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Current Events, February 2025

While I did not read much from books that directly regarded politics, philosophy, or international relations, the study of insurance brought a different perspective to understanding the climate crisis and war. The climate crisis, war, civil resistance, and repeating patterns, all have costs and benefits. First, the climate crisis is expected to increase costs from weather events in the United States and internationally, at this time, according to an internet search, the losses from weather events is of the same order of magnitude to costs from smoking cigarettes in the United States. Damage and harm from weather events is expected to increase in the future, and policies or technology might decrease harm from future weather events. The political values of places that profit from the export of carbon-based fuels sometimes conflict with the historical political values of the United States, so political values-based reasons might exist to move from carbon-based fuels. If the total costs ...
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Long-term Political Trends in the United States

             In the past, people who are politically liberal have moved from rural areas to cities, and then from smaller cities to larger cities, or perhaps as people move from rural areas to cities to larger cities, people become more politically liberal. Since the House of Representatives is apportioned by population, and the Senate is apportioned with two senators per state, then polarization between the House of Representatives and Senate might occur. Economic opportunities exist for living in large cities, and millions of people who vote for Democrats live in states that often vote for Republicans at the state and federal level, and millions of people who vote for Republicans live in states that often vote for Democrats at the state and federal level. I am not suggesting changes, however, a possibility of polarization between the House of Representatives and Senate might occur.
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Thanksgiving and Federalist Paper No. 3

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The following is a summary of Federalist Paper No. 3, which was authored by John Jay. The third Federalist Paper hopes that a union of the states would be more peaceful than a group of states, and notes that, at least at the time of publication in 1787, that conflict with the American Indian tribes was between states which were unable or unwilling to to prevent violence by European settlers, and not American Indian tribes and the United States government. The essay identifies two common causes of conflict between two nations, with the two causes being the breaking of a treaty and direct violence. Jay states, “The number of wars which have happened and will happen in the world will always be found to be in proportion to the number and weight of the causes, whether real or pretended , which provoke and invite them.” If there is a cause for war, a strong union of states, “will also be more in their power to accommodate and cool, in that respect, as well as in others, will be more in ...
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Law Firms' Settlement with Trump

            The New York Times reported that law firms agreed to give President Trump’s administration $600,000,000 in legal services. According to Google, the law firms can charge $800-$2000 per hour, say $1000 per hour, and also according to Google, the total number of lawyers employed by the law firms is probably between 10,000 to 20,000 lawyers. $600,000,000/$1000 = 600,000 of lawyer work hours. If the law firms employ 10,000-20,000 total lawyers, then that’s an average of about 30-60 hours, or about a week to a week and a half, of free work per lawyer.          The work that these lawyers complete for President Trump could allow him to target other people more easily, or some lawyers could target other people on President Trump's behalf.
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Independent Agencies and the Constitution

            According to the book about Constitutional law of which I read parts of tonight, the three branches of government have different roles and responsibilities. The legislative branch creates laws, the executive branch enforces them, and the judicial branch decides individual cases and interprets law. Three reasons are provided that President Trump’s executive order from the date of February 18 th , 2025, regarding independent agencies is risky. President Trump suggests moving independent agencies to the executive branch because of lack of accountability. Since the agencies were created by the legislative branch, they may be accountable to the legislative branch. The order seems to imply that the independent agencies would have more legitimacy if they were a part of the executive branch because of the election of the President, however, the officials in the legislative branch who created the agencies also won elections, which is also a source of leg...
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Authoritarianism and Wealth Inequality in the United States

             President Trump, with collaborators in the Republican Party, on the Supreme Court, and support from business, wants to prevent changes that would improve democracy and capitalism in the United States. In their efforts to prevent these changes, they have decided to make everything worse, so that any improvement is only to a return to a previous status quo, and not a genuine improvement. From my understanding, the actions of Trump and Republican Party are only another step in an effort that has continued for decades to undermine civil rights, women’s reproductive healthcare, and worker’s rights, among others. Decisions from the Supreme Court have undermined voting rights, decreased women’s reproductive healthcare, increased the influence of wealthy donors in politics, and given the President legal immunity. Income and wealth disparity continues to grow.             If wealth accumulati...
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On Legal Immunity

             A quote often attributed to Mark Twain is, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” The United States federal government has immunity in certain cases, and law enforcement has qualified immunity, and the Supreme Court decided that the President of the United States has immunity from prosecution for core powers. I thought of a similar saying, “There are criminals, damn criminals, and the government.” To clarify, I'm saying that I don't trust people to have legal immunity because legal immunity can be misused, not that every person who has legal immunity misuses it, or that every person who works for the government is immoral. Edit (5/3/25): Immunity seems to limit personal liability, not the liability of the government.
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