JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
Some times Charlie was in the trees.
User ID: 4009
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
It's not a "long play", just the opposite.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
So much of our legalese is based on assumptions of how to deal with black-white issues in an 85% white country but completely become unworkable when we now have 100 oppressed minority groups.
I disagree, as I was telling @The_Nybbler neither the race nor the color of the hood being worn by those looking to disrupt a church service has any legal bearing on the matter. At least not per the letter of the law.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
As @ArjinFerman said "Didn't full-throatedly endorse" is not the same thing as "condemn". Per the survey, a near-plurality (44%) refused to condemn it.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
I already posted this at the end of a long comment chain but given how many comments I'm seeing about the FACE Act, SAFE Act, and the possible need for some new law I figured that I would repost it here for visibility.
Per the Federal Grand Jury indictment that lead to his arrest, Don Lemon has been charged with violating US Code Title 18-241 "Conspiracy against rights", colloquially known as "The Klan Act of 1948", the text of which reads...
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or -
If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
The specific right that he has been charged with conspiring against is the free-exercise of religion afforded to the congregants of Cities Church of St. Paul MN by the first amendment to the Constitution of these United States.
It was a bone thrown to the right, but it was done in bad faith -- no one ever intended it to be used and I think so far, only Trump has even attempted to use it
I find your endless defeatism boring and ignorant.
Per the Grand Jury Indictment that lead to his arrest Don Lemon has been charged with violating USC 18-241. A law that was originally part of the Enforcement act of 1870 and then updated in 1948 specifically to target the KKK, to which it was used to great effect.
That the masked individuals disrupting church services in this particular case happened to be black democrats in black hoodies instead of white democrats in white hoods has no legal bearing on the matter.
No need for another Civil Rights Act when the original is fit for purpose.
Per the official docket, Don Lemon along with three others; Trahern Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lundy, have been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on charges of violating US Code Title 18 - 241, "Conspiracy against rights". Specifically the free-exercise clause of the first amendment in regards to the congregation of Cities Church of St. Paul MN.
USC 18-241 reads...
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or -
If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Based on clips from Lemon's own livestream I'd say they have him dead-to-rights.
but they were leftists and Nazis were (and are) rightists.
Even if I conceded the premise that it matters, I would have to disagree.
Otherwise see @Throwaway05's comment below.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
He fought cops and died in the fight. That's not an execution, it's poor judgement.
You might even say he fought the law...
Most of the more moderate ones won their local political fights and effectively "went legit" and a bunch of the more radical ones that used to make the news ended up being some variant of this Far Side Cartoon upon inspection.
There are few still out there, but much like Heinlein's anarchists, the serious ones aren't walking the street (or posting on the internet) they are up in the hills and best left alone.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
Yes, I did intend intend for it to be read in that sense. Thus the irony.
The poll offers us an interesting look into question framing 20% of Democrats who responded stated that the killing was justified and 44% stated that Charlie Kirk's killing had no negative effect on the discourse.
If we assume perfect overlap of the two groups that is 20% of Democrats who support the killing of one's political opponents and another 24% who don't see any downside to killing even if they wouldn't advocate for it themselves. In other words, close to 1 out of every 2 democrats who responded revealed that they are at a minimum "ok" not only with the idea of politically-motivated violence but with murder specifically.
Yet when asked directly to agree with the statement “I am okay with political violence against those I disagree with” only 4% actually did so which begs the question, which is the real preference?
The 40% does not surprise me, Republicans are substantially less intelligent than Democrats and often drawn from the same plebian gene-pool as the police and military. It is reasonable to expect them to express some level of tribal sympathy or at least reserve judgment towards their compatriots.
What I find more concerning is that 1 in 5 of our ostensibly moral and intellectual "betters" see murdering a man in cold blood in front of his wife as not only a reasonable but laudable means of resolving a political disagreement.
I'm trying very hard here not to go full "doomer" but I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that this is something we are going to be able to talk our way out of.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
That's always been their endgame hasn't it?
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
Your premise is that anything you do that actually removes enough illegal immigrants to matter by your values, to cause the real changes to the American economy and society, by your values will be blocked by business interests who don't like those changes. And your response to that is - how can we remove a small enough number of immigrants that it doesn't actually matter,
That's not my premise at all, nor is it my response.
My response is more "don't fight your enemy on ground where you can't win". You're saying that if Trump were competent he would fight the entrenched interests on their terms. My response is that fighting entrenched interests on their own terms is actually pretty stupid, and that their are paths to winning other than "remove a small enough number of immigrants that it doesn't actually matter".
To illustrate, at no point in 19+ years of warfare was the Taliban in any position to contest US air superiority over Afghanistan. The Taliban still ultimately won that war though because they didn't even try to fight us in the air, instead they chose to fight us in box-canyons and back-alleys. I am telling you that there are people in Trump's administration who think like this and I am holding up the DoT's audit of Diver's Licenses as an example of what "back-alley fighting" looks like in this context.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
The executive branch has no power to increase or decrease the federal budget. What they do have is the power to allocate spending. A subtle but important distinction.
That DOGE didn't do what you wanted, is not the same thing as DOGE being incompetent or ineffective.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
You misunderstand it's not about business interests, it's about not getting bogged down in court cases and media battles for the better part of a decade until some future admin shuts the whole effort down. Either win or lose now instead of losing for sure down the line.
