Let's start guessing Trump cabinet picks

Agreed. However, the Constitution is interpreted in strange ways:
(1) Is the Constitution a living document?
(2) Or should the Constitution be interpreted strictly as the framers intended? (this one seems logical)

Also, people get confused about what their Constitutional rights are. For example, free speech means that:
(1) The government cannot lock you up for exercising your freedom of speech (excluding the fire clause).
(2) However, your employer can legally fire you for exercising your freedom of speech.

But getting back to your original complaint: Yes, it's wrong to allow the government (federal, state, city or county) to seize property:
(1) Without making an arrest
(2) Without charging someone with a crime i.e. without having probable cause that a crime has occurred or is about to occur.

Maybe a lawyer can explain the Constitutional legal reasoning of civil asset forfeitures without requiring probable cause?

 

Shots fired from the ACLU on Sessions and Pompeo!

 

Sessions is also, apparently, not without his own questionable past.

 

If Trump selects Bannon, then he will be good for the United States. Also, a transition official says Trump will make Mike Huckabee ambassador to Israel and will move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

Here is the article:
Transition official says Trump will make Mike Huckabee ambassador to Israel and move U.S. embassy to Jerusalem: 'Governor Huckabee is going to see it through' | Daily Mail Online

Moving the U.S embassy to Jerusalem is unprecedented (in a good way) and it clearly shows that Trump isn't racist. LOL

 

Huckabee has reportedly denied this. But that's today. New day, new rumors.

 

For starters, I never said Trump was racist. I said Bannon was racist. But even if I had said Trump was racist then moving the embassy to Jerusalem certainly doesn't clearly show anything about his attitudes toward race.

Trumps daughter and son in law practice Orthodox Judaism. The problem is that an appreciable portion of the US Jewish population is somewhat critical of the current Israeli regime and feels that Netanyahu has crossed that line from self defense to being an aggressor. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem isn't so much a move to bolster Israel as it is to stick a finger in the eye of Palestine.

Of course, we shall see if you think it is so funny when moronic actions like that cause the next war.

 

Yeah, threatening to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it isn't racist. Saying that Mexicans are a bunch of rapists isn't racist.

 

Ted, that is very astute of you to note that. You are correct. Also, one of the prime Constitutional functions of the federal government is protection of the borders.

Ted, who said that A-L-L Mexicans are rapists? Can you please provide a YouTube to provide context? Pray tell? Actual words spoken are very important.

 

Note that you added the wordA-L-L, not me.

 

Ted, thank you kindly for acknowledging that Donald Trump did not say that all Mexicans are rapists. The contextual distinction is politically, legally and morally important.

 

So who, exactly, is racist? I think Avenue Q got it right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMeU_szhZ6E

 

These days, anyone who disagrees with the left is labeled racist.

 

I agree! That's why the Dems are losing the blue collar workers.

 

The more outsiders and less professional career RePukes the better.

 

A wall is a race? Mexican is a race?

 

It's an interesting problem. But I don't see our country as even divided as "the left" and "the right" as some people would prefer.

Look at the UVA situation. A college, founded by Jefferson, up in arms over quoting Jefferson because he owned slaves.

Somewhere along the lines people picked up the mistaken notion that historical figures should be characterized only by their personal failings. So everything that Jefferson did that was good should be wiped away because he also owned slaves. That would mean that Washington should be excised from our sense of national pride as well. We'd also need to shun virtually every U.S. President up until around Nixon for overt racism.

This, somehow, is preferable to saying that, particularly in historical contexts, that people are complicated and societal values shift over time and that Jefferson, Roosevelt, Washington and many others said and did many great things while also doing other things that are not worthy of emulation.

The result is a boy who cries wolf sort of situation. You call the professor who accuses you of plagiarism a racist, for some reason, or the professor who had the audacity to say that schools shouldn't specifically ban racist costumes because students should be allowed to make adult decisions rather than having adults tell them what is and is not appropriate, and the word loses its impact when you use it on an actual racist.

 

According to many on the left, we should shun every President until Obama, and then obviously Donald Trump, even though he hasn't even taken office yet.

 

I consider myself a centrist in many areas. I'm "liberal" on some social issues (same sex marriage, for example). But I'm more of a fiscal conservative.

I don't think it serves anyone's interest to try to label everyone a racist. And I am disappointed to see people saying that they don't, in fact, care to understand the POV of white working class Americans. I mean, I get feeling raw because your candidate lost. But we are one country and we should try to find some common ground with folks.

Problem is that special interest groups have pitted people against one another. We all want jobs. We all want education. We all want safety. Unfortunately we've been fed lies about how war, pumping billions into corporate welfare and fearmongering (both sides) can help us do any of this.

At the end of the day, Trump won. Not what I would have scripted if I could write out an ideal scenario. Then again, in an ideal world, it wouldn't have been between Hillary and Trump. But he's got the job. Hoping for his failure is counterproductive. I hope he succeeds. If he does then we all succeed. I don't want him to fail just so I can have some "told you so" rights at the end of four years.