Trump passes executive order restricting immigration, in violation of the Constitution.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't have quite as cynical an estimation of the American people as you- remember that Trump definitively lost the popular vote, and Bernie Sanders came closer than pretty much anyone thought possible to unseating Hillary Clinton.

But if you're right... then its on us to convince the average person that Trump and company are a threat to their interests to.

But I agree that violent action is likely to be (at least) as difficult and potentially futile a path as you feel non-violence would be- neither is a quick and easy road to success. And like you said, violence entails the pointless harming of innocents.

As to Congress... I have little hope for that pack of fuckers, a few possible exceptions aside. But I do not believe that the Supreme Court will be a Trump rubber stamp any time soon, for reasons discussed above.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I hope you are correct regarding the extent of the order, but it doesn't really change my opinion of it. While you are correct that specifics matter, I still consider it a violation of multiple Constitutional Amendments, including One and Fourteen, for the reasons I stated, though this is, obviously, a layman's opinion- I am not a lawyer nor trained Constitutional scholar.

And indeed, from a certain, very cynical point of view, it might be better if it did apply to American citizens, as it would make it easier to muster opposition against it. Though I can't bring myself to be quite that cynical yet.

I know for a fact that it doesn't apply to American citizens. So you can lay that concern to rest. Partly because I bothered to read the executive order. The really unusual bit of it was how it didn't exempt green card holders, which is such a no brainer thing to do for this kind of order it strongly suggests they didn't consult much beyond Trumps inner circle before issuing it (its been leaking recently that the new Administration isn't consulting with legal staffs from affected departments before issuing orders, something that speaks to their inexperience in governing).

Very well.

I will, barring further information to the contrary, accept your analysis and concede the point. Their is still more than enough to condemn this abomination for regardless.

The idea they were banning actual citizens from entering is so out there that you really should have thought about it a moment.

I had it from people and sources I consider, in my experience fairly reliable. But as I said, point conceded.

Its also not a good idea to just assume a constituional provision applies to a situaiton like you think it does. I have legal training and I couldn't tell you right off the bat whether a provision applies unless its an extremely blatant violation that's been established in jurisprudence I'm already familar with.

Well then, in your trained opinion, what is your view on my assessment that it likely violates Amendments One and Fourteen? You know my view, but I'm honestly rather curious as to yours'.

[Joun_Lord]

Why are they refugees? Because they do not want to die. What will sending them all back do?

Do you think it would be at all wise for America to be complicit in that?

And we already had a system in place. There was nothing to work out.

Hence why I disagree with stopping them from coming in. The people in Syria and Somalia and Elsweyr are people that are in desperate need to get the hell out of dodge. And despite some being bad skittles tainting the whole basket of eggs I still believe this. I want to stop as many rotten apples from coming in as possible, I completely disagree with the Europe show up and stay model, but its still the correct thing to do to welcome as many refugees over as possible.

There is a system that is slow, inefficient (and probably isn't being helped by this stupid ass move) and some believe will still let some bad doods slip through. Its not unreasonable to think we might need a better system, a more efficient one that lets people languish for months and years before deciding yes or nyet. A time period where at risk people can be a serious risk of dying while they wait.

And there are good reasons for waiting too, again the not good seeds, but there has to be a better system that has a balance between safety for us and them.

Yeah. Its amazing how long and stubbornly people have clung to "But Trump won't really be that bad".

I guess its easier than the ugly truth- that they really do mean to drag us back to the 19th. Century, or at least the first half of the 20th.

I've said Trump won't be as bad as people say he will be, he won't be this walking apocalypse of DOOOOOOOOM!!!!! that will destroy the world or worse America in fiery destruction because someone called him baby hands. Never said he won't be bad though. Quite the opposite.

If one guy concealing himself in a stream of a a hundred thousand refugees is a murderer, it makes the international news. The other 99,999 refugees make NO international news. Don't assume Europe really IS "a college campus of rape and violence."

Because those 99,999 refugees represent 99,999 lives saved. Unless one takes a stance like "brown people lives are worthless," there is no way to justify turning back those 99,999 refugees to protect a few dozen of your own citizens from that one terrorist.