Amazon can easily weather tariffs by passing the price on to the customer, a labor shortage is much more dangerous to them. Both directly in terms of delivery and indirectly through market share. If Amazon starts paying American wages while providing American working conditions in their warehouses companies like Costco and Walmart might start edging in on their turf.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
Why are you holding up DOGE as a example of "incompetence"?
Same question for @curious_straight_ca.
With all the talk about the lack of professionalism on the part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents and about how deportations are a less efficient measure than punishing employers I would like to offer an alternative perspective.
As much as I would personally love to just start "picking up the tuna cans", there is a problem with that plan. The tuna factory has a lot of pull in this town, and the crazy cat-lady is one of their best customers. If I make too much trouble for her, a couple burly guys from the docks might just pay me a visit.
What I'm saying is that companies like Amazon, Marriott, and Tyson Foods are "big fish" and they have far more money and resources invested in fighting things like mandatory E-Verify, employee audits, and eventual prosecution than the proponents of such measures have available to support them. Whether directly through lawfare or indirectly through media-buys, campaign contributions, etc... trying to fight them is not a winning move, it is the last 30 years of US immigration policy. IE exactly what got us into this mess.
Now granted this does not stop the Trump Administration from going after smaller fish, but it has been decided within the administration that the risk of bad optics and taxpayer blowback from going after the local bistro while letting Tyson off the hook far outweighs any possible reward. Furthermore, building out the staff and infrastructure required to actively vet and surveil tens-of-thousands of businesses runs counter to the administration's populist ethos, and said infrastructure would almost certainly be weaponized against Republicans the moment a Democrat took office. As such we are simply not going to do that.
So how do we remove the maximum number of Illegal immigrants while staying within the bounds of both our capabilities and principles?
Ironically this is somewhere where the policies of Sanctuary states like Minnesota and New York present an opportunity. By allowing illegal immigrants to work, to run business/employ others, and to vote in local and state elections all "legally", they have rendered their illegal population "legible" in a way that the day-workers standing outside a Home Depot in New Mexico are not. We know where they live and in cases where their employer is also an illegal immigrant we don't even need to deport them directly we can just deport their employer, killing two birds with one stone. Now that's efficiency even @PmMeClassicMemes can get behind ;-)
Other options are to fight the opposition where they aren't. While raids by ICE may make the headlines auditors working for the Department of Transportation may have a greater impact.
While Driver's Licenses are issued and administered by the individual states they are required to comply with federal guidelines which is why a license issued in Massachusetts is considered valid in Nevada and vice-versa. These guidelines allow for the issuance of non-resident and non-domiciled licenses. The intent being that people who are not citizens or who do not have a permanent residence should still have a means of driving legally. A foreign student should be afforded the option to drive to school, the retiree living out of their RV should be allowed to live their best van-life. What has been happening in practice though is that sanctuary cities and states would use these allowances to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
After a spate of fatal crashes caused by illegal immigrants went viral four months ago and it became public knowledge that the State of New York has been issuing driver's licenses without requiring the applicant to provide a full legal name Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has announced that the issuance and renewal of non-resident/non-domiciled driver's licenses would be suspended and that there would be an audit of commercial licenses already issued to ensure compliance with federal guidelines.
As a bit of context for our foreign readers or anyone else here who hasn't worked a low level job, the state of US labor law and legal precedent is such that vetting for worker eligibility effectively runs on the honor system. If you have a valid ID of any sort and check the box on the application that says "I am legally eligible to work in the US" your new employer will be considered to have done their "due diligence". This is one of the reasons going after employers, especially the big fish, is so difficult and thus so rarely done. "How was my client to know that the the driver they hired was an illegal" Amazon's attorneys will ask, "they checked the box, and they had a valid driver's license" and Amazon will win that case handily.
If the license isn't valid the big fish's case doesn't have a leg to stand on. Suddenly "tuna" is back on the menu.
Ice agents don't normally wear uniforms at all, they're detectives not beat cops. They wear suits until it's time for a raid at which point the sportscoats come off and the plate-carriers go on. Note how everyone but the man with the breaching ram is wearing sneakers and khakis. Under normal circumstances the ICE agents wouldn't be the ones stacking up on the door at all, it would be uniformed local or state police accompanied by a plains-clothed agent but Walz, Frey, Elllison, Et Al. explicitly ruled that option out so we get this instead.
Now DHS does have it's own equivalent of uniformed patrol cops that they theoretically could deploy, but as you yourself illustrated, a lot of people on the blue team either don't know enough or they don't care enough to distinguish between a Nazi uniform and a US Army uniform.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
I feel like your take would be a lot more reasonable in a world where the epicenter of resistance didn't just so happen to be the city where a billion-dollar fraud ring with probable links to high-ranking state officials was just uncovered.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
You say it's not about Somalis but doesn't it seem a bit convenient that the epicenter of violence just so happens to be in the same city where a billion-dollar fraud ring with probable links to high-ranking state officials was just uncovered?.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
1mo ago
Once again, Minnesota and New York are easily the two most adamant "sanctuary" states and that's why the focus is on them.
As I keep saying, the Feds don't need to enforce compliance on states that are already cooperating.
What I'm saying is that there isn't really any long play to be played here, if we take Lemon's own statements at face value he knew that he was breaking the law. Or rather he knew that he was going in with the intention of violating other people's right to freely exercise their religion.
The fact that he happened to be a black man wearing a black mask instead of a white man wearing a white hood is immaterial to whether his actions constituted a violation of the Klan act.
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