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On June 27 2018 12:12 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 12:10 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:On June 27 2018 12:04 ticklishmusic wrote:
I'd recommend looking at Crowley's record. Although he's certainly 'establishment' by virtue of being in the house forever, he was fairly liberal (though that may have been because of the district he represented). He failed to take the primary as seriously as he should have and turnout was low, so him losing out isn't the craziest thing.
Hopefully Ocasio-Cortez is an effective legislator and replacement - I'm not really opposed to having an old white guy (even a pretty okay old white guy) replaced with a young minority candidate, generally speaking. The "Fairly Liberal" donors: + Show Spoiler +https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1011787379462623237
My understanding is that those kind of donors donate to every sitting politician so that the phone is answered when they call.
Most politicians campaign donations are open facing. Anyone can donate. And the records are public over a specific amount.
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On June 27 2018 12:21 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 12:12 KwarK wrote:On June 27 2018 12:10 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:On June 27 2018 12:04 ticklishmusic wrote:
I'd recommend looking at Crowley's record. Although he's certainly 'establishment' by virtue of being in the house forever, he was fairly liberal (though that may have been because of the district he represented). He failed to take the primary as seriously as he should have and turnout was low, so him losing out isn't the craziest thing.
Hopefully Ocasio-Cortez is an effective legislator and replacement - I'm not really opposed to having an old white guy (even a pretty okay old white guy) replaced with a young minority candidate, generally speaking. The "Fairly Liberal" donors: + Show Spoiler + My understanding is that those kind of donors donate to every sitting politician so that the phone is answered when they call. Most politicians campaign donations are open facing. Anyone can donate.
Obviously they have discretion though. They can refuse/return them when they are brought to their attention or pay them forward to a different cause for example.
Also if that were the case we would see a similar list for Ocasio going into the general. I doubt we will.
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On June 27 2018 10:54 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 06:48 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 05:54 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 05:49 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 05:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2018 00:42 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 00:30 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 00:18 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 00:12 Plansix wrote:
Except that they set aside all Trump’s statements on Muslims during the campaign as irrelevant. But apparently the commission’s statements about religion were very important in the Masterpiece case. It would seem that all religions are not treated equally in the eyes conservatives Justices. Especially when it comes to government officials disparaging those religion. A more cynical person would question if those justices view disparaging statements about their own religion as more serious than disparaging statements about other religions. First, the cases were at different stages in their proceedings. The Masterpiece case had a fully developed record. This case is at preliminary, pre-discovery proceedings, and the Court only decided to lift the preliminary injunction. No decision was made on the merits. Second, this case concerns foreign policy issues, which makes it much harder to uphold the preliminary injunction. Finally, the statements used and relied upon in the Masterpiece case were really, really bad and demonstrated discriminatory animus as applied on a case by case basis. There's no record of that happening here (yet). Except for the President’s public statements on the issue. I do not find it encouraging that the conservative justices set aside all of his statements when deciding the injunction. When the full case reaches the court, I half expect them to do it again. The underlying problem with them setting aside the public statements of the president about the ban and Muslims is that it sets up a clear divide between the written justification behind the executive branches order and the public statements of the head of the executive branch. In a sense, doublethink, where the presidents says the exact opposite of what the justification for the executive order were. The full case has not been decided, but I am not encouraged by the trajectory of the court on these issues. From undoing the voter’s rights act to this, they seem to be retreating from upholding safeguards to protect the homogeneity of our nation. I will be surprised if they do anything but uphold the travel ban that was overtly created to target Muslims. What the president said is irrelevant when you have a facially neutral ban. The ban only applies to like seven predominantly Muslim countries that failed to comply with State Department requests for cooperation, plus North Korea (same reasons). Let's just presume for a second that Trump wants to eliminate all Muslim travel to the US. If that's the goal, the current travel ban does a pretty piss poor job of accomplishing that goal. The attacks on the ban amount to little more than a leftist temper tantrum. President Trump said something mean about Muslims, so he needs to be challenged on it. And that's fine, but the travel ban is not the proper target of liberal ire. Now maybe the plaintiffs will find evidence of discriminatory animus against Muslims in how the travel ban is being applied, but I highly doubt that will be the case. Now your position makes so much more sense. It's completely ridiculous, but at least now I can slightly understand how you reconcile your position with the reality it's disconnected from. That's literally how the decades of state violence and oppression against vulnerable citizens was justified. Also did someone really argue McCain isn't racist? Like McCain is far from the worst the Republicans have to offer but the guy is unabashedly racist. "I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live."
