So… people have literally already been deported to jails in El Salvador without due process, with the government claiming that they are from a Venezuelan gang. Others have had green cards revoked and been arrested for deportation for the crime of criticizing Israel. At this point it’s hard to see how worrying about a lack of habeus corpus is an exaggeration.
Detention without bail for the duration of their due process is legal for certain crimes (actually I believe it’s even mandatory) that a non-citizen is accused of in the INA. There also does not appear to be any language in the INA that specifies detention has to be within the US borders either.
Assuming they are allowed lawyers, I suppose the lawyers have to fly to El Salvador too? When they are brought before judges, are the judges going to be in El Salvador?
Government often tests the boundaries or clarity of a law by taking an action they believe is a valid interpretation of it assuming there is no court or SCOTUS direct ruling on the subject to clarify. Lower courts may intervene, and ultimately SCOTUS decides and sometimes overrides the lower courts.
Just because a judge has a different opinion doesn’t mean they are right. Just like the government’s interpretation might be wrong.
The government is testing boundaries here…soon laws will be clarified and those boundaries will be determined. In the interim the theater aspect of all of this has an effect to discourage illegal immigration and encourage self deportation.
I'm not saying the judges are right, just that it's not so obviously legal if the courts are raising questions about it and if there's a process being initiated to seek clarifications.
> In the interim the theater aspect of all of this has an effect to discourage illegal immigration and encourage self deportation.
Also legal immigration as they've revoked green cards from people who emigrated legally and some of those people have apparently been "disappeared." It's not about "illegals" and it's dangerous at this point to continue spreading this misinformation.
International detention is a pretty straightforward violation of article 13 of the ICCPR, which the us is a signatory to. It's probably also a violation of the due process clause, because the Constitution only applies to non-citizens within the sovereign territory of the US as determined during the Guantanamo bay decisions.
For the most part none of the people deported or held have even been accused of one of those crimes.
Most of the Venezuelans have been deported under the Alien Enemies Act, under an extremely tenuous reading of what an “invasion” is, by claiming they are members of a gang which is “invading” the country. If they can read the law this way then it’s not clear we have rule of law anymore. Anyway, the only court case testing this law didn’t turn on determining whether the members were factually members of the class. In this case there are serious questions about whether the people deported were actually members of the gang. Even in WWII relevant nationality individuals went before a civilian board to determine if they were of the nationality to deport.
The people being disappeared from colleges are being held and deported under the theory that they “pose a threat” to the United States, based on the Secretary of State making that determination, which again, not really due process. They are also being whisked to a more favorable circuit for their habeus petitions, which is pretty suspect.
Arguably maybe citizens will be afforded an actual appearance before a judge, but remember that they can just claim you’re a member of a Venezuelan gang and whisk you away. And once you’re gone how do you prove otherwise?
As far as being within US borders, that’s a strange argument given that no statute requires imprisonment within the US borders… I guess it’s legally untested but it seems insane to me that detention could be allowed to be under non-US custody. Among other things, that would move those detained literally outside of US jurisdiction. I don’t think it’s been done outside of espionage situations of dubious legality with people not resident in the US. Even the Guantanamo bay prisoners were under US jurisdiction.
Folks are being deported now without going in front of a judge. Let's stipulate without reservation that the US has the right to deport them expeditiously. Let's buy everything the administration says about how bad these folks are and how important it is to remove them immediately.
However, it is still important for these folks to go in front of a judge because the government has a responsibility to show evidence that the people they plan to deport are who they say they are, that this collection of atoms is the person named X. If Person X says they should not be deported because they are a citizen, a court is the proper place to adjudicate that. Let Person X bring purported proof of citizenship, let the court assess the validity of such proof. ICE and other law enforcement agents are not equipped to do any of this in a neutral fashion.
A key objection right now is that we are skipping this long-established legal process because it is too slow to serve political ends. (It is slow in part because we don't care enough to spend more money to make it faster.)
Without bringing folks before a judge, all of this gets short-circuited. The inevitable result of skipping judicial adjudication at scale will be that US citizens will end up in foreign prisons with their only recourse being lucky enough to have people in the US going to extreme lengths to locate them and find a sympathetic court. This is quite literally the entire point of habeas corpus, the reason why it has been part of English legal tradition for nearly 1000 years (US inherited this via English Common Law).
It's not going to end well that an allegation can have someone rapidly deported, without that person having the chance to e.g. show their proof of citizenship.
Edit: Most people do not carry proof of citizenship on their person. Most US driver's licenses, even REAL IDs, do not display citizenship status. For example, Georgia does not accept REAL IDs issued by Georgia as proof of citizenship. Further, a person walking on the street (or in their home) may not even be carrying their ID. We have judicial processes because courtrooms are neater than the messy processes that occur in the field.
People were literally sent to El Salvador against a court order stopping the government from doing so.
Where’s the exaggeration?
Also, the quotes you’ve excerpted do not mention due process even once, but do in fact mention that those people
may perhaps be sent to El Salvador.