There is a reason why I said "makes it seem". The same media that makes the US seem like a violent shithole (the truth of this claim becomes more debatable by the day) Wild West where everyone is going to die horrible deaths at any moment anywhere. Europe has some rape and terrorist problems, America has some gun violence problems (or just plain old violence problems) but nothing on the scale the media makes it seem like. Doesn't stop people from being afraid though and fearful people are not rational people, fearful people want to just protect themselves and damn the consequences, laws, or who else they hurt in the process.

Thats how some people can justify turning back all the refugees for a little bit of comfort, if they are protected then who gives a flying monkey fuck about anyone else? They have safety and security, thats all that matters.

Sometimes its not even about self interest so much. Those few dozen of your own citizens are people too, people with families, loved ones, collections of miniature ceramic baseball caps. Its easy to justify their deaths when its people you don't know, same as how people justify not letting in the refugees, but its harder when its someone you know, you loved ones, your spouse, your children, your neighbor, your boss (wait, why was letting in potentially murderous refugees a bad thing?). For some people they don't want to trade the lives of their own for others.

]Because for Trump it isn't actually about stopping terrorists. Even pretending it's about stopping terrorists is drinking the poison Kool-Aid. It's not about whether or not the system succeeds in stopping terrorists. It's not about whether the people being imprisoned or deported because of their national origin or their religion are terrorists. They can hate terrorism, they can (like many Iraqis) have actively helped America fight terrorism. And it wouldn't matter.

It's because he, and the people who put him into power, think that racism is a good defense against terrorism. It's "PURGE THE XENOS, IN PURITY LIES STRENGTH" only in real life. And the xenos are in fact 'people' just like you and me, on the receiving end of cruelty and hatred with the power of the United States government behind it.

The fact one of the people stopped was a Iraqi working as a translator for the US Army for 10 years makes the fact this isn't about terrorism abundantly clear. Its about racial and national discrimination plain and simple. Even if it was about stopping terrorism the way of going about it doesn't stop any, would still have allowed most of the 9/11 attackers through, would have allowed Osama himself through, wouldn't have stopped the Boston bombing, none of it. Its like the stupid ass assault weapon bans in response to mass shootings involving handgun, not actually about stopping the shooting its about a political agenda and a shitty one at that.

We already HAVE a system, it works fine, it saves 99,999 lives for every dangerous person who gets through.

Stopping all refugees while 'working out a system' is just the Golden Mean fallacy in action. It's assuming that both side must be reasonable, and are probably equally correct, so that the correct response is a 50/50 split between their position and the opposing position.

That isn't true when one side of the debate says "round up all the refugees from these seven countries and throw them in detention facilities." Rounding up only half of them, or just keeping them in detention for a little while... those are not right answers. Those are not acceptable compromises. They might be less wrong, but they are still wrong, not just 'unsatisfactory.'

See my above response.

I'm not surprised at all. But it makes all the people who thought "he won't be that bad, he's just posturing with all his anti-immigrant stuff" fucking laughable, you're right. No, Trump is not four more years of business as usual, any more than Mussolini was business as usual for Italian democracy, or any more than Franco was business as usual for Spanish democracy.

He may yet be stopped from destroying democracy in America, hopefully without even the need for violence, but he is not and never has been business as usual.

The fact is while Trumps actions are out of the ordinary for recent history its nothing new for US history in its entirety. It IS business as usual, that throughout much of American history doing shitty things to people because of racism and capitalism and just because they were there was entirely normal.

However that doesn't mean its acceptable anymore then it should have been acceptable for horrific shit like the Trails of Tears or slavery to take place. The fact we recognize Trump acting like he's on the 20 dollar bill is not something that is acceptable has me hoping that shitbags like Trump doing shitty stops becoming business as usual and stops fucking happening.

Also I didn't know James Franco had anything to do with Spanish democracy.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah. Its amazing how long and stubbornly people have clung to "But Trump won't really be that bad".

I guess its easier than the ugly truth- that they really do mean to drag us back to the 19th. Century, or at least the first half of the 20th.

I've said Trump won't be as bad as people say he will be, he won't be this walking apocalypse of DOOOOOOOOM!!!!! that will destroy the world or worse America in fiery destruction because someone called him baby hands. Never said he won't be bad though. Quite the opposite.