Yeah, that guy totally isn't racist. Just like the laws aren't, the police aren't and neither are the positions of the people supporting Trump. None of it is racist and it's all a way for marginalized people to get off. Because being fake oppressed and exploited is the way we enjoy life, and is no way a desperate plea for white people to check their brothers and sisters and have them treat us like equal human beings. I can understand why people like xDaunt and Danglars would think that kind of trash, they are just absolutely and dangerously wrong. Feel free to connect the dots on why the travel ban is racist. Everyone keeps pointing to what Trump said, but let's get real: the proof is in the pudding. What does the travel ban actually do and who does it impact? And don't bother likening the travel ban to Jim Crow laws. The disparate impact is no where near the same. Is there really an argument that the travel ban does not disproportionately impacts people of the Muslim faith? Yes, there is. The travel ban affects a very, very small minority of Muslims worldwide. Jim Crow laws had broad-based impacts against the American black population. If a jam sandwich contains a very small minority of total jam in the world it's still a jam sandwich. It's about what it contains, not the volume compared to the total potential volume extant in the world. A jam sandwich contains jam. A Muslim ban bans Muslims.
Why would a Muslim ban allow people in from Saudi Arabia and Iraq? Is a ban a "sandwich" containing something? Or is it about what the sandwich (of immigration, for example) does not contain? Does the sandwich of immigration still include Muslims?
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On June 27 2018 09:58 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 09:37 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 09:24 Danglars wrote:I have a feeling that all these takes on how Trump doesn't have the power granted him by Congress because of past statements would be reconciled if you'd simply read the ~38 pages of the opinion, or fuck even the syllabus. ]Just read the damn thing already. Then you might know more of what kind of arguments you must counter on facial neutrality, constraints on executive authority, and the national security justification. "But he said some mean things about Muslims once" is a great whataboutism, to be sure. "That means he has no legal power to do this thing because he was such a jerk about it" is a poor refuge. It was one of his campaign promises that he repeated over and over. It takes a special level of intellectual dishonesty to frame the argument that he said it once. Especially to people you discussed the prospect of the ban with previously numerous times. And framing this as a unanimous decision with no dissenting arguments of merit is also disingenuous. This was a 5-4 decision. On June 27 2018 09:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2018 09:24 Danglars wrote:I have a feeling that all these takes on how Trump doesn't have the power granted him by Congress because of past statements would be reconciled if you'd simply read the ~38 pages of the opinion, or fuck even the syllabus. ]Just read the damn thing already. Then you might know more of what kind of arguments you must counter on facial neutrality, constraints on executive authority, and the national security justification. "But he said some mean things about Muslims once" is a great whataboutism, to be sure. "That means he has no legal power to do this thing because he was such a jerk about it" is a poor refuge. For the people who think SCOTUS is keeping the president in check, sure. But for those of us that believe it hasn't/won't, making a case that gets SC majority agreement isn't the measure of validity. The "strict" interpretation of shitty bigoted laws isn't everyone's measure of moral or ethical behavior. People often forget that slavery, segregation and the Jim Crow laws were perfectly legal. They don’t seem to grasp the concept that similar laws could be legal again. That the court is just another extension of political power, tasked with keeping the two othe branches in line. There is no guarantee they will do that job well. Funny thing is I'm pretty sure xDaunt is one of few people here familiar (and iirc agrees with) the argument that slavery actually wasn't constitutional and that it took a willful neglect by the entirety of our political "checks and balances" to facilitate in the first place. Additionally that the 13th amendment didn't abolish slavery constitutionally but gave slavery conditional constitutional protection. That's part of why I don't believe he's sincerely making these arguments but instead hoping to sway gullible and ignorant people with an argument he knows is fallacious. It's also pretty half-assed as far as his typical approach to something like this when he actually believes it.
Do you think it's constitutional to ban immigrants from war-torn countries where there is credible intelligence that terrorist networks are seeking to enter the US to attack it?
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On June 27 2018 12:33 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 09:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2018 09:37 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 09:24 Danglars wrote:I have a feeling that all these takes on how Trump doesn't have the power granted him by Congress because of past statements would be reconciled if you'd simply read the ~38 pages of the opinion, or fuck even the syllabus. ]Just read the damn thing already. Then you might know more of what kind of arguments you must counter on facial neutrality, constraints on executive authority, and the national security justification. "But he said some mean things about Muslims once" is a great whataboutism, to be sure. "That means he has no legal power to do this thing because he was such a jerk about it" is a poor refuge. It was one of his campaign promises that he repeated over and over. It takes a special level of intellectual dishonesty to frame the argument that he said it once. Especially to people you discussed the prospect of the ban with previously numerous times. And framing this as a unanimous decision with no dissenting arguments of merit is also disingenuous. This was a 5-4 decision. On June 27 2018 09:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2018 09:24 Danglars wrote:I have a feeling that all these takes on how Trump doesn't have the power granted him by Congress because of past statements would be reconciled if you'd simply read the ~38 pages of the opinion, or fuck even the syllabus. ]Just read the damn thing already. Then you might know more of what kind of arguments you must counter on facial neutrality, constraints on executive authority, and the national security justification. "But he said some mean things about Muslims once" is a great whataboutism, to be sure. "That means he has no legal power to do this thing because he was such a jerk about it" is a poor refuge. For the people who think SCOTUS is keeping the president in check, sure. But for those of us that believe it hasn't/won't, making a case that gets SC majority agreement isn't the measure of validity. The "strict" interpretation of shitty bigoted laws isn't everyone's measure of moral or ethical behavior. People often forget that slavery, segregation and the Jim Crow laws were perfectly legal. They don’t seem to grasp the concept that similar laws could be legal again. That the court is just another extension of political power, tasked with keeping the two othe branches in line. There is no guarantee they will do that job well. Funny thing is I'm pretty sure xDaunt is one of few people here familiar (and iirc agrees with) the argument that slavery actually wasn't constitutional and that it took a willful neglect by the entirety of our political "checks and balances" to facilitate in the first place. Additionally that the 13th amendment didn't abolish slavery constitutionally but gave slavery conditional constitutional protection. That's part of why I don't believe he's sincerely making these arguments but instead hoping to sway gullible and ignorant people with an argument he knows is fallacious. It's also pretty half-assed as far as his typical approach to something like this when he actually believes it. Do you think it's constitutional to ban immigrants from war-torn countries where there is credible intelligence that terrorist networks are seeking to enter the US to attack it?