So your own quote only contains evidence for people being sent to El Salvador, and contains no evidence for them being provided due process, not even a “perhaps” they may be provided due process.
The amount of indoctrination and brain twisting it takes to take a quote that does not mention due process, but does mention the possibility of people being sent to El Salvador, and use that as evidence that there will be due process but people will not be sent to El Salvador absolutely astonishes me.
A sentence does not imply a judge. It is just a punishment by some authority, could be a hall monitor sentencing you to detention even. I guess I also have higher expectations for the president than writing about they will "perhaps" go after their political opponents extra-constitutionally.
Except they literally just sent Venezuelans to an El Salvador prison without a judge being involved. The reason people are freaking out about this is because it actually happened already.
> Except they literally just sent Venezuelans to an El Salvador prison without a judge being involved
Judge being involved…yet. There is a lot of flexibility within the INA and its subsequent legal modifications to detain a noncitizen while their case is being heard. My guess is the weakest argument for the government in all of this is that they were actually physically removed from the US prior to their hearing being completed. Their detention is lawful. Where they are detained might have to be remedied by SCOTUS.
We don’t know if their detention is lawful. Whether their detention is lawful hasn’t been litigated yet, but the fact they there’s a preliminary injunction against them doing it more that was upheld by the DC circuit court indicates that it is not lawful.
I’m smart enough to understand that norms only work when they’re a two-way street. If the constitution is alive and “emanations from penumbras” is constitutional law, then it’s alive for both sides, and the Trump administration should go looking for what emanations they can find in the penumbras of Article II.
I take Trump seriously but not literally. El Salvador is probably a stretch too far. But Trump’s attorneys should channel their inner Alvin Bragg and see if they can bring terrorism charges.
Just to be clear here, by "both sides" you mean both professional political machines - the bureaucratic authoritarians of the Democratic party and the autocratic authoritarians of the Republican party - with both succeeding at getting the Supplicated Council to write justifications that undermine individual liberty. This is the dynamic you're arguing in favor of escalating.
Personally I wasn't a huge fan of the bureaucratic authoritarians either, but at least they brought us a measure of relative stability instead of, well, this (gestures vaguely around).
No, by “both sides” I mean legal liberals and legal conservatives, which doesn’t quite match up with the parties. But first to address your point about “individual liberty.” The constitution is a framework for a republican federal government, designed to operate in conjunction with state governments that had inherited the plenary powers of the British parliament. The constitution envisions that individuals have certain liberties, but also that the government can constrain people from doing what they want in other ways. “More individual liberty” doesn’t automatically mean “more constitutional.”
The difference between legal liberals and legal conservatives is their views of whose ideas define the scope of individual liberty versus government power. For example, whose ideas do you turn to to decide whether blue laws are an infringement of religious liberty, or within the legitimate scope of state power to regulate the “public health, welfare, and morals?” Legal liberals believe in a “living constitution.” They not only believe that contemporary ideas can inform the meaning of the constitution, but believe in certain privileged sources of those ideas. So, in their view, blue laws can be unconstitutional based on modern political philosophy, even if the founding generation regarded them as consistent with individual liberty, and contemporary voters support retaining them.
In my view, legal liberals should be held to their own standard. If the meaning of the constitution can be informed by contemporary ideas, Stephen Miller is just as valid a source of such ideas as the Harvard Law faculty.
Is the fact of it being legally cumbersome to acquire a machine gun the best support you can give to this idea of sending perps to El Salvador, "for what they are doing [property damage] to Elon Musk and Tesla"?
They are both just legal questions. I don’t regard getting the wrong answer to one of those questions as being any different from getting the wrong answer to the other question.
I don't believe you, in the sense that I am certain you are lying and do not support both rifle and straw bans etc as well as arbitrary rendition of people to a third world prison. John Yoo had a theory in any case, skewed and kept secret as it was -- what's weird about MAGA's "law" is it's pure shitposting all the way into the courtroom. They don't even care when they're disbarred.
They could. It might not be legal, but this Administration doesn't care much about that, and good luck enforcing a writ of habeas corpus issued by a US court on a prison in El Salvador.
Constitution does not matter in this administration. They control the ICE and just do whatever they want. It's not like a judge can physically stop ICE from arresting and deporting people.
Yeah, let's also send there Tesla short sellers... Sounds impossible right ?
Well, Musk emphasised, they need to go after the people who are 'behind' the protests. He already shared multiple tweets with 'leads' (for now it's only Soros and the likes).
Refuse the premise. Every single time. Point to the text. The ability to point to the text is a foundational reason why it was made a written constitution, the world’s first.
The idea a political party owns the Constitution, gets to define what it means contrary to the text, is as untruthful as 2+2≠4
It’s that basic.
Make them reject the Constitution outright. Some people associated with the regime have done exactly that. If it’s not wrong, why hide it? They admit their opposition to the Constitution.
If suspected criminal non-citizens are persons, the law says persons get due process. If the simplest reading of text can be set aside by mere opinion, on what basis can’t it be set aside for anybody at anytime based on an updated opinion, equally contrary to the law?