To be clear, I wasn't really directing that at you specifically. More just the general mindset of trying to down play, and hoping to work with and "manage", Trump, which it has taken some people far too long to realize is a fool's delusion.

[Dragon Angel]

Was I in a coma when I witnessed Democrats in both the House and Senate voting overwhelmingly in favor of the Patriot Act? I'm going off (possibly bad) memory here, but didn't only a single-digit number of Democratic senators (you know, the ones with principles) vote against "fuck the bill of rights"? And was I also in a coma when I witnessed Obama signing EXTENSIONS of parts of the Patriot Act?

I was a huge conservative turd at the time the Act was signed (I was 19-20, fucking sue me) and even I had large reservations about how willingly Americans accepted the Patriot act.

I'm not going to absolve the Republican party of responsibility here, but an overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens in general were willing to write GW a blank check to smash turrists. And Obama (and elected Democrats) didn't exactly make it a point to destroy that power creep once we did so, even when their party controlled enough of Congress to spank Republicans any time they wanted.

Huh? I'm not absolving the Democrats of any responsibility here. It was just to establish a trend for the Republicans. Fuck the Democrats too, and especially the ones that will go with whatever Dear Leader tells them to now.

[Lost Soal]

ACLU have announced they won a Stay of of the order in federal court

[Ralin]

ACLU have announced they won a Stay of of the order in federal court

Anyone want to place bets on whether Trump Andrew Jackson's it?

[Coop D'etat]

Well, I hope you are correct regarding the extent of the order, but it doesn't really change my opinion of it. While you are correct that specifics matter, I still consider it a violation of multiple Constitutional Amendments, including One and Fourteen, for the reasons I stated, though this is, obviously, a layman's opinion- I am not a lawyer nor trained Constitutional scholar.

And indeed, from a certain, very cynical point of view, it might be better if it did apply to American citizens, as it would make it easier to muster opposition against it. Though I can't bring myself to be quite that cynical yet.

I know for a fact that it doesn't apply to American citizens. So you can lay that concern to rest. Partly because I bothered to read the executive order. The really unusual bit of it was how it didn't exempt green card holders, which is such a no brainer thing to do for this kind of order it strongly suggests they didn't consult much beyond Trumps inner circle before issuing it (its been leaking recently that the new Administration isn't consulting with legal staffs from affected departments before issuing orders, something that speaks to their inexperience in governing).

Very well.

I will, barring further information to the contrary, accept your analysis and concede the point. Their is still more than enough to condemn this abomination for regardless.

The idea they were banning actual citizens from entering is so out there that you really should have thought about it a moment.

I had it from people and sources I consider, in my experience fairly reliable. But as I said, point conceded.

Its also not a good idea to just assume a constituional provision applies to a situaiton like you think it does. I have legal training and I couldn't tell you right off the bat whether a provision applies unless its an extremely blatant violation that's been established in jurisprudence I'm already familar with.

Well then, in your trained opinion, what is your view on my assessment that it likely violates Amendments One and Fourteen? You know my view, but I'm honestly rather curious as to yours'.

Keep in mind I went to Canadian law school, so my American con law came in a single option course I took for kicks rather than being foundational and I'm not an immigration specialist. So this is just a slightly better informed opinion, not an expert one. There's going to be many much better informed opinions going out there.

Firstly, a lot of your constitutional protections go outside the window when you are outside the United States and aren't a citizen. This was why Gitmo was so valuable to the Bush administration, because they could claim constituional rules didn't apply (and why many were upset with Obama's attempt to bring them to the lower 48, because then the full force of it should apply to their detainees).

Secondly, keep in mind that the executive has pretty broad powers of controlling things pertaining to foriegn policy as well as law enforcement and security, which includes allowing entry to non-citizens. You can see this in Carter's actions to ban Iranian visas back in 1980. This was tested in court and found to be legal on appeal. However, the executives actions are governed by written laws pertaining to immigration and I think these might over step his granted powers under statute.

So the first thing I would look at is a fifth amendment violation of due process. Immigration is a civil matter, not criminal so there are much weaker legal protections in place. But I would think there is a case that their rights to due process in removing their ability to re-entry as green card holders would be a consitutional violation. I'd need a lot of research on what does and does not apply in this situation for a non-citizen outside the country to be sure though.