Probably? I'm no law expert though. Could we skip to the part where you teach me the lesson? The suspense triggers my anxiety lol.
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37025 Posts
Guys, the thread is starting to become wild again. Let's keep things on track, don't personally attack one another, and keep the debates focused on political topics only.
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United States42777 Posts
On June 27 2018 12:30 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 10:54 KwarK wrote:On June 27 2018 06:48 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 05:54 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 05:49 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 05:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2018 00:42 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 00:30 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 00:18 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 00:12 Plansix wrote:
Except that they set aside all Trump’s statements on Muslims during the campaign as irrelevant. But apparently the commission’s statements about religion were very important in the Masterpiece case. It would seem that all religions are not treated equally in the eyes conservatives Justices. Especially when it comes to government officials disparaging those religion. A more cynical person would question if those justices view disparaging statements about their own religion as more serious than disparaging statements about other religions. First, the cases were at different stages in their proceedings. The Masterpiece case had a fully developed record. This case is at preliminary, pre-discovery proceedings, and the Court only decided to lift the preliminary injunction. No decision was made on the merits. Second, this case concerns foreign policy issues, which makes it much harder to uphold the preliminary injunction. Finally, the statements used and relied upon in the Masterpiece case were really, really bad and demonstrated discriminatory animus as applied on a case by case basis. There's no record of that happening here (yet). Except for the President’s public statements on the issue. I do not find it encouraging that the conservative justices set aside all of his statements when deciding the injunction. When the full case reaches the court, I half expect them to do it again. The underlying problem with them setting aside the public statements of the president about the ban and Muslims is that it sets up a clear divide between the written justification behind the executive branches order and the public statements of the head of the executive branch. In a sense, doublethink, where the presidents says the exact opposite of what the justification for the executive order were. The full case has not been decided, but I am not encouraged by the trajectory of the court on these issues. From undoing the voter’s rights act to this, they seem to be retreating from upholding safeguards to protect the homogeneity of our nation. I will be surprised if they do anything but uphold the travel ban that was overtly created to target Muslims. What the president said is irrelevant when you have a facially neutral ban. The ban only applies to like seven predominantly Muslim countries that failed to comply with State Department requests for cooperation, plus North Korea (same reasons). Let's just presume for a second that Trump wants to eliminate all Muslim travel to the US. If that's the goal, the current travel ban does a pretty piss poor job of accomplishing that goal. The attacks on the ban amount to little more than a leftist temper tantrum. President Trump said something mean about Muslims, so he needs to be challenged on it. And that's fine, but the travel ban is not the proper target of liberal ire. Now maybe the plaintiffs will find evidence of discriminatory animus against Muslims in how the travel ban is being applied, but I highly doubt that will be the case. Now your position makes so much more sense. It's completely ridiculous, but at least now I can slightly understand how you reconcile your position with the reality it's disconnected from. That's literally how the decades of state violence and oppression against vulnerable citizens was justified. Also did someone really argue McCain isn't racist? Like McCain is far from the worst the Republicans have to offer but the guy is unabashedly racist. "I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live."
Yeah, that guy totally isn't racist. Just like the laws aren't, the police aren't and neither are the positions of the people supporting Trump. None of it is racist and it's all a way for marginalized people to get off. Because being fake oppressed and exploited is the way we enjoy life, and is no way a desperate plea for white people to check their brothers and sisters and have them treat us like equal human beings. I can understand why people like xDaunt and Danglars would think that kind of trash, they are just absolutely and dangerously wrong. Feel free to connect the dots on why the travel ban is racist. Everyone keeps pointing to what Trump said, but let's get real: the proof is in the pudding. What does the travel ban actually do and who does it impact? And don't bother likening the travel ban to Jim Crow laws. The disparate impact is no where near the same. Is there really an argument that the travel ban does not disproportionately impacts people of the Muslim faith? Yes, there is. The travel ban affects a very, very small minority of Muslims worldwide. Jim Crow laws had broad-based impacts against the American black population. If a jam sandwich contains a very small minority of total jam in the world it's still a jam sandwich. It's about what it contains, not the volume compared to the total potential volume extant in the world. A jam sandwich contains jam. A Muslim ban bans Muslims. Why would a Muslim ban allow people in from Saudi Arabia and Iraq? Is a ban a "sandwich" containing something? Or is it about what the sandwich (of immigration, for example) does not contain? Does the sandwich of immigration still include Muslims?
