Elections DA

Neg

UQ

Obama ClimateObama’s focus on healthcare makes him weak on climate – he backpedals on campaign promisesPeak 15 (Chris, staff writer for NationSwell, “Obama Promised to Make the Environment a Main Policy Issue. Did He?” Preserving America, September 15, 2015, http://nationswell.com/president-barack-obama-environmental-legacy/)

Offering concessions to earn goodwill from the Republican caucus, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed to delay implementation of carbon regulations for another year. Soon after, the president announced huge sections of U.S. waters along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico open for drilling and withdrew support for the versions of Waxman’s cap-and-trade bill being negotiated in the Democratic-led Senate. “Whether with Obama’s support [a nationwide cap-and-trade law] could have happened is a good question,” says Baker, “but there is

no question that the decision to back off was demoralizing to the environment and climate change community.” Days later, as oil bubbled up from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Democrats hung their heads in defeat. “The missing piece of his legacy is national climate change legislation, which he and Congress failed to pass ,” says Kenneth Kimmel, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Obama weak on climate now – TPP is “polluter friendly”Carter 15 (Zach, Huffington Post's Senior Political Economy Reporter, “Environmental Group Assails ‘Polluter-Friendly’ Obama Trade Deal,” HuffPost 12/2/15 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trans-pacific-partnership-sierra-club_us_565dcf05e4b08e945fec9f67)

WASHINGTON — The Sierra Club on Wednesday released a report on the final text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, concluding that the landmark trade deal would be a significant setback in efforts to combat climate change and protect the environment. “In its more than 6,000

pages of binding rules, the deal fails to even mention the words ‘climate change,’” the report reads. The Obama administration has led TPP talks for years with a group of nations that eventually expanded to 11 trading partners. The final text was released to the public this fall, after being treated as classified information. Supporters of the pact say it will expand U.S. exports and check China’s growing global economic

influence, pointing to enforceable labor and environmental standards included in the deal. But the U.S., including the Obama administration,

has never effectively enforced labor or environmental standards in trade pacts, and the Sierra Club report

concludes that the broader effects of the deal will overwhelm the narrow environmental language intended to deter illegal wildlife and timber trading. Much of TPP’s negative impact on climate change will come from outside the chapter dedicated to the environment. The Sierra Club said the deal will encourage fracking by expanding natural gas exports, eliminate tariffs on coal, shift industrial manufacturing activity to countries with poor pollution controls and empower corporations to challenge environmental regulations before an international tribunal. “The TPP poses a panoply of threats to our climate and environment,” the report reads, calling TPP a “polluter-friendly model” for international trade.

Hillary win nowClinton wins now but Trump is gaining on her – also HRC is tied to ObamaNeedham 7/22 (Vicki, staff writer for The Hill, “Economic model predicts Clinton win, but Trump gains ground,” 7/22/16, http://thehill.com/policy/finance/288893-economic-model-predicts-clinton-win-trump-gains-ground)

Republican nominee Donald Trump’s chances of winning the November election improved slightly in July, but Hillary Clinton still looks poised to notch the victory, according to a closely followed economic election model. Moody’s Analytics is forecasting that Clinton, who is expected to officially become the Democratic nominee next week, will easily win

the White House over Trump. But the latest model shows a downgrade in the real income per household forecast, which narrowed the Democratic lead in all states and pushed Nevada, where neither candidate has been able to grab a clear foothold in the polls, back into the Republican column. With Nevada's six votes switching over to the GOP, Moody's forecasts a Clinton win with 326 electoral votes to Trump's 212. To win, a candidate needs 270 votes. Moody’s model awards Electoral College votes to each party based on

state-by-state outcomes. “Little else changed in terms of forecast values this month, though the president’s approval rating is showing signs of weakening ahead of next month’s update,” said Dan White, a Moody’s economist who oversees the monthly model. “Likely in response to terrorist attacks overseas and a spate of tragedies here at home,

approval of the president has fallen noticeably in the past few weeks." The most recent Gallup poll shows President Obama's approval rating at 49 percent, down from 53 percent in June. Obama's rating is a key component of the model's outcome and has been a main reason why Democrats have held the lead in the model since the first forecast was released a year ago. But a decline in approval for Obama would have to continue for the next several weeks to move the model any further in Trump's favor . “Given how the model series is calculated as a moving average, however, this weakness will not result in a material change in the model outcome until it has persisted for at least several more weeks,” White said.

HRC wins now but it’s ridiculously closeBarrett July 19 (James, Staff writer for the Daily Wire, “Can Trump Still Beat Hillary? Here Are The Latest Polls.” Daily Wire, July 19, 2016, http://www.dailywire.com/news/5361/can-trump-beat-hillary-here-are-latest-polls-james-barrett)

Hillary Clinton's once commanding national lead over Trump has evaporated over the last few months.

Clinton's dominant 11-point lead in late March has dwindled to a virtual dead heat between the two candidates, a recent NBC News poll giving her a razor-thin 1-point edge in a head-to-head and Trump a 1-

point edge in a four-candidate race. RealClearPolitics' national average of key polls shows Clinton holding just a 2.7-point lead. National averages have shown the gap between the two candidates consistently narrowing since March, with dramatic movement in mid-May, at which point Trump managed a miniscule 0.2 lead over Clinton from May 22-24. Since, Clinton has retaken the lead, but never regaining the former sizeable advantage. Currently RealClearPolitics' national average shows Clinton holding a 2.7-point lead over Trump, 43.8 to 41.

Clinton win now Needham 7/1 (Vicki, staff writer for The Hill, “Election model: Clinton will win easily” 7/1/16 http://thehill.com/policy/finance/economy/prediction-hillary-clinton-easily-wins-beats-donald-trump-moodys-presidential-election-model

Democratic chances of winning the White House remain strong, according to a closely followed economic election

model. Moody’s Analytics is forecasting that Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will easily win the presidency in November over Republican Donald Trump, the June forecast predicts. The latest model shows for the fourth straight month that the Democratic nominee will win 332 electoral votes, compared with 206 for the Republican nominee. The model chooses a party, not a candidate, to win. “The closer we come to election day, the more that two-year change is based in history and less on our economic forecasts,” said Dan White, a Moody’s economist who oversees the

monthly model. “With just over four months left to election day, the chances of an economic forecast error distorting the results are fading,” he said. “This ups the confidence level in the model’s results, though forecast risks are always present, especially when it comes to politics.” Moody's bases its forecast on a two-year change of the economic variables, from the third quarter of 2014 to the third quarter of this year. A slight increase in gasoline prices modestly improved Republican chances, but that shift was offset in part by higher incomes, house

prices and President Obama’s rising approval rating. The latest Gallup poll shows the president’s approval at 52 percent, up a point from last month. Separately, a FiveThirtyEight election forecast gives Clinton a 79.2 percent chance of winning to Trump's 20.7. In that forecast, Clinton would win 48.8 percent of the vote to Trump's 42. The former secretary of State is holding leads across most major polls. Clinton leads Trump by 6 points, 47 to 41 percent, in a New York Times/CBS News poll. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll saw Clinton widen her lead to 51 to 39 percent from 46 to 44 in May.

Obama is constraining his agenda to not hurt Clinton – no thumpersBoyer 15 (Dave Boyer - The Washington Times - Tuesday, December 29, 2015 “Swinging for the fences, Obama faces some curveballs,” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/29/obamas-plans-for-final-year-face-mulish-congress-h/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS | prs)

President Obama has vowed to pursue an activist agenda in his final year in office on everything from gun control to climate change, but he’s likely to be limited in his ambitions by poor relations with Congress, a desire not to step on would-be Democratic successor Hillary Clinton’s toes and national security challenges beyond his control. The president will outline his plans in the State of the Union address on Jan. 12, but his prospects for moving significant legislation in Congress in 2016 are slim . Other than a bipartisan criminal-justice

reform bill and possible action on a free trade deal with Pacific Rim nations, there are no other major initiatives by a lame-duck president in an election year that are likely to succeed . That means much of Mr. Obama’s agenda, from environmental regulations to the highly anticipated action on guns to the slow-motion closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, will come through executive action, a go-it-alone strategy that he has employed for most of his second term. “Obama will stress executive action; it’s the only thing he can do ,”

said Charles Lipson, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. “But he’s constrained in a second way: He’s got a member of his own party” — Mrs. Clinton — “who after the primaries will try to run to the center .” The president, who knows that a Clinton presidency is the most likely way to preserve his legacy in areas such as health care and climate change, will try to do no harm to her campaign . “Given that Hillary is

going to be the nominee unless she’s indicted, she can count on President Obama not trying to undermine her position ,” Mr. Lipson said.

Although ahead now, HRC is on the road to making fatal mistakes Bernstein 16 (DAVID S, spent the past 10 years at the Boston Phoenix, is widely regarded as one of the state’s foremost political writers, “How Hillary Loses: Donald Trump can actually win if Clinton makes these four mistakes. Spoiler alert: She’s already making all of them,” POLITICO, May 27 2016, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/2016-election-hillary-clinton-campaign-loses-defeated-donald-trump-213924)

It’s a terrifying moment for Democrats: Hillary Clinton’s double-digit lead in national polls has evaporated and panic is beginning to set in. Polls now show Donald Trump ahead of Clinton, or at worst only a few points behind. During the insanity of the Republican primary, it was easy for them to believe that Trump could never be president—that in a general election, mainstream voters would regard him

as an absurdity. But Clinton remains a shaky candidate with historically high negatives, an email scandal that keeps getting worse and a stubborn primary opponent whose supporters may yet become a midsummer nightmare in

Philadelphia. Meanwhile, the Republicans, seemingly in all-out civil war just weeks ago, have quickly fallen in line. Democrats are resigning themselves to a tough, ugly, painful and expensive street fight. The numbers offer some reassurance for Democrats—but also some bad news. The reassurance is that the recent polls probably don’t mean much. Trump’s current surge is likely driven by Republican voters coalescing around their nominee, and Clinton will almost certainly get a similar bump when Bernie Sanders lets go and Democratic voters return to the fold. Most pundits believe 2016 is still Clinton’s race to

lose. Here’s the bad news: There is now a clear path for her to lose it. If you drill down enough, it’s clear there are at least four paths to a loss, and any one of them poses a real risk for a candidate likely to follow her usual careful, calculating playbook. The cold math of a potential Clinton defeat is not to be found in national polls, but in the Electoral College—and within each state’s unique demographics and culture. Trump won’t dramatically remake the political map, but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to squeeze a little more out of certain voters in certain states, while Clinton draws a little less. If Clinton pushes away some of her potential supporters; fails to energize others to vote; and fires up Trump’s base by pandering to her own—well, she just might be able to make the numbers work out for him. If he does pull off the election of the century, Trump’s path to 270 Electoral College votes will begin with 164 practically in the bank, from 21

solid-red states generally considered sure things for the Republican nominee. And here’s how Clinton could push more than enough additional states onto Trump’s side of the ledger—Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Iowa, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan—one mistake at a time.

Link

Enviro legislationTrump uses anti-environment rhetoric to cinch delegates – opposes all new enviro regulationParker and Davenport 16 (Ashley, Washington-based reporter for The New York Times, Times Magazine writer, researcher; and Coral, staff writer for NYT, “Donald Trump’s Energy Plan: More Fossil Fuels and Fewer Rules,” New York Times, May 26, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/politics/donald-trump-global-warming-energy-policy.html)

Laying out his positions on energy and the environment at an oil industry conference in North Dakota, he vowed to rescind President Obama’s signature climate change rules and revive construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring petroleum from Canada’s oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries. It was the latest in a series of recent policy addresses, including on Israel and foreign policy, intended to position Mr. Trump, the real estate mogul and reality show star, as credible on substantive issues now that he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. But experts remain skeptical of Mr. Trump’s command of the complexities of the global energy economy. And he made claims, such as a promise to restore jobs lost in coal mining, that essentially defy free-market forces. “Many of his proposals thus far don’t seem to appreciate the complex forces that drive the energy system,”

said Richard G. Newell, an energy economist at Duke University who has closely followed Mr. Trump’s remarks. Mr. Trump’s decision to set his speech in North Dakota was politically strategic. He began the day fewer than 30 delegates shy of clinching the nomination, and on

Thursday, he reached the required 1,237-delegate threshold with the help of unpledged delegates in the state who moved to support him. Mr. Trump asked North Dakota’s Republican congressman, Kevin Cramer, to suggest energy policies before

the speech. A central question confronting the next president will be how to address climate change. Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly denied the established science that climate change is caused by humans, vowed in his speech to undo many of Mr. Obama’s initiatives. He did not explicitly address the scientific legitimacy of human-

caused climate change, but said, “We’re going to deal with real environmental challenges, not the phony ones we’ve been hearing about.” Mr. Trump said that in his first 100 days in office, he would “rescind” Environmental Protection Agency regulations established under Mr. Obama to curb planet-warming emissions from coal-fired power plants. Short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change “Regulations that shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants and block the construction of new ones — how stupid is that?” Mr. Trump said. However, the next president will not have the legal authority to unilaterally rescind the climate rules, which are now being litigated in federal courts. If, as is widely expected, the case goes to the Supreme Court, the justices, rather than the president, will determine its fate. But if elected, Mr.

Trump could nominate a new Supreme Court justice to help strike down the rule. Mr. Trump’s threats to unravel

the Paris Agreement could carry more weight. In his speech, he complained, inaccurately: “This agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use on our land, in our country. No way.” In fact, at the heart of the Paris Agreement are voluntary pledges put forward by the governments of over 190 nations, laying out plans to lower emissions. No government has control over the emissions-reduction plans of other governments. Once the accord is ratified by 55 countries responsible for 55 percent of global emissions, it will enter into legal force, and any country wishing to withdraw would have to wait four years to do so. However, if the deal has not been ratified by January 2017, a new American president could withdraw immediately. For that reason, many countries, fearful that a President Trump would do just that, are racing to ratify the deal this year. But there would be no legal consequence if the United States, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter, simply did not follow through with the Obama

administration’s pledge to cut emissions up to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. In an even more potent threat, Mr. Trump declared that the United States would “stop all payment of U.S. tax dollars to global warming programs.” “We’ve got big problems, folks, and we can’t be sending money all over the world,” he said. “We’re going to keep our money here and our jobs here and bring our jobs back.” But developing nations, including India, have made clear that their ability to cut emissions depends largely on financial help from other countries. And as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton pledged that rich countries, including the United States, would commit $100 billion annually by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to the ravages of global warming. A clear signal that the United States would back down from its commitments to reduce emissions and provide financial assistance could

undermine the political will in other countries, such as India and China, to take action. Other elements of Mr. Trump’s energy proposals appear less viable. As coal mining jobs have declined, Mr. Trump has vowed to fully restore their numbers. “We’re going to bring back the coal industry, save the coal industry,” he said. “I love those people.”

Trump supporters hate climate regulation and rally to him – afraid it’ll ruin the economy (and they deny climate change)Nuccitelli 16 (Dana, blogger on environmentguardian.co.uk. He is an environmental scientist and risk assessor, “The similarities between Trump support and climate denial,” The Guardian, April 4, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/apr/04/the-similarities-between-trump-support-and-climate-denial)

It’s long puzzled climate realists: why do free market supporters oppose free market solutions to climate change? The answer may be related to another puzzling question: why does Donald Trump have such unwavering support among a certain segment of American conservatives? A recent paper by Jeremiah Bohr published in the

journal Environmental Politics sought to answer the climate question. As Bohr notes: Mainstream policy responses seek to utilize

market mechanisms in an effort to minimize costs for major emitters of greenhouse gases. Presumably, this should win over some climate change deniers who align themselves with think tanks promoting free markets and economic growth. Yet, climate change deniers and free-market activists are as staunchly opposed to market-based climate policy as they are to any other form of climate mitigation. Who supports Donald Trump? The new Republican center of gravity Read more Bohr looked through issues of the Heartland Institute’s Environment and Climate

News newsletter. He found that about 75% of Heartland’s articles denied climate science, usually by exaggerating uncertainties, or by presenting the evidence as junk science. About 6% argued that climate change will be beneficial,

and 39% argued that climate policies will do more harm than good, usually claiming that they’ll hurt the economy. Among the latter group, 51% characterized markets as inherently efficient, self-regulating, and generative of wealth.

Heartland views any tampering with the market as bad for the economy. As Bohr describes it: In these

newsletters, deniers harness the image of efficient self-regulating markets to argue that regulatory policy itself is counterproductive to the goal of climate change mitigation. Rather than mandating compliance with

environmental performance standards, deniers argue that voluntary action from the private sector will more efficiently produce pro-environmental outcomes ... Neoliberal climate change deniers elevate unregulated markets to an almost mystical level impervious to long-term failure. By definition, they view markets as self-correcting. In other words, they believe the problem will solve itself through the magic of the free market. In another 40% of their climate economics articles, Heartland argued against climate policies by exaggerating their costs. These claims are disproved by real-world examples in places like British Columbia and California, where economies are thriving alongside carbon pricing policies. This is why there’s a 95% consensus among economic experts that we should cut carbon pollution.

Trump uses ANY climate regulation to ramp up his rhetoric and supportDennis 16 (Brady, DC Based reporter for the Washington Post, “Trump: ‘I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change” March 22, 2016 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/22/this-is-the-only-type-of-climate-change-donald-trump-believes-in/)

In his own tweets, Trump has called the concept of global warming everything from a “hoax” to “bulls—” to a scheme “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” (He later said he was joking about the China tweet). Follow Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. 12:15 PM - 6 Nov 2012 30,998 30,998

Retweets 19,592 19,592 likes Follow Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump Any and all weather events are used by the GLOBAL WARMING HOAXSTERS to justify higher taxes to save our planet! They don't believe it $$$$!

