In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Lawyers for Twitter users blocked by President Trump after they criticized or mocked him are asking him to reverse the moves, arguing that the Constitution bars him from blocking people on the social media service.
The request raises novel legal issues stemming from Mr. Trump’s use of his Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump, to make statements about public policy. In a letter sent to Mr. Trump on Tuesday, lawyers for several users he has blocked argued that his account was a “public forum” from which the government may not constitutionally exclude people because it disagrees with views they have expressed.
“This Twitter account operates as a ‘designated public forum’ for First Amendment purposes, and accordingly the viewpoint-based blocking of our clients is unconstitutional,” the letter said. “We ask that you unblock them and any others who have been blocked for similar reasons.”
rofl. kinda interesting case. For what its worth, I believe a president should be allowed to have a totally off the rails twitter account. if the president feels like shitposting, he should be able to shitpost and block haters.
More broadly, I think social media and people's cell phones have become an integral part of our personalities, social lives and a lot more. Limiting what someone can do on social media is almost always terrible in my eyes. Social media is becoming a part of who we are.
Why would you want a president with an extravagant personality? I want one that is a cipher, so attuned to what is politically beneficial that you can't pierce through their bland managerial persona to discover their underlying values. We are talking not about a twitch streamer, but about the most powerful person in the world, whose every action affects potentially millions of lives. There should be no room for individuality there.
I don't necessarily like HRC, but she fits my image of what a President should be. It's just that she's bad at projecting charisma.
The water has been inching closer to Rita Falgout’s house, lapping at the edges of her front yard. Her home is one of 29 in Isle de Jean Charles, a narrow island in the bayous of southeastern Louisiana that is slowly sinking into the Gulf of Mexico. The island, home to members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw and the United Houma Nation tribes, is reached by a lone road that passes through the marshland with water on either side. Since 1955, the island has lost 98% of its land.
“Now there’s just a little strip of land left,” Falgout, 81, tells Quartz. “That’s all we have. There’s water all around us.” She’s one of just 100 people who lives in Isle de Jean Charles. Few outside know or care what’s going on there. “I’m anxious to go,” she says.
On the other side of the US, a small village of approximately 350 people on the Ninglick river on the western edge of Alaska faces similar troubles ahead. In Newtok, rising seas and melting permafrost caused by climate change have meant the Ninglick is gradually eroding the land. “They see the river bearing down on them. They all accept it, they all know they have to leave,” said Joel Neimeyer, the co-chair of the Denali Commission, a federal agency tasked with coordinating government assistance for coastal resilience in Alaska. “The river is coming at 70 feet a year. You can just take out a tape measure and measure it.”
Both towns were left with an awful choice that is going to come to many who live in coastal areas across the US that are at risk of being inundated as the sea level continues to rise: Move or perish. But then they heard of an unusual, first-of-its-kind competition held by the Obama administration, which offered the chance for relocation. The National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC) was organized by the federal government and aimed to help communities and states recover from previous disasters and reduce future risks.
For both Isle de Jean Charles and Newtok, the competition offered hope. It also suggested that powerful people far away cared. US president Barack Obama visited Alaska in September 2015, a few months before the Paris climate summit that would create a landmark comprehensive global climate deal, and said, “What’s happening in Alaska isn’t just a preview to what will happen to the rest of us if we don’t take action, it’s our wake-up call. The alarm bells are ringing.”
As climate change impacts larger swathes of US coastal towns, the idea of climate-induced migration is no longer an abstract concept that is only impacting far-away islands in the Pacific. A March 2016 study (pdf) suggests that a 6-foot (1.8-meter) rise in sea levels by 2100, fuelled by a collapse of the polar ice caps, could lead to 13.1 million Americans along the coasts losing their homes to the rising tide. Even a more modest rise of 3 feet would leave 4 million homeless.
With the US population highly concentrated in dense coastal areas, this raises urgent questions for the government. Where would you move everyone? How do you move entire towns and cities? Who will pay for it? And, perhaps most contentiously, who do you help first?
'They are not even people. They have no message. While ours is clearly fuck the world and the poor in particular and we should get the respect that our egos desire for that. How can you criticize a man this great?'
The US state and defence departments have scrambled to limit the diplomatic damage done by Donald Trump’s morning tweets lambasting Qatar, which is the hub for US military air operations across the Middle East.