The people the ban applies to are Muslims. That's what they have in common, although they did add a few non-Muslims to try and sweeten it for the SCOTUS after their pure Muslim ban got turned down. The non-Muslims are like the butter in the jam sandwich. They're there, but it's still a jam sandwich.
Consider the linguistic contortions we would have to go through if we can no longer describe things by their contents and what they apply to if they don't encompass all the potential contents in both time and space. A furniture store? Forget about it. An animal sanctuary? Well it better have every animal there ever was or will be.
There has never been a linguistic requirement for the subject to contain all conceivable objects to which the name might refer. xDaunt is insisting that the "Muslim ban" breaks this requirement, but it's a requirement that he just made up. A shoe shop sells shoes. That's the thing that their merchandise has in common. It doesn't sell all the shoes that ever were or will be, but it sells some shoes, and some other shoe related things like polish and laces, but mostly shoes.
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![[image loading]](https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/trump-travel-ban-muslim-visa-decline/images/new_map-Artboard_1.jpg)
Besides Iran, North Korea (both "Axis of Evil" countries), and Venezuela (kind of a curveball), is there anything those countries have in common besides being majority Muslim?
Another question — would it be unconstitutional to ban people with dark hair from entering? Why isn't this ban characterized as a dark-hair ban from an orange-haired orangutan? It is a "dark-hair ban sandwich" in Kwark's terms, after all.
In this Radiolab story from last year, Richard Posner defends the Korematsu decision as essentially a legitimate national defense decision made by a limited actor, but an actor who acts as President, the one who decides the state of exception, as Lincoln acted in throwing John Merryman into jail. Posner says courts were not set up to stop the President during times of war: "there's nobody can check [the President], that's the President's responsibility."
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On June 27 2018 13:11 IgnE wrote:Besides Iran, North Korea (both "Axis of Evil" countries), and Venezuela (kind of a curveball), is there anything those countries have in common besides being majority Muslim? Another question — would it be unconstitutional to ban people with dark hair from entering? Why isn't this ban characterized as a dark-hair ban from an orange-haired orangutan? It is a "dark-hair ban sandwich" in Kwark's terms, after all. In this Radiolab story from last year, Richard Posner defends the Korematsu decision as essentially a legitimate national defense decision made by a limited actor, but an actor who acts as President, the one who decides the state of exception, as Lincoln acted in throwing John Merryman into jail. Posner says courts were not set up to stop the President during times of war: "there's nobody can check [the President], that's the President's responsibility."
Trump's campaign promises should not be ignored.
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On June 27 2018 13:30 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 13:11 IgnE wrote:Besides Iran, North Korea (both "Axis of Evil" countries), and Venezuela (kind of a curveball), is there anything those countries have in common besides being majority Muslim? Another question — would it be unconstitutional to ban people with dark hair from entering? Why isn't this ban characterized as a dark-hair ban from an orange-haired orangutan? It is a "dark-hair ban sandwich" in Kwark's terms, after all. In this Radiolab story from last year, Richard Posner defends the Korematsu decision as essentially a legitimate national defense decision made by a limited actor, but an actor who acts as President, the one who decides the state of exception, as Lincoln acted in throwing John Merryman into jail. Posner says courts were not set up to stop the President during times of war: "there's nobody can check [the President], that's the President's responsibility." Trump's campaign promises should not be ignored.
His failure to fulfill those campaign promises? Or? Did Obama's administration select most of the countries on the travel ban list as areas of concern prior to the ban or not? Is there a plausible, facially neutral justification for banning immigrants from war-torn countries known to have anti-American terrorist sentiments (because Obama was bombing the fuck out of them with drones)?
The fact of the matter is that the travel ban is not clearly (un)constitutional. Elections have consequences. A sober analysis from a 2015 observer would have concluded that a hypothetical travel ban is not clearly unconstitutional either. The only reason the case made it up to SCOTUS is because Trump is a bigoted idiot who says stupid things.
But what's the counterfactual here, where SCOTUS rules against Trump? We know Trump to be a racist so he can't place a travel ban on any country anymore? Not Somalia? Not Syria? Not on a country he might hypothetically get into war with? We have to hamstring the President from doing something he would otherwise be able to do simply because he's said racist things?
