The court scholar serving Hermann of Thuringia.

The court scholar serving Hermann of Thuringia.
The scholar

2019/05/25

Jon Voight and the President's record

The actor Jon Voight has a very high opinion of President Trump: "our country is stronger [&] safer... because our president has made his every move correct."

Stronger? Since 1976, views on pregnancy/abortion haven't changed much. The pro-choicers have consistently outnumbered anti-choicers by about 2 to 1, yet anti-choicers have been strengthened by this President (and by Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader who saw to it that the Supreme Court was not turned liberal by preventing the seating of Judge Merrick Garland) to the point where there are "soaring incidents of trespassing, disruption, and intimidation at abortion clinics." The President has gone all-in on supporting anti-choicers. How is this sort of divisive political action making us stronger?

Safer? Looking at a public opinion poll that examined international attitudes towards the US, there are only three countries that view the US in a more favorable light than they did at the end of the Obama Presidency, Israel, Kenya and Russia. The rest of the world, including long-time allies, view us less favorably.
Also, the US has an intelligence-sharing program with four other countries, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, that is now endangered by the President giving Attorney General William Barr complete authority to investigate how the Mueller Report originated.
How on Earth does any of this count as making us any safer?!?!?!

"Trump claims he is hard at work during ‘Executive Time’"

Hmm. Let's examine the evidence, shall we?

President claims the US was in awful shape before he took office. He lists all the problems and "improvements" he's made.

*Depleted Military
    - No, the military was in fine shape.

*Endless Wars
    -What exactly has he done about those? He's tried to abruptly pull out of Syria, but his lack of real preparation for doing so has led people to believe that he's headed for disaster. ISIS is doing very poorly, but it was doing poorly before January 2017.

*a potential War with North Korea
     - the President did far more to heat up the situation with North Korea than the previous president did. Things were relatively peaceful and stable under Obama.

*V.A.
    - Has anything about the VA been fixed under this president?

*High Taxes
    - Taxes are now higher for those with modest incomes. For the wealthy, taxes are more satisfactory.

*too many Regulations
    - remember the problems with Romaine Lettuce? Caused by insufficient regulations.

*Border, Immigration
     - In 2013, the Senate passed a bill they were reasonably satisfied with. When it got to the House, it was filed away and forgotten. Nothing has been done to revive that earlier deal.

*HealthCare
    - The Republican-run Senate tried to pass a grossly inferior bill. Citizen outrage and a few courageous Republican senators stopped it.

Nah, he can't justify all of his unstructured "executive time."