If we're talking first (freedom of religon) and fourteenth (equal protection, although equal protection is also ported into fifth amendment jurisprudence, so there is an overlap there) amendments, its a bit more nebulous. The ban isn't explicitly due to religion, its due to these countries already being on an existing list of countries. Specifically the list defined by section 217(a)(12) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12). This section of the act specifically lists Iraq and Syria for special treatment in American immigration and gives the government the power to list other states under its rules (which would be how the other five states got on the list for the ban). So the ban doesn't specifically deal with muslims, although you could try to get into a disparate impact analysis, I couldn't speak to how far you could expect to get with that. A lot might depend on how much they actually treat this like a religious test and how much they treat it as a ban from states of concern. I'm also not sure equal protection would really apply in this case, as that is more relevant once you are within the United States rather than without it trying to get in, but I don't know enough to be really sure (most of the legal authorities I've consulted on this matter haven't thought of the 14th as particularly revelvant to this matter so I haven't looked up much of the law there, which might suggest to you its not a fruitful point).

Absent constitutional concerns, one of the biggest issues for Trump is that under treaties the USA has signed, they cannot ignore asylum requests or send back (refoulment is the legal term) people to places where they have a legitimate fear of being killed or tortured. Which immediately applies to a lot of people they took in from these countries, particularly their Iraqi "collaborators." Also, the order might overstep Trumps authority under the immigration statutes, so it might not be a matter of being constitutionally wrong, but being ultra vires or beyond his powers.

I'd also be hesitant to say that Trump issuing an unconstituional order is grounds to impeach. Most, probably all Presidents have done something that exceeded their powers at some point, leading to court cases against their administrations. There's a distinction between doing that and doing something that is considered grounds for impeachment by Congress.

[Simon_Jester]

There is a reason why I said "makes it seem". The same media that makes the US seem like a violent shithole (the truth of this claim becomes more debatable by the day) Wild West where everyone is going to die horrible deaths at any moment anywhere. Europe has some rape and terrorist problems, America has some gun violence problems (or just plain old violence problems) but nothing on the scale the media makes it seem like.

Over thirty thousand Americans died of gunshot wounds in 2013, and over seventy thousand were injured but not killed.

Do you mean to say Europe actually has a terrorist/thug problem caused by refugees that is anywhere near this level? Please answer "yes" or "no."

Doesn't stop people from being afraid though and fearful people are not rational people, fearful people want to just protect themselves and damn the consequences, laws, or who else they hurt in the process.

Are you advancing the argument that these fearful reactions are justified? Or are you simply stating that they exist? The former is... not a good thing to claim. The latter is obvious.

Thats how some people can justify turning back all the refugees for a little bit of comfort, if they are protected then who gives a flying monkey fuck about anyone else? They have safety and security, thats all that matters.

Sometimes its not even about self interest so much. Those few dozen of your own citizens are people too, people with families, loved ones, collections of miniature ceramic baseball caps. Its easy to justify their deaths when its people you don't know, same as how people justify not letting in the refugees, but its harder when its someone you know, you loved ones, your spouse, your children, your neighbor, your boss (wait, why was letting in potentially murderous refugees a bad thing?). For some people they don't want to trade the lives of their own for others.

I get that, but when millions of people vote and approve of the idea to let 99,999 people die in the maybe-kinda-sorta-maybe hope of saving a few dozen...

What am I supposed to call that? I'm honestly having trouble coming up with words other than 'cowardice' and 'madness.'

I mean, you can say "people do this because they're scared." But honestly, someone who thinks the way you describe is someone who's willing to expose 99,999 people to a fucking war zone, in the hopes that maybe a few dozen people they might know personally if they are like one-in-a-million level unlucky will be safe.

That does not say good things about it.

Are you just saying that this kind of mindset exists? Or are you saying it's justified?

]Because for Trump it isn't actually about stopping terrorists. Even pretending it's about stopping terrorists is drinking the poison Kool-Aid. It's not about whether or not the system succeeds in stopping terrorists. It's not about whether the people being imprisoned or deported because of their national origin or their religion are terrorists. They can hate terrorism, they can (like many Iraqis) have actively helped America fight terrorism. And it wouldn't matter.