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On June 27 2018 13:46 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 13:30 Doodsmack wrote:On June 27 2018 13:11 IgnE wrote:Besides Iran, North Korea (both "Axis of Evil" countries), and Venezuela (kind of a curveball), is there anything those countries have in common besides being majority Muslim? Another question — would it be unconstitutional to ban people with dark hair from entering? Why isn't this ban characterized as a dark-hair ban from an orange-haired orangutan? It is a "dark-hair ban sandwich" in Kwark's terms, after all. In this Radiolab story from last year, Richard Posner defends the Korematsu decision as essentially a legitimate national defense decision made by a limited actor, but an actor who acts as President, the one who decides the state of exception, as Lincoln acted in throwing John Merryman into jail. Posner says courts were not set up to stop the President during times of war: "there's nobody can check [the President], that's the President's responsibility." Trump's campaign promises should not be ignored. His failure to fulfill those campaign promises? Or? Did Obama's administration select most of the countries on the travel ban list as areas of concern prior to the ban or not? Is there a plausible, facially neutral justification for banning immigrants from war-torn countries known to have anti-American terrorist sentiments (because Obama was bombing the fuck out of them with drones)? The fact of the matter is that the travel ban is not clearly (un)constitutional. Elections have consequences. A sober analysis from a 2015 observer would have concluded that a hypothetical travel ban is not clearly unconstitutional either. The only reason the case made it up to SCOTUS is because Trump is a bigoted idiot who says stupid things. But what's the counterfactual here, where SCOTUS rules against Trump? We know Trump to be a racist so he can't place a travel ban on any country anymore? Not Somalia? Not Syria? Not on a country he might hypothetically get into war with? We have to hamstring the President from doing something he would otherwise be able to do simply because he's said racist things?
He could direct the agencies that oversee visas to not accept people who we can't find credible background information on... which typically would include most people from a war torn country. We can reject people who we think are threats to our country for various reasons... including being nationals of countries we are at war with. We could do that without banning the people we are supposedly helping (such as political prisoners) by going to war.
We can actually look at individual cases and make decisions. We can accept in Iraqi interpreters who traveled with and aided American platoons on their patrols in Iraq without accepting in questionable people we have no background information on.
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On June 27 2018 14:02 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 13:46 IgnE wrote:On June 27 2018 13:30 Doodsmack wrote:On June 27 2018 13:11 IgnE wrote:Besides Iran, North Korea (both "Axis of Evil" countries), and Venezuela (kind of a curveball), is there anything those countries have in common besides being majority Muslim? Another question — would it be unconstitutional to ban people with dark hair from entering? Why isn't this ban characterized as a dark-hair ban from an orange-haired orangutan? It is a "dark-hair ban sandwich" in Kwark's terms, after all. In this Radiolab story from last year, Richard Posner defends the Korematsu decision as essentially a legitimate national defense decision made by a limited actor, but an actor who acts as President, the one who decides the state of exception, as Lincoln acted in throwing John Merryman into jail. Posner says courts were not set up to stop the President during times of war: "there's nobody can check [the President], that's the President's responsibility." Trump's campaign promises should not be ignored. His failure to fulfill those campaign promises? Or? Did Obama's administration select most of the countries on the travel ban list as areas of concern prior to the ban or not? Is there a plausible, facially neutral justification for banning immigrants from war-torn countries known to have anti-American terrorist sentiments (because Obama was bombing the fuck out of them with drones)? The fact of the matter is that the travel ban is not clearly (un)constitutional. Elections have consequences. A sober analysis from a 2015 observer would have concluded that a hypothetical travel ban is not clearly unconstitutional either. The only reason the case made it up to SCOTUS is because Trump is a bigoted idiot who says stupid things. But what's the counterfactual here, where SCOTUS rules against Trump? We know Trump to be a racist so he can't place a travel ban on any country anymore? Not Somalia? Not Syria? Not on a country he might hypothetically get into war with? We have to hamstring the President from doing something he would otherwise be able to do simply because he's said racist things? He could direct the agencies that oversee visas to not accept people who we can't find credible background information on... which typically would include most people from a war torn country. We can reject people who we think are threats to our country for various reasons... including being nationals of countries we are at war with. We could do that without banning the people we are supposedly helping (such as political prisoners) by going to war. We can actually look at individual cases and make decisions. We can accept in Iraqi interpreters who traveled with and aided American platoons on their patrols in Iraq without accepting in questionable people we have no background information on.
Obviously we could. I am not advocating for the travel ban. But given that I am not in charge, do I think the travel ban is unconstitutional? Or to put it more sharply yet, do I think the Supreme Court clearly got it wrong? I am doubtful.
