Trump

[Aargh]

Quote from Trump's campaign that was shown in a discussion on TV tonight:

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States".

That is absolutely illegal. Entry to the United States cannot be based on sex, creed, or religion, and I believe some other things.

A bigger problem than it being illegal is that it makes the best recruiting poster ISIS could ever create. It gives ISIS exactly what they need to activate sympathizers already in the US. To a potential jihadist already in the US, whether by earlier immigration, VISA, green card, or convert whose family has been here for generations, that is a reason for those who don't agree with American policies to move from moderate to radical positions.

[pinstripers]

the executive order did not say that however

[proshox]

Our beloved Congress will do ANYTHING to avoid taxing their perceived constituency. They will also do ANYTHING to provide government assistance and subsidies to their perceived constituency. I have never noticed those who insist on a balanced budget do anything to move in that direction. "Not In My Back Yard" always dominates.

Everybody wants the government to either give them something or deregulate everything so they can get more. Everybody wants "someone else" to pay for all of that. the vast majority of that $20 trillion debt moved into our economy to satisfy those wants.

You can discuss changes in taxatuion till you're blue in the face. Congress is incredibly unlikely to do anything major. People are accustomed to the current system. There are some complaints, but any method of taxation will have complaints. Staying within the status quo is by far the easiest route for those in Congress to get elected again.

Cutting taxes for the 1% is likely to get a larger portion of the 99% to the voting booth in two years. Trump is likely to motivate a portion of that voting group just by being Trump.

Right now Trump has the Republican party pretty much totally behind anything he does. That support may already be somewhat precarious. What I see as Trump's "shoot from the hip" style of governance and communication has a potential for casualties from friendly fire.

I think you summed this up about as well as anyone could.

[jdshock]

The best part about the recent court ruling on the immigration ban is that we can know that the court took into consideration Trump's tweets.

It's very funny to picture these older, Ivy League educated judges sitting around staring at printouts of tweets saying things like "bad dudes out there" trying to determine if this is a Muslim-ban or not (kind of... really deciding whether to temporarily allow the ban or temporarily disallow the ban while the mess gets figured out).

[wu_shizzle]

The best part about the recent court ruling on the immigration ban is that we can know that the court took into consideration Trump's tweets.

It's very funny to picture these older, Ivy League educated judges sitting around staring at printouts of tweets saying things like "bad dudes out there" trying to determine if this is a Muslim-ban or not (kind of... really deciding whether to temporarily allow the ban or temporarily disallow the ban while the mess gets figured out).

Isn't that the problem with the judiciary though?

Looking for outcomes instead of looking at the actual law?

[jdshock]

Isn't that the problem with the judiciary though?

Looking for outcomes instead of looking at the actual law?

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. Do you mean it would be wrong for the courts to look at his Tweets when trying to determine whether it is a Muslim-ban? I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. One of the key arguments in the holding is that we just cannot be sure what the Executive Branch actually intends to do with the Executive Order. When it was passed, it said one thing. Then, several days later, the White House (but not the president) said that it was something slightly different. The court specifically said "in light of the Government's shifting interpretations of the Executive Order, we cannot say that the current interpretation by White House counsel, even if authoritative and binding, will persist past the immediate stage of these proceedings."

If you mean the Court is going out of their way to look for evidence, I also disagree with that. The states put forth the evidence. The judges would just look at the evidence put forth from both parties.

It doesn't really matter, though, because the court actually didn't even make a determination on the religious argument. It stopped at the due process issue and said the religious argument was too complicated to make a good decision on such short notice, and it wouldn't have affected anything since they had already made the due process decision. You have to remember that at this point in the case, the burden was very heavily on the federal government. It would have been shocking, to me, if the federal government had won. At best, this is a complicated issue, and it's hard to make a "strong showing" that the federal government is "likely to prevail," which is the standard the government would've had to meet to win at this stage.

[ShockingButTrue]

[SHOCKvalue]

I just want to preface the below by saying that while I didn't vote for Trump (or Clinton... gag me with a spoon), I do empathize with a number of his positions.

Nonetheless... this is funny:

[Play Angry]

Michael Flynn resigns.

[WuDrWu]

The best part about the recent court ruling on the immigration ban is that we can know that the court took into consideration Trump's tweets.

It's very funny to picture these older, Ivy League educated judges sitting around staring at printouts of tweets saying things like "bad dudes out there" trying to determine if this is a Muslim-ban or not (kind of... really deciding whether to temporarily allow the ban or temporarily disallow the ban while the mess gets figured out).