It's because he, and the people who put him into power, think that racism is a good defense against terrorism. It's "PURGE THE XENOS, IN PURITY LIES STRENGTH" only in real life. And the xenos are in fact 'people' just like you and me, on the receiving end of cruelty and hatred with the power of the United States government behind it.

The fact one of the people stopped was a Iraqi working as a translator for the US Army for 10 years makes the fact this isn't about terrorism abundantly clear. Its about racial and national discrimination plain and simple. Even if it was about stopping terrorism the way of going about it doesn't stop any, would still have allowed most of the 9/11 attackers through, would have allowed Osama himself through, wouldn't have stopped the Boston bombing, none of it. Its like the stupid ass assault weapon bans in response to mass shootings involving handgun, not actually about stopping the shooting its about a political agenda and a shitty one at that.

It's WORSE.

Banning assault weapons doesn't kill people or throw them in a prison or deport them into a war zone. It means the loss of some valuable personal property, but that's it. Sending thousands or millions of people into a war zone or a prison is not comparable with a firearms ban, unless you can demonstrate that the consequences of disarming people involve thousands or millions of deaths and ruined lives.

I'm not surprised at all. But it makes all the people who thought "he won't be that bad, he's just posturing with all his anti-immigrant stuff" fucking laughable, you're right. No, Trump is not four more years of business as usual, any more than Mussolini was business as usual for Italian democracy, or any more than Franco was business as usual for Spanish democracy.

He may yet be stopped from destroying democracy in America, hopefully without even the need for violence, but he is not and never has been business as usual.

The fact is while Trumps actions are out of the ordinary for recent history its nothing new for US history in its entirety. It IS business as usual, that throughout much of American history doing shitty things to people because of racism and capitalism and just because they were there was entirely normal.

This is almost unprecedented. Except for cases like the Trail of Tears and slavery. Which were fucking atrocities. In which case Trumpolini has committed his first "fucking atrocity" level evil act within about a week of taking office, which suggests that he is going to commit dozens or hundreds more during the course of his TIME in office.

Or, well. There is ONE twentieth century example of something on the same level of 'bad' as this: the Japanese-American internment camps. A thing that was done when the nation was actually at war with large countries that had tanks and bombs and fighter planes and sonic-electronic ballbreakers and all the rest.

And even then it wasn't justified and wasn't right. And right now we don't even have an excuse of actually being at war with someone who could conceivably have the power to beat us! All the killing and horror is going on in other countries. There hasn't been an attack on our military like Pearl Harbor. We are in no danger. People are getting struck by lightning as often, if not more often, than they are being killed by terrorists!

So there is just no analogy to this massive level of national cowardice and insanity, except for blatant genocidal ethnic cleansing evils of the early to mid-1800s. Some of which we rightly fought a war to stop (there's your justification for violence), and some of which, if the Native Americans had been able to fight a war to make us stop, it would have 100% served us right if they had done so.

ACLU have announced they won a Stay of of the order in federal court

Anyone want to place bets on whether Trump Andrew Jackson's it?

Anyone want to place bets on whether federal officials ignore his order to proceed because they don't want to violate the court order?

[Iroscato]

ACLU have announced they won a Stay of of the order in federal court

Well, glad to see somebody still has a spine over there.

[Coop D'etat]

Further to the legal discussion, I know that the ACLU submission that lead to the stay was argued on fifth amendment due process grounds and the grounds that it was ultra vires the immigration statutes. As their submission was successful and applied broadly (rather than the specific refugee law that applied to the individual they choose for the test case) I would assume the judge considered them valid.

You can read the winning brief here:
https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/dar ... injunctive

[Lost Soal]

The executive order specifically mentions religion.

(b) Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality. Where necessary and appropriate, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall recommend legislation to the President that would assist with such prioritization.

Since the countries are dominant Muslim it is specifically aimed at discriminating against that religion.

[Flagg]

Do you think the Democrats have the stamina to block a Supreme Court Justice nomination for years on end?

I do. But they can't stop the Grabbers Of Pussies from a majority vote removing the ability to filibuster SCOTUS or other judicial nominations.

[Ralin]

Anyone want to place bets on whether federal officials ignore his order to proceed because they don't want to violate the court order?

No. They'll obey it and the minority that don't will be fired or even arrested.