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On June 27 2018 12:30 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 10:54 KwarK wrote:On June 27 2018 06:48 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 05:54 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 05:49 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 05:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2018 00:42 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 00:30 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 00:18 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 00:12 Plansix wrote:
Except that they set aside all Trump’s statements on Muslims during the campaign as irrelevant. But apparently the commission’s statements about religion were very important in the Masterpiece case. It would seem that all religions are not treated equally in the eyes conservatives Justices. Especially when it comes to government officials disparaging those religion. A more cynical person would question if those justices view disparaging statements about their own religion as more serious than disparaging statements about other religions. First, the cases were at different stages in their proceedings. The Masterpiece case had a fully developed record. This case is at preliminary, pre-discovery proceedings, and the Court only decided to lift the preliminary injunction. No decision was made on the merits. Second, this case concerns foreign policy issues, which makes it much harder to uphold the preliminary injunction. Finally, the statements used and relied upon in the Masterpiece case were really, really bad and demonstrated discriminatory animus as applied on a case by case basis. There's no record of that happening here (yet). Except for the President’s public statements on the issue. I do not find it encouraging that the conservative justices set aside all of his statements when deciding the injunction. When the full case reaches the court, I half expect them to do it again. The underlying problem with them setting aside the public statements of the president about the ban and Muslims is that it sets up a clear divide between the written justification behind the executive branches order and the public statements of the head of the executive branch. In a sense, doublethink, where the presidents says the exact opposite of what the justification for the executive order were. The full case has not been decided, but I am not encouraged by the trajectory of the court on these issues. From undoing the voter’s rights act to this, they seem to be retreating from upholding safeguards to protect the homogeneity of our nation. I will be surprised if they do anything but uphold the travel ban that was overtly created to target Muslims. What the president said is irrelevant when you have a facially neutral ban. The ban only applies to like seven predominantly Muslim countries that failed to comply with State Department requests for cooperation, plus North Korea (same reasons). Let's just presume for a second that Trump wants to eliminate all Muslim travel to the US. If that's the goal, the current travel ban does a pretty piss poor job of accomplishing that goal. The attacks on the ban amount to little more than a leftist temper tantrum. President Trump said something mean about Muslims, so he needs to be challenged on it. And that's fine, but the travel ban is not the proper target of liberal ire. Now maybe the plaintiffs will find evidence of discriminatory animus against Muslims in how the travel ban is being applied, but I highly doubt that will be the case. Now your position makes so much more sense. It's completely ridiculous, but at least now I can slightly understand how you reconcile your position with the reality it's disconnected from. That's literally how the decades of state violence and oppression against vulnerable citizens was justified. Also did someone really argue McCain isn't racist? Like McCain is far from the worst the Republicans have to offer but the guy is unabashedly racist. "I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live."
Yeah, that guy totally isn't racist. Just like the laws aren't, the police aren't and neither are the positions of the people supporting Trump. None of it is racist and it's all a way for marginalized people to get off. Because being fake oppressed and exploited is the way we enjoy life, and is no way a desperate plea for white people to check their brothers and sisters and have them treat us like equal human beings. I can understand why people like xDaunt and Danglars would think that kind of trash, they are just absolutely and dangerously wrong. Feel free to connect the dots on why the travel ban is racist. Everyone keeps pointing to what Trump said, but let's get real: the proof is in the pudding. What does the travel ban actually do and who does it impact? And don't bother likening the travel ban to Jim Crow laws. The disparate impact is no where near the same. Is there really an argument that the travel ban does not disproportionately impacts people of the Muslim faith? Yes, there is. The travel ban affects a very, very small minority of Muslims worldwide. Jim Crow laws had broad-based impacts against the American black population. If a jam sandwich contains a very small minority of total jam in the world it's still a jam sandwich. It's about what it contains, not the volume compared to the total potential volume extant in the world. A jam sandwich contains jam. A Muslim ban bans Muslims. Why would a Muslim ban allow people in from Saudi Arabia and Iraq? Is a ban a "sandwich" containing something? Or is it about what the sandwich (of immigration, for example) does not contain? Does the sandwich of immigration still include Muslims?
It's reaching for what you can get away with, no?
This is travel ban 3.0 .. the 'watered down' version that's been OK'ed. If Trump's goal was to get as close to a Muslim ban as possible this is how he'd do it - which dovetails with what they've said about it.
It's worth keeping in mind that this ban is over an imaginary crisis - the US already had credible safeguards in place.
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If we could strike laws down for being addressed to imaginary crises we'd have to get rid of most of them.
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United States42777 Posts
On June 27 2018 14:14 IgnE wrote:
If we could strike laws down for being addressed to imaginary crises we'd have to get rid of most of them.
No we wouldn't.
