I first made an account here.  People posing as others for either their own entertainment, to annoy others, to get around a ban or to carry out both sides of a conversation.  Now granted, that's mostly what others have accused people of.  I don't know how much of that has actually occurred.

I find it all fairly juvenile.  The above may not apply at all.  I was playing catch-up on the posts after the long weekend.  I just wanted to vent a little frustration at this "game" potentially cropping up again.

[Fenring]

I find it all fairly juvenile.  The above may not apply at all.  I was playing catch-up on the posts after the long weekend.  I just wanted to vent a little frustration at this "game" potentially cropping up again.

In fact, I may even cancel my Fenring account just to show I'm done with this game. It's been fun but I'll stick to the D.W. account from now on and no more funny business.








(just kidding D.W.  )

[Kasandra]

What a bizarre formulation.  Do they have a religious object to mixing mushrooms and risotto?

OK, pick some ingredients that would tweak a religious conservative (or wiccan or animist) to refuse on the relevant grounds.  Personally, I think mushrooms are wonderful in risotto.  Not sure about entrails, though.

[Kasandra]

I didn't think it was supposed to be a mystery, he announced the name change and referenced the old handle in the new account.

I find the whole thing mysterious.  Mod disabled my old account at my request.  As you can tell from Pete's responses, I am sounding much more mature and reasonable now, so it was a good move. Let all heed, or woe is I!

[Pete at Home]

True that, but I noticed that shift in you after a few posts after I came back.  But, yes, the name change helps too because even though you had regained something and perhaps gained even more, I was stuck in old ruts and quarrels. So instead of welcome forward. You're still wrong, but you're all right by me

[Kasandra]

Thanks, I appreciate that (I think), but it is no matter, only talk.

[Seriati]

What a bizarre formulation.  Do they have a religious object to mixing mushrooms and risotto?

OK, pick some ingredients that would tweak a religious conservative (or wiccan or animist) to refuse on the relevant grounds.  Personally, I think mushrooms are wonderful in risotto.  Not sure about entrails, though.

To what end?  If they have a religious objection to an ingredient it won't be on the menu at all, regardless of your sexual orientation.  For your hypo to make sense, there has to be a discrimination between the two customers with respect to customizing a dish. 

[Kasandra]

To what end?  If they have a religious objection to an ingredient it won't be on the menu at all, regardless of your sexual orientation.  For your hypo to make sense, there has to be a discrimination between the two customers with respect to customizing a dish.

I give up.  You are obstinately stubborn on this and will fabricate an objection for any counter case.  If you go back to my original hypothesis, it was that a gay couple requested a change to the dish and the chef refused, not that the change itself was objectionable.  That is equivalent to the baker refusing to make a cake for a gay customer, not refusing to use an ingredient that he objected to.  Good grief! 

[Seriati]

So you posit that the chef is willing to remove the mushrooms for straight customers, but not gay?  The law is clear on that being active discrimination and illegal. 

My point is that you have to show a conflict of rights, where is the chef's protected right that is in conflict?

[Kasandra]

So you posit that the chef is willing to remove the mushrooms for straight customers, but not gay?  The law is clear on that being active discrimination and illegal. 

My point is that you have to show a conflict of rights, where is the chef's protected right that is in conflict?

Where is the baker's?  He and his many supporters argued that his rights were being denied because he wasn't allowed to deny service because he objects to homosexuality.  Give an example where it is justified for a service provider to deny that service based on their own religious (or moral) beliefs.

[Pete at Home]

Wasn't there a case in West Carolina where a Rastatologist chef said it was against his religion to remove mushrooms from a gay couple's food?

[Kasandra]

Were they religious mushrooms?

[Seriati]

So you posit that the chef is willing to remove the mushrooms for straight customers, but not gay?  The law is clear on that being active discrimination and illegal. 

My point is that you have to show a conflict of rights, where is the chef's protected right that is in conflict?

Where is the baker's?

The baker has a religious objection to gay weddings.  Providing a wedding cake is a customized product that requires hours of individualized attention, requires coordination to deliver properly and requires participation to a limited extent in the event.

I don't agree with the baker, I don't see how anyone's religion could be so restrictive, but I acknowledge that I am not the interpreter of someone else's religious commitments and beliefs.  Unless you dispute that it was a legitimately held belief, which is where your "example" is strained, what exactly are you confused about?

He and his many supporters argued that his rights were being denied because he wasn't allowed to deny service because he objects to homosexuality.  Give an example where it is justified for a service provider to deny that service based on their own religious (or moral) beliefs.

Literally, as I said before, no one can be forced to provide personal services.  It's settled law.  So basically, every single employment situation is subject to personal beliefs. 

I can never tell with you, why you insist on making absurd analogies.  It's like you want to make an argument to absurdity but since you miss the point and the real issue your argument doesn't work.

[Pete at Home]

Were they religious mushrooms?

