President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Iran like

 

No puppet! You're the puppet!

 

The whole point of drones is that there is no pilot. If one is shot down, no lives have been lost.

Solid thread here re procedure on a strike like this. Worth a look.

 

so it's fine to be cocked and loaded with seed to make babies that you'll abort but our president was cocked and loaded and unlike you gleeful baby killers he pulled out but even pulling out of an invasion is bad because you're so full of trump hate and love performing fifth trimester abortions

 

gee whiz this sounds familiar

 

He’s in favor of undoing anything which Obama did. That explains all of this.

 

They needed to use the same 11/29/11 tweet twice in the graphic?

 

Let's not forget the U.S. Supreme Court is still releasing decisions.

Two decisions involving criminal prosecutions were issued today, one constitutional and one statutory.

In Rehaif v. U.S., the majority (7-2) held that the word "knowingly" in a statute, means, well, knowingly. A federal law prohibited possessing a firearm by certain classes of individuals. The statute also said that anyone who knowingly violates that prohibition can be fined/imprisoned. Thomas dissented with Alito.

In what may or may not be the end of prosecutions of Curtis Flowers by the State of Mississippi, the Court in a 7-2 decision once again found the prosecutor had violated Mr. Flowers' constitutional rights in this sixth trial because he (once again) acted with discriminatory intent in blocking potential black jurors. Not this prosecutor's only prosecutorial misconduct over the six trials, but one he keeps on trying to get away with. The majority explicitly declined to say whether any one of the prosecutor's actions would have been a sufficient basis for its holding, stating the facts, taken together, establish motivation in striking potential black jurors was in substantial part motivated by discriminatory intent. (Flowers v. Mississippi).

Alito filed a concurrence, clarifying this was a really unusual case on its facts, so while he went with the majority this time, he's still open to cutting prosecutors slack in jury selection.

Justice Thomas was appalled this clearly guilty guy was getting off and believes there was no evidence of racism in jury selection. Justice Gorsuch was there with him until the last part of the dissent, in which Thomas expressed his hatred of the Bateson rule allowing defendants to bring constitutional challenges based on racial discrimination in jury selection. After all, he reasoned, it's not like defendant is harmed because a potential juror [my insert: who may be racist] isn't seated, so there's no harm justifying standing to bring the case.

And continuing in a long line of truly fucked up Establishment Clause decisions failing to give anyone clear guidance in what the heck the rules are, yesterday the Court allowed Maryland to keep its Big Cross on Public Property in American Legion v. American Humanist Ass'n, mostly because it's been there a long time and there's a poem about WW1 and rows of crosses, so crosses must not be religious symbols when memorializing WW1 vets. There were five votes for most sections of the opinion, but only four for one section and two of the five filed concurring opinions.. Two justices only concurred in the judgment and filed their own opinions.

I attempted to parse all this out yesterday.

Five justices agree a religious symbol can be transformed over time into one with lots of means and even into a secular symbol. Over time, who knows if the motivations of the people who constructed the monument were religious and even if they were, they can become obscured over time or the understanding of its meaning may simply change from religious to secular. Recognizing the country is religiously diverse, the majority opinion stated "a community may preserve such monuments, symbols and practices for the sake of their historical significance or their place in a common cultural heritage." In this case, the five justices found the cross had been closely linked as a symbol of WW1 and was really secular so no Establishment Clause violation. (These five also found, even though just saying the cross was now secular and not religious,, removing it after all this time would be hostile to religion, also a violation of the Establishment Clause.)

Kagan filed a separate concurrence, making explicit she is not abandoning Lemon.

Kavanaugh filed a separate concurrence making explicit Lemon is not the test. (Although not part of the four in this part of the majority decision, Thomas and Gorsuch also reject Lemon so there are at least three votes for this. There weren't five votes to totally dump it, though, at least by my count.

Four justices did join the sections of the Opinion finding the Lemon analysis for Establishment cases (what was the purpose and effect to the reasonable observer) generally sucks and shouldn't apply to cases involving the use, for ceremonial, celebratory or commemorative purposes, of words and symbols with religious associations.

Thomas would have found no constitutional violation because the Establishment Clause shouldn't apply to actions by the states and only to statutes passed by Congress and anyway, it's a cross and Lemon sucks. Gorsuch also thinks Lemon sucks in his dissent (joined by Thomas), these darn secularists had no standing, "offended observer" is stupid and any offended observers should get over it or quit observing.

I do agree with Thomas (!) that the majority opinion "does not adequately clarify the appropriate standard."

Ginsburg pointed out the obvious in her dissent (joined by Sotomayor). It's a cross. Crosses are Christian symbols. She then concludes that putting a cross on a war memorial doesn't make it secular.

In case anyone else gets as excited about tax cases as I do, the Court slapped North Carolina today for its greed in taxing an out-of-state trust because a potential beneficiary was a resident of the State. (N.C. Dep't of Revenue v Kaestner 1992 Family Trust)

 

my concurrence

it's a cross

 

Do you think Trump called Putin to let him know the Iran strike was coming, and Putin said "nyet!"?
Or do you think Putin called Trump when his intelligence picked up an Iran strike was coming, and Putin told him, "nyet!"?

Has to be one or the other, IMO.

 

Tell me more about our "detention centers."

Private prison stocks up 100% since Trump's win