2:40 PM - 26 Jan 2014 370 370 Retweets 255 255 likes Follow Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax! 8:13 AM - 6 Dec 2013 508 508 Retweets 428 428 likes Trump’s stance on climate change, of course, puts him at odds with the vast majority of

the world’s scientists, who agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are likely a result of human activity and are playing out in the form of rising seas, growing carbon dioxide emissions and melting glaciers. In a wide-ranging meeting Monday with The Washington Post

editorial board, Trump again dismissed man-made climate change. Instead, he said the type of climate change we should worry most about is nuclear weapons — an apparent reference to Cold War-era fears over a “nuclear winter.” The idea was that a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union could have devastating consequences for the environment. Scientists say the potential threat still exists, particularly with more countries now possessing nuclear weapons, though it remains a less immediate threat than the constant pollution humans send into the environment.

Tax increaseTrump’s plan to decrease taxes is popularDiamond 15 (Jeremy, CNN politics reporter, “Donald Trump on his tax plan: 'Zero rate' for some” Sept 28, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/27/politics/trump-60-minutes-tax-plan/)

(CNN)Donald Trump revealed new details about his tax plan in an interview that aired Sunday, saying that a "large segment" of Americans would pay no federal income taxes. Disclosing several key planks of his tax reform

plan on CBS's "60 Minutes," Trump said he would set a "zero rate" for low-income Americans, cut corporate taxes, and suggested that he would raise taxes on some of the wealthiest Americans. Trump's plan will feature individual tax rates that range from 0% -- for individuals making less than $25,000 a year and couples making less than $50,000 a year -- to a top rate of 25% for the wealthiest Americans, slashing the current 39.5% top rate, according to the Wall Street Journal, which received a preview of the campaign's proposal

Monday. Trump's plan would also lower taxes on all business to just 15%, according to the Journal, slashing the 25% corporate tax rate and the tax rate many small businesses currently pay. Trump adviser

Michael Cohen told CNN on Monday, "More Americans will be keeping their money in their pocket as opposed to sending it to Uncle Sam." "Republicans may not like the full extent of Mr Trump's tax plan, but I'll tell you who's going to like it: all Americans -- Republicans, Democrats, all the voters," Cohen told CNN's Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo on "New Day"

Monday. "Because, again, they're going to keep the money that they earn in their pocket. And he's going to simplify the tax code."

Carbon TaxCarbon tax kills HRC and gives ammunition to trumpLehmann 16 (Evan, deputy editor of ClimateWire who covers Congress and the insurance industry, has a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the recipient of an investigative reporting award, “CAMPAIGN 2016: Why won't Clinton support a carbon tax? Trump.” June 15, 2016, http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060038843)

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton isn't talking about one of the biggest policies on climate change, reinforcing what some say is a division among Democrats about how to achieve great cuts to carbon dioxide emissions in almost every facet of our powered life. The policy is a carbon price. The party's disagreements over promoting one or supporting executive orders to address rising temperatures could be illuminated as the Democratic platform is hammered out over the next five weeks, with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton's opponent for the nomination,

promising to prioritize policies like a carbon tax. Pricing carbon has been a cornerstone of the climate solution since at least 2003, when Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman, the now-retired independent from Connecticut, introduced a bill to cap national emissions. The policy has been beaten legislatively at least three times. But many climate advocates and economists say it's still the key to cutting enough emissions to avoid damaging warming around the globe. It could be needed in 10 years or earlier, many say. "I do think it's the indispensable tool," said Nat Keohane, a former climate adviser to President Obama who is now a vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund. A carbon price is omnipresent in climate circles. Early goals to cut carbon might be met without it, like Obama's pledge in the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025. But after that, many experts assume some kind of price on

emissions will be used to eliminate all but the most difficult sources. The effort would whittle down U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to just 20 percent of what they were in 2005 by 2050. You won't find Clinton talking about that this year. She withstood Sanders' criticisms about not supporting a carbon tax throughout the spring primary contests in part because promoting that policy could expose her to politically damaging attacks by presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, observers say . Clinton has supported

carbon pricing in the past. "You're going to choose the path of least resistance," said one Democratic climate strategist. "No one wants to get into a debate on a carbon tax." A discussion about the country's long-term climate goals, and the prospects for a carbon price,

could be thrust into the open if Sanders insists on including a carbon tax in the platform. The policy is generally disliked by voters, said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. While the platform isn't binding for the nominee, it could give ammunition to Trump.

GOP rallies around opposing carbon tax NOW even before HRC has advocated it – makes her an easy targetSchor and Restuccia 16 (Elana, energy reporter for POLITICO Pro, focusing on oil and gas, formerly covering politics for Environment & Energy Daily and Greenwire; and Andrew, energy reporter for POLITICO Pro, formerly covering energy and environmental politics and policy at The Hill and energy policy for The Washington Independent and Inside Washington Publishers, “House message: No carbon tax under Clinton

As Donald Trump and the GOP limp through a harsh week, House Republicans are making a play for party unity Friday with an assault on an idea Hillary Clinton has yet to even endorse : a tax on carbon pollution from fossil fuels. While a carbon tax would face long political odds, fear is growing in conservative circles that Republicans will begin to embrace the proposal next year in a bid to reform the tax code and get relief from President Barack Obama's climate regulations — especially if Clinton wins in

November. So the House is staging a vote Friday to express symbolic disapproval of such a tax, in hopes of keeping the idea off the table no matter who occupies the White House. Clinton has never said

whether she would support a carbon tax, a levy that many liberal activists and a handful of conservative think tanks consider the most effective and straightforward response to the climate threat. She dodged the question during an April debate with Democratic rival Bernie Sanders. But New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is set to succeed Harry Reid as Democratic leader, said in a brief interview Thursday that he sees the "potential for a bipartisan carbon tax, if both parties step forward" under a Clinton administration. That type of grand bargain,

he added, is "possible, but hard." Conservative opponents are taking no chances. "A carbon tax would make energy more expensive and in turn raise the costs of consumer products and services on which people depend," wrote Koch Industries' top lobbyist, Philip Ellender, in a Thursday letter asking House members to back the nonbinding resolution by Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). Friday's vote couldn’t come at a better time for a GOP that’s eager to change the subject from racially charged remarks by its presidential nominee-in-

waiting. Republicans want to talk policy and pick fights they can win, making Clinton’s hypothetical flirtation with stronger climate change policy an easy target . Just as importantly, opponents of a carbon tax

— including the Koch brothers-backed groups Americans for Prosperity and the American Energy Alliance — are aiming to solidify Republican resistance to the idea. Some industry groups had been sharpening their knives against any future deal even before Schumer remarked last year that a carbon tax could have a future if Clinton wins the White House. Scalise's resolution is intended to get lawmakers on the record so it’s harder for them to cave next year, said Mike McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who opposes the tax. “This

thing is a legitimate risk,” McKenna said. He added: “When you’re trying to make a particular policy toxic, you make people vote on it. And over time, they start thinking, maybe I don’t want to go to war.” The resolution is expected to win the support of most Republicans. When the House voted on a similar anti-carbon tax resolution in 2013, no Republicans voted against the measure and only 12 Democrats voted for it. Clinton has been harder to pin down. When Sanders needled her on the issue during an April debate, promoting himself as the only pro-carbon tax candidate in the presidential race, she responded with a vaguer pledge to build on Obama's climate agenda. "I don't take a back seat to your legislation that you've introduced that you haven't been able to get passed," she told Sanders. "I want to do what we can do to actually make progress in dealing with the [climate] crisis." Her campaign did not return a request for comment on whether

she would consider putting a price on carbon if elected. Among some GOP lobbyists, vocal opposition to a carbon tax has become a litmus test for devotion to the Republican Party — and the tension between the pro- and anti-carbon tax

crowds has become palpable. One GOP lobbyist who opposes the tax told POLITICO that he's even been accused of secretly supporting the policy because he associates with a group that is seen as friendly to the proposal.

Public opposes Carbon TaxHalstead 16 (Ted, founding President and CEO of New America, founded and directed Redefining Progress, an environmental economics think thank that organized the 1997 Economists’ Statement on Climate Change. It includes 17 Nobel laureates as signatories, UNLOCKING THE CLIMATE PUZZLE, Climate Leadership Council White Paper, May, p. 7)

Despite the impeccable economic logic of carbon taxes, the broad-based intellectual support for them, the urgency to

reduce carbon emissions, and the recent fall in fossil fuel prices, this solution has essentially gone nowhere. Why? Because a carbon tax does not “play well” with the public, as Australia discovered by introducing and subsequently repealing one (carbon emissions went up 5.5 percent since repeal). In essence: carbon tax advocates have yet to find a winning policy and political formula.

Trump hates carbon tax and his followers (i.e. this article’s author) rally to him Sykes 16 (Justin, Staff writer for Americans For Tax Reform (some group that writes weird neoliberal right wing thinkpieces about Trump), “Trump Takes a Stand Against a Carbon Tax,” May 13 2016, https://www.atr.org/trump-takes-stand-against-carbon-tax)

Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump today took to twitter to make it clear that under no circumstances would he support a carbon tax. Trump’s move to disavow a carbon tax comes as some clueless state and federal lawmakers and far left energy advocates have made the case for a carbon tax this year.

Follow Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump .@thehill Your story about me & the carbon tax is absolutely incorrect—it is just the opposite. I will not support or endorse a carbon tax! 11:40 AM - 13 May 2016 6,866 6,866 Retweets 16,675 16,675 likes Trump’s opposition to a carbon tax shows that he is well aware of just how economically disastrous such a tax would be for the country. The imposition of a carbon tax would not only impact the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, but also would drive up energy prices, inevitably leading to higher consumers costs and reduce the household income of millions of American families. For the U.S. economy as a whole, projections show a carbon tax would lead to a drop in U.S. GDP of at least $146 billion by the year 2030, impacting both investment and labor. It is projected that over a 3-year span after enactment, over 400,000 jobs would be lost, with losses reaching more than a million jobs by 2030. The impact of a carbon tax on energy costs would ripple throughout the economy, with energy prices estimated to see cost increases of 20 to 30 percent. The resulting increase in energy costs would be wholly regressive, impacting the nation’s most vulnerable. Low to middle income families, who spend a larger portion of their income on energy, would be disproportionately impacted as more and more of their household budget is consumed by rising energy costs. These same families would be doubly impacted by a

carbon tax due to the fact that resulting increases in the costs of energy would also drive up the price of consumer goods, further depleting the disposable income of millions of Americans. Clearly Trump has done his homework on the carbon tax, and realizes it would be a huuuuuge mistake and terrible deal for the American people.

Internal Link

Obama key to ClintonEmpirics prove – Clinton needs a boon from Obama to nab the election – it’s reverse causalMiller 6/1/16 (JAKE MILLER “2016 by the numbers: Obama's rising ratings a boon for Hillary Clinton?” June 1, 2016. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/2016-by-the-numbers-obamas-rising-ratings-a-boon-for-hillary-clinton/ | prs)

As polls show Hillary Clinton's lead over Donald Trump whittled down to the slimmest of margins, could Clinton find herself relying on President Obama to drag her across the finish line on Election Day? The president will visit Elkhart, Indiana on Wednesday to take a victory lap of sorts, touting the progress the U.S. economy has made under his presidency and rallying voters behind Democratic policies ahead of the election in November. Unemployment is down and health coverage is up, he'll tell voters - why would you put the other team in charge now? It's a sales pitch that could carry some extra legitimacy,

given the president's rising approval ratings - in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll, 50 percent of respondents said they approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing. 43 percent said they disapprove. A year ago, those numbers were roughly reversed: 48 percent disapproved, and only 42 percent approved. That upswing is also reflected in other recent polls: The latest Gallup survey puts Mr. Obama's approval rating at 52 percent, and his disapproval at 44 percent. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll put those numbers at 51

percent and 46 percent, respectively. That could be good news for Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, and other Democrats on the ballot in November. It's historically been difficult for an outgoing president's party to hold onto the White House if that president is saddled with poor approval ratings - Just ask 2008 Republican

nominee John McCain or 1968 Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey. The opposite is also, true, however: A popular outgoing president can do a lot to help his party's candidates win. George H.W. Bush, for example, was able to capture the presidency fairly easily in 1988 running as the heir to Ronald Reagan. The 2000 election was an interesting case: Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, made a decision to distance himself from the incumbent, Bill Clinton, who had high job approval ratings but had been tarnished by the Monica Lewinsky scandal in his second term. Gore actually won the popular vote that year, but he lost the Electoral College and the presidency. Many analysts believe he made a mistake in sidelining Clinton, rather than fully

embracing the incumbent's legacy. If Clinton's posture thus far has been any indication, she won't make the same mistake: She's

tethered herself, closely and repeatedly, to Mr. Obama to Fend Off attacks from both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

On immigration, taxes, climate change, and other issues, Clinton has presented herself as the person best prepared to build on the foundation put in place by Mr. Obama. Only time will tell whether her decision to go all- in on the heir-apparent strategy was the correct one. But if the president's approval ratings continue climbing, she'll have reason to be optimistic.

Clinton is tightly yoked to Obama’s popularity – a drop in popularity will tank her campaignBirnbaum 6/5/16 (Jeffrey H. Birnbaum is president of BGR Public Relations. “Obama is on the ballot, too,” Sunday, June 5, 2016, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/5/jeffrey-birnbaum-obama-is-hillary-clintons-silent-/ | prs)

Even in a two-person presidential race, a third person is always present: the incumbent president .

That’s true with a vengeance this year . Barack Obama is the not-so-silent partner of Hillary Clinton in the Democrats’ drive to retain the White House. Her prospects will rise and fall with Mr. Obama’s popularity whether she wants the connection or not. Right now, she wants the connection. The president’s job approval rating is higher than his disapproval rating, which is new, just a couple months old. His approval on average is

roughly 50 percent, which is as high as it’s been for a long time on RealClearPolitics. In other words, President Obama isn’t a drag on the Clinton candidacy and that’s a tangible benefit for her. Put another way, Mr. Obama is less disliked

than either Donald Trump or Mrs. Clinton, so, in a tight race, he may be able to inch her over the finish line first . It’s no coincidence then that Mr. Obama has been speaking out more often to criticize Mr. Trump. His words are less likely to backfire as long as roughly half the country likes him. Mr. Trump has been dismissing the president’s assertions that he (Trump) has been cavalier or ignorant. But the fact is that those comments help the Democrat. Secretary Clinton’s top surrogate, in other words, isn’t President Clinton but is another president named Obama, at least for now. Mr. Trump clearly needs to wage a two-front war for the White House. He has to discredit Mrs. Clinton, of course. But he also has to Drag Down President Obama if he can. Unfortunately for all of us, he might get some help from the U.S. economy. Experts are predicting a slowdown or at least a stock market correction soon. In addition, the Federal Reserve Board could raise interest rates next month for the first time in years. That’s likely to slow the economy (at least a little) by Election Day. Moody’s, which keeps close watch on the nation’s economy, has a statistical model that uses economic data to predict president elections. The model’s been correct in each presidential election since 1980. This year, the model foresees an easy win for the Democrat because of buoyant economic news lately. If the economy stumbles, though, so could Mrs. Clinton’s presidential

hopes. Reversals in foreign events could also bring President Obama down in the polls. So could a problem with Obamacare, the president’s chief legacy item. Another possibility is that the president’s heavy-handed reliance on regulation to institute his agenda could begin to grate on Americans. The transgender bathroom issue has already gotten independents wondering what’s going on in Washington. Can’t the president leave anything alone — even in the restroom? And, of course, the FBI has yet to be heard from on the long-simmering email scandal. If it or the U.S. Justice Department echoes the harsh criticisms of Mrs. Clinton by the State Department Inspector General, then the whole race could turn. But Mr. Trump can’t wait for events to intervene. It’s no stretch to predict that Mr. Trump will step up his needling the president along with Mrs. Clinton in his stump speeches. He certainly didn’t hold back prior to his recent energy-policy speech.

He called Mr. Obama names. And the name calling will no doubt increase. For her part, Secretary Clinton will continue to tie herself closely to Mr. Obama . The strategy has a clear upside at the moment, but could go the other way if his approval ratings sink again to levels that have been lower and more normal during his presidency . She gambles , therefore, by running as a Democrat in the Obama mold. Now, she wins among African

American voters by doing so almost no matter what happens to Mr. Obama’s popularity. But she could fall with Mr. Obama’s popularity if voters remember her allegiance during this critical period. Mr. Obama is central to the Clinton campaign.

Next president key to emissions reductionsNext president key to emissions reductions – turns the caseMingle 16 (Jonathan, The Path from Paris, Harvard University Center for the Environment, http://environment.harvard.edu/news/huce-headlines/path-paris)

Given that the United States and China together account for almost 40 percent of global emissions, any global effort was bound to fail without their leadership. In November 2014, President Barack Obama and

President Xi Jinping met in Beijing and announced a bilateral climate agreement. The United States pledged to reduce emissions by 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, while China promised its greenhouse gas emissions would peak by 2030, and that non-fossil sources like solar and wind would constitute 20 percent of its total energy production by 2030. These pledges would go on to form the basis of their respective INDCs at Paris. The two leaders met again in Washington, in September 2015, to lay out the details of how they would achieve their goals. China surprised many observers by announcing the launch in 2017 of a national carbon emissions trading system covering key industrial sectors. The United States announced plans for more stringent efficiency standards for appliances and vehicles, and plans for

reducing methane emissions from landfills and natural gas infrastructure. But the most significant component of the U.S. action plan was the Clean Power Plan (CPP). The Clean Power Plan—high stakes decisions ahead The path ahead for the U.S. to fulfill the promises it made at Paris ran into a sudden stumbling block on February 9 of this

year. On that day, the Supreme Court issued a stay of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), a rule put forward by the Obama administration to reduce emissions from power plants, which account for 40 percent of U.S. emissions. The CPP requires states to develop plans to meet tailored targets based on their unique electricity generation profile, with the goal of reducing overall power sector emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Slated to go into effect in 2022, it also puts in place incentives and regulations to get states to switch to lower-carbon electricity generation, such as wind, solar, nuclear, and natural gas. The Court’s stay was an unprecedented move, pausing the regulation before a lower court had even heard the legal challenge from two dozen states claiming the EPA exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act, and until the Supreme Court eventually rules on it. Many experts read the stay as a signal that the Court was likely to strike down the rule. Then, just four days after the stay was issued, Justice Antonin Scalia died of a heart attack. A likely opponent of the plan, his passing left the Supreme Court in a likely 4-4 deadlock when it ultimately hears the case (which is expected, after the case is heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit court on June 2, and its

ruling is likely appealed). “If there’s a tie in the Supreme Court, the lower court ruling stands,” Stavins explains.

