Jump to content

Deplorable

Gold Members
  • Posts

    706
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Deplorable

  1. Arkansas just passed a law expanding where guns can be carried. The law as written would include college football and basketball games. Now the legislature is attempting to backtrack and pass a new law rebanning guns at the stadiums. 

    [IMG]

    Democratic Rep. Greg Leding expressed his belief that firearms at sporting events could be a potentially dangerous mix: "People like to have a good time before the game, during the game, people get emotional and angry during the game. I think the idea of introducing loaded weapons into those situations is just ridiculous."

    What a typical nancy boy Democrat!

  2. 6 hours ago, welshbairn said:

    I was partially incorrect when I said that communications of American citizens had to be destroyed if picked up inadvertently by the NSA. What is supposed to happen is that the name and identity of the American is supposed to be masked before the information is spread. The identity of the American can only be unmasked by a court order. The identities of Trump associates were unmasked and spread widely throughout the government according to Mr.Nunes' anonymous source.

    4 hours ago, Johnstoun said:

    So Stone and Flynn (for starters) may be guilty of treason on behalf of, or at the behest of Trump, and Deplorable thinks the story is that they were caught on tape...

    Treason?

    Mr. Nunes says that the information he received had nothing to do with Russia.

    What would it be for intelligence agents to illegally spread with the intent to facilitate leaks against the President?

     

  3. 3 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

    Nonsense. The FBI isn't allowed to take note of an American citizen giving unauthorised and privileged information to a foreign power? Not much point in having a counter intelligence branch then if they're only allowed to record one side of the conversation.

    You have to have a warrant to listen in on an American citizen. The intelligence agencies can listen in on foreigners, but according to what I've read they are supposed to immediately delete anything said by American citizens not under a court order for surveillance.

  4. I went an looked up the Flynn Turkey stuff. His consulting firm had a contract with a Dutch company that has ties to Erdogan through it's Turkish founders. The work had been previously disclosed to Congress and was discussed with the Trump transition team, but the specifics didn't make it all the way up to Trump and Pence. A lawyer working for the Trump transition told Flynn that whether to officially register as an agent of a foreign government because of his firm's contract was a personal decision and not a matter for the transition.

    Of course all this shit is part of the problem, but it's hard to condemn people for turning down easy lobbying money when they are out of government. That's why it's important to put more restrictions on what types of lobbying ex-government officials can do.

  5. 16 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

    The FBI routinely bug foreign diplomats, especially Russians, so they wouldn't have had to bug Trump Tower to listen in.

    Just so we are clear, if Flynn's comments were heard based on surveillance of Russian diplomats rather than on surveillance of Trump or Flynn personally, then the law says any record of what an American citizen says must be immediately destroyed and the person listening in is barred from discussing the contents. Somehow what Flynn said was leaked.

  6. I honestly don't see the problem with any Trump ties to Russia. It's not like he hid his position during the campaign. He ran on reorienting American foreign policy towards Russia. And I don't think that's an odd position for him to take. The nationalist right, from Pat Buchanan to Ron Paul, has been anti-anti Russia since the end of the Cold War.

    2 hours ago, harry94 said:

    and then has key figures very close to him who have Kremlin relations and has one of them break the law to appease Russia before the inauguration;

    If you're referring to Flynn, the law he allegedly broke is from the 1700s and has never been used to convict anyone. Legal experts seem to agree that it would most likely be ruled unconstitutional by the courts, but since no one has been convicted there's nobody with standing to challenge the law in the courts.

    Also, the transcripts were never released of what he said. Sources have said he only mentioned sanctions in passing and there were no in depth discussions.

    Flynn may have been a sketchy character, but the only crimes we know about regarding his contact with Russia are that an American citizen was illegally spied on and the results of that spying were leaked to the press.

  7. Daniel Horowitz has a few thoughts on how the Republicans can fight back against the courts trampling on the Constitution. It's great that the Founding Father put checks and balances into our system so that no branch can get out of control. The last major fight between the Courts and another branch of government was during Franklin Roosevelt's Presidency. They kept striking down his laws, so he threatened to appoint a bunch of new judges to the Supreme Court. The number of justices are not set by the Constitution. Suddenly they stopped ruling his new laws unconstitutional.

    https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/03/courts-have-fired-the-opening-shots-will-congress-finally-declare-war#readmore

    Quote

    Include the president’s immigration order in the April budget bill in the form of a defunding rider. Congress should defund the issuance of visas from those seven countries (yes, add Iraq back in) and defund refugee resettlement for the remainder of the fiscal year.