Freedom of speech and authoritarianism were always topics of interest for this community. I always thought it was an honest interest, but apparently it wasn't.
Hacker culture has been deeply political since the beginning. Hacker culture also didn't consider humor beneath it. But Hacker News isn't hacker culture.
Neither is how to use the em-dash, which was front page on HN the other day.
That being said, this is tech news, albeit indirect. When the rule of law is tossed into the woodchipper, it kind of affects everything, including tech.
I understand that it may be too divisive, but maybe whoever runs HN can moderate these threads so they maintain some substance and don't devolve into screaming matches.
the better argument is there is little to no opportunity for interesting, curious, engaging conversations around topics like this. the people most likely to engage and be the loudest are people who aren't interested in being open to new facts and changing their opinion or having nuanced views. this leads to boring, hostile, us-vs-them political takes that don't have any substance.
moderation on HN is largely left to the users, and stuff like this getting flagged is an indication of what the community wants at large. there is still an absolute ton of political stuff that doesnt get flagged
> there is little to no opportunity for interesting, curious, engaging conversations around topics like this. the people most likely to engage and be the loudest are people who aren't interested in being open to new facts and changing their opinion or having nuanced views
Fair enough. But part of the reason I like HN is there is a lot of thoughtful discussion about non-tech things. FWIW, I'm probably more conservative than most--e.g., I think undocumented immigration is a genuine problem in the US and "defund the police" is just nonsense.
But I don't see respect for due process these days and that is an enormous problem.
i agree there is lots of non-tech stuff and i'm absolutely very happy there is non-tech stuff. anything that involves creation, intellectual pursuits or curiosities, or new/unconventional thoughts and data and approaches to most anything in life is great for me. the hacker ethic is ultimately about sharing information, and the use of technology in that pursuit, and not letting your perspectives being influenced by status quo and unqualified authorities.
the problem with political discourse, in terms of the comments we see, is that it's overwhelming not about sharing interesting information, but rather just expressing opinions - opinions that are mostly formed by the content we expose ourselves, which is content that is overwhelmingly influenced by billionaires and the established ruling elites. if your worldview very closely aligns to any corporate news outlet, whether it be CNN or Fox News, then you're probably mostly a result of what those owners want you to belief.
Unless you keep doing it (and getting people in congress signing on letting Trump pass) you let norms erode, and accept lawless state. Democrats are complicit by not impeaching Trump for every crime he’s committing.
Failed impeachment (or conviction) is much better than no impeachment at all.
They tried that, it didn't work, and no one cares anymore.
You don't get someone like Trump without having a garbage opposition. If his critics really want to counter him, they need to take extreme measures, like:
1. Refactoring their platform into something that can attract super-majoritarian support, and win even in "red" states.
2. Running broadly popular candidates.
However, I predict they'll take the easy route: tend to their base and give swing voters a harder choice, and blame the voters if they don't win.
You can't fight "deport protesting citizens who destroy my hundred-billionaire friend's product to an El Salvador prison for 20 years" with "get votes with a popular platform". Those aren't on the same level of abstraction in the stack of civilization, so to speak.
They did not impeach him for this, they should impeach him each and every time he commits an egregious crime against this country.
Also, it's fair to blame the voters if they make a bad choice. Voters have the most agency, it's their responsibility to choose wisely. The choice has been crystal clear for a long time now.
You're assuming there will be more elections. These need co-operation of Trump to get organized, and need him to respect the law. He fought tooth and nail against the result the last time he was president. And that was a more rational Trump than you see now.
Afaik, he either invents a national emergency reason to not hold elections, or does a gerrymandering++ to make sure he wins.
> Refactoring their platform into something that can attract super-majoritarian support, and win even in "red" states.
That’s been the centerpiece of the D playbook for years—pull towards the center. Hell, in the last election Harris even got Dick fucking Cheney to stump for her. Dick Cheney, one of the most republican Republican vice presidents, on stage trying to get a Democrat elected president!
And it failed. It’s an utterly garbage strategy that fails every time. This advice needs to be thrown out and never suggested again.
>1. Refactoring their platform into something that can attract super-majoritarian support, and win even in "red" states.
So what you're suggesting is that Democrats refactor their platform into a Republican platform in order to win over Republican voters?
That might work, but I don't know how effective it would be as a counter to Republicanism.
>2. Running broadly popular candidates.
Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton were broadly popular, or at least not significantly less popular than Donald Trump by some measures. Hillary Clinton got more votes than Trump (popular, not electoral.) Even Kamala Harris only lost by a small margin.
I am worried for this country. Going to prison to El Salvador for 20 years for burning a car because one of the rulers of this country own this company is incredibly stupid
That may well be true, but a zealous law enforcement official may mistake you for someone that has and you won't have access to lawyers etc. to prove your innocence if you've already been sent to El Salvador.
This is the problem with thinking "that doesn't apply to me" when you see abuses of privilege and position - we need to think of others in our community, not