Nuclearian Loc: I live in a Fascist, Liberal State

The media is apoplectic that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has criticized the federal judge in Hawaii who suspended President Donald Trump’s revised executive order on visas and refugees. Sessions offending statement? “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the U.S. from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power,” Sessions said on Tuesday.

While the media wants to argue that Sessions was disrespecting the state of Hawaii, he was actually just raising a basic question. How can one federal judge control the immigration policy of the entire country?

The threat of terrorism is real. With yet another ISIS attack in Paris, it is hard to argue with President Trump’s warning that we need to “keep these foreign terrorists from entering our country in the first place.”

But a federal judge in Hawaii, Derrick Watson, struck down the administration’s temporary suspension of entry from six countries. Watson, a district court judge appointed by President Barack Obama, declared that Trump’s executive order was “motivated by anti-Muslim animus.”

As evidence, Judge Watson cites Trump’s verbal statement while signing the first travel ban: “I am establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States.” Trump also later remakred, “If the ban were announced with a one-week notice, the ‘bad’ would rush into our country during that week.”

Can’t Watson differentiate between a Muslim ban and trying to keep out “radical Islamic terrorists?” Doesn’t it make sense that terrorists would try to enter the United States before the new rules went into effect?

The judge’s attempt to read religious intolerance into reasonable statements involves more politics than law.

These aren’t irrational fears.

Muslims have committed 39 of the worst 50 mass public shootings around the world from 1970 to January 2017. This is using the traditional FBI definition, which limits us to public shootings that were not related to another crime and that resulted in four or more fatalities. Number 16 on that list took place last June in Orlando. That shooting, the worst in U.S. history, claimed 50 lives and injured 53 people.

Many people mistakenly believe that the United States is somehow unique in mass public shootings. In fact, the rest of the world is much more dangerous: 24 of the worst 25, and 45 of the worst 50 shootings occurred abroad.

The recent ban on electronic devices in travel from a dozen Middle Eastern and African countries is motivated by threats from Islamic militant groups such as al-Shabaab. In April 2015, this group shot to death 147 people at a university in Kenya. In September 2013, militants fatally shot 63 and wounded 175 at a mall in Nairobi.

A large number of devastating Muslim attacks have not been counted as mass public shootings because they relate to struggles over sovereignty. For instance, the 2004 Beslan school massacre was carried out by Muslims in the name of Chechen independence from Russia. It claimed 385 lives and injured 783.

Of course, guns are not the only tools of mass killing. A man in Nice, France killed 84 people and injured more than 200 with a truck and a gun. An SUV was used in last week’s attack in London that left three dead and wounded dozens more.

Bombs are much more commonly used in terror attacks outside of the United States The most notable exception is the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which claimed 168 lives. In 1927, a dynamite attack left 45 dead and 58 injured at a school in Michigan. And in 2013, the Boston Marathon bombings killed three people.

Countries such as Russia experience far more bomb fatalities. From 2009 to July 2014, Russia experienced 0.24 annual deaths per million from bombings that caused at least four fatalities. Muslims committed all of these attacks. That is 2.7 times higher than the death rate from US mass public shootings over the same years.

Compared to the world at large, the United States is a safe haven. It makes perfect sense to carefully vet people who want to come to the US.

EL Loc: Massachusetts

Judges don't follow the laws anymore. Something HAS to be done about all these rogue judges.

crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island

There is a very simple solution to this order & the various other orders/injunctions that have been delivered by the courts. Ignore it.

As Andrew Jackson once said, "John Marshall decided it. Let John Marshall enforce it."

There is no constitutional empowerment for the courts, including SCOTUS, to decide the constitutionality of anything. That began as a result of the insistence of John Jay to Pres. George Washington & The Congress of the time.

All constitutionality decisions are descended from that. But if the basis is wrong, then so are its judicial implications. The enforcement has been due the decisions of the executive.

The defiance would set the stage for a full blown confrontation between the courts and the governments at all levels. It is long overdue.

Gatsby

Tuesday September 27, 2016, FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Judiciary Committee:

“There will be a terrorist diaspora within the next two to five years like we’ve never seen before.

We must prepare ourselves and our allies in Western Europe to confront that threat,

because when ISIS is reduced to an insurgency and those killers flow out,

they will try to come to Western Europe and here to kill innocent people.”

The (less than) honorable Derrick Watson has aided and abetted those very same terrorists.

Semper Fi.

Oldsalt

Doing something about rogue judges is the per view of the Congress. They have shown time and again they don't give a crap about their constituents or the consequences of what they do. So yes, we are stuck with these political hacks that are on the various benches around the country. First we need to flush the House and Senate and hold their feet to the fire. It takes a lot of personal involvement at their local offices.

Oldsalt

:HERE HERE

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

Ignore the order of a Federal Judge? Putting aside the myriad reasons that is a bad idea, why would anyone, and particularly the President of the United States, place himself in such an untenable position? Do we not suffer enough lawlessness in out streets already? What example does that set? Is it OK if I do that as well? What about the guy across the street? What, exactly, is the penalty for ignoring the order of a Federal Judge?


Yes, President Jackson did say that, and you're taking it out of context. Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester and held that the Georgia criminal statute that prohibited non-Native Americans from being present on Native American lands without a license from the state was unconstitutional. Simply put, the question to the court was whether the State of Georgia had any authority to limit the movements of Americans onto Native American lands. The court found that they do not, stating that the federal government was the sole authority to deal with Indian nations. It is considered to have built the foundations of the doctrine of tribal sovereignty in the United States.

President Jackson spoke of 'enforcement' where none was needed. This judgement changed nothing at the Federal level regarding relations with the Indian Nations.


Absolutely right. "The Supreme Court's nine Justices attempt to sort out what is, and what is not constitutional. This process is known as Judicial Review. But the states, in drafting the Constitution, did not delegate such a power to the Supreme Court, or to any branch of the government. Since the constitution does not give this power to the court, you might wonder how it came to be that the court assumed this responsibility. The answer is that the court just started doing it and no one has put a stop to it."

http://constitutionality.us/SupremeCourt.html


No, it is not. The last thing anyone needs is a partisan 'confrontation' in the judicial system. The judiciary is meant to be non-partisan, deciding questions of law based on the law in effect at the time, and not some political 'wind direction'. If the legislature is not satisfied that judicial decisions are being made in accordance with law, they do have the option of removing the offending justice(s) and replacing him/her/them with others better suited to the function.

What is needed more than anything is for the various politicians, judges, government employees, etc. to stop this political bickering and start doing their jobs. Once the politicians return to legislating, the judges to their judicial duties, government employees to executive functions, etc., the vast majority of the unrest we see today will subside considerably. Reducing the size and scope of government at all levels would be a good start.

crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island

I respect you Larry the Legend, but please read this response in its entirety.



The confrontation is most emphatically overdue because the courts are not empowered to make decisions as to constitutionality. If you disagree, you must show the paragraph or section of The Constitution that does confer that power. I have scoured the Third Article & can find no such delegation. At least one other person in this very thread, and many more throughout the OPP venue, have agreed with me.

Here is Article III in its entirety:

U.S. Constitution
Article III
Section 1.

The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

Section 2.

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.

Section 3.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

(CL again)
The world of mathematics, which I majored in, is based, I believe, upon just five basic assumptions, none of which can be proved in & of themselves. An error in one calculation can have awesome implications at the other end.

This is similar to a laser being shot into space with just a 0.0001% error off complete parallelism. By the time you're at the other end of a galaxy or even solar system, the beam can be light years across.