“But it’s conceivable the Court will decide that this is a very important rule that should involve all nine justices, and therefore decide to delay a decision.” The deciding vote could then be cast by whoever eventually fills Scalia’s

seat. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are refusing to hold hearings on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland. “So whether or not there is a CPP of the stringency envisioned in the final rule may well depend on one thing,” says Stavins, “who the next president is, because that will determine the 5-4 vote.” In a commentary for Foreign Affairs (March 2016),

Freeman noted that independent estimates suggest the CPP accounts for between 30 and 40 percent of the expected emissions reductions outlined in the U.S. INDC, making it by far the most important component of the U.S. climate plan . “In short, meeting the 2025 target is not impossible without the Clean Power Plan. But

losing it would be, by any fair assessment, a blow.” In the wake of the stay, several states have put on hold their plans to comply with the CPP. U.S. states aren’t alone in taking a “wait and see” approach to how the CPP fares in the courts—

much of the world is watching what happens to U.S. climate policy, as well. The possible loss of the CPP could pose a serious credibility problem for the U.S. —one that could undermine the Paris deal . “I received many questions about this in Paris,” Stavins says, “whether the U.S. would be able to achieve its targets and what would happen if

there’s a new administration.” “There is no question that the President’s announcement of the Clean Power Plan last October was critical to the success achieved a few weeks later in Paris ,” says Richard Lazarus, the Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law, and an expert on environmental law. “The Paris Agreement would not have happened without it. I expect that the Supreme Court’s stay of the Plan, pending judicial review, has raised more than a few eyebrows in the capitals of other

nations, and concern as well.” Whether that apprehension will translate to reduced ambition in those other capitals is an open question. Lazarus has conducted oral arguments in 13 cases before the Supreme Court, and has closely analyzed the Clean Power Plan. He has submitted a “friend-of-the-court” brief in the case, representing two past EPA Administrators who support the plan. “Our system of judicial review and such judicial intervention is likely so different from the way their own systems of government operate that it is hard for them to be sure of the significance (or not) of the Court’s action,” Lazarus says. “There is not yet any formal indication that the Supreme Court’s action here in the U.S. will hinder the positive momentum towards that historic result achieved in Paris. And certainly U.S. officials are working now to provide reassurance. Only time, however, will tell.”

Turnout internal All the votes Trump needs exist in the ‘undecided’ voting bloc – controversy can and will sway the election McLaughlin & McLaughlin 5/17/16 (John McLaughlin and Jim McLaughlin are Republican strategists and partners in the national polling firm McLaughlin & Associates. They are not aligned with any presidential candidate or super PAC.“Polls Predict a Tightening Presidential Race,” http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435512/presidential-election-2016-polls-predict-tightening-race-hillary-clinton-donald-trump | prs)

Hillary’s only path to victory relies on keeping Donald Trump’s negatives higher than her own. Because

voters have known her in the national political arena for 24 years, and they have a firmer, more long-term opinion of her, it will be difficult for Clinton to lower her negatives without raising Trump’s unfavorable rating. This means she will be attacking Trump early and often, just as she has in the primaries, using the media every day and airing millions of dollars’ worth of TV ads. This explains why just this week, Clinton-allied super PACs have hit the airways with negative ads attacking Donald Trump. SHARE ARTICLE ON

FACEBOOKSHARE TWEET ARTICLETWEET In the past month, however, Trump’s favorable-to-unfavorable rating has improved by 9 percent. His unfavorable rating dropped from 65 percent to 60 percent, while his favorable rating rose from 33 percent to 37 percent. Independents are unfavorable to Trump, 27 percent to 68 percent. Trump’s negatives eclipse Clinton’s negatives in her base: 83 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of African Americans, 73 percent of Hispanics, and 67 percent of women dislike him. And Trump still has his share of negatives in his own base: Among Republicans, 28 percent see him unfavorably, and 39 percent of conservatives do. Eighty percent of undecided voters for president don’t like Trump; only 9 percent do like him. For the first time since last year, the Democratic generic vote for Congress tops the Republican vote, 46 percent to 42 percent. Independents prefer a Democrat, 39 percent to 29 percent, with women voting Democratic 48 percent to 38 percent. The majority of Americans, 52 percent, still disapprove of Obamacare, and 44 percent approve of it. Those who are undecided for president are more likely to disapprove of Obamacare, 38 percent to 52 percent. The majority of Americans, 53 percent, still favor a smaller federal government, while 32 percent favor a

larger government. The plurality of undecided voters , 45 percent, favor smaller government as well, versus 29 percent of undecideds who favor larger government. Even 40 percent of the voters who are favorable to socialist

Bernie Sanders favor a smaller federal government. (This suggests that his popularity is based largely on his being Hillary’s opponent.) Two-thirds of all voters, 67 percent, say the country is still on the wrong track, while only 26 percent say it’s headed in the right direction. Among those who are undecided for president, 68 percent think the country is on the wrong track ; 18 percent think it’s going in the right direction . They could very likely vote against the incumbent party of the White House . Hillary’s only path to victory relies on keeping Donald Trump’s negatives higher than her own. The majority of voters, 56 percent, would like the next president and Congress to change direction and move away from the policies of Barack Obama. Only 34 percent said we

should continue Obama’s policies. Most undecided voters want change , 55 percent to 23 percent . Every possible vote for Donald Trump exists in this majority . Ninety-one percent of Republicans, 55 percent of the independents, and 28 percent of Democrats want to move away from the policies of Obama .

Ninety-two percent of Trump voters, 55 percent of undecided voters , and even 25 percent of Clinton voters want to move away from the policies of Obama . While Hillary Clinton is still engaged in the primaries with Bernie

Sanders, Donald Trump has an opportunity to prove that he is the best candidate to bring change and move away from Obama’s failed policies. Back in March, we had Clinton with a lead of seven percentage points. This month, it’s narrowed to four points: Clinton 46 percent to Trump 42 percent, with only 12 percent undecided. Trump leads among men, 48 percent to 42 percent; among Republicans, 83 percent to 11 percent; and conservatives, 73 percent to 17 percent. However, Clinton leads among Democrats, 81 percent to 12 percent; among independents, 41 percent to 34 percent; and among women, 51 percent to 36 percent. By race, Trump is winning among whites, 50 percent to 39 percent. But among minorities, Clinton probably wishes she was doing better. Among African Americans, Clinton leads, 74 percent to 13 percent. (Romney received 6 percent from African Americans.) Among Hispanics, Trump is running the same as Romney finished, but he has the potential to do better — Clinton leads Trump among Hispanics, 55 percent to 27 percent. Among

Evangelical Christians, Trump leads, 47 percent to 38 percent. However, among Catholics (who are a key swing-voter group), Trump leads, 47

percent to 42 percent. Still, the key group of voters is the 26 percent that has an unfavorable view of both Clinton and Trump. These voters are split virtually evenly, with 35 percent liking Clinton, 34 percent liking Trump, and 32

percent undecided. As we have been saying this year, winning ugly will still be winning.

Impact

Turns Case – EmissionsTrump will destroy all emissions reductions, the CPP, and the Paris deal (more significant impact than CPP)Mingle 16 (Jonathan, The Path from Paris, Harvard University Center for the Environment, http://environment.harvard.edu/news/huce-headlines/path-paris)

But Freeman points out that the CPP isn’t the only component of the U.S. climate plan plagued by uncertainty. “The pledge is based substantially on commitments that will fall to the next administration. Some policies haven’t even been adopted by agencies yet, like regulating (methane) emissions from existing oil and gas facilities. Some have been partly implemented but still could change, like the CAFE standards (for vehicle fuel economy), which are supposed to double by 2025. The EPA must conduct a mid-term evaluation of

these standards by 2018 to decide whether they are still reasonable for cars planned for 2022-2025. So the question is, will they backslide or become more stringent? There is a lot of uncertainty about the policies that are the basis for our current pledge. We have to keep the foot on the pedal of executive action.” Meanwhile, Donald

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the ongoing presidential primary, questions the settled science that humans are causing

climate change. He has criticized U.S. participation in the Paris talks, and pledged to roll back much of President Obama’s executive actions to reduce emissions. But Stavins thinks that could be more difficult than he suspects. “The most important element of the Paris deal is the bilateral deal between China and the U.S. And China and the U.S. have relations ongoing on a lot of things other than climate: national security, trade, monetary policy, and many other issues.” Would he really risk these other interests, he wonders, “for the sake of a symbolic statement on the Paris agreement? Not only would it be unwise, I just think (or at least hope) it’s something he wouldn’t do.” “Most people would say that China is probably going to outperform what its INDC proclaimed, the peaking by 2030 of CO2 emissions,” says Stavins. (Indeed, there is an emerging consensus among researchers that China will

peak by 2025 at the latest.) “Most people would also say, if there’s a change of political party in the White House, that would almost ensure that the U.S. will not achieve its INDC . It probably won’t anyways—it’s going to be very difficult

for the U.S. to achieve it.” Freeman sees the outcome of the U.S. presidential and congressional elections this year as likely to have a broader impact on the prospects for implementing the Paris deal than the survival of the CPP alone . There is little doubt that a Republican administration could, and likely would, put the brakes on U.S. climate action across the board, and thereby exert a major drag on the hoped-for “ratcheting” effect of Paris. “China is highly motivated,” she says. “Their population is choking on air pollution. And the conventional pollutants causing their health problems are co-emitted with carbon dioxide, so controlling them both goes hand in hand. China also faces considerable risks from climate change, and is under pressure from the international community to join the global effort, but quite apart from both of those concerns, domestic political considerations are driving

them to act.” China has responded to U.S. policy steps with their own commitments, she says. For example, we

adopted the CPP, and they announced an emissions trading program. “Can the next U.S. administration maintain that virtuous cycle?” Freeman asks. “ Even if the Supreme Court upholds the CPP, if you have a president who wants to slow walk it or take it apart, that’s a real problem .” Aldy, who, like Freeman, served as an energy and climate

advisor in the Obama administration, agrees. “If our next president is opposed to taking meaningful action on climate, that obviously has a big impact on the international negotiations,” he says. “ What happens with the Clean Power Plan doesn’t matter as much. President Trump is a different story.”

Trump Bad – Protectionism/WarTrump worsens trade wars and military adventurismSomin 5/5/16 (Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, and popular political participation. He is the author of "The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain" and "Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter." “Why Hillary Clinton is a lesser evil than Donald Trump,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/05/why-hillary-clinton-is-a-lesser-evil-than-donald-trump/ | prs)

Free trade is another relative strength for Hillary. Her record here is admittedly inconsistent. On the campaign trail, she has

tilted toward protectionism. But, when in power as First Lady and Secretary of State, she has generally supported free trade. The latter is probably a better guide to her intentions than the former, as was also true of Barack

Obama, who advocated protectionism during the 2008 campaign but then generally supported free trade while in office. By contrast, Trump has made protectionism a central theme of his campaign , which will make it tougher for him to change course. At the very least, Clinton is far less likely than Trump to seriously damage the economy by starting a huge trade war with our major trading partners , as Trump says he will do. Hillary Clinton is also preferable to Trump on issues of freedom of speech. Unlike the Donald, she is not likely to try to use bogus libel suits and FCC harassment to suppress her critics. She also does not encourage her supporters to beat up protestors. Hillary Clinton is no paragon of free speech virtue. She wants to overrule the Citizens United decision and impose harsh new campaign finance regulations that threaten political speech by people

who use the corporate form. But, sadly, so does Trump, who says he “love[s] the idea of campaign finance reform.” Like any president, Trump probably could not fully implement his agenda. But if he wins the election at all, overcoming his current severe unpopularity, it would probably be as part of a wave of support that enables the GOP to hold onto their congressional majorities. And members of Congress generally cooperate with the agenda of presidents of their own party – often, as the George W. Bush era shows – even when that agenda runs counter to some of their previous ideological commitments. II. Does Trump have any Compensating Advantages? Some conservatives and libertarians hold out hope that Trump would appoint judges who will protect important constitutional rights by enforcing the original meaning of the Constitution. But, given Trump’s longstanding hostility to freedom of speech and constitutional property rights, that is highly unlikely. Others may hope he will repeal Obamacare. Sadly, however, Trump’s health care policy (to the extent he has one at all), is mostly Obamacare by another name. There are, most likely, a few issues where Trump really would protect liberty more than Clinton. For example, she supports greatly expanded gun control, while Trump opposes it. But this is an issue that Democrats have had little success with even when Obama was at the height of his power; he had to limit himself to enacting mostly insignificant executive orders. There is little reason to expect that Hillary Clinton would have much greater success. Neither this issue, or any other remotely plausible edge for Trump can possibly outweigh the massive harm Trump is likely to

cause with his immigration and trade policies alone, to say nothing of censorship and murdering civilians. Some of my libertarian friends fear Hillary Clinton because of her relative hawkishness on foreign policy. This is an issue where I disagree with many other libertarians, being less dovish than they are. I do, however, believe that

Hillary Clinton deserves severe criticism for her role in instigating the ill-conceived and unconstitutional Libya intervention. But that war enjoyed widespread bipartisan support when it happened, including that of a certain real estate developer/reality TV star. That in no way excuses Hillary Clinton. But it does undercut the notion that Trump would handle a similar situation any better. More generally, there is no reason to believe that Trump is averse to reckless military interventions. He has, for example, long advocated seizing the oil fields of Iraq and Libya, and keeping them for ourselves. The difference between him and Clinton in this field is not a lesser willingness to use force, but a lesser willingness to be constrained by liberal or humanitarian values in the process. Moreover, Trump’s impulsiveness, authoritarian instincts and manifest ignorance make it more likely that he would stumble into a dangerous conflict , perhaps out of a desire to demonstrate the macho “strength” he is constantly boasting about. This is not a

man who can be trusted with control over the world’s most powerful military, including its nuclear weapons.

Trump Bad – Trade/Econ Trump collapses the global economy – causes mass trade wars and depressions. Wall Street Journal, 2/29/2016 “Making Depressions Great Again; The U.S. may renounce its trade leadership at a dangerous economic moment.” http://www.wsj.com/articles/making-depressions-great-again-1456790200?cb=logged0.21121043253201444

Political leaders have made many mistakes since the 2008 financial panic, but by some miracle a trade war isn't one of them .

There are signs that this luck is running out, at a moment the world economy can least afford it. The pace of global trade continues to tumble, an ominous trend for growth . Meanwhile, the U.S. may renounce its historic role as the anchor of the open international trading system . Both Democratic presidential candidates are trade skeptics, or claim to be. And the leading

Republican, Donald Trump, would be the first avowed protectionist to lead a ticket since the 1920s. *** Forecasters expect world GDP to grow by only 2.2%-2.4% this year, and one reason is that trade flows are historically weak. Trade volumes have flattened among advanced economies and continue to shrink in emerging markets. The OECD estimates that the trade slowdown since 2012 has subtracted about half a percentage point a year from the overall growth rate in the developed world.

The reason to worry is that trade growth typically outpaces GDP by a wide margin, as the nearby chart shows. After a post-recession rebound in 2010 to 12%, trade growth slipped to 7% in 2011, stagnated at 3% for the next three years and then fell below 2% for 2015--well below GDP for

the first time since 9/11. The 1987-2007 average was 7.1%. Reviving trade is crucial to driving faster growth, yet the paradox of trade politics is that it is least popular when economic anxiety is high

and thus trade is most crucial. And so it is now: Four of the remaining U.S. candidates claim to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and Congress now lacks the votes to pass it. The loudest voice of America's new antitrade populism is Mr. Trump, who has endorsed 45% tariffs on Chinese and Japanese imports and promises to punish U.S. companies that make cookies and cars in Mexico. When Mr. Trump visited the Journal in November,

he couldn't name a single trade deal he supported, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). He says he's a free trader but that recent Administrations have been staffed by pathetic losers, so as President he would make deals more favorable to the U.S .,

and foreigners would bow before his threats. "I don't mind trade wars," he said at Thursday's debate. He should be careful what he wishes.

Trade brinksmanship is always hazardous , especially when the world economy is so weak . A trade crash could trigger a new recession that would take years to repair, and these conflicts are unpredictable and can escalate into far greater damage . The tragic historic precedent is the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 , signed

reluctantly by Herbert Hoover. In that era the GOP was the party of tariffs, which economist Joseph Schumpeter called the Republican "household remedy." Smoot-Hawley was intended to protect U.S. jobs and farmers from foreign competition, but it

enraged U.S. trading partners like Canada, Britain and France. As economic historian Charles Kindleberger shows in his classic, "The World

in Depression, 1929-1939," the U.S. tariff cascaded into a global war of beggar-thy-neighbor tariff reprisals and currency devaluation to gain a trading advantage. Each country's search for a protectionist advantage became a disaster for all as trade volumes shrank and deepened the Great Depression . Kindleberger blames the Depression in large part on a failure of leadership, especially by a U.S. that was unwilling to defend open markets in a period of distress. "For the world economy to be stabilized, there has to be a stabilizer--one stabilizer ," he wrote. Britain had played that role for two centuries but was then too weak. The U.S. failed to pick up the mantle. From those economic ruins, FDR's Secretary of State Cordell Hull slowly rebuilt the world trading system in the 1930s, leading to the postwar Bretton Woods accords and the Global Agreement

on Tariffs and Trade. A consensus emerged in both U.S. political parties that preserving a liberal trading order was in America's national interest. But maintaining this American leadership abroad for eight

decades has required presidential leadership at home. The Constitution assigns express authority over foreign trade to Congress, but since Smoot-Hawley the legislature has delegated those powers to the

executive, knowing its own weakness for populist temptations. Presidents of both parties have, with periodic deviations such as George W. Bush's steel tariffs, fulfilled that obligation. But since 2009 this presidential leadership has been diffident. As a candidate Barack Obama promised to reopen Nafta, and early in his first term he slapped a 35% tariff on Chinese tires and endorsed the "Buy American" provisions of the stimulus. Once the President recovered his trade bearings, Mitt Romney

promised in 2012 to sanction China for currency manipulation and even ran TV ads claiming that "for the first time, China is beating us." *** Mr. Trump is now escalating this line into the centerpiece of his economic agenda--protectionism you can believe in. And what markets and the public should understand is that as President he would have enormous unilateral power to follow through . Congress has handed the

President more power over the years to impose punitive tariffs, in large part so Members can blame someone else when antitrade populism runs hot. The tools include so-called Super 301, which allows the U.S. to impose tariffs on countries that supposedly engage in unfair trade practices. Section 201 lets a President impose tariffs or limit imports on a finding by the U.S. International Trade Commission of injury to a U.S. industry. Section 232 lets a President declare that certain imports pose a national security threat. The Treasury can trigger punitive trade actions

by declaring a country to be a "currency manipulator." In an exchange with Bill O'Reilly on Feb. 10, Mr. Trump said that's exactly what he plans to do . The Fox News host suggested a trade war is "going to

be bloody." Mr. Trump replied that Americans needn't worry because the Chinese " will crash their economy ," adding

that " they will have a depression , the likes of which you have never seen" in a trade war. He might be right about China, but the U.S. wouldn't be spared. The Trump candidacy thus introduces a new and dangerous element of economic risk to a world still struggling to emerge from the 2008 panic and the failed progressive policy response. A trade war would compound the potential to make depressions great again.