[The Romulan Republic]

Anyone want to place bets on whether federal officials ignore his order to proceed because they don't want to violate the court order?

No. They'll obey it and the minority that don't will be fired or even arrested.

Maybe, maybe not, but if Trump did have people fired or arrested for refusing to follow an illegal order, and the courts ruled in their favour too, what then? If he truly refuses to acknowledge the Supreme Court's authority, what then?

Could the courts, hypothetically, start issuing arrest warrants, if not for him (its my understanding that the President can only be removed by impeachment), then for all of his lackeys?

Either way, I'll say this for our institutions- their are many judges in our court system who are sincerely committed to preserving civil liberties. They may prove our strongest defence for the next two to four years.

[Flagg]

ACLU have announced they won a Stay of of the order in federal court

Anyone want to place bets on whether Trump Andrew Jackson's it?

Of course he will. And who is going to stop him, the agencies that answer to the chucklefuck President Pussygrabber appointed?

[Iroscato]

ACLU have announced they won a Stay of of the order in federal court

Anyone want to place bets on whether Trump Andrew Jackson's it?

Of course he will. And who is going to stop him, the agencies that answer to the chucklefuck President Pussygrabber appointed?

Explanation of "Andrew Jackson's it" for a non-American, please?

[Joun_Lord]

Over thirty thousand Americans died of gunshot wounds in 2013, and over seventy thousand were injured but not killed.

Do you mean to say Europe actually has a terrorist/thug problem caused by refugees that is anywhere near this level? Please answer "yes" or "no."

No. Of course they aren't anywhere the same level, that wasn't what I was implying, not a direct comparison, just that the level that exists is considerably lower then the level the media portrays the problem as. Both problems do exist just not to the pants shitting degree you'd think exists from the evening news.

Are you advancing the argument that these fearful reactions are justified? Or are you simply stating that they exist? The former is... not a good thing to claim. The latter is obvious.

I'm saying the fear exists and I understand the reasons for being afraid, not justifying the fear or excusing the actions caused by the fear.

I get that, but when millions of people vote and approve of the idea to let 99,999 people die in the maybe-kinda-sorta-maybe hope of saving a few dozen...

What am I supposed to call that? I'm honestly having trouble coming up with words other than 'cowardice' and 'madness.'

I mean, you can say "people do this because they're scared." But honestly, someone who thinks the way you describe is someone who's willing to expose 99,999 people to a fucking war zone, in the hopes that maybe a few dozen people they might know personally if they are like one-in-a-million level unlucky will be safe.

That does not say good things about it.

Are you just saying that this kind of mindset exists? Or are you saying it's justified?

The words to describe it are fearful, protecting their own, even self-serving. Yes cowardice too. But its easy to be brave when you probably don't think (for good reason) its your family, your loved ones that are really in danger. For the people who want to stop the refugees from coming over they have a fear, an irrational one but one that still exists and is borne from real dangers, it could be their own loved ones on the chopping block should they play humanitarian.

To them its saving lives by trading other lives. Its in their mind it would be like taking some random person and sacrificing them for their organs to save dozens. Sure plenty of people are saved by that sacrifice, there is a good chance that the person sacrificed you won't know, and its for the greater good but that person could have been them, could have been their family, the sacrifice didn't need to happen, that its like saying the lives saved by the sacrifice are worth more then the person sacrificed.

They think that its fucked up that people are potentially choosing to sacrifice dozens of people, dozens of their own people, to save others.

And no I'm not justifying it. Don't even agree with that mindset or the notion that bringing in refugees automatically makes society unsafer.

It's WORSE.

Banning assault weapons doesn't kill people or throw them in a prison or deport them into a war zone. It means the loss of some valuable personal property, but that's it. Sending thousands or millions of people into a war zone or a prison is not comparable with a firearms ban, unless you can demonstrate that the consequences of disarming people involve thousands or millions of deaths and ruined lives.

Again, not making a 1 to 1 comparison. This ban is similar to a weapons ban because its done not to actually make anyone safer but done for a political reason and justified on shoddy evidence.

This is almost unprecedented. Except for cases like the Trail of Tears and slavery. Which were fucking atrocities. In which case Trumpolini has committed his first "fucking atrocity" level evil act within about a week of taking office, which suggests that he is going to commit dozens or hundreds more during the course of his TIME in office.