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On June 27 2018 13:46 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 13:30 Doodsmack wrote:On June 27 2018 13:11 IgnE wrote:Besides Iran, North Korea (both "Axis of Evil" countries), and Venezuela (kind of a curveball), is there anything those countries have in common besides being majority Muslim? Another question — would it be unconstitutional to ban people with dark hair from entering? Why isn't this ban characterized as a dark-hair ban from an orange-haired orangutan? It is a "dark-hair ban sandwich" in Kwark's terms, after all. In this Radiolab story from last year, Richard Posner defends the Korematsu decision as essentially a legitimate national defense decision made by a limited actor, but an actor who acts as President, the one who decides the state of exception, as Lincoln acted in throwing John Merryman into jail. Posner says courts were not set up to stop the President during times of war: "there's nobody can check [the President], that's the President's responsibility." Trump's campaign promises should not be ignored. His failure to fulfill those campaign promises? Or? Did Obama's administration select most of the countries on the travel ban list as areas of concern prior to the ban or not? Is there a plausible, facially neutral justification for banning immigrants from war-torn countries known to have anti-American terrorist sentiments (because Obama was bombing the fuck out of them with drones)? The fact of the matter is that the travel ban is not clearly (un)constitutional. Elections have consequences. A sober analysis from a 2015 observer would have concluded that a hypothetical travel ban is not clearly unconstitutional either. The only reason the case made it up to SCOTUS is because Trump is a bigoted idiot who says stupid things. But what's the counterfactual here, where SCOTUS rules against Trump? We know Trump to be a racist so he can't place a travel ban on any country anymore? Not Somalia? Not Syria? Not on a country he might hypothetically get into war with? We have to hamstring the President from doing something he would otherwise be able to do simply because he's said racist things?
It’s overly broad to say that the “countries” have terrorist sentiments but the expressed purpose of this is to act against Muslims. One shouldn’t focus solely on the pretextual aspects. Otherwise we’re condoning any motive so long as the words on the page are “facially neutral.”
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On June 27 2018 12:30 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 10:54 KwarK wrote:On June 27 2018 06:48 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 05:54 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 05:49 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 05:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2018 00:42 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 00:30 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 00:18 xDaunt wrote:On June 27 2018 00:12 Plansix wrote:
Except that they set aside all Trump’s statements on Muslims during the campaign as irrelevant. But apparently the commission’s statements about religion were very important in the Masterpiece case. It would seem that all religions are not treated equally in the eyes conservatives Justices. Especially when it comes to government officials disparaging those religion. A more cynical person would question if those justices view disparaging statements about their own religion as more serious than disparaging statements about other religions. First, the cases were at different stages in their proceedings. The Masterpiece case had a fully developed record. This case is at preliminary, pre-discovery proceedings, and the Court only decided to lift the preliminary injunction. No decision was made on the merits. Second, this case concerns foreign policy issues, which makes it much harder to uphold the preliminary injunction. Finally, the statements used and relied upon in the Masterpiece case were really, really bad and demonstrated discriminatory animus as applied on a case by case basis. There's no record of that happening here (yet). Except for the President’s public statements on the issue. I do not find it encouraging that the conservative justices set aside all of his statements when deciding the injunction. When the full case reaches the court, I half expect them to do it again. The underlying problem with them setting aside the public statements of the president about the ban and Muslims is that it sets up a clear divide between the written justification behind the executive branches order and the public statements of the head of the executive branch. In a sense, doublethink, where the presidents says the exact opposite of what the justification for the executive order were. The full case has not been decided, but I am not encouraged by the trajectory of the court on these issues. From undoing the voter’s rights act to this, they seem to be retreating from upholding safeguards to protect the homogeneity of our nation. I will be surprised if they do anything but uphold the travel ban that was overtly created to target Muslims. What the president said is irrelevant when you have a facially neutral ban. The ban only applies to like seven predominantly Muslim countries that failed to comply with State Department requests for cooperation, plus North Korea (same reasons). Let's just presume for a second that Trump wants to eliminate all Muslim travel to the US. If that's the goal, the current travel ban does a pretty piss poor job of accomplishing that goal. The attacks on the ban amount to little more than a leftist temper tantrum. President Trump said something mean about Muslims, so he needs to be challenged on it. And that's fine, but the travel ban is not the proper target of liberal ire. Now maybe the plaintiffs will find evidence of discriminatory animus against Muslims in how the travel ban is being applied, but I highly doubt that will be the case. Now your position makes so much more sense. It's completely ridiculous, but at least now I can slightly understand how you reconcile your position with the reality it's disconnected from. That's literally how the decades of state violence and oppression against vulnerable citizens was justified. Also did someone really argue McCain isn't racist? Like McCain is far from the worst the Republicans have to offer but the guy is unabashedly racist. "I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live."
Yeah, that guy totally isn't racist. Just like the laws aren't, the police aren't and neither are the positions of the people supporting Trump. None of it is racist and it's all a way for marginalized people to get off. Because being fake oppressed and exploited is the way we enjoy life, and is no way a desperate plea for white people to check their brothers and sisters and have them treat us like equal human beings. I can understand why people like xDaunt and Danglars would think that kind of trash, they are just absolutely and dangerously wrong. Feel free to connect the dots on why the travel ban is racist. Everyone keeps pointing to what Trump said, but let's get real: the proof is in the pudding. What does the travel ban actually do and who does it impact? And don't bother likening the travel ban to Jim Crow laws. The disparate impact is no where near the same. Is there really an argument that the travel ban does not disproportionately impacts people of the Muslim faith? Yes, there is. The travel ban affects a very, very small minority of Muslims worldwide. Jim Crow laws had broad-based impacts against the American black population. If a jam sandwich contains a very small minority of total jam in the world it's still a jam sandwich. It's about what it contains, not the volume compared to the total potential volume extant in the world. A jam sandwich contains jam. A Muslim ban bans Muslims. Why would a Muslim ban allow people in from Saudi Arabia and Iraq? Is a ban a "sandwich" containing something? Or is it about what the sandwich (of immigration, for example) does not contain? Does the sandwich of immigration still include Muslims?