    Finally exercise Article III Sec. 2 powers to regulate and except the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, at least beginning with the lower courts. The courts must be stripped of the power to adjudicate any case forcing the entry of a foreign national into the country against the will of the other branches.

    Eliminate the ability of lower courts to issue injunctions or restraining orders on major public policy issues outside of their respective jurisdictions.

    Strip the Ninth Circuit down to a geographic jurisdiction covering a small part of California and replace the remainder of the area currently covered by the Ninth Circuit with a new 12th Circuit.

     

  8. 10 hours ago, JamieThomas said:

    Well I certainly like Taco Bell and PBR. Oh, and the missus I suppose. Perhaps that where these Syrian lads are going wrong.

    Grade D beef. I saw the boxes piled into the dumpsters behind a Taco Bell once.

    FYI, 40s of malt liquor bring more hipster cred than PBR. Old E is my personal favorite.

    Image result for olde english malt liquor

  9. 2 minutes ago, JamieThomas said:

    It's because I'm a socialist, isn't it?

    :( 

    If you come to America any grandkids you have will most likely end up dirty capitalists.

    Not really bothered too much by what you believe. More about whether you will pull your own weight and the likelihood that you'll pass your shitty foreign views down the generations.

  10. 1 hour ago, JamieThomas said:

    I'm 6 months into an application for a K1 visa, and it's an absolute ball ache even for a wee white laddie from Edinburgh. Anyone who reckons folk are just piling into the States off some fucked dinghy going back and forth is an absolute slaver.

    There are over 40 million foreign born people living in the US. 1 in 4 children in US schools are the children of immigrants.

    Rationally, any person from a democratic country with a similar standard of living who already speaks English should be at the front of the line to enter the US. Unfortunately we have an immigration system specifically designed to make our country worse off rather than better off.

     

  11. 4 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

    BTW Obama didn't introduce the law that allows the State to determine which bathroom you're allowed to use and presumably State officials empowered to inspect genitalia to determine eligibility. That was North Carolina. Obama tried to block it. The schoolkids example is as weak as Clause 28 over here, using something that doesn't happen as an excuse to project your bigotry.

    I think the North Carolina deal was about businesses. Charlotte passed a law forcing all business to allow people to use the bathroom of their choice. In response the state legislature passed a law allowing businesses to require that people use the bathroom listed on their birth certificate if that is what the business wanted. A true transgendered person can easily change the sex on their birth certificate. It shouldn't have been a big deal.

    But even if it was about schools, states and local governments set up schools. They are supposed to set the rules outside of certain laws that have been passed by the federal Congress, which the President is charged with enforcing. I'm pretty sure the Congress has never passed a law mentioning or referencing transgender people or bathroom policy. It's a local issue.

  12. 16 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

    The third leg of Government is the Judiciary whose role is to uphold the Constitution against attacks by Congress or the President. They're doing a fine job. The administration hasn't been able to proffer any rational to explain how banning people returning from holiday, or having passed interviews and checks with 5 or more Government agencies, simply for being born in certain countries, protects America. 

    Again, the Constitution specifically grants these issues to Congress and the President. When that is the case the courts can't intervene. The Supreme Court has ruled on this subject over and over. These rulings are Constitutionally baffling.

    I think we can agree that invading Iraq did not make the US safer. But the Constitution gives the power to declare war and the funding of the military to Congress. It makes the President commander in chief of the military. Bush went to Congress and was given an authorization to invade Iraq. Congress funded the military. Bush then ordered an invasion. Do you think it would be Constitutional for some judge at the lowest level in Hawaii to order a halt to the invasion? Of course not. This is essentially the same issue.

    It doesn't matter if the democratic branches are right or wrong. We live in a democracy. They are allowed to make mistakes. And Trump did offer a rational explanation for deciding which countries to include. These are countries unwilling or unable to comply with Trumps demands for vetting their citizens. Whether you agree with this explanation or not is irrelevant to it's rationality. 

  13. Sure. I'd argue that promoting transgender ideology to kids is a dangerous idea, but I suppose reasonable people can disagree. The issue I was raising is why the President acting alone thinks it's his decision to design school bathroom policy? Does he have a law he can cite? Is there a part of the Constitution which gives the Executive power in that area? No. It's just a power grab, whether you agree with Obama or not on this issue.

    I was pointing out why I think Obama's actions are different than Trump's from a Constitutional perspective. Immigration law is Constitutionally given to Congress. National security is given to the President. The Congress passed a law specifically delegating some of their immigration responsibility to the President on the grounds of national security. Everything that Trump is doing is procedurally in line with basic Constitutional norms.

     

×
×
  • Create New...