Trump presidency causes trade wars (and terrorism!)The Economist 3/16 (“Donald Trump wins the US presidential election.” Global Forecasting Service. https://gfs.eiu.com/Article.aspx?articleType=gr&articleId=2866)

Introduction The businessman and political novice, Donald Trump, has built a strong lead in the Republican party primary, and looks the firm favourite to be the party's candidate in the US presidential election in November. Analysis Thus far Mr Trump has given very few details of his policies - and these tend to be prone to constant revision - but a few themes have become apparent. First, he has been exceptionally hostile towards free trade, including notably NAFTA, and has repeatedly labelled China as a "currency manipulator". He has also taken an exceptionally right-wing stance on the Middle East and jiadhi terrorism, including, among other things, advocating the killing of families of terrorists and launching a land incursion into Syria to wipe out IS (and acquire its oil). In the event of a Trump victory, his hostile attitude to free trade, and alienation of Mexico and China in particular, could escalate rapidly into a trade war - and at the least scupper the T rans -Pacific Partnership

between the US and 11 other American and Asian states signed in February 2016. His militaristic tendencies towards the Middle East (and ban on all Muslim travel to the US) would be a potent recruitment tool for jihadi groups, increasing their threat both within the region and beyond. Conclusion Although we do not expect Mr Trump to defeat his most likely Democratic contender, Hillary Clinton, there are risks to this forecast, especially in the event of a terrorist attack on US soil or a sudden economic downturn. It is worth noting that the innate hostility within the Republican hierarchy towards Mr Trump, combined with the inevitable virulent Democratic opposition, will see many of his more radical policies blocked in Congress - albeit such internal bickering will also undermine the coherence of domestic and foreign policymaking.

Trump Bad – HegTrump collapses US Heg and undermines US security commitments Armbruster, 1/28/2016 Ben, senior content strategist for True Blue Media, “President Trump’s Foreign Policy: Violence, Chaos, and Losing, Lots of Losing” http://bluenationreview.com/president-trumps-foreign-policy-violence-chaos-and-losing-lots-of-losing/

Last August, when most of the elite political punditry in this country were saying Donald Trump’s candidacy for president would flame out at any moment, NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked the

billionaire real estate mogul who advises him on foreign and military affairs . “I watch the shows,” Trump said , seemingly referring to the

Sunday political talk shows. “I really see a lot of great — you know, when you watch your show and all of the other shows and you have the generals and you have certain people that you like. Probably there are two or three. …” Comments from “generals” and other “certain people,” just two or three of them, on the Sunday shows — that’s how the GOP frontrunner determines what he will do about the most complex issues of war and peace facing the world today. In fact, no one really knows who is advising Trump on foreign policy and it won’t come as much of a surprise that his bench is either non-existent or isn’t that deep, considering most of the GOP/neocon national security establishment hates him. When that interview aired

though, Trump led GOP presidential polls by 12 points on average. And despite the fact that his foreign policy apparatus is essentially a one-man-zero-experience-gaffe-prone-clown-show, his popularity, even on national security issues, has only continued to rise. Given that it looks like Trump’s chances of winning the Republican nomination for president are increasing by the minute — some have gone so far as saying he can win — it’s worth reviewing what we can expect on foreign and national security policy from a Trump administration, what the ideological

foundations are that are behind it, and why it’s so popular with the GOP base. TRUMP’S PHILOSOPHY Trump has made no secret of his authoritarian, strong-man, domineering style (after all he admires heavy-handed Russian and Chinese leadership). He views U.S. relationships with allies and adversaries in this light,

as pure power dynamics. Whether it’s Putin or the King of Saudi Arabia, for Trump, everyone is taking America to the cleaners and it’s all Barack Obama’s fault (or George Bush’s or Bill Clinton’s). Trump views foreign policy as essentially a series of business transactions and most

of his critiques are that America doesn’t receive some kind of tangible or measurable benefit. Take Japan for example. “You know, we have an agreement with Japan where if somebody attacks Japan, we have to come to their rescue,” Trump said at a campaign rally last summer. “But if

we get attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us. Do you think that’s a good deal?” That philosophy extends to any ally or alliance — whether it’s South Korea, Saudi Arabia, or NATO —

Trump doesn’t see the intangible benefits of the U.S.-led global order, like say, security or stability. The question for

Trump is: what’s the bottom line right now? If he doesn’t see one, it’s a bad deal. Trump says he’s “very militaristic,” yet at the same time lambastes the Iraq war and

seems to loath long, drawn out foreign entanglements (despite the fact that many of his proposals would lead us in that direction). “ We can’t continue to be the policeman of the world ,” he says. Indeed, referring to him as a “hawkish isolationist”, the Atlantic’s Peter Beinart summed up Trump’s world view: Unlike GOP elites, they [hawkish isolationists] don’t see American hegemony as a virtue in and of itself. They don’t like spending money or sending troops abroad . They don’t see free trade , let alone mass immigration, as unambiguously good. They don’t believe that American security depends on democratizing far-off lands, something

they suspect is impossible. And when there’s a crisis in some other part of the world, their first reaction is likely to be: Why can’t the countries over there handle it? In other words, Trump’s world is, and has been, a zero sum game. What’s in it for us? We win, they lose. Indeed, putting that mindset into practice will lead the United States down a very destructive path. THE WORLD WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP Trump may say he doesn’t want to get the United States involved in more wars, but his zero sum, power dominated, 19th Century style philosophy says otherwise. Here’s a brief run-down, based on

his own words, of what the world could look like with a President Trump: MORE WAR: While he said he won’t reveal how he’d defeat ISIS, he has said that he wants to “bomb the shit” out of them (actually that’s kind of already happening). But he wants to go further by essentially re-invading Iraq

to take back the oil fields ISIS captured and send most of the proceeds back to the U.S. He hasn’t addressed what he’d do about the Iraqi reaction to that proposal. XENOPHOBIC, MAFIA-STYLE COUNTERTERRORISM: Of

course while Trump famously said he wants to ban all Muslims from entering the United States “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” he also said he’d kill the families of terrorists. When asked if he’d really do that, if he’d really kill women and children,

Trump replied, “I would do pretty severe stuff.” A NEW (OLD) WORLD ORDER: Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution observed that Trump’s worldview is “a great leap backward in history , embracing antiquated notions of power that haven’t been prevalent since prior to World War II.” As such, he notes, he could imagine Trump giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a freer hand in Europe in exchange for help on ISIS. President Trump might give China more leeway in the South China Sea in exchange for better trade deals. Even the North Atlantic alliance would be at risk under President Trump . A few years ago, he wrote: “Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually. The cost of stationing NATO troops in Europe is enormous . And these are clearly funds that can be put to better use.” In this

light, Wright concludes: After his election, other countries will immediately hedge against the risk of abandonment .

There will be massive uncertainty around America’s commitments . Would Trump defend the Baltics?

Would he defend the Senkaku Islands? Or Saudi Arabia ? Some nations will give in to China, Russia and Iran. Others, like

Japan, will push back, perhaps by acquiring nuclear weapons . Trump may well see such uncertainty as a positive. Putting everything in play would give him great leverage. But by undoing the work

of Truman and his secretary of state, Dean Acheson, it would be the end of the American era. NO MORE IRAN DEAL: Trump has called the Iran nuclear deal “ the worst I have ever

seen .” And while he has said he won’t kill it on day one in office, as some of his competitors have done, he wants to explore ways to change it ( thereby effectively killing it). “[T]here is always a loophole, we need to find it, and if necessary, they [Iran] will pay -big-league dollars,” he said.

Trump Bad – War Trump destroys US credibility and causes multiple wars of aggression globally—risks nuclear conflictKristof 3-5-16 – NYT correspondent, won two Pulitzer Prizes for his coverage of Tiananmen Square and the genocide in Darfur, along with many humanitarian awards such as the Anne Frank Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nicholas, Donald the Dangerous, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/opinion/sunday/donald-the-dangerous.html

IS there any scarier nightmare than President Donald J. Trump in a tense international crisis, indignant and impatient, with his sweaty finger on the nuclear trigger? “Trump is a danger to our national security , ” John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to the State Department under President George W. Bush, bluntly warned. Most of the

discussion about Trump focuses on domestic policy. But checks and balances mean that there are limits to what a president can achieve domestically, while the Constitution gives a commander in chief a much freer hand abroad. That’s what horrifies America-watchers overseas. Der Spiegel, the German magazine, has called Trump the most dangerous man in the world . Even the leader of a Swedish nationalist party that started as a neo-Nazi white supremacist group has disavowed Trump. J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, reflected the views of many Britons when she tweeted that Trump is worse than Voldemort. Leading American conservative thinkers on foreign policy issued an open letter a few days ago warning that they could not support Trump. The signatories include Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of homeland security, Robert Zoellick, the former deputy secretary of state, and more than 100 others. “Mr. Trump’s own statements lead us to conclude that as president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe,” the letter declared. A starting point is Trump’s remarkable ignorance about international affairs. And every time he tries to reassure, he digs the hole deeper. Asked in the

latest debate to name people whose foreign policy ideas he respects, Trump offered Gen. Jack Keane, and mispronounced his name. Asked about Syria, Trump said last year that he would unleash ISIS to destroy Syria’s government. That is insane: ISIS is already murdering or enslaving Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities; executing gays; destroying antiquities; oppressing women. And Trump wants ISIS to capture Damascus? A second major concern is that Trump would start a trade war, or a real war. Trump told The New York Times in January that he favored a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods, then denied ever having said such a thing. The Times produced the audio (that part of the conversation was on the record) in which Trump clearly backed the 45 percent tariff, risking a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Trump has also called for more U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq, and raised the prospect of bombing North Korean nuclear sites. A poorly informed, impatient and pugnacious leader can cause devastation, and that’s true of either Kim Jong-un or Donald Trump. The third risk is to America’s reputation and soft power. Both Bush and President Obama worked hard to reassure the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims that the U.S. is not at war with Islam. Trump has pretty much declared war on all Muslims. The damage to America’s image is already done, even if Trump is never elected. Simply as a blowhard who gains headlines around the world, he reinforces caricatures of the United States and tarnishes our global reputation. He turns America into an object of derision. He is America’s Ahmadinejad. On Twitter, I suggested that Trump was pugnacious, pugilistic, preening and puerile, and asked for other P words to describe him. The result was a deluge: petulant, pandering, pathetic, peevish, prickly, pernicious, patronizing, Pantagruelian, prevaricating, phony, presumptuous, potty-mouthed, provocative, pompous, predatory and so many more, including the troubling “probably president.” There’s something heartbreaking about the prospect that America’s next commander in chief may be a global joke, a man regarded in most foreign capitals as a buffoon, and a dangerous one. Trump is not particularly ideological,

and it’s possible that as president he would surround himself with experts and would back off extreme positions . It was a good sign that on Friday he appeared to reverse himself and pledged that he would not order the U.S. military to commit

war crimes, yet that’s such an astonishingly low bar that I can’t believe I just wrote this sentence! In any case, Trump is nothing if not unpredictable, and it seems equally plausible that he would start new wars. It’s a risk that few sensible

people want to take. As Mitt Romney notes, “This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.” Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who was a national security official in the Bush White House, noted that most Republicans are united in believing that President Obama and Hillary Clinton have damaged the United States and added to the burdens of the next president. “Yet what Trump promises to do would in some important ways make all of the problems

we face dramatically worse,” he told me. “Why, at a moment when the country desperately needs our A-team, would we send in the clowns?”

A2: Checks and BalancesNope – Trump could do some actual damageDrezner 16 (Daniel Drezner, 3/10/2016, The awesome destructive power of the next president, https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/03/10/the-awesome-destructive-power-of-the-next-president/)

As Donald Trump marches towards the GOP nomination, it’s worth pointing out two stories from this past week about what the next president can do as the foreign policy leader of the nation. In The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf discusses what the president can do on the security front without any congressional constraint … and walks away terrified : Let me put things more starkly: Under current precedent, the commander in chief can give a secret order to kill an American citizen with a drone strike without charges or trial. Should Donald Trump have that power?… Before moving into a new house, parents of small children engage in child-proofing. Before leaving the White House, Obama should engage in tyrant-proofing. For eight years, he has evinced a high opinion of his own ability to exercise power morally, even in situations where Senator Obama thought that the president should be restrained. At this point, better to flatter his ego than to resist it. You’ll be gone soon, Mr. President, and for all our disagreements, I think your successor is highly likely to be less trustworthy and more corruptible than you were. Meanwhile, in the Wall Street Journal, Greg Ip looks at the protectionist powers of a sitting president… and walks away terrified: As Mr. Trump closes in on the Republican presidential nomination by promising voters he’ll crack down on foreign competitors, the rest of the world should take stock of the extraordinary power a president has to take the country in a protectionist direction …. While the candidates haven’t delved into the details of trade enforcement, a president has enormous leverage through several broader powerful tools, such as Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which authorizes the president to take “all appropriate and feasible steps” against any “unjustifiable or unreasonable” discrimination against U.S. exports, and Section 201, under which he can seek to protect industry from surging imports…. Though the law is murky, a president can probably pull the U.S. out of the WTO or Nafta on six months’ notice, says Gary Horlick, a veteran trade lawyer, though that would leave in place many of the laws enacting their

provisions, such as on tariff cuts and intellectual-property rights. So, in other words, over time the president has amassed significant levers of power with fewer checks and balances than Americans commonly realize. [To be fair, there have been valid reasons for some of these shifts in power from the legislative to the executive. If you think presidents are bad at foreign economic policy, you haven’t paid attention to legislative history. But still, this is a thing.] As much as Obama decried overreaching executive power as a candidate in 2008, he has become part of the problem as president. This president has concentrated control over foreign policy within the White House to a far greater degree

than anyone since Richard Nixon. In response to an actively hostile GOP-controlled Congress, Obama has simply bypassed the legislative branch through executive action. While many of Obama’s supporters embraced this strategy in

the face of an implacable Congress, it creates an office ripe for abuse if, say, a vainglorious blowhard were to get elected.

A2: Trump moderatesHe’ll escalate every international conflict by undermining US leadership and won’t moderate his views – too deeply engrained Wright, Brookings fellow and director of the Project on International Order and Strategy, 3/24/2016 Thomas, “Donald Trump wants America to withdraw from the world” http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2016/03/24-donald-trump-foreign-policy-wright

The world is a different matter. The president enjoys his or her greatest power in foreign policy. His power to use force is well known. As important, though, is what he can choose not to do. He can unilaterally refuse to defend an ally. He can choose to strike a bargain with Russia instead of deterring it. He can p ull out of a trade deal . There are fewer checks and balances. Damage done in one year may never be undone. A Trump administration would pose the greatest shock to international peace and stability since the 1930s. This is not because Mr. Trump would invade other countries but because he would unilaterally liquidate the liberal international order that presidents have built and defended since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. If the word “isolationist” has any meaning, he qualifies as one . Mr. Trump has a coherent and consistent worldview that dates back almost 30 years when he spent $95,000 on a full-page

advertisement in the New York Times to publish an open letter to the American people on U.S. foreign policy. It was this worldview that he described to the Washington Post editorial board on Monday. It appears in virtually every interview and speech he has given about world affairs

since the 1980s. Simply put, Mr. Trump thinks America’s allies and partners are ripping it off and he wants out of America’s leadership role in the international order . Over and over again, Mr. Trump has questioned why the Unites States. defends Japan, South Korea, Germany and other nat ions without being paid for it. Just this week, he promised to significantly diminish U.S. involvement in NATO and when asked if America “gained anything” from having bases in east Asia he replied “personally I don’t think so”. This is not about a more equitable share of the burden, which many

have called for. Mr. Trump believes that the U.S. gains little from having allies unless it is paid handsomely paid by them. He also opposes every trade deal America has signed over the past

30 years. He wants to use tariffs and other protectionist measures to bludgeon other countries into accepting lopsided agreements that disproportionately benefit the United States. He has suggested charging other countries for use of the sea lanes. Under his presidency, the open global economy would slam shut. As he shuns America’s allies, Mr. Trump would seek to strike deals with Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, and other authoritarian strong men. Mr. Trump has received Mr. Putin’s endorsement and has called for much better relations with Russia. Meanwhile,

to deal with threats to the American homeland, Mr. Trump has promised his own Chechnya-style scorched-earth policy of targeting civilians and using torture. Some think that Mr. Trump will moderate these positions if he is elected, but it is unlikely that a 70-year old who has held these views for decades and probably views himself as a prophet will abandon them at exactly the moment he feels vindicated and empowered. The day after his election, allies in Europe and Asia will rightly worry if their security relationship with the United States remains intact. Russia and China will have an unprecedented opportunity to achieve in a single presidential term what they thought would take decades, namely the destruction of the U.S.-led alliance system. These are the true stakes of the 2016 election. The campaign will be unlike any other as the fundamental pillars of post-second world war American foreign policy are put up for debate. Hillary Clinton, the probable Democrat nominee, might be synonymous with the establishment, but her destiny is clear. It is to explain why an open and liberal international order benefits ordinary Americans. It is to show how the closing of the global economy, the end of alliances and dawning of an authoritarian age poses as great a threat to American interests now as it did in the late 1940s when the architecture of U.S. leadership was created. The international order can survive many things—terrorist attacks, Russian aggression, Chinese revisionism and an international financial crisis— but the collapse of American leadership may prove a disaster too far.