Let's not lose sight of the first EO which included Iraq, and the blowback that followed because of it when they blocked out people of the Iraqi security forces training with the US, and Iraqi translators assisting US troops.
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On June 27 2018 12:33 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2018 09:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2018 09:37 Plansix wrote:On June 27 2018 09:24 Danglars wrote:I have a feeling that all these takes on how Trump doesn't have the power granted him by Congress because of past statements would be reconciled if you'd simply read the ~38 pages of the opinion, or fuck even the syllabus. ]Just read the damn thing already. Then you might know more of what kind of arguments you must counter on facial neutrality, constraints on executive authority, and the national security justification. "But he said some mean things about Muslims once" is a great whataboutism, to be sure. "That means he has no legal power to do this thing because he was such a jerk about it" is a poor refuge. It was one of his campaign promises that he repeated over and over. It takes a special level of intellectual dishonesty to frame the argument that he said it once. Especially to people you discussed the prospect of the ban with previously numerous times. And framing this as a unanimous decision with no dissenting arguments of merit is also disingenuous. This was a 5-4 decision. On June 27 2018 09:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 27 2018 09:24 Danglars wrote:I have a feeling that all these takes on how Trump doesn't have the power granted him by Congress because of past statements would be reconciled if you'd simply read the ~38 pages of the opinion, or fuck even the syllabus. ]Just read the damn thing already. Then you might know more of what kind of arguments you must counter on facial neutrality, constraints on executive authority, and the national security justification. "But he said some mean things about Muslims once" is a great whataboutism, to be sure. "That means he has no legal power to do this thing because he was such a jerk about it" is a poor refuge. For the people who think SCOTUS is keeping the president in check, sure. But for those of us that believe it hasn't/won't, making a case that gets SC majority agreement isn't the measure of validity. The "strict" interpretation of shitty bigoted laws isn't everyone's measure of moral or ethical behavior. People often forget that slavery, segregation and the Jim Crow laws were perfectly legal. They don’t seem to grasp the concept that similar laws could be legal again. That the court is just another extension of political power, tasked with keeping the two othe branches in line. There is no guarantee they will do that job well. Funny thing is I'm pretty sure xDaunt is one of few people here familiar (and iirc agrees with) the argument that slavery actually wasn't constitutional and that it took a willful neglect by the entirety of our political "checks and balances" to facilitate in the first place. Additionally that the 13th amendment didn't abolish slavery constitutionally but gave slavery conditional constitutional protection. That's part of why I don't believe he's sincerely making these arguments but instead hoping to sway gullible and ignorant people with an argument he knows is fallacious. It's also pretty half-assed as far as his typical approach to something like this when he actually believes it. Do you think it's constitutional to ban immigrants from war-torn countries where there is credible intelligence that terrorist networks are seeking to enter the US to attack it?
I personally put that kind of thing under legal but undesirable. To me all that means is that genuine people who want to escape their conditions and start over somewhere else don't get the chance because of a vanishingly small minority. ISIS, if I remember correctly, is one of the largest terror organisations since the idea became all the rage, and is estimated to have about 20,000 members, tops.
Syria has a population of 18 million.
This is the real core of the problem XDaunt has had over the past few pages. He keeps saying 'It's legal, you idiots!' and we're saying 'We know. THAT ISN'T THE POINT'.
Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's moral or right, and just because you can sneak something that began as an obvious act of racism (said as much by the courts) by the courts doesn't mean they've full-throatedly endorsed it, as Danglars hilariously has tried to spin it. And just because Trump has managed to finally find language the court finds acceptable doesn't change the fact his motivation has nothing at all to do with national security, given he initially wanted to include countries that don't have any established ties to terrorism, and still would include them if he could.
The courts never found OJ guilty. Everyone knows he did it anyway. Same here with the travel ban. The courts can't prove its got racist animus. We all know it does, even its defenders, though I know many of them would limit a ban only to countries with established terrorist links, which I disagree with as mentioned above, but consider at least acceptable.
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Yesterday's socialist primary victory in New York is a very good thing, and I hope we see more of it 
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On June 27 2018 21:44 farvacola wrote:Yesterday's socialist primary victory in New York is a very good thing, and I hope we see more of it
it's nto my district, so I haven' tlooked closely. personally I didn't much like the listed platform of the winner because it felt disingenuous, akin to populism.
so I hope they've got an actual reasonable plan to implement rather than just a bunch of ill thought out bluster or a poor plan.
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EPT
