see, i'm not even going to try to understand how a corruption case about a canadian construction firm's behaviour in libya is about indigenous rights or feminism.

the discourse is pathetic.

if you want to take the president to court over whether this is a national emergency or not, you have to understand the question in front of the court, and i expect that the democrats are going to fuck this up because they have a history of politicizing it.

the first murmurs i've heard are saying things like "it's a collapse of the separation of powers!" and "he's just trying to overturn congress!".

true. probably.

but, this can never be a question in front of a serious judge. in a sense, it doesn't even fucking matter why he's doing it. the judiciary cannot second guess the president! that, itself, would be a collapse in the separation of powers, and if it's the argument the democrats move forward with then they're going to lose.

as it was with the travel ban, you have to accept the premise, because the court has no jurisdiction to challenge it. if the president says there's a national emergency, then there's a national emergency. period. it doesn't matter if it's stupid, the president has executive power, and you have to deal with that.

the question before the court is not going to be whether there's a national emergency, or whether he's being racist, or whether he's overturning congress, but whether his actions are a rational means to address the national emergency. and, the way he words the things is going to be important.

so, let's say he decides that there's a national emergency because drugs are coming in through the border. it doesn't matter that this isn't true. what matters is whether a wall is a rational means to address it - and it's actually not hard to show that it isn't, so long as you understand that's what you're supposed to do.

everybody can intuitively grasp that he shouldn't be able to do this, but you're actually wrong - in theory this is well within his executive power. what the judiciary can do is hold him accountable in the sense of making sure he's not being irrational. but, the president is the president, and the judiciary is the judiciary, and democrats have to make sure they understand what the different roles are before they fuck this up.

my odds are 2:1 that they fuck it up.

3. If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

so, i slept all day tuesday and i slept all day wednesday - i was up in spurts, never more than a few hours at a time - and now i feel like i'm alert, after walking up early this morning.

i really don't know...

i can still save the week if i get everything properly organized by monday.

apparently, this guy was a bus driver before he was president.

he's not exactly a rhodes scholar.

what i said was:

if the americans wanted to get rid of maduro, they'd run an oil blockade for five minutes and watch the military take over. 
(http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2019/01/if-americans-wanted-to-get-rid-of.html)

i've said that more than once, and i had to go back to check the language - i did say blockade, which is good, because it's what i meant.

a blockade is not an economic policy. it's not sanctions. a blockade is a military policy that means physically sending ships to venezuela to stop the movement of oil out of the country. and, while it is an act of war, the venezuelans would be insane to carry it through to it's logical conclusion. the venezuelan military would intervene after roughly five minutes.

so long as venezuela has a way to export the oil, it will at least try to do so. and, right now, america does not appear to have the standing - or the diplomatic ability - to stop that from happening. they're just stuck lookng at a nuclear-armed india down the barrel of a gun and saying "or else".

or else what?

not much, frankly.

but, the answer is to keep waiting. venezuela is simply too reliant on the united states for any scheme like this to last very long, and if maduro was more intelligent then he'd realize that and step away.

game theory assumes a rational opponent; you sometimes have to adjust for irrationality, but stupidity cannot overturn inevitability. and, there is simply no way out.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelas-maduro-shows-no-sign-of-leaving-now-what-11550097501

there are laws against aiding a terrorist group, and anybody trying to enter canada after joining isis should be charged under them.

further, if the existing laws do not have the proper strength or jurisdiction to land anybody trying to enter the country in jail, they should be altered so that they do.

i've been clear that i would like to limit the amount of support we provide to refugees, or at least subject them to the same criteria we have for immigrants. we can argue over that. but, i don't think that arguing over whether we should provide a safe-haven for terrorists is in the realm of reasonable discourse.

i simply don't see any argument for tolerance on this point.