Clinton Solves WarmingClinton is key to solve warming – it causes extinctionKrugman, Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of NY, 2/29/2016 Paul, “Planet on the Ballot” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/29/opinion/planet-on-the-ballot.html?_r=1

We now have a pretty good idea who will be on the ballot in November: Hillary Clinton, almost surely ( after the South Carolina blowout, prediction markets give her a 96 percent probability of securing her party’s nomination) , and Donald Trump, with high likelihood (currently 80 percent probability on the markets ). But even if there’s a stunning upset in what’s left of the primaries, we

already know very well what will be at stake — namely, the fate of the planet. Why do I say this? Obviously, the partisan divide on environmental policy has been growing ever wider . Just eight years ago the G.O.P. nominated John McCain, whose platform included a call for a “cap and trade” system — that is, a system that

restricts emissions, but allows pollution permits to be bought and sold — to limit greenhouse gases. Since then, however, denial of climate science and opposition to anything that might avert catastrophe have become essential pillars of Republican identity . So the choice in 2016 is starker than ever before. Yet that partisan divide would not, in itself, be enough to make this a truly crucial year. After all, electing a pro-environment president wouldn’t make much difference if he or (much more likely) she weren’t in a

position to steer us away from the precipice. And the truth is that given Republican retrogression and the G.O.P.’s near-lock on the House of Representatives, even a blowout Democratic victory this year probably wouldn’t create a political environment in which anything like Mr. McCain’s

2008 proposal could pass Congress. But here’s the thing: the next president won’t need to pass comprehensive legislation, or indeed any legislation, to take a big step toward saving the planet. Dramatic progress in energy technology has put us in a position where executive action — action that relies on existing law — can achieve great things. All we need is an executive willing to take that action, and a Supreme Court that won’t stand in its way. And this year’s election will determine whether those conditions hold . Many people, including some who should know better, still seem oddly oblivious to the ongoing revolution in renewable energy. Recently Bill Gates declared, as he has a number of times over the past few years, that we need an “energy miracle” — some kind of amazing technological breakthrough —

to contain climate change. But we’ve already had that miracle: the cost of electricity generated by wind and sun has dropped dramatically ,

while costs of storage, crucial to making renewables fully competitive with conventional energy, are plunging as we speak . The result is that we’re only a few years from a world in which carbon-neutral sources of energy could replace much of our consumption of fossil fuels at quite modest cost . True, Republicans still robotically repeat that any

attempt to limit emissions would “destroy the economy.” But at this point such assertions are absurd. As both a technical matter and an economic one, drastic reductions in emissions would, in fact, be quite easy to achieve. All it would take to push us across the line would be moderately pro-environment policies. As a card-carrying economist, I am obliged to say that it would be best if these policies took the form of a comprehensive system like cap and trade or carbon taxes, which would provide incentives to reduce emissions all across the economy. But something like the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which would use flexible regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency on major emitters, should be enough to get us a long way toward the goal. And as I said, no new legislation would be needed, just a president willing to

act and a Supreme Court that won’t stand in that president’s way, sacrificing the planet in the name of conservative ideology. What’s more, the Paris agreement from last year means that if the U.S. moves forward on climate action, much of the world will follow our lead . I don’t know about you, but this situation makes me very nervous. As long as

the prospect of effective action on climate seemed remote, sheer despair kept me, and I’m sure many others, comfortably numb — you knew nothing was going to happen, so you just soldiered on. Now, however, salvation is clearly within our grasp, but it remains all too possible that we’ll manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victo ry. And this

is by far the most important issue there is; it, er, trumps even such things as health care, financial reform, and inequality. So I’m going to be hanging on by my fingernails all through this election. No doubt there will be plenty of entertainment along the way, given the freak show taking place on one side of the aisle. But I won’t forget that the stakes this time around are deadly serious. And neither should you.

Clinton Solves Warming – renewables shift and modelingCho 5/18/16 (Renee Cho is a staff blogger for the Earth Institute at Columbia University and a freelance environmental writer who has written for www.insideclimatenews.com, E Magazine and On Earth. Previously, Renee was Communications Coordinator for Riverkeeper, the Hudson River environmental organization. She received the Executive Education Certificate in Conservation and Sustainability from the Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability. “Trump vs. Clinton: What the Election Could Mean for Climate Policy,” http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2016/05/18/trump-vs-clinton-what-their-stances-on-climate-change-could-mean-for-the-paris-accord-and-the-planet/ | prs)

Hillary Clinton has called climate change “an urgent threat” and “the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world.” After the Paris climate conference, she said, “The Paris agreement is testament to America’s ability to lead the world in building a clean energy

future where no one is left out or left behind… as president, I will make combating climate change a top priority from day one , and secure America’s future as the clean energy superpower of the 21st century.” Clinton has promised to deliver on the U.S. commitment to the Paris accord, without having to rely on Congress to pass new legislation. She proposes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 percent in 2025 relative to 2005 levels and chart a path to cut emissions more than 80 percent by 2050. Clinton’s plans include generating enough renewable energy to power every U.S. home with half a billion solar panels installed by the end of her first term, and cutting energy waste by one third in homes, schools and hospitals. She proposes to reduce oil consumption by a third by developing cleaner fuels and more efficient vehicles, boilers and ships; cut methane emissions by 40 to 45 percent and establish tough standards for reducing leaks. Clinton will implement and extend pollution and efficiency standards, and defend Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which requires states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing fossil fuel power plants. She will launch a $60 billion Clean Energy Challenge with states, cities and rural communities to help them go beyond federal standards to cut emissions and expand clean energy. She is planning to create a situation room in the White House just for climate change so that she can monitor where

climate change impacts are happening in real time and develop strategies to deal with them. Clinton also pledges to invest in clean energy infrastructure, innovation, manufacturing and workforce development to create good paying jobs; increase public investment for R&D in clean energy and new technologies such as advanced nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage; and has put forth a $30 billion plan to help coal communities with benefits and new job creation. She will prioritize environmental justice . John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, said that she would like to work with Congress on climate change, but given the obstructionism of most Republicans, instead of attempting sweeping environmental change, she will likely focus on smaller legislative actions and executive powers. She will try to work with Congress on issues where there is common ground, such as on investment in clean energy and energy efficiency, research and development, and ending fossil fuel subsidies. “Hillary Clinton’s views on climate change are very much in line with those of other national leaders,” said Barrett. “She would obviously support the Paris agreement, and would likely work with other states to ensure that its

potential was fully realized. However, the Paris agreement won’t be able to stabilize the climate. … Even if Hillary Clinton is elected, and does what she has pledged to do domestically, much more will need to be done globally to reduce the threat of climate change.” “Paris is not nearly enough,” said Gerrard. “She would need to go further, and I think her people realize that.” The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law is helping to identify legal tools that the next president could use if so inclined, such as a report it issued with N.Y.U. and U.C.L.A.

on Section 115 of the Clean Air Act. Section 115 says that if air pollution from the U.S. is causing damage in other countries, the EPA should require the states where the pollution originates to come up with plans to abate the pollution. “If we had a Clinton presidency, she might well utilize that authority,” said Gerrard. “And one big advantage it has over what they’re using for the Clean Power Plan is the Clean Power Plan is just limited to the power sector, whereas this could cover everything [all

sources].” “We not only need a president who will support the Paris agreement,” said Barrett. “We also need a president who has the vision and diplomatic skills needed to develop other, complementary approaches to limiting climate change.” “If Trump becomes president,” said Gerrard. “I think there will be a lot of exploration of action at the state and local levels, which is what happened under the Bush presidency, and also exploration of federal litigation tools. And we’ll make efforts to persuade the new administration that the case is so compelling that action has to be taken. … If he’s the rational hardheaded

businessman he says he is, he’ll look at data and consider facts. Time will tell.” “A Clinton presidency,” said Gerrard. “Could set the U.S. and the world on the right trajectory and help both adopt greater ambition, and more importantly, methods to achieve that ambition.”

Clinton solves the shit out of warmingJackson & Browner 1/2216 (Lisa P. Jackson served as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2009 to 2013. Carol Browner served as director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy from 2009 to 2011 and as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 1993 to 2001. “We Worked with Hillary Clinton. Here’s How We Know She’s Committed to Fighting Climate Change,” https://medium.com/@lisapjackson/we-worked-with-hillary-clinton-here-s-how-we-know-she-s-committed-to-fighting-climate-change-f8a9b1833c4a#.di82drjwl | prs)

As two former Environmental Protection Agency administrators, we believe that climate change is one of the defining challenges we face as a country. It deserves a serious debate. Recently, the world gathered at the Paris climate conference — a historic achievement where 195 nations agreed to start taking action to combat climate change. It was a testament to President Obama’s leadership, and a critical step forward. It’s

about time, because 2015 was the hottest year on record. Fortunately, we don’t need to wait for Congress to act — because a president can make a huge impact using the laws we already have. We learned that lesson in our work at the EPA and the White House throughout two administrations. Whether it was tightening ozone standards back in the 1990s to improve the air our kids breathe, supporting clean energy investments in the Recovery Act, or instituting historic fuel efficiency standards that will nearly double how far our cars can go on a gallon of gas, we’ve proven that changes large and small can add up to a major difference.

Through it all, Hillary Clinton was right there with us. Over the years, the two of us have seen first-hand that Hillary has more than a plan to fight climate change. She has a vision that would make America the global leader in tackling this crisis, as well as the world’s 21st-century clean energy superpower . We saw a First Lady who drew attention to the link between air pollution and children’s asthma. We saw a senator who worked to extend tax credits for clean energy, got the Pentagon to address climate risks in their Strategic Planning, and protected the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling in a bipartisan coalition. We saw a secretary of state who launched the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, and who appointed the first Special Envoy for Climate Change to make the issue a top priority in U.S. diplomacy. Hillary also helped lay the groundwork for the Paris deal way back in Copenhagen in 2009 — 

even crashing a secret meeting of leaders from China, India, and Brazil. And today, in Hillary, we see a presidential candidate with the most impressive and progressive agenda for tackling climate change . Here’s where she stands on the

key issues: Clinton opposes offshore drilling in the Arctic. As president, she will set a goal to have more than half a billion solar panels installed across the country by the end of her first term. She will defend and improve

President Obama’s historic Clean Power Plan to cut carbon pollution from our nation’s power plants. She will build on the Obama plan with her own Clean Energy Challenge, to help cities, states, and rural communities invest more in clean energy and energy efficiency. As a result, within 10 years of Clinton taking

office, we will generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America . She opposed Keystone XL because she doesn’t believe we should be building a pipeline to transport North America’s dirtiest fuel through the heartland.

And Clinton will modernize our energy infrastructure by improving existing pipeline and railway safety, enhancing security from cyberattacks, and using wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal sources to add more clean power to our grid. She would establish a national infrastructure bank to leverage public and private capital and accelerate investment into the most critical large scale energy projects . As president, she will make sure taxpayers get their fair share for energy production on public lands, and see through President Obama’s recent evaluation of the coal leasing program. (And she has a plan to invest in communities and make sure we don’t leave coal miners and their families behind.) And of

course, she will hold up America’s commitments in the Paris Climate Agreement and continue to engage the international community on global efforts to reduce carbon pollution and keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius . We’ve both known Hillary long enough to know this is just the beginning. She asks tough and pointed questions — one of which is always, “What more can we be doing?” Hillary’s lifelong fight to protect our environment is why the League of Conservation Voters has endorsed her. And it’s why the two of us are proud to call her not just a friend, but one of the best allies we’ve ever had at our side.

A2: Not Solve Warming – NeolibIt’s try or die for Clinton’s market solutions to climate – economics and growth are critical incentives for political action to combat climate change – and also they workCohen 15 (Steven Cohen, Executive Director, Columbia University’s Earth Institute “Hillary Clinton Is Right on Climate Change and the New York Times Is Wrong,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-cohen/hillary-clinton-is-right_b_7924908.html | prs)

Last week, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton detailed her positions on energy and climate change, setting the goal of generating 33 percent of America’s electricity from renewable sources by 2027. While I believe we

can do better than that, her goal would create momentum toward the transition to a renewable and sustainable economy and is worth pursuing . She would use tax incentives and other federal authorities to promote renewable energy. Clinton also supports the Obama Administration’s effort to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. I assume she will continue to support the more stringent policy announced by the President today. In the New York Times story describing Clinton’s climate plan, Trip Gabriel and Coral Davenport reported that: Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, was the architect of Mr. Obama’s signature climate change policy, a set of E.P.A. regulations to cut carbon emissions from power plants. Mrs. Clinton’s new plan appears explicitly designed to build on that plan. Obama and Clinton appear to be in synch on climate policy. While Clinton’s climate policy seems like an important step forward, it is not good enough for the New York Times Editorial Board. In criticizing her policy stance, the Times attacks her vision by stating that “renewables can be only part of a comprehensive energy strategy.” It’s hard to understand what they mean since the move to renewables is the goal of a sustainable energy policy. But then, the Times’ real issue becomes clear as they once again roll out their usual suspect, the carbon tax. According to the Times editorial: There is no mention, however, of the one mechanism that would guarantee a shift in the way the country produces and consumes energy, namely putting a price on carbon emissions, presumably with a tax. Since a carbon tax is not politically feasible, it would actually guarantee nothing; but even if it was feasible, given the current state of energy technology the most likely outcome of a carbon tax would be more expensive energy in the United

States. By supporting climate regulation under the Clean Air Act, Clinton is advocating a policy that indirectly prices carbon and has the advantage of already being the law of the land. Regulation can raise prices if businesses pass along the cost of compliance to consumers. This more gradual policy instrument lacks the drama and blunt edge of a carbon tax, but has the advantage of being real, focused, and something government and industry knows how to do. Regulation will take longer to fully implement , is far from perfect, and will be modified during years of court fights , but it is in place.

Moreover, clean air regulations focus most of their attention on businesses. A carbon tax directly impacts both producers and consumers. A carbon tax would have massive indirect and unanticipated impacts. How would the sudden increase in energy cost affect poor people? How would it affect inflation? How would the tax affect economic growth and unemployment? It’s hard to tell since we haven’t done it yet. Since it would not be imposed in the rapidly growing economies of China and India, it would also do little to reduce global carbon emissions. The argument for a U.S. carbon tax is that it would provide leadership and would indirectly unleash the creative forces of technological innovation by bringing renewable energy to the market faster since fossil fuels would

instantly rise in price. Economists believe correctly that price influences behavior, but it does not determine or guarantee behavior. Nothing does. With apologies to the Times Editorial Board, no public policy guarantees anything. An ideological preference for a single policy instrument is a very incomplete approach to public policy formulation. The tools of government influence include more than one policy instrument. Price can work. Education can work. Command

and control regulation can work. Incentives and funding technological development can work. Often we need a combination of all of them to make dramatic change. In a true emergency, there are stronger tools available to government - to mobilize for World War II the government virtually took over the economy mandating the conversion of most industrial capacity for the war effort. Whenever I hear the carbon tax presented as the answer, I always think of the famous quote attributed to both Bernard Baruch and Abraham Maslow: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Fortunately, we have many tools in the policy toolbox. And price is not the only way to influence behavior. I would argue that given human behavior and organizational inertia it is better to subsidize something new than tax something old. A subsidy, like a sale, sometimes stimulates changed behavior. But a tax may or may not influence behavior. People may continue using fossil fuels out of habit or due to the sunk costs they have already invested in fossil fuel equipment and infrastructure. They may eat the additional cost to save the trouble and possible cost of changing what they do. It is true that if you tax something and make it more expensive, people will tend to use less of it. Of course, they may also buy it illegally. Cigarettes may be an instructive case in point. They are almost as addictive as energy, and they are heavily taxed. The taxation of cigarettes has had an impact, but so

too have education programs showing the impact of lung cancer. Alone, the tax is no magic bullet. People continue to smoke those things and there is a huge black market in untaxed cigarettes. If the carbon tax has the impact of the cigarette tax, don’t expect much reduction in

greenhouse gases. While Hillary Clinton’s emphasis on deploying existing technology makes sense, I would urge her to go further and focus on a massive research and development effort to identify and commercialize new renewable energy technologies. Current renewable technologies are good, but not great. We need a

transformative technology. We need breakthroughs in energy storage technology and in solar cells. If we are to solve the climate problem we need to focus our attention on policies and programs that are practical and politically feasible . Even if a second President Clinton had a Democratic Congress she would have trouble getting a carbon tax enacted. But a massive research program to reduce the cost and environmental impact of energy would be as popular as ice cream on a hot summer day. Even a Republican Congress might go along for that ride. The continued insistence

on solutions that are not politically feasible makes no sense whatsoever. Climate policy advocacy needs to move past the symbolic

and move on to real, operational, feasible policy prescriptions. The vast global pressure for economic development provides a political imperative for immediate economic growth. The equally intense pressure for maintaining the way of life we enjoy in the developed world creates similar political imperatives . Modern economic life requires massive amounts of energy and this energy must be made available now . Taxing fossil fuels will only reduce their use if there are feasible substitutes available. If such substitutes are

available it is more politically attractive to create incentives to make renewables less expensive than to make fossil fuels more expensive. Along with the price signal, government must also send other messages. For example, government should: Favor renewable energy and energy efficiency in its own operations and procurement policies. Train and educate people to adopt socially responsible energy consumption practices, and include energy utilities in these efforts. Fund basic research in renewable energy and energy storage technology. Provide tax incentives for energy efficiency and for switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Fund the implementation of smart grid and microgrid infrastructure. All over the world, thoughtful people and forward looking institutions have come to the conclusion that

our economies must make the transition from the one time use of finite resources, to a system based on renewable, sustainable resources. Along with my colleagues William Eimicke and Alison Miller I recently wrote a book entitled

Sustainability Policy that provides scores of examples of exciting efforts to begin this transition. We need to build on these small-scale efforts at the community, local and state level and focus attention on those places. We need to look at

what is working, try to figure out what makes it work, and then increase the pace of the transition that has already begun. Hillary Clinton’s ideas are a step in the right direction. They are simple , practical and politically feasible .