That's precisely the question that SCOTUS needs to rule on.  That's why the Republicans have been feverishly blocking Barry's appointments in hopes of a more favorable appointment by Scarecrow.

[scifibum]

Accelerating growth in national deficit. 

That's about all I feel confident about.

My prediction was right!

[cherrypoptart]

Looks like I called this one right:

"3. Gun sales start to level off or maybe even decrease instead of the massive spike we've seen under Obama."

https://www.newsweek.com/gun-sales-down-after-obama-boom-years-573170

Gun Sales Down After Obama Boom Years
By Cristina Silva On 3/23/17 at 3:36 PM

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Say what you want about Obama but he was the best gun salesman in American history. Gotta give him credit where it's due.

What could Trump do better here? Maybe next year he could tweet about how he's had a change of heart and he's going to issue an executive order banning gun sales so if people want guns they'd better stock up fast. Then the next day when the calendar rolls over to April 2nd he just laughs because that was a good one, and helped the gun manufacturers get a little bump too which is good for the economy.

[Greg Davidson]

Hey, thanks for pulling this up:

This prediction was right on target - 3-4% growth based on the stimulus of a tax cut on the 1% that pushes the deficit up to almost $1T/year:

I can hope for all the positives here, including many that cherry mentioned, and 3%-4% growth sounds great. The ability to increase the deficit with higher government spending can get that much growth or more, as it did with Reagan.  But I suspect that the deficit will increase dramatically based primarily on tax cuts on the 1%... Deficit spending will go up to just shy of $1T per year (fraudulently justified because of the "Obama deficits" that Obama inherited from Bush), and with a limited fraction of that being additional government spending

Here's another one that's pretty darn prescient

I expect that there will be tangible, actual evidence of the crimes that Hillary Clinton was accused of but never proven, but that evidence will be about Donald Trump and members of his Administration.  I believe that President Trump will unintentionally reveal classified information (and significant information, not something like a Snowden news article). I believe that there will be a number of financial/graft indictments/convictions similar to under Reagan (or US Grant if you want to go that far back). And I believe that no one who expressed concern about Hillary Clinton with regard to classified information or corruption will spend 1/100th the amount of time an energy on those topics when they occur in a Trump Administration.

[cherrypoptart]

I agreed with you all about the debt and deficit going up under Trump. He seems to have a real estate investor's approach to debt and figure it's great because it gives you leverage especially if you can take on debt at low interest rates and make much more in profits but I don't think it works the same way for the federal budget as it does for flipping houses or building hotels. If it only goes up as much as it did under Obama, that may not be a win but it's a draw. It'd be nice if it went down but that's not likely no matter who is in charge anymore. It seems like Trump promised he'd get rid of the national debt within 8 years so it's too soon to say whether that's a lie or not although but I think it will be but I guess this is the wrong thread for that and I overstayed my welcome over there anyway.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bob-woodward-book-trump-federal-debt-printing-money-2018-9

[Fenring]

I seem to have been wrong so far in guessing that Trump would veer towards center and upset everyone. Or at least I was wrong that he would veer center...

Turns out he hasn't veered anywhere and resides in the same mental space he inhabited while campaigning.

[TheDrake]

Looks like I called this one right:

"3. Gun sales start to level off or maybe even decrease instead of the massive spike we've seen under Obama."

https://www.newsweek.com/gun-sales-down-after-obama-boom-years-573170

Gun Sales Down After Obama Boom Years
By Cristina Silva On 3/23/17 at 3:36 PM

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Say what you want about Obama but he was the best gun salesman in American history. Gotta give him credit where it's due.

What could Trump do better here? Maybe next year he could tweet about how he's had a change of heart and he's going to issue an executive order banning gun sales so if people want guns they'd better stock up fast. Then the next day when the calendar rolls over to April 2nd he just laughs because that was a good one, and helped the gun manufacturers get a little bump too which is good for the economy.

So a bunch of jackass redneck deporables got scared by nra propaganda? And trump made them slightly calmer? wow big win

[TheDeamon]

I seem to have been wrong so far in guessing that Trump would veer towards center and upset everyone. Or at least I was wrong that he would veer center...

Turns out he hasn't veered anywhere and resides in the same mental space he inhabited while campaigning.

I think he made an attempt at doing so, but was solidly rebuffed by the Democrats and the Tea Party Caucus alike, so he reverted to form and hasn't made an attempt since.

My prediction for the "real" switch always kind of presumed it would happen after the mid-term, particularly in the event Dems get control of at least the House. At which point the Dems are going to have a harder time saying no.

[Greg Davidson]

I think he made an attempt at doing so, but was solidly rebuffed by the Democrats and the Tea Party Caucus alike, so he reverted to form and hasn't made an attempt since

This may describe your thinking but not reality. Can you name the specific "veer to the center" policy approach that Trump proposed after in office that was "solidly rebuffed" by Democrats?