Serious questions here, and if they're misguided, just say so. I have no idea where your expertise lies. Clearly I'm neither a lawyer nor do I play one on the internet.

We have laws in this country. We do not have open borders. You must follow certain laws and procedures to enter this country. Why do we have judges circumventing these laws?

As I understand it, the Executive order in question is simply enforcing a law that was passed by President Obama. Is this not correct? If it is correct, are these judges saying the law is unconstitutional? Or is the EO completely different from the law?

I guess the most important thing that I can't wrap my head around. How does a non-citizen, who hasn't stepped foot on American soil, how do they get Constitutional protection? It makes no sense to me.

And lastly just curious....you stated the court took into consideration Trump's tweets. Were they presented into evidence? Or did the judge(s) use this information on their own....and if so, is that not only inappropriate but outside the bounds of the robes? I don't want to say illegal because I don't know, but can they just arbitrarily attach things not presented to them to affect their ruling? And if they can...why have a hearing/trial ever? Just let the judge ask questions if they want and figure it out on their own. Honest curiosity.

[Aargh]

As I understand the travel ban, it doesn't have anything to do with illegals. The ban was quite broad - if your point of origin was any of 7 countries, you cannot enter the US. That meant people who had previously been granted access to the USA through visa, green cards, or any other legal form of entry were not allowed to re-enter if they had traveled to any of the seven countries.

Additionally, there was no prior notice, so people who traveled (legally) to any of the 7 countries had no notice they would not be allowed to return to the US. People were literally on airplanes returning to the US when the order banning their return to the US was signed and became effective.

Then there's the obvious problem of banning those legally here from returning to the US from the seven countries. They weren't allowed to enter the US, but they had committed no crime and couldn't be incarcerated, so what do you do with them? Putting them on a flight back to the country where their travel originated seems incredibly counter-productive.

[CBB_Fan]

I will note that the Obama-era classification had a purpose. The countries selected had little to no intelligence, and thus were targeted for more intense scrutiny for travel. This isn't because they were the most dangerous, but because it was harder for us to detect bad apples coming from those countries into the US.

That line of logic doesn't really apply to those with green cards or visas that have spent substantial time in the US. There is no intelligence gap once they are within our borders. This is why Trump's ban misuses Obama's classification.

[jdshock]

Serious questions here, and if they're misguided, just say so. I have no idea where your expertise lies. Clearly I'm neither a lawyer nor do I play one on the internet.

I’ll let you decide if it’s misguided. Most of my knowledge on the subject is just out of interest, and I always try to be honest about what I don’t know. That said, I think it’s fascinating and I’ve read the court decisions and laws involved, which probably qualifies me to talk about it generally on a basketball message board! I apologize for the giant post in advance.

We have laws in this country. We do not have open borders. You must follow certain laws and procedures to enter this country. Why do we have judges circumventing these laws?

As I understand it, the Executive order in question is simply enforcing a law that was passed by President Obama. Is this not correct? If it is correct, are these judges saying the law is unconstitutional? Or is the EO completely different from the law?

That’s not exactly right. The executive order references the law passed by Obama. That law had to do with the Visa Waiver Program. Under the Visa Waiver Program, citizens of certain countries could get into the United States without first obtaining a visa. The main thing Obama’s law did was set out exceptions to that waiver program. Obama’s law doesn’t even actually name all of the countries that are excepted. The law gives the government the ability to define countries and areas of concern. That is how the Department of Homeland Security added countries to the list. Ultimately, the list of countries created for Obama’s law is the list that Trump’s executive order references.

Trump’s proposal involves a total ban on entry into the United States. It’s related to Obama’s law, but it is different.

I guess the most important thing that I can't wrap my head around. How does a non-citizen, who hasn't stepped foot on American soil, how do they get Constitutional protection? It makes no sense to me.

There are two main arguments that the executive order is unconstitutional. First, it infringes on due process rights. Second, it treads on some religious freedom rights.

Due Process-Your argument is exactly one of the key arguments of the government’s side, and it will ultimately be fully litigated, I imagine. The states argued that the text of the Executive Order applied to many permanent residents who would be protected (this is accurate, and it’s still a question of what it means for the government to announce its intention to not enforce something written in the Order). Additionally, due process rights don’t just apply to citizens. It applies to non-citizens, even illegal aliens, residing in the United States, so it would also affect those individuals who had been here and attempted to re-enter the country. Those two issues in and of themselves are probably enough to justify the decision of the court, especially considering the burden on the government. The ban on permanent residents was a really big mistake, and I’m not sure how good the states’ arguments would be had the executive order simply said it was going to temporarily deny all Visas to the US from those countries.