Aff

UQ

Obama ClimateObama strong on climate now (also SQ solves the aff)Cohn 15 (Jonathan, staff writer from Mother Jones, “Here's How President Trump Could Dismantle Obama's Climate Rules,” AUG. 5, 2015, http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/08/republican-president-clean-power-plan)

All of those issues deserve attention. But maybe the first question should be about President Barack Obama's latest effort to slow climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday released a final version of new regulations designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. Technically, the regulations are part of the Clean Air Act, which became law in the 1970s and gives the federal government broad powers to regulate pollutants that threaten public health. The new regulations call upon states to devise plans that cut down on carbon output from power plants—which, in practice, could mean anything from shutting down aging coal-fired generators to creating multi-state markets for trading pollution permits. States must produce their plans by 2018, and begin making cuts by 2020. In states where officials decline to submit plans, as the law envisions, the EPA will step in and impose blueprints of its own making. (The Huffington Post's Kate Sheppard has all the details—and the case Obama is making in favor of these new regulations.) Monday's announcement is the latest step in the Obama administration's ongoing effort to limit greenhouse gases. The idea is to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants by about one-third, relative to 2005 levels, by 2030. You can make a credible argument that, taken together, the president's efforts to slow climate change belong alongside the Affordable Care Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms as cornerstones of Obama's legacy on domestic policy.

Obama is bent on decreasing emissions --- State of the Union provesKnox 16 (Nora, staff writer for US Green Building Council, “State of the Union 2016: Obama’s focus on environment,” Advocacy and Policy from US Green Building Council, 13 Jan 2016, http://www.usgbc.org/articles/state-union-2016-obamas-focus-environment)

Last night, President Obama delivered the 2016 State of the Union. In his remarks, he declared that as a nation we must make technology work for us when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change. In last year's address, the president emphasized that "no challenge—poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change." This year, he stressed that now is the time to commit to developing clean energy sources. “Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You’ll be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific

community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it. But even if the planet wasn’t at stake; even if 2014 wasn’t the warmest year on record—until 2015 turned out even hotter—why would we want to pass up the chance for American businesses to produce and sell the energy of the future? Seven years ago, we made the single biggest investment in clean energy in our history. Here are the results. In fields from Iowa to Texas, wind power is now cheaper than dirtier, conventional power. On rooftops from Arizona to New York, solar is saving Americans tens of millions of dollars a year on their energy bills, and employs more Americans than coal—in jobs that pay better than average. We’re taking steps to give homeowners the freedom to generate and store their own energy—something environmentalists and Tea Partiers have teamed up to support. Meanwhile, we’ve cut

our imports of foreign oil by nearly sixty percent, and cut carbon pollution more than any other country on Earth.

Obama solves climate nowPeralta 15 (Eyder, NPR reporter on The Two-Way, “Obama On Climate Change: 'I Actually Think We're Going To Solve This Thing'” December 1 2015, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/01/457986043/obama-urges-turkey-russia-to-lessen-tensions-focus-on-islamic-state-fight)

"I actually think we're going to solve this thing." That's what President Obama said in a news conference just before he left a United Nations summit on climate change. "Climate change is a massive problem," Obama said. "It is a generational problem. It's a problem that by definition is just about the hardest thing for a

political system to absorb, because the effects are gradual, they're diffused. And yet despite all that ... I'm optimistic. I think we're going to solve it." Just a few years ago, Obama said, nobody would have predicted that more than 150 leaders would come to Paris holding plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "All of this will be hard," Obama said. "Getting 200 nations to agree on anything is hard ... but I'm convinced that we're going to get big things done here." Obama leaves the conference, but his deputies will remain in Paris in an effort to craft a global, legally binding agreement intended to curb climate change. The big goal: to keep the global temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius. At the moment, if you add up all the commitments on the table at the summit and assume that they would be met, the temperature would still rise by 2.7 degrees, Obama

said. "That's too high," Obama said. But "what we expect is that we'll hit these targets faster than expected and ... we could pick up the pace." Obama said that is not just "foolish optimism" but an expectation based on past experience. The United States, for example, was able to meet its goals faster than expected.

Trump Win NowTrump wins now – even CNN shows Binder 7/22 (John

Immediately following GOP nominee Donald Trump’s electrifying Republican National Convention (RNC) speech, not even CNN could deny that the public was loving it. In four polls taken immediately after Trump’s speech, viewers told CNN what they really thought. Take a look at a compilation put together by a Twitter user: CNN, The most biased political media source there is, polled its viewers, & even they agree WE NEED TRUMP #Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/MR3LqIqPeP — Jesse #Trump2016

(@EaglesJesse) July 22, 2016 For viewers, a whopping 57 percent said they had a “very positive” reaction to the speech, while only 24 percent said the speech had a “negative effect.” Even more incredible for Trump was that 73 percent of viewers said the policies proposed in the speech would move the country in the “right direction,” with only 24 percent saying otherwise. The speech left 56 percent of viewers saying they are “more likely” to vote for Trump.

Trump win now - independentsSherfinski 7/22 (David, staff writer for Washington Times, “Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton running neck-and-neck in New Hampshire: poll” 7/22/16 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/22/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-running-neck-and-neck/)

In the new poll, Mrs. Clinton had the support of about eight in 10 Democrats in the head-to-head match-up with Mr. Trump, while seven in 10

Republicans supported the GOP nominee. But Mr. Trump had a 20-point edge among independents, though four in 10 said they were voting for someone else or were undecided. The battleground state gave Mr. Trump his first win of the GOP primary season and handed Mrs. Clinton a significant loss to Sen. Bernard Sanders on the Democratic

side. The survey was conducted from July 9-18. The Republican National Convention in Cleveland wrapped up on Thursday and ran from July 18-21.

Clinton loses-low favorability and large national GOP base Cary 5/20/16 [Mary Kate. Contributing Editor at US News. “Why Clinton Will Lose.” U.S. News. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-05-20/why-hillary-clinton-will-lose-to-donald-trump. SH]

There's a new Fox News poll out this week showing Donald Trump in a statistical tie with Hillary Clinton nationally (Trump at 45 percent and Clinton at 42 percent , with a margin of error of 3 percent). Yet the newspapers are full of headlines asking if the GOP will survive this election cycle and the Republican Party's fate is being described as if it were

facing the end of days. The truth is that despite its short term troubles, in the long run the GOP has gained in strength. In

2015, Gallup analyzed party affiliation at the state level and found that 20 states are solidly or leaning Republican, with only 14 states solidly or leaning Democratic. Compare that with 2008, when Gallup found 35 states as solidly or leaning

Democratic, and only five solidly or leaning Republican. That's not a party in decline. Democrats haven't controlled fewer state legislatures since 1978, during the Carter years. In 2009, Republicans controlled both chambers in 14 state legislatures; now they

control more than double that number. At the same time, the number of Republican governors has swelled from 19 to 31. Say what you want about the Republican presidential field this year, but there's no denying that it was the deepest bench of candidates in memory. [READ: Hillary’s Glaring Weakness] No one seems to be interested in that story. The press would rather cover @realDonaldTrump's tweets about tacos. Meanwhile, sandwiched between "real" news stories – do we really need any more "breaking news" stories about long TSA

lines? – is the fact that Hillary Clinton is in real trouble. Despite her big lead among superdelegates, Clinton has only led the popular vote in 22 of the 39 caucuses and primaries so far ; she's won just under 13 million votes, and Bernie Sanders has

won nearly 10 million. And he seems to be picking up steam. Perhaps it's because her unfavorable ratings with voters remain

stubbornly high: 54 percent view her unfavorably, compared to 39 percent favorably according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls. Politico reports that Sanders has outraised Clinton for the third month in a row.

Trump will win-mobilizes a larger base and builds a better brandNovak 6/2/16 [Jake. “I was wrong: Trump WILL be the next president.” CNBC. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/01/i-was-wrong-trump-will-be-the-next-president-commentary.html. SH]

Trump, a supposed political neophyte, seems to understand the Republican base better than party leaders. Trump may have failed to win over all the conservative elites represented by people like Bill Kristol and the National Review editorial board. But what I and others forgot was that on Election Day, there's not enough of that conservative elite base to fill a phone booth. Securing their support is no way to win a general election. And, as Mitt Romney found out the hard way in 2012, even being a more moderate mainstream conservative with experience winning and running a liberal state like Massachusetts isn't good enough to win the White House anymore. And it's also

impossible to hold down the conservative support and expand the potential Republican voting base at the same time. What Trump and his

advisers clearly realized a long time ago was that it would have to really disrupt the hardened "red/blue" divide to win. America's demographics, news media, and educational establishments have all successfully destroyed the traditional Republican message for at least a generation. As someone who had never run for office before, Trump already had the best chance to run away from that party title and shrinking base to create a new coalition of voters. But he had another advantage I missed in this area: his bluntness. To use the kind of blunt language Trump is so fond of, the current Republican Party is a "loser." So, Trump has to regularly prove he's not a part of that

losing team while still getting the Republican National Committee's money and ground-game support on Election Day. So far, that disruptive strategy has worked. He started by successfully capturing the attention of blue collar and union workers with his attacks on open borders and U.S. manufacturers outsourcing to Mexico and China. The coarseness of that message successfully separated him from more cautious Republicans. And by grabbing hold of a populist pro-blue collar message, he defused a traditional Democratic Party weapon . He continued by raising concerns about Muslim immigrants and even Muslim tourists in light of the San Bernardino Jihadist shootings. That blunt talk was considered

foolish and even politically suicidal at the time, but it undoubtedly helped spur not only Trump's primary victories but also record participation in the Republican primary process . No Republican has done anything like this since Richard Nixon stole the Democrats' thunder in 1972 by not only withdrawing quickly from Vietnam but also making his historic trip to China. Base? Trump doesn't need no stinking base. And it hasn't ended there. Trump is still breaking conventional rules by recently insulting New Mexico Governor Susan Martinez, a GOP "golden child," because all the conventional wisdom says Republicans need more women and Latino voters to have a future. But remember, Trump is trying to make sure you don't primarily identify him as a "team player" Republican anyway. That team is a losing team and Trump wants little part of it. And he's probably also aware that it's a waste of time for any non-Democrat to run after elusive female and Latino voters anyway. It sounds crazy to slam Martinez, but as Trump is proving over and over again, Trump's campaign

is crazy like a fox. It also sounds crazy to a lot of people that Trump has been actively going after the white vote. Why does

a non-Democrat ever have to do that? Because white voter turnout has been down in recent elections. Trump knows he needs to energize lots of white voters who have recently stopped voting. He did that in the primaries and it's all still working now. GOP Chairman Reince Priebus is still coming along nicely and showing more support for Trump day by day.

According to the latest NBC/WSJ poll, 86 percent of registered Republicans now support Trump over Clinton, up from 72 percent a month ago. By the end of the GOP convention in July, that number should be close to 95 percent. The remaining 5 percent of Republicans who will never support Trump won't matter. The conventional wisdom about shoring up your base was all wrong. The second biggest mistake I made about Trump is something else the CNBC audience should appreciate: I didn't think his incredible abilities and experience at self-promotion would translate very well from the business and entertainment media

world to the political arena. But I forgot that Trump has been a master business marketer for decades and has also been working closely with some of the best writers in reality TV for more than 15 years. And probably the best talent those writers have is making events and comments sound truly off the cuff and natural even when they are really completely planned and strategically weighed. I don't think Trump has said one thing or sent out even one tweet during this campaign that didn't sound like something he truly believed and would

naturally say or write. Even if you've hated 100 percent of the things Trump has said and written, it's important to understand that Trump has won a crucial marketing and persuasive victory simply by convincing you that what he's saying and writing is his genuine voice and authentic personality. It's called building a clear and identifiable brand. Winning an election is still very much about connecting personally with key voters and you can only do that if you present a clear personality or brand to the voters in the first place . If you're the person who sees Trump's personality/brand and have decided you hate everything about it, I have news for you: You're not the target audience. But

you're still proof that Trump's messaging is at least very clear and that's often more than half the battle in business and politics. And that brings me to my last mistake about Trump's chances: I underestimated how bad Hillary Clinton's campaign would be. To be fair, I never thought

Clinton was a particularly strong candidate. But at every essential task of marketing and messaging, the Clinton campaign has been surprisingly bad. We all know Trump's key slogan/promise is "Make America Great Again." I'm still not sure what Hillary Clinton's key slogan/promise is and I follow her campaign very closely. Is it "I'm with Her?" If so, it's not very good in that it doesn't seem to have anything in it for the person who isn't "her." Clinton's Twitter feed and website are helping Trump immensely as they seem to pump out phrases like "a Trump presidency," and "President Trump" more often than Trump does himself. These kinds of messages present and reinforce the idea of an actual President Trump in our subconscious brains. This is why the old TV commercials for consumer products when we were growing up used to avoid naming competing products as anything other than "brand x."

Trump will win-fear of terrorProkop 6/14/16 [Andrew. “Do terrorist attacks make a Trump win more likely? Here’s what the research suggests.” Vox. http://www.vox.com/2016/6/14/11380320/donald-trump-terrorism-election-political-science. SH]

So over the past few months, I've spoken with several top political scientists who have done research on this question, and reviewed their work

to see what implications heightened fears of terror tend to have on voters. And according to Jennifer Merolla, a

political scientist at UC Riverside who has long studied how terrorism impacts voters, her research suggests there's more reason to believe Trump would benefit than that Clinton would. "On average, our findings suggest Trump may be advantaged," Merolla told me back in April. (Though she hastened to add that, due to the experience discrepancy, "Hillary Clinton may not be as

disadvantaged as other Democrats.") Trump’s biggest strengths on the terror issue are that he is a member of the more hawkish party, he uses more aggressive rhetoric, and he may be perceived as a "stronger leader." Plus, sadly enough, some research indicates that even his gender could be an advantage over Clinton when voters’ fear of terror is high. So in a vacuum, there are many reasons to expect Trump to benefit. "Whenever terrorism is in the news, one way people cope with their anxiety and anger is to look for a leader to protect them — and, in a crisis context, to rescue them," Merolla said.

UQ overwhelmsIt is categorically impossible for Trump to win the election Schneider 16 (Christian, Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, “No matter how you look at it, Trump's not winning: Column” USA Today, July 5 2016, http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/nation-now/2016/07/05/no-matter-how-you-look-trumps-not-winning-column/86715020/)

But 2016 is no typical year. Republicans have nominated a candidate who is only recently and tangentially Republican, and whose staunchest supporters are left to argue he is fit for the presidency only because his Democratic opponent is more unfit. It has long been clear that Donald Trump's party fluidity almost certainly will spell doom for Republicans in November. Trump hurdled the GOP primary field because he said things politicians could never say — and now Republicans are going to learn the hard way why politicians never say those things. Trump is now the Bruce Willis character in "The Sixth Sense": his candidacy is dead, he just doesn't realize it yet. (Sorry for the spoiler, but c'mon — it's been 17 years.) The myriad ways Trump's candidacy will fail provide a

Rashomon-style buffet of scenarios to contemplate. Even if "Generic Republican" were on the ballot, he or she would be at a distinct electoral disadvantage — Trump's repulsiveness simply accelerates that disadvantage. (If anyone has a black and white "Generic Republican" yard sign, decorated with a UPC bar code, I will happily purchase one.) As Chris Cillizza of

the Washington Post frequently points out, given the GOP's built-in underdog status, Hillary Clinton only needs to win every state Democrats have won in every presidential election since 1992, then add Florida, and she is the winner. Perhaps you enjoy talk of battleground states. Well, there's a scenario for you, too. First, pick the six "closest" swing states (VA, NH, IA, OH, FL, NC). Got it? Now understand that New Hampshire excepted, Clinton only has to win one of them in order to reach the requisite 270 electoral votes to win. (Optional third step for Republicans only: start shotgunning Pabst

Blue Ribbon and don't stop until November.) Lest any Trump supporters seek solace in poll numbers, recent polls have Trump sliding further behind in all the relevant swing states. According to a Ballotpedia battleground poll released last week, Trump trails by 14% in Florida, 4% in Iowa, 10% in North Carolina, 9% in Ohio, and 7% in Virginia.

No Link

Voters don’t careVoters don’t care about climate change – not an issue for themLapowsky 16 (Issie, staff writer for WIRED, covering business, tech policy, and the 2016 election season, “Clinton and Sanders Spar Over Climate, But Voters Probably Don’t Give a Hoot,” 1/22/16, http://www.wired.com/2016/01/clinton-and-sanders-spar-over-climate-but-do-voters-care/)

With all the more obvious differences between Clinton and Sanders—from their records on guns to their records on the Iraq War—climate

action seems an odd platform to nitpick. It’s odder still when you consider that for most voters, environmental issues are fairly low priority. “It’s not a voting issue for most Americans, even Americans who think climate change is an issue,” says Dana R. Fisher, director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland.

“Most research says unless people have experienced some dramatic weather event related to climate change, very rarely is it a voting issue.” Recent polls show that while the majority of Americans believe climate change is a serious problem, that number is slipping, as is the percentage of Americans who believe the government should do something about it. According to one ABC News/Washington Post poll released in

November, just 47 percent of Americans say the government needs to act, compared to 70 percent during the George W. Bush administration. That figure is much higher among Democrats, but still, Fisher says, voters tend to be far less motivated to vote based on climate plans than they are based on economic or military policies. Climate change is a very real threat to the country’s stability, but for most Americans, that threat can feel far away. “It’s relatively abstract, talking about emissions reduction by 2025,” Fisher says. “It’s very hard to think about when you go to decide who’s going to represent you in the White House for the next four years.”

Link Turn

popularCarbon tax popular with conservatives – not seen as an environment issuePianin 15 (Eric, Washington Editor and D.C. bureau chief of The Fiscal Times, “A Carbon Tax to Combat Global Warming is Getting a Fresh Look,” The Fiscal Times, http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/07/05/Carbon-Tax-Combat-Global-Warming-Getting-Fresh-Look)

Still, the tax has appeal among some conservatives. Jerry Taylor, a veteran energy expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, formed a new organization earlier this year to encourage Republican lawmakers to support a sweeping set of taxes on carbon emissions, according to The Wall Street Journal. According

to Taylor, the carbon taxes would be part of a “grand bargain” between conservatives and liberal Democrats that would include corresponding cuts in other corporate taxes and the elimination of federal fuel standards and greenhouse gas emission regulations. Some might consider that idea far-fetched, but

Taylor insisted it was plausible. "You can be an absolute denialist [about climate change] and still embrace the logic of swapping out regulations for taxes,” he told the Journal.

Trump carbon tax (wtf)Trump’s energy advisor promotes carbon taxRoussi 16 (Antoaneta, Staff writer for Salon, “Even Donald Trump’s climate-change skeptic energy adviser believes there should be a carbon tax,” May 16 2016, http://www.salon.com/2016/05/16/even_donald_trumps_climate_change_skeptic_energy_adviser_believes_there_should_be_a_carbon_tax/)

Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota — the second biggest oil drilling state in the country — was approached by the billionaire businessman about two weeks ago, when Trump was giving a foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., and asked to draft a white paper on energy policy, sources told E&E Climatewire. The news comes a little after Cramer and other Trump energy advisers met with lawmakers from western states, in the hopes Trump will expand federal land for drilling. “It’s easy to talk about the ways the federal government has gotten in the way,” Cramer said of regulations. “But then what can we do to bring back the jobs that Hillary Clinton seems to want to get rid of in her keep-all-the-fossil-fuels-in-the-ground attitude?” Cramer said that his energy paper would emphasize the dangers of foreign ownership of U.S. energy assets, burdensome taxes, and over-regulation. The congressman also proposes to repeal the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, but unlike Trump, believes there should be a replacement in the form of a small tax on carbon. “He can do all that if he wants,” Cramer said of Trump’s climate position, according to Reuters . “But my advice would be, while I’m a skeptic, as well, he is a product of political populism, and political populism believes that there needs [to be] some addressing of climate change.”

Internal link

No vote switchingNo vote switching – most voters have made up their mindsDutton et al 6/15/16 (Sarah Dutton and Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto. “Clinton maintains lead after claiming nomination - CBS News poll,” http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-maintains-lead-after-claiming-nomination-cbs-news-poll/ | prs)

Clinton continues to enjoy strong support from liberals, moderates, women, African Americans, and voters under 45, while Donald Trump gets the support of men - particularly white men - Republicans, conservatives, and white voters without a college degree. Most registered voters say they have made up their minds about who to support: 87 percent of Trump voters and 89 percent of Clinton voters say they won't change their minds before the election . But just over a third of each candidate's supporters say they strongly favor their choice. About a quarter of both Trump and Clinton voters are supporting their candidate mainly

because they dislike the opposition. Only 32 percent of voters are very enthusiastic about the 2016 presidential election, and there is little difference between Clinton and Trump voters. Overall, enthusiasm is down from the beginning of the year: now 23 percent of voters say they are not at all enthusiastic, up from 15 percent in January before the primary season began.

Obama low nowSupport for Obama is low now – economy and ISISBoyer 15 (Dave Boyer - The Washington Times - Tuesday, December 29, 2015 “Swinging for the fences, Obama faces some curveballs,” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/29/obamas-plans-for-final-year-face-mulish-congress-h/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS | prs)

“I’ve never been more optimistic about a year ahead than I am right now,” Mr. Obama said in his final news

conference of the year. “In 2016 I’m going to leave it out all on the field.” But as he enters his last year in office, Mr.

Obama seems to be in a rut as far as his ability to rally Americans to support his proposals. While

pundits have been talking about “ Obama fatigue ” for years, recent polls are bearing out the notion that the public has grown weary of the president . An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll this month found 73 percent of respondents want the next president to pursue a “different approach ” from Mr. Obama, while only 25 percent want to follow a similar course. While the unemployment rate has dropped to 5 percent, the lowest of Mr.

Obama’s presidency, people don’t feel reassured about the economy or their personal financial security. A

national survey by the Pew Research Center last week found that Americans are less optimistic about how the economy will perform over the next year, with only 20 percent expecting conditions to improve. A year ago, the same

poll found that 31 percent of respondents expected the economy to get better. Pew researchers found that attitudes about the economy today are similar to January 2008, near the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, a few months before the financial crisis hit. Foreign policy and national security, often the focal points of second-term presidents, don’t look promising for Mr. Obama’s legacy as he heads into 2016. The terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, have renewed criticism of Mr. Obama’s handling of the Islamic State and placed national security ahead as the top concern of Americans in polls, ahead of the economy. While the president has repeatedly told the public about steps to beef up the military coalition fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, he also is trying to lower expectations about keeping the homeland completely safe, saying the extremists’ use of social media and “Lone Wolf” attacks make it more difficult for authorities to prevent attacks. In an interview last week with NPR, Mr. Obama said the Islamic State “is not an organization that can destroy the United States.” “This is not a huge industrial power that can pose great risks to us institutionally or in a systematic way,” Mr. Obama said. “The most damage they can do, though, is if they start changing how we live and what our values are, and part of my message over the next 14 months or 13 months that I remain in office is to just make sure that we remember who we are and make

sure that our resilience, our values, our unity are maintained. If we do that, then [Islamic State] will be defeated.” Mr. Lipson said a terrorist attack is the “wild card” for Mr. Obama’s final year in office. “If there are any successful large-scale terrorist attacks then I think the president’s position is deeply eroded,” he said.

No Impact

Trump flopsNo impact to Trump – he’ll moderate and his radical policies will flop Bragman 4/29/16 (WALKER BRAGMAN “A liberal case for Donald Trump: The lesser of two evils is not at all clear in 2016,” http://www.salon.com/2016/04/29/a_liberal_case_for_donald_trump_the_lesser_of_two_evils_is_not_at_all_clear_in_2016/ | prs)

2.) That said, most of his policies are DOA In all likelihood, Trump will not accomplish anything. He has made serious enemies in both parties and the media, whom he feels have slighted him, and I cannot see him working with those people. Trump holds grudges. He has filed more frivolous lawsuits than anyone in the public eye — or maybe we just hear about them more.

Either way, politics do require compromise to one degree or another, and without it, nothing gets done. As such, when Trump finds himself up against institutional and bureaucratic resistance, it is unlikely he will deliver . For example, his wall — paid for by Mexico — is never going to happen . Ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.? Not a chance. But what if he does work with Congress? Well, first off, we do not know what his platform will be when he hits the

general election. He likely tack to the middle . Second, even if he does work with Congress, he is still not going to get his social policies passed . The Senate with its filibuster and cloture rules is enough of a check on that , even if Democrats do not have a majority. Basically, we will not have immigration reform, but we will not have people

rounded up in the streets and deported. Third and most important of all: I do not need to trust Donald Trump in the same way I would have to trust Hillary Clinton were she elected. The reason for this is very simple: Trump represents the GOP brand, and Clinton claims the mantle of progressive. If Trump fails to accomplish anything in office, or if he manages to do whatever damage he can do, he will represent the Republicans . Moreover, rightly or wrongly, he

represents America’s crypto-fascist element. The best way to discredit both of these groups is to let them fail on their own. Trump will not succeed as a president . On the flip side, if Hillary Clinton screws up by compromising too much (which is likely) or doing too little (also likely), progressivism will take a big hit in the public eye, which is something we cannot afford. 3.) The 2020 election looms Now we arrive at the point where I start sounding old Jud Crandall from Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary.” Progressives and Democrats should be focusing on the election in 2020 because 1) it is a census year — meaning the makeup of the House of Representatives for the following decade will depend on down-ballot voting — and 2) there may be openings on the Supreme Court. The last consecutive two-term presidents from the same political party were James Madison and James Monroe. In other words, Democrats face long historical odds if Hillary Clinton wins in 2016, of winning again in four years. Historically, the party in control of the White House loses seats in the midterm. A Trump presidency would force Democrats to organize and turn out in the off-year. And it might provide a head-start on taking back the chamber in 2020 Clinton is also one of the weakest candidates ever to secure the nomination for president from either party. As Gallup pointed out, the word most associated with her name is “dishonest.” Her favorability ratings are abysmal, she’s prone to secrecy which opens her up to perceptions of scandal, and she has an FBI investigation hanging over her head. Unlike her rival, Bernie Sanders, but like Donald Trump, she underperforms among Independents — a necessary voting bloc for any president. Trump will also struggle in 2020 due to his lack of policy understanding, unwillingness to work with others, and lack of popularity. As I mentioned, he will probably be defending a record of little by way of achievement at a time when voters are demanding serious overhauls. Trump now would enable the Democratic Party to regroup, and reform under a more economically populist banner in order to tap into the American zeitgeist. Perhaps 2020 could see President Elizabeth Warren. 4.) I’m Not Afraid of Donald Trump

Some of you might be reading this and thinking to yourselves: “That’s all well and good, but Trump is dangerous.” I understand those feelings. Donald Trump’s messages on social policy have been mixed at best, and fascistic at

worst. His approach to climate science is frightening considering the dire situation our planet is in. Trump is also the kind of man who would use the office of the president to aggrandize himself, and punish his detractors — well, attempt to do so, like in his many libel

and slander suits. Over the last twenty years the powers of the president have expanded considerably as commander-in-chief, and that’s concerning, too. Additionally, there is the matter of the Supreme Court of United States. But let’s step back for a moment, and address some important points: Trump will not transform America’s oligarchy into a fascist dictatorship , nor is he the second coming of Hitler. Our political culture precludes such a shift within any one presidency. Regardless of what Donald Trump has said in this

primary, like Hillary Clinton, his past positions and financial ties belie his sincerity. He’s been a consistent ally

(and donor) to the Clintons for decades — so similar, he even shares the same Delaware address as they do, to avoid taxes: In 1999, he supported efforts to eliminate our national debt. In 2000 he supported “tough on crime” policies, called for prosecuting hate crimes against homosexuals, criticized U.S. dealings with China, saying we’re “too eager to please,” and criticized the Communist country for their record on human rights. He has supported the assault weapon ban, waiting periods, and background checks, called for universal health care. and was tentatively pro-collective bargaining, arguing that unions “fight for pay, managers fight for less, and consumers win.” In 2010, he called for

government partnering with environmentalists before undertaking “projects.” Trump has also been consistently to the left of the Clintons on trade . In 1999, he said that the world views U.S. trade officials as “saps,” and in 2000, when Hillary Clinton was still

very much pro-NAFTA, he called for renegotiating our trade deals to be more tougher and more fair for American workers. Even today, Trump is to the left of Hillary Clinton on some issues. He supports medical marijuana, while she says “more research”

needs to be conducted. He’s against super PACs — instructing those supporting his campaign to return all the money to the donors. I would not be the least bit surprised to see Trump run to Clinton’s left on economic policy in a general election — especially given the fact that he just announced that he will be using many of Sanders’ attacks on her then. The implications of such a move are a subject for a separate

article. As for foreign policy, Trump and Clinton are both talking about bombing ISIS, and have aggressive outlooks. For her part, Clinton recently announced, on the verge of a lasting peace, that the U.S. could “obliterate Iran.” Both have, at one point or another, supported torture. She voted for the war in

Iraq, he opposed it. They each want to escalate some U.S. involvement overseas. They have at one point or another, both supported torture. Their rhetoric makes my inner dove cringe. Hillary Clinton, for example, has pandered to Netanyahu and AIPAC. She couldn’t even say, during the Brooklyn debate, that the Israeli prime minister wasn’t “always right.” She recently announced that the U.S. would “obliterate” Iran in the event of a nuclear conflict. The U.S. and Iran are on the verge of a lasting peace

deal that she supposedly supports. Trump’s foreign policy talk has alienated our allies like the United Kingdon, and that isn’t something to take lightly. However, it has also earned praise from Vladimir Putin. That is interesting and of course potentially disingenuous, yet we’ve not had a good relationship with Russia for some time and Clinton’s “reset” as secretary of state failed. There is one important distinction between

the Clinton and Trump: she has a body count . Her foreign policy blunders — voting for the Iraq War, legitimizing the coup

regime in Honduras, and supporting violent regime change in Libya — have cost thousands of lives. Finally, let’s talk about the Supreme Court. We have no way of predicting who Trump would appoint, but we can speculate with Hillary Clinton. While she has said that her litmus test for nominees will be commitment to overturning Citizens United v. FEC, there is little reason to trust her given how much she benefits from the current campaign finance system that is a product of that ruling and others. Clinton’s reliance on dark money and coordination with super PACs, along with her lack of serious discussion and failure to prioritize this issue belie her promise to reform. This is the single most important, and inclusive problem today because it affects our ability to deal with every other issue. It is also the one area Democrats are not necessarily better than Republicans. President Barack Obama’s recent Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, is one of the judges responsible for the disastrous SpeechNow.org v. FEC ruling which gave us Super PACs, and upheld Citizens United. Trump has talked about appointing additional Scalias. That’s dangerous — and all the more reason to hope Democrats

take back the Senate, but also play hardball as well as Republicans have in the last year. In the end, it is doubtful that the more negative aspects of Trump’s platform will ever come to pass. In 2016, the lesser-of-two-evils is not so clear.

Trump couldn’t do anything – political checksCooper 3/16/16 (Matthew, Columnist @ Newsweek, "WHAT THE WORLD WILL LOOK LIKE UNDER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP," http://www.newsweek.com/2016/03/25/world-under-president-donald-trump-437158.html)

All of which is nuts. Trump isn’t Hitler. He isn’t a fascist either—although he has, despite a career of deal-making, the my-way-or-the-highway proclivities of a Latin American strongman, which would be worrisome if America were Bolivia and not an enduring democracy. (Trump was the inspiration, by the way, for the Back to the Future bully, Biff Tannen.) He’s also not a savior. Due to his solipsistic personality

and vague, unworkable policies, he could never be what he promises to be if elected. But that doesn’t make him the sum of all fears. The unspectacular truth is that a Trump presidency would probably be marked by the quotidian work of so

many other presidents—trying to sell Congress and the public on proposals while fighting off not only a culture of protest but also the usual swarm of lobbyists who kill any interesting idea with ads and donations. Trump has a rarefied confidence in his abilities and, as we

recently learned, in his, um, manhood. But what he doesn’t have is a magic wand (insert wand-penis joke here). Remember

Schoolhouse Rock ? Trump is no match for the American political system, with its three branches of government . The president, as famed political scientist Richard Neustadt once said, has to take an inherently weak position and use the powers of persuasion to get others to do what he wants.

No Trade WarTrump won’t follow through on any of his foreign policy rhetoric on the campaign—there’s no impactBusiness Standard 3/10 – (“US foreign policy unlikely to change radically post-elections: Experts,” http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/us-foreign-policy-unlikely-to-change-radically-post-elections-experts-116031001376_1.html, )

The broad contours of the American foreign policy are not likely to change post-elections no matter whether a Republican becomes the president or it is a Democrat, feel experts . Taking part in a discussion on the topic "The 2016 US elections and their impact on foreign policy", organised by the American Embassy here on Thursday, international affairs experts C Raja Mohan,

Chintamani Mahapatra and Sam Solomon deliberated on various aspects of US foreign policy. The three agreed that much of what Republican candidates, especially Donald Trump, are saying – for example building a wall along the Mexican border or barring Muslims from entering America or taming China – is mere election rhetoric that has little practical significance . "Trump may walk back on many things," said Raja Mohan, a former member of India's National Security Advisory Board.

Mahapatra, a professor of US and Latin American studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, agreed. "With such huge American investment in China, Trump cannot possibly engage China in a 'trade war' as he claims," he said. Sam Solomon, a US citizen and a Fulbright-Nehru research fellow said the direction of the foreign policy is also influenced by a president's personality to an extent. Citing an example, he said it was

Barack Obama who personally took an interestin climate change as a serious global problem and pushed for its solution. "I feel that the Republican rhetoric about Islamic State is more of rhetoric than policy. Trump, if he wins the election, may get a bit tougher on immigration

laws, but he cannot possibly bar all Muslims from entering US or erect a wall at the Mexican border," Solomon said. About Republicans' stress on limiting the US army's presence in the Middle East and south Asia, Raja Mohan said it has already started under Obama and would only be carried forward by the coming president. "The phase that started in the late 1980s when Americans were believed to go to any place in the world and pay any price to protect their interests is going to end. Or at least there should be some retrenchment in military interventions," Raja Mohan said.

No environmentNobody cares about climate change, including Hillary ClintonBaume, 06/03 (Matt, “None of the 2016 Republican Presidential Candidates Care Much About Climate Change,” The Stranger, 2015, http://www.thestranger.com/features/feature/2015/06/03/22323229/none-of-the-2016-republican-presidential-candidates-care-much-about-climate-change)

In contrast, if you press Republican presidential candidates like Marco Rubio or Carly Fiorina on climate change, they just scoff. "Our climate is always evolving, and natural disasters have always existed," says Rubio, which is a bit like saying cigarettes aren't harmful because people have always died of cancer. "Companies shouldn't cave in to the demands of

climate-change scientists," says Fiorina, probably hoping that nobody will point out that she nearly destroyed the last company she led. None of the other Republican candidates can be bothered to worry about the gradual destruction of the planet, either. That may just be shrewd political calculation, since it seems most voters simply don't want to hear about climate change. According to a March survey from Gallup, only about 2 percent of Americans say that the environment or pollution are the most important problems facing the country. Among voters who are concerned about the environment, issues like smog and endangered species tend to elicit more concern than the broader problems of climate change itself. In other words, it's easier to feel bummed out about African lions going extinct in our lifetime than the water wars that will take place after we're dead. News networks are complicit: According to Media Matters for America, only MSNBC spent more than a few minutes talking about climate change during the 2012 election. Hey, the potential destruction of all life on Earth is a big story, sure, but it's so complicated and it's kind of a bummer! Better devote

another hour to whatever the hell the Duggars are! Worryingly, Hillary Clinton's campaign hasn't made much noise about climate change, either. She's definitely saying more than her Republican opponents, to be fair. She supports the reduction of power-plant emissions under the Clean Air Act; her campaign chairman, John Podesta, was previously a climate-change adviser for President Obama; and she doesn't try to pretend that nobody could possibly understand the science. "Sea levels are rising; ice caps are melting," she says.

"If we act decisively now, we can still head off the most catastrophic consequences." Oh, but wait—former secretary of state Clinton also

supported Gulf Coast oil drilling and gave a thumbs-up to fracking overseas. Under her leadership, the US State Department colluded with energy companies to expand fracking operations in other countries, the facts of which were disclosed later by WikiLeaks. It would be nice to believe that this was secretly a form of clever

espionage (we'll weaken hostile foreign powers by causing earthquakes in their countries and setting their tap water on fire!). But the Clinton Foundation also raked in millions of dollars from oil conglomerates, so it's more likely just a case of

millionaires doing favors for millionaires. And when it comes to the Keystone XL pipeline, she's adopted a stance not unlike her Republican adversaries: clamming up. "You won't get me to talk about Keystone because I have steadily made clear that I'm not going to express an opinion," she told an audience a few months ago. Oh okay! That settles that! Guess we'll just talk about something else then! Here's why presidential rhetoric on climate change is so important: Local jurisdictions depend on federal support to prevent and prepare for climate disasters. For the last seven years, cities all over the country have been gobbling up millions of dollars in grants to prepare their infrastructure for floods, droughts, storms, and blackouts. Under the Obama administration, agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation have managed to cut a lot of red tape on projects ranging from reducing car dependency to keeping seawater out of reservoirs. Seattle, for example, got $6.1 million from the Department of Energy that helped pay for various climate-related projects, such as the distribution of water-saving showerheads and weatherization of low-income homes. Seattle's Center City protected bike lane project got $5 million from the federal government. The Seattle Streetcar Broadway Extension project got $10 million. The city also received technical assistance with energy audits of Capitol Hill Housing units. The city's also working on projects to increase storm-water storage, so we don't wind up having to kayak to work through downtown. Other ongoing projects: modeling future energy needs to prevent blackouts, building storm-monitoring stations, creating a food distribution plan in the event of climate disaster. All of these projects could benefit from federal help. But that help could go away—or at least be harder to come by—if the next president's official position is "climate

shmimate." It's hard to predict exactly how that federal support to local jurisdictions would change under, say, President Jeb Bush. We know

he's a denier ("It is not unanimous among scientists that it is disproportionately man-made," he said in 2011), but would he leave federal aid to communities intact? Or cut it a little? Or copy Florida's insane policy and ban any mention of climate change? There's no way to know, in

part because he simply hasn't indicated what his plans are. And why would he, if voters don't care either way? Getting the candidates to talk about climate change would require either a complete reversal of voter priorities—perhaps triggered by some catastrophic meteorological disaster, which sure would be fun—or pressure from special-interest groups. Of those two options, the

latter involves far less loss of life and limb and is already under way: Last week, the California State Parent Teacher Association adopted a resolution urging schools to add climate change to existing curricula.

Clinton’s environmentalism is just empty rhetoric—won’t solve warmingAlex Seitz-Wald 14, political reporter for MSNBC, “Climate activists not ready for Hillary,” 9/21/14, http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/climate-activists-not-ready-hillary-clinton

NEW YORK – Some of the prominent environmental activists who gathered Sunday in New York City for a massive climate change

march are not ready to support Hillary Clinton if she decides to run for president.¶ “I think Hillary Clinton has an awful lot to demonstrate to environmentalists and people who care about climate change,” Bill McKibben, the

founder of 350.org, who helped organize the march, told msnbc. “She oversaw the complete fiasco that was the Copenhagen Conference as secretary of state. That was the biggest foreign policy failure since Munich. It’s not a proud record.” ¶ Clinton has often touted her record on fighting climate change, and put the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen front and center. In her new book, “Hard Choices,” Clinton devotes the bulk of a chapter to the negotiations, writing that her work produced a deal that, “while far from perfect, saved the summit from failure and put us on the road to future progress.”¶ And on Sunday, Clinton allies defended her environmental bona fides. “As Secretary Of State, Hillary Clinton led efforts to combat the growing threat of climate change both at home and abroad. Clinton created a special envoy for climate change, and she launched the Climate and Clean Air Coalition – a group of 37 countries that agreed to work to reduce their emissions. At the Clean Energy Summit held recently in Nevada, Clinton said climate change is ‘the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world,’” said Adrienne Watson of the pro-Clinton rapid

response group Correct the Record.¶ But Van Jones, a former Obama White House advisor on green jobs, said Clinton is “going to have to reassure a lot of people because of her position on fracking,” the new technology used to extract oil and gas

from shale. “I think she has some distance to make up in terms of reassuring people about where she comes down as a climate champion,” Jones told msnbc.¶ The demonstration in Midtown Manhattan, which drew tens of thousands of demonstrators of all ages and from around the world, attracted a number of celebrities and big name advocates, as well.¶ Mark Ruffalo, the movie star and environmental activist who was present at the march, said that Clinton’s support for fracking could be harmful. “Unless she changes that, the climate change voters, the people who take this very seriously, are not going to be able to get behind her,” he told msnbc.¶

“If someone can offer up another way forward, [climate voters] are going to get behind that person. Just like Obama, they got behind him,” Ruffalo continued, suggesting Sens. Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders as possible alternatives. “These are people who get this,

who are not beholden to this 100-year-old fossil fuel stranglehold on leaders like Hillary Clinton.” ¶ A recent investigation from Mother Jones magazine detailed how Clinton’s state department promoted the fracking aboard and Maura Cowley, the Executive Director of the Energy Action Coalition, which organizes youth around environmental issues, also cited fracking as a concern.¶ “I think she’s done amazing work and made some bold commitments on climate change, but her support of fracking has been very troubling for the

youth vote,” she told msnbc. “We’re really hoping for her to also take a bolder stance on tar sands. We’re very excited, but we think she needs to be doing more.”

Impact turn

Environment/RacismClinton ruins the environment – fracking; also POC communities get eliminatedRogers-Wright No Date (Anthony, Policy and Organizing Director at Environmental Action, “Under Hillary’s Energy Plan, Communities of Color Would Be Fracked Over,” No Date, http://environmental-action.org/blog/lip-service-clintons-green-plan-bad-news-for-brown-communities/)

Hillary Clinton has a new plan for fracked gas in America entitled, “Hillary Clinton’s Plan for Ensuring Safe and

Responsible Natural Gas Production,” and it isn’t good. Increased extraction and use of a fossil fuel that’s known for it’s epic, months-long leaks and is 80 times more potent a global warming pollutant than Carbon Dioxide isn’t leadership, it’s a climate catastrophe. And it highlights the concern that, once again, candidates running for our highest office are treating Black and Brown issues as the flavor of the month, instead of investing in a steady diet of climate justice and “keep it in the ground” policies that protect and empower these communities perpetually. Let me explain: A closer look at Secretary Clinton’s Natural Gas Production plan should raise questions, if not alarms, to everyone concerned about climate change, including, most especially, the low-wealth/communities of color who see disproportionate impacts from climate chaos. Clinton’s platform makes the un-deliverable promise that she “will ensure safe and responsible natural gas production as we move towards a clean energy future.” This statement, 17 words in total, is the soul of her mis-leading

— we cannot move towards a clean energy future by extracting a fossil fuel that is 80 times more potent at polluting our climate than carbon dioxide. The idea itself reminds me of my favorite Jamiroquai album entitled,

“Traveling Without Moving.” Some additional highlights, or more appropriately, low-lights of Clinton’s plan include: Work with states utilizing natural gas generation and support infrastructure to reduce carbon pollution Provide financing tools for new natural gas pipeline investment that supports these objectives; Accelerate the deployment of high efficiency natural gas-fueled trucks, buses, ships, and trains to dramatically reduce local air pollution and improve public health; Increase public R&D in renewable natural gas and other solutions to deliver low-carbon gas to buildings, industry, trucks and ships through our existing pipeline network and drive new technologies to capture and sequester CO2 emissions from natural gas-fired power plants; and Ensure new natural gas pipelines are built to the highest standards and repair or replace thousands of leaky pipes by the end of her first term. At a time when scientists are telling us that we must leave 80 percent of fossil fuels in the ground to avert the worst case scenarios of climate catastrophe, Clinton’s platform is the antithesis of the “Leave It In The Ground” Manifesto. Further, it would increase investments in fracked-gas infrastructure instead of a renewable energy revolution. To choose to plow countless dollars and jobs into building a new generation of pipelines and export terminals, when the clean energy economy is already creating

more jobs than the fossil fuel industry is ridiculous. Clinton’s plan even considers technologies like carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a long-since unproven technology with no future in a global warming action plan. We need to vastly reduce the amount of global warming pollution we produce, not invest in technology that doesn’t work and can only be used by our worst polluters. Further, we all know, based on our country’s legacy of targeting Black and Brown communities for the placement of toxic waste, where CCS facilities would likely be situated — certainly not communities like Chappaqua, NY. Now that the race for the presidential has shifted to states where Black and Brown voters make up a significant portion of the electorate, candidates who covet these voters are attempting to highlight why their policy platforms would be better. In addition to wealth and income inequality, criminal justice and immigration reform, and a broken education system, many candidates have also been quick to call out the legacy of environmental racism. I’ve said before that Flint, Michigan is a snapshot of situations in Black and Brown communities nationwide. And I’ve applauded that Secretary Clinton visited Flint to discus lead pollution, and later in Harlem where she laid out bold policies to address racial injustice. But those past opportunities make it doubly disappointing to see her

now support hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” We all know this process requires the injection of chemicals, sand and water deep underground with sufficient pressure to shatter bedrock and unlock tiny pockets of gas or oil. Those same chemicals have been proven to harm developmental and reproductive health, and can leak into our drinking water aquifers as well as the deplete local freshwater supplies in the process. But

we also know that low-wealth/communities of color, including our sisters and brothers on tribal lands, bear the brunt of fracking’s impacts. Our friends at NRDC released an excellent report, Drilling In California: Who’s At Risk in 2014.

Therein, they reveal that in California alone, of the 5.4 million people living within one mile of fracking activities, 90 percent are people of color. Additionally, Grist.org revealed that fracking waste and wastewater are disproportionately situated in communities of color, which has perilous implications for their drinking water supplies. Thanks to the excellent reporting of EcoWatch, we’ve learned about the heavy burden experienced by tribal nations due

to fracking in North Dakota. The extreme form of extraction has resulted in lasting effects to not only their use of the land, but to their very culture. Not to mention the issue of broken treaties that have cheated tribes out of sums as high as $1 billion. It’s not just local communities worried about water contamination either – Climate Change is a global problem whose effects are felt first and worst by communities of color and indigenous peoples around the world. The United States is the leading producer of natural gas globally, and

given the very leaky nature of our gas transport and shipping systems, that makes fracked gas transport and export a major source of the US’ global warming pollution. Coupled with the fact that the Natural

Gas Act requires expedited exports of natural gas to countries we have trade agreements with, Clinton’s plan to increase local production of fracked gas could have dire implications for indigenous communities from South America to Asia as well as communities of color on the entire African continent. Clinton is clearly courting the black and brown vote. But her policy proposal on fracked gas is an example of what Steve Phillips warns against in his new book, “Brown is the New White” — policies that seem to have been drafted to appeal to so-called, “White Swing Voters,” as opposed to the progressive majority made up of people of color and White progressives. In the book he writes, “By focusing so much of their time, attention and resources on White swing voters, Democrats neglected and ignored the very voters who elected them in the first place in 2008 and 2012 — the multiracial New American Majority. After being overlooked and under-appreciated, large numbers of these voters were uninspired and disaffected by the campaigns of Democrats in the midterms and stayed home in 2010 and 2014, resulting in crushing defeats of Democrats and the loss of both houses of Congress.” Clinton must explain why she decried the poisoning of Flint’s drinking water on one day, and released a policy platform that would poison our water, air and climate with fracking on the next. This is exactly why Environmental Action has joined with many other organizations including Color of Change, Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor the Earth, 350.0rg, Daily Kos and many other to demand that DNC and Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz sanction the Flint Debate on March 6th to focus solely on Environmental and Climate

Justice. All voters have a right to know how policies like Clinton’s will affect their communities, and the Flint debate is the perfect forum to address these issues and impacts lasting for generations.

EconomyClinton kills the economyPriebus 16 (Reince, Staff Writer for Real Clear Politics, “Obama's Economy Is Bad; Clinton's Would Be Worse,” May 2, 2016, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/05/02/obamas_economy_is_bad_clintons_would_be_worse_130445.html)

Despite all of this, Hillary Clinton doesn’t think he’s been given enough credit and even gives the president an “A” for his performance. That’s

troubling, but what should concern Americans even more is what she is proposing to do. Take Clinton’s plan to raise taxes, for

example. According to a recent study by the Tax Foundation, it would reduce economic growth by 1 percent, eliminate the equivalent of 311,000 full-time jobs, and lead to 0.8 percent lower wages. That means if Hillary Clinton were president today and her tax plan was on the books, Thursday’s GDP report would have shown that the economy actually contracted. Today’s stagnant wages would be even smaller and fewer Americans would be able to find full-time work. She isn’t just offering the status quo of failed liberal economics, she’s promising to put it on steroids with potentially damaging consequences. Struggling Americans will never get ahead under Hillary Clinton. They are going to keep getting taken to the cleaners. After seven-plus years of economic malaise under Obama, it’s time to take the country in a new direction, not double down on the Democrats’ failed big government approach.

Economic decline causes global nuclear war Tønnesson, Oslo Peace Research Institute professor, 2015

(Stein, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace”, International Area Studies Review, 18.3, Wiley)

Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from

the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right.

Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014;

Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the

value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on

either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence , appeal to anti-foreign sentiments , contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies , and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly , i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the

tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on

support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to

war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating

nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon , and unreliably so .

Deterrence could lose its credibility : one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each

Clinton is the devilPresident Clinton would ruin literally everything – military interventionism, jobs/economy, environment, all sorts of K impactsSanbonmatsu 16 (John, teaches political philosophy and ethics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, “The Danger of Hillary Clinton: She Is Not the ‘Safer’ Candidate,” March 4, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-sanbonmatsu/the-danger-of-hillary-clinton_b_9348848.html)

Liberals, beware: casting a vote for Clinton is to affirm militarism, economic inequality, and Wall Street. It is to vote for the ecological meltdown of our planet, duplicity in government, the control of our institutions by the rich, drone strikes, government surveillance of the people, and perpetual war. It is to cast a ballot against the interests of the working poor, and for the interests of Goldman Sachs and Big Pharma. Clinton’s war-mongering is a matter of public record. Just today, the New York Times published a devastating policy analysis of Clinton’s role in the overthrow of Libyan president Muammar el-Qaddafi and the subsequent descent of Libya into chaos and civil war. “We came, we saw, he died!” Clinton exclaimed after Qaddafi was captured, tortured, and summarily executed. Afterwards, Hillary’s aides developed a “brag sheet” to showcase her role in Qaddafi’s overthrow. Then, Clinton and other Obama officials stepped back and let the nation disintegrate. As the Times reporters recount,

“Mrs. Clinton would be mostly a bystander as the country dissolved into chaos, leading to a civil war that would destabilize the region, fueling the refugee crisis in Europe and allowing the Islamic State to establish a Libyan haven

that the United States is now desperately trying to contain.” Clinton is unrepentant to this day. She is a hard-core militarist and interventionist—a right-wing wolf in liberal sheep’s clothing. Though Clinton has now found it convenient to

rue her vote for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, she in fact fiercely defended Bush’s Iraq war policy for years. (At least 174,000 people died in the conflict, including over 110,000 civilians.) But Hillary’s war-mongering is not the worst thing about her. Under President Obama, the gap between rich and poor widened to a degree unprecedented in human history. Though few liberals seem aware of the fact, poverty increased sharply under Obama, with blacks, Latinos, and women suffering disproportionately from the President’s policies. So if Clinton continues down Obama’s neoliberal path, as she vows to, we can expect the ranks of the poor—today, 47 million Americans, with more than one in five children living in poverty—to swell. Because Clinton is a close friend of the big banks, big pharma, and “big” everything else that corresponds to corporate capitalism, millions of Americans already struggling will sink even further under the waves. Rental and housing prices, already astronomical, will rise to more heights of unaffordability. Drug prices and health care costs, which soared under Obama, will likely increase. So will homelessness and the national suicide rate—because those rose dramatically under Obama, too. Meanwhile, we are plunging over an ecological precipice that is bottomless, and Clinton will do nothing to slow the fall. Hillary is at best indifferent to the global environmental crisis. Having thrown in her lot with the wealthiest banks and corporations, she is in no position to advocate for the kinds of radical changes that would be necessary to avert a planetary meltdown. On President Obama’s watch, the planet’s ecology further unravelled: mass species extinctions, global warming, deforestation, vanishing fresh water, mass die-offs of pollinating insects, increasing carbon emissions from aircraft and animal agriculture, expansion of the petroleum industry, etc. Things will only get worse under Clinton, who has supported fracking, deep sea oil drilling, and minimal regulation of polluting industries.