Or, well. There is ONE twentieth century example of something on the same level of 'bad' as this: the Japanese-American internment camps. A thing that was done when the nation was actually at war with large countries that had tanks and bombs and fighter planes and sonic-electronic ballbreakers and all the rest.

And even then it wasn't justified and wasn't right. And right now we don't even have an excuse of actually being at war with someone who could conceivably have the power to beat us! All the killing and horror is going on in other countries. There hasn't been an attack on our military like Pearl Harbor. We are in no danger. People are getting struck by lightning as often, if not more often, than they are being killed by terrorists!

So there is just no analogy to this massive level of national cowardice and insanity, except for blatant genocidal ethnic cleansing evils of the early to mid-1800s. Some of which we rightly fought a war to stop (there's your justification for violence), and some of which, if the Native Americans had been able to fight a war to make us stop, it would have 100% served us right if they had done so.

Its not almost unprecedented, its quite precedented. While I would not call this an atrocity, certainly not something on the level of the Trail of Tears or slavery, its still a pretty shitty act that followed plenty of shitty acts even in the 20th century, even in the 21st century.

Things like forced assimilation of Natives and removal of their children that continued until the 70s, forced sterilization of "undesirables", testing on American soldiers like the Tuskegee airman, the decades of lynchings and racially motivated murders including some done by or supported by police and politicians, the fire bombing of Dresden, the forced relocation of Bikini Atoll residents, the war crimes in Iraqistan and Afghanistan, the War in Iraq itself, the campaign of drone warfare that kills scores of civilians to this day and probably to this second, the Fast and Furious gun walking scandal that gave guns to mexican drug cartels, the overthrowing of governments in Central of South America, torture of prisoners in black site prison, black site prisons, mass spying on the American population, the horribly destructive War on Drugs, and no doubt much more.

The difference between those acts and this is this acts on fucking Twitter.

We like pretty much any other nation are a nation built upon terrible things, a nation that still does terrible things, a nation that tries to forget its past and damn sure keeps repeating it.

Things might be better now, I don't recall us massacring any Native Americans in awhile, but by no means are they perfect and it wasn't so long ago shit was straight up fucking horrible.

Don't believe for a single gosh darn minute Trump is somehow unique or his actions are. They aren't, not by a long shit. The only real difference is Trump is such a massive cunt he advertises when he does horrible shit.

[The Romulan Republic]

ACLU have announced they won a Stay of of the order in federal court

Anyone want to place bets on whether Trump Andrew Jackson's it?

Of course he will. And who is going to stop him, the agencies that answer to the chucklefuck President Pussygrabber appointed?

The courts will likely continue to rule against him.

This will give legal justification to anyone who wishes to refuse orders and engage in civil disobedience (like the National Park employees who defied Trump's media blackout), and it may encourage Democratic city and state governments to refuse to cooperate as well (we've already seen some of that pre-Trump, with "sanctuary cities" on immigration and some states legalizing marijuana in defiance of Federal law).

Hopefully, this will limit the damage until enough Congressmen can be swayed (or voted out) to allow for impeachment.

If Trump is impeached, and refuses to step down (which I can actually see him doing, God help us)... well, then we cross our fingers and pray the military does its duty and sides with the Constitution, not the President.

[Omega18]

Could the courts, hypothetically, start issuing arrest warrants, if not for him (its my understanding that the President can only be removed by impeachment), then for all of his lackeys?

The judge most certainly could threaten to hold the head of the Department of Homeland Security (or acting head if the position is not currently filled) in criminal contempt and order his/her arrest if they don't comply with her order and order those under them to comply with the court order.

Back in 2001, Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton was potentially looking at jail for failing to comply with prior court order regarding the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1007933721639650520

She ended up with only civil contempt charges, but the action was way less blatant than indisputably intentionally failing to attempt to comply with a court order.

[Ralin]

Explanation of "Andrew Jackson's it" for a non-American, please?

In the 19th century the Supreme Court ruled that President Andrew Jackson could not forcibly remove the Cherokee from some land that was supposedly theirs on account of treaties saying it was and having lived on it for a really long time and stuff.