I take it that is your biggest concern though… why do foreign citizens who have never been here, have constitutional rights? Honestly, I don’t really understand what the court says on this point. The court is listing off groups who would have due process rights and it says “refugees, see 8 U.S.C. § 1231 note 8.” That’s it. As far as I can see, “refugee” does not appear anywhere in that statute. It doesn’t appear anywhere in the notes. I don’t know. It’s not clear to me. I don’t know a lot about the refugee topic, so take this with a grain of salt. I imagine there’s a pretty good argument that they get some due process rights if they’re already on an approved list somewhere or if they’ve already had approval to come to the US, something like that. I just don’t know enough to make a great argument about why a refugee would have due process rights without that being the case.

Religious discrimination – this would actually be a slightly different argument than the idea that foreign citizens would have rights. The 9^th Circuit discussed the concept of a federal government endorsing one religion or another. A true Muslim ban (i.e., no Muslim can come into the US) is almost certainly a government endorsement against one religion, even if none of those foreign citizens had any rights. Like I said, though, the court didn’t even decide this issue because it already made the due process decision. This is the issue for which the court would need to consider statements about his intention to create a Muslim-ban.

I have seen a lot of people making the argument that it can’t be a Muslim-ban because there are so many Muslim countries that aren’t banned. That doesn’t really answer this argument, though. If a 100 people are banned from the US only because they are Muslim, it doesn’t really matter that there are loads of Muslims that could come in. Taken to the extreme, if a person kills someone because of his race, that person is a racist even though there are a bunch of people of the same race that he didn’t kill. In my honest opinion, I think this would be a really, really compelling argument if they weren’t the exact same countries from the Obama administration. There’s just a mountain of evidence that it is intended to be a ban on people because of their religion because of the way it was talked about during the campaign. Using just those countries, however, gives him a really great scape goat.

And lastly just curious....you stated the courttook into consideration Trump's tweets. Were they presented into evidence? Ordid the judge(s) use this information on their own

It was just an educated guess on my part. The court said “In support of this argument, the States have offered evidence of numerous statements by the President about his intent to implement a ‘Muslim ban.’” I can’t imagine why the states wouldn’t include tweets.

and if so, is that not only inappropriate but outside the bounds of the robes? I don't want to say illegal because I don't know, but can they just arbitrarily attach things not presented to them to affect their ruling? And if they can...why have a hearing/trial ever? Just let the judge ask questions if they want and figure it out on their own. Honest curiosity.

This gets into a lot of ethical concerns that are a whole can of worms. It’s really not black and white. As a rule of thumb, I’d say a judge can probably research some things they know are 100%, objectively fact. Trump’s tweets would be an easy place to look because we can mostly trust Twitter as a website and trust that he has endorsed the things he puts on his page. On the other hand, the judges couldn’t just go out and try to investigate if Trump ever privately told someone “I hate Muslims” or something like that.

[Aargh]

Tweets and message boards are written, published documents. Anything in writing and published can have no expectation of privacy and can be introduced into any court proceeding.It's not like a spokem word that can only be introduced by bringing the person (exclusion by hearsay).

A President using twitter extensively is dumber than dumb. We all know how difficult it can be to express context or have our words taken as we meant on a message board. Try doing that in 140 characters. Anything in a tweet that's open to interpretation, will be interpreted to the advantage of the party wanting to exploit those written wrods.

"So sue me" has worked incredibly well for Trump in the business world. In civil cases deeper pockets and better lawyers tend to prevail. Trump has both. Applying that concept to governance is a fool's journey.

[shocka khan]

jdshock, I'd like to congratulate you on your smackdown of Dr. Numb Nutz. As you get to know him, you will find he is a sociopath who thinks about as much of Muslim as the IRS. I wonder who the revenue agent was that crawled up his butt and how much his tax dodging cost him.

Whatever it was, it wasn't enough. Some people take their lumps, learn from their mistakes and move on. It's obvious he's stuck. I believe that any taxpayer has the right to agggressively claim any tax deduction. My tax professor in college got audited once and by the time he was done with the IRS, they owed him 3X what they audited him over. His hate of the IRS goes way beyond normal, much like his hatred of Muslims.