Trail Mix

By SJWNY, a Trail Mix Contributor

Twitter has positive attributes, one being hashtag games. I noticed an recent offering was “If I Were President.” The answers ranged from the silly to the not so silly. But I must admit, it’s a fun topic.

So, what type of President would you be …. REALLY? We’ve all daydreamed about this. Name your Veep, choose your Cabinet. Ram through legislation near & dear to your heart. Design new WH china, dress the guards up like Nixon did. What the hell. Here’s your chance.

Madam/Mr President, your public awaits.

#WesternTuesday Tweets

President Obama’s Iran Deal keeps Hillary Clinton in knots, especially considering that she helped pull the strings she’d now like to unravel. Speaking on Monday to the Israeli lobby AIPAC, which fiercely opposes the agreement, believing it actually empowers Iran, the former Secretary of State briefly mentioned her support for it, but mostly went out of her way to saber rattle, seemingly questioning the effectiveness of the accord she backed, even threatening force against Iran.

“Iran’s continued aggression, a rising tide of extremism across a wide arc of instability, and the growing effort to de-legitimize Israel on the world stage — are converging to make the U.S.-Israel alliance more indispensable than ever.”

“We face whether we will have the strength and commitment to confront the adversaries that threaten us, especially Iran. For many years, we’ve all been rightly focused on the existential danger of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. After all, this remains an extremist regime that threatens to annihilate Israel. That’s why I led the diplomacy to impose crippling sanctions and force Iran to the negotiating table, and why I ultimately supported the agreement that has put a lid on its nuclear program.”

“We must maintain the legal and diplomatic architecture to turn all the sanctions back on if need. If I’m elected the leaders of Iran will have no doubt that if we see any indication that they are violating their commitment not to seek, develop or acquire nuclear weapons, the United States will act to stop it, and that we will do so with force if necessary.”

“Iranian provocations, like the recent ballistic missile tests, are also unacceptable and should be answered firmly and quickly including with more sanctions.” Transcript and Video

• Slate’s Michele Goldberg: “Speech Was a Symphony of Craven, Delusional Pandering”
• Jerusalem Post: “Clinton shows AIPAC supporters she knows what troubles them about Obama”
• VOX World: “Hillary Clinton’s AIPAC speech: hard-line pro-Israel rhetoric, status quo Obama policies”

It is not often the word punctilious appears in our news pages. Leave it up to the New York Times to find a way, in this article on Obama court nominee Merrick Garland:

“He appears to apply Supreme Court precedents with punctilious fidelity even if there is reason to think he would have preferred a different outcome and even where other judges might have found room to maneuver.”

Further, this is a good read on Garland’s record, which — as Times reporter Adam Liptak notes — has led to a “rare distinction in a polarized era. He has sat on a prominent appeals court for almost two decades, participated in thousands of cases, and yet earned praise from across the political spectrum.” Read More

Webster’s: “Punctilious: marked by or concerned about precise accordance with the details of codes or conventions”

It is because of his “fidelity” to precedent, keeping his personal views out of the mix, that we really don’t know what Garland would do once free of that mission on the Supreme Court, where justices set precedent.