President Andrew Jackson overruled them and did it anyway. A bunch of the Cherokee died. The Supreme Court raged about it impotently because there is no Supreme Court army.

As a side-note, as of under two hours ago if you Google Andrew Jackson the first result that comes up is "Trump hangs portrait of Andrew Jackson in Oval Office"

[Simon_Jester]

Do you think the Democrats have the stamina to block a Supreme Court Justice nomination for years on end?

I do. But they can't stop the Grabbers Of Pussies from a majority vote removing the ability to filibuster SCOTUS or other judicial nominations.

Anyone want to place bets on whether federal officials ignore his order to proceed because they don't want to violate the court order?

No. They'll obey it and the minority that don't will be fired or even arrested.

Either of these events will trigger what is known in political science as a "constitutional crisis." That is to say, an argument within the government over whether the procedure the government is following is in fact legitimate.

If I'm a federal employee and the president orders me to ignore a court order, do I obey?

Remember, Trump hasn't actually got massive armies of stormtroopers or thugs organized and in a position to make arrests. That is one of the limits of analogies between Trump and, say, Mussolini. Mussolini organized his paramilitary "Black Shirts" before gaining political power. Trump has no such thing. He might be able to recruit goon squads willing to arrest people who obey a court order instead of a Trump order given time, but the goon squads don't already exist as squads with leadership and equipment and a payroll and so on.

Likewise, the Republicans actually deploying the "nuclear option" to prevent the Democratic minority from doing to them what they've been doing to the Democrats for six years, almost immediately after taking office, gives nearly everyone in the government who is either Democratic-sympathizing OR trying to maintain neutrality a sign that there is a serious problem and an attempt to impose one-party government. Not in the sense of "all the politicians are from the same party," but in the sense of "there is only allowed to BE one party."

Once you pull a stunt like that, you have to be prepared to crack down with an iron fist of oppression. And any iron fist of oppression that Trump, or the Republicans at large, intend to use still has several fingers under construction or still in the blueprinting stage.

So I would not predict on such drastic steps happening so quickly, or if they do happen, I predict that they will result in chaos and disarray throughout the enforcement arm of the government, not in some kind of crackdown that summarily crushes all the dissenters.

[The Romulan Republic]

Which is very reassuring, if it comes to that (obviously, I'd rather it didn't come to a Constitutional crisis). But that doesn't mean Trump won't try. The man is a raging narcissist, as should be obvious by now, who holds our institutions and laws in contempt.

I actually suspect that that will be his undoing, and his cronies'. Successful dictators arising in democratic countries often take many years to erode their country's institutions- see Putin and Erdogan. Trump and company seem to think they've won, and are likely overreaching, trying to push too far too fast. The years of Tea Party lunacy and mindless Republican obstructionism, combined with War on Terror policies, has done some of the prep. work for a dictatorship, but not, I think, enough.

[Ralin]

Remember, Trump hasn't actually got massive armies of stormtroopers or thugs organized and in a position to make arrests. That is one of the limits of analogies between Trump and, say, Mussolini. Mussolini organized his paramilitary "Black Shirts" before gaining political power. Trump has no such thing. He might be able to recruit goon squads willing to arrest people who obey a court order instead of a Trump order given time, but the goon squads don't already exist as squads with leadership and equipment and a payroll and so on.

Of course he does! Haven't you ever heard of the Fraternal Order of Police? The National Guard? The United States Army?

[Flagg]

Anyone want to place bets on whether Trump Andrew Jackson's it?

Of course he will. And who is going to stop him, the agencies that answer to the chucklefuck President Pussygrabber appointed?

Explanation of "Andrew Jackson's it" for a non-American, please?

Andrew Jackson was president in the first half of the 19th century and ordered the Army to break a treaty with Native American tribes living on lands in the southeast. The Natives sued him and it got to SCOTUS and the natives won. Jackson then shit in 9 boxes and sent it express to the justice's homes (not really), andordeed the Army to round up the tribes in the southeast and forced them into a death march to present day Oklahoma in what is known as the "Trail of Tears". And despite it being incredibly unconstitutional and resulted in tens of thousands of men, women, and children of all ages dying, no one did anything.

So he was not only in contemp of court, he was guilty of mass murder and should have been hanged.