As quoted on National Public Radio, my brief comments in italics (rather long – my apologies)
On the first day of my term of office, my administration will immediately pursue the following six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, DC:
* FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress; Great! It effectively would negate the anti-democratic gerrymandering.
* SECOND, a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health). Could be very damaging; depends which programs. Already some departments, viz IRS, are severely undermanned, courtesy of Congress.
* THIRD, a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated; Depends which! Childishly simplistic.
* FOURTH, a 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service; Brilliant. Good luck with ghe Congress on that!
* FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government; Great!
* SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections. Great!
On the same day, I will begin taking the following 7 actions to protect American workers:
* FIRST, I will announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205. Again, good luck with that! Big fight with the corporations if you do!
* SECOND, I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Excellent!
* THIRD, I will direct my Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator. Excuse me?
* FOURTH, I will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately. How about starting with our own?
* FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal. Absolutely not. In any case, what is clean coal? The oil and coal lobbies have got to him already?
* SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward. Vital? Dirty, dangerous and unnecessary. Absolutely not!
* SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure. Criminal idiocy! Words fail me!
Additionally, on the first day, I will take the following five actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law:
* FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama. The next Democrat in the White House will do the same to yours. Obama has been a good President, faced with a neandertal Congress.
* SECOND, begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Disaster! Where is advocacy for the end of Citizen’s United, the under-miner of democracy for a start? Get rid of that and you might get some Democrat support. Looks like it’s here to stay.
* THIRD, cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities. These are cities, Washington DC is one, that have local ordinances supposedly protecting illegal immigrants. I don’t support lawbreaking. If you want to make protecting illegal immigrants illegal pass a law.
* FOURTH, begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back. There are criminal immigrants, but not 2 million of them. Don’t be ridiculous.
* FIFTH, suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting. They already are!
Some people thought this man could be a closet Democrat, a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Hah!
Where is the end of Citizen’s United, the under-miner of democracy for a start? Get rid of that and you might get some Democrat support.
He then has a number of legislative proposals, which I will comment on later.
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I’d like to offer my comments on these lists:
Measures to tackle DC special interests:
1. Term limits are fantastic in theory. The only disadvantage is that you would lose experienced and progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders. But overall, it will do more good than harm.
2. I agree with you Robert, a freeze is potentially dangerous.
3. Regulations can do as much good as harm. More are needed to curtail Wall Street.
4. Good in theory, but very hard to enforce.
5. Yes, to prevent a conflict of interest between the US and foreign governments.
6. Like with 4, good in theory, hard to enforce in practice.
Measure to protect American workers:
1. Potentially dangerous and damaging. America exports far more to Canada and Mexico than it used to, so it could result in huge job losses. There’s no guarantee of the offshore jobs returning if NAFTA is no more.
2. I would try to negotiate a deal that increases trade while protecting American workers at the same time. The deal in its current form I wouldn’t sign, but I don’t think we should give up on it just yet.
3. Totally absurd. Lots of countries lower the value of their currencies to boost competitiveness.
4. Much easier said than done.
5. Clean coal is an oxymoron. I think preserving the coastal cities from flooding due to rising sea levels is more important than making a quick buck off dirty fuel.
6. Goodbye Planet. It was nice knowing you.
7. I mean if we weren’t already doomed, we certainly are now. Not to mention the damage it would do to America’s standing abroad.
Measures to restore security and the constitutional rule of law:
1. The ignorance here is astounding. Not EVERYTHING Obama is was bad. Killing bin Laden for a start… Rescuing the economy from ruin was a nice extra.
2. The last thing America needs is another judge that treats the Constitution like it was literally written by God. How about a justice with common sense views, like not allowing mass ownership of dangerous weapons.
3. As you say, it would just be easier to outlaw Sanctuary Cities. A strange way to go about things.
4. I don’t know where Trump gets his stats from. Mind you, he probably doesn’t either.
5. Apart from the environmental stuff, this is the most obnoxious policy of them all. America has room to take in lots of refugees considering its size, wealth, and culture that newcomers find easy to assimilate into (being English speaking probably helps.) I’m opposed to what Germany did last year, which was to let in hundreds of thousands of people in unvetted. But America has a good vetting system, and no Democrat proposed letting in hundreds of thousands of people, just more than are being let in currently.
Overall there’s no policy here I wholeheartedly support. I look forward to tomorrow’s post!