Another example of the haphazard throw-it-against-the-wall approach of what our country has chosen to have as our national experiment. This cannot be good for either side. Do we want to live in a system where if you hadn't been paying attention to the news for 1 week, we might have kicked >100,000 people out of the country? Is this ADD-style, whoever yells the loudest, social and political system working well for any…
At least we haven't had a govt shutdown for a while, can't be long until the next one.
U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas
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Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas
#72Whether or not they know it, this administration is constantly floating out test balloons for outright evil nonsense... and I think some of it slips through simply because everyone's exhausted by it. It's going to take at least a decade to fix what they've broken at this point, and if they end up appointing just 1 more Supreme Court justice it's going to take the rest of our lives. I still see people (people I know e…
> Whether or not they know it They know exactly what they're doing. Trump plays the ignorant fool so cruel and heartless policies can be put in place efficiently, and supportive policies can be undone efficiently. I don't think Trump is a bright individual, but he is definitely accomplishing what he set out to accomplish. Most people just aren't used to a president actively undermining their own country.
Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Executive branch is overpowered partially because the senate refuses to do its job. The original intent was for the senate to be slower moving and "cool" house legislation leading to slower moving governing structures. Over time, the executive branch was given additional power to "get stuff done", and we find ourselves in the situation we have today.
On the other hand.. the overreach of the executive branch is a response to the political deadlock in the legislative branch. If we end up in a situation where neither branch can respond quickly and effectively, that may be worse than what we have now.
Disagree. The political deadlock of the legislative branch is by design. Only things that are truly broadly supported should pass through the legislature.
The overreach of the executive branch is a response to complete and utter inaction by the states to reign in the federal government.
Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas
#74Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas
#75This program was a wild success beyond Trump's wildest dreams. No one is talking about Russian Bounties on US troops. Crisis averted. He just keeps on winning!
Are you serious? To me this adds to the picture of an administration who is about to loose the forthcoming election and is acting more and more eratic. But I am not American so I cannot tell whether this is actually convincing to the broader electorate?
I wouldn't be so sure, there is still a lot of time before now and the election. We saw the lengths the administration is willing to go to in order to win. Blackmailing the Ukraine to make up lies about their political opponents is just the worst thing we know about, and as disgusting as it was, the aftermath of that shows that half the country supports this type of behavior as a means to an end. I seriously doubt we'll see a transition of power during this election.
Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of top tier universities are already opening foreign campuses. Future students will just end up there. This move accelerated the rise of foreign top tier mind work at the expense of that work in the USA. Couple this with the antagonistic stance by the administration to foreign highly capable workers and you have a recipe for a tech softening in the USA. This is good for the world. Part of me sees this as a cynic…
Can you expand on this please? What countries are these campuses in?
Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas
#77Excellent. The system worked this time. People challenged executive branch action through the judicial system and the executive branch backed down. But this should never have been an issue to begin with, think of all the unnecessary stress and anxiety this has caused for the hundreds of thousands of international students impacted by this.
I view the phrase "the system worked" as a red flag indicating that things went wrong in a way they shouldn't, not a positive thing. A successful outcome doesn't necessarily indicate things are fine.
A canonical example is the Space Shuttle boosters. The O-rings were supposed to block all the hot gases, but there was some gas leakage and erosion of the O-rings. Nothing bad happened and officials said this showed there was a sufficient safety factor. In other words, the system worked. They kept launching shuttles until an O-ring eroded all the way through and Challenger blew up. They should have recognized that erosion shouldn't have happened at all; successful launches despite erosion were an indication that things were dangerously wrong, not an indication that the system was working.
(I hope I haven't gone too far on a metaphorical tangent here.)
Reference: Feynman's report on Challenger: https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/roge...
Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas
#78Another example of the haphazard throw-it-against-the-wall approach of what our country has chosen to have as our national experiment. This cannot be good for either side. Do we want to live in a system where if you hadn't been paying attention to the news for 1 week, we might have kicked >100,000 people out of the country? Is this ADD-style, whoever yells the loudest, social and political system working well for any…
> How do we get past this? Reform the entire election system: - 4 year term length for House elections instead of 2 so that representatives can get stuff done instead of having to spend every second year in election campaigns - reform campaign financing to a government funded model like in Germany (and entirely ban PACs) so that the influence of big money on government is eliminated - if possible, get rid of the Pres…
Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How do we get past this? Reform the entire election system: - 4 year term length for House elections instead of 2 so that representatives can get stuff done instead of having to spend every second year in election campaigns - reform campaign financing to a government funded model like in Germany (and entirely ban PACs) so that the influence of big money on government is eliminated - if possible, get rid of the Pres…
Some would say having Presidents without a legislative majority and a legislative majority without a President is a feature, not a bug.
Four year cycles for the house would mean we would have no way of changing course for four full years (other than impeachment, and we've seen how ineffective of a check that is if the president's party controls the Senate)