Trump started the day by taking sides in a bitter row among the Gulf monarchies, in which Saudi Arabia and its allies have sought to isolate Qatar.
The US president visited the region last month and claimed to have helped bring unity to the Islamic world in the battle against extremism.
While in Riyadh, Trump met regional leaders, including the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. He said the US and Qatar had been “friends for a long time” and that the two leaders discussed the Qatari purchase of “lots of beautiful military equipment.”
Just more than two weeks later, however, after Riyadh cut ties with Qatar, Trump tweeted support for the move, claiming that when it came to funding radical ideology, “leaders point to Qatar”.
US relations with Qatar have long been complicated by Doha’s promotion of a conservative and austere form of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism, from which many extremist groups claim to draw inspiration, and its backing of extremist groups elsewhere in the region.
However, the same issues have clouded the relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Furthermore, the al-Udeid base outside Doha is the centre for US air operations over Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan. It will be critical for the assault on the Isis stronghold Raqqa, which was launched on Tuesday.
“It’s unlikely (to say the least) that Donald Trump realised we are running the entire air war out of Qatar prior to his tweet,” said Andrew Exum, a deputy assistant secretary of defence for Middle East policy in the Obama administration.
In a cycle that has become a daily norm in Washington, government agencies on Tuesday sought to mitigate the impact of the president’s declarations, restating existing policy and playing down the significance of the tweets.
The defence department praised Qatar for hosting US forces and its “enduring commitment to regional security”. A Pentagon spokesman, Capt Jeff Davis, said he was not qualified to answer a question about whether Qatar supported terrorism.
“I’m not the right person to ask that. I consider them a host to our very important base at al-Udeid,” Davis said.
The new spokeswoman at the state department, Heather Nauert, was bombarded with similar questions. She echoed the Pentagon’s expressions of gratitude and conceded that Doha had made strides in cutting the flow of funds to terror groups.
The woman is drinking her own koolaid. I am glad I didn't watch that entire debate though, I don't know if I could stand to listen to her go on about her sister like that.
Nothing like an FBI director who helped keep Christie from going under for bridgegate. At least he worked on the Enron investigation (not that Trump would want anything like that happening under his watch).
'They are not even people. They have no message. While ours is clearly fuck the world and the poor in particular and we should get the respect that our egos desire for that. How can you criticize a man this great?'
How likely is it that DT is putting his 2nd son in position as VP to step down later and hand over the presidency to his "very very famous" child? That would be glorious.
Lawyers for Twitter users blocked by President Trump after they criticized or mocked him are asking him to reverse the moves, arguing that the Constitution bars him from blocking people on the social media service.
The request raises novel legal issues stemming from Mr. Trump’s use of his Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump, to make statements about public policy. In a letter sent to Mr. Trump on Tuesday, lawyers for several users he has blocked argued that his account was a “public forum” from which the government may not constitutionally exclude people because it disagrees with views they have expressed.
“This Twitter account operates as a ‘designated public forum’ for First Amendment purposes, and accordingly the viewpoint-based blocking of our clients is unconstitutional,” the letter said. “We ask that you unblock them and any others who have been blocked for similar reasons.”
rofl. kinda interesting case. For what its worth, I believe a president should be allowed to have a totally off the rails twitter account. if the president feels like shitposting, he should be able to shitpost and block haters.
More broadly, I think social media and people's cell phones have become an integral part of our personalities, social lives and a lot more. Limiting what someone can do on social media is almost always terrible in my eyes. Social media is becoming a part of who we are.
Why would you want a president with an extravagant personality? I want one that is a cipher, so attuned to what is politically beneficial that you can't pierce through their bland managerial persona to discover their underlying values. We are talking not about a twitch streamer, but about the most powerful person in the world, whose every action affects potentially millions of lives. There should be no room for individuality there.
I don't necessarily like HRC, but she fits my image of what a President should be. It's just that she's bad at projecting charisma.
I don't want a president who does that. I see Merkel as my ideal leader type. Politics aside, I want someone who just does shit boringly and predictably. People who look for personality, demeanor and shit like that are trash.
My only point is that a president should be permitted to be a shitbag.
A bit of a stretch at the moment (although totally within the realm of possibility) that the president is coordinating this attack. Does this technically constitute witness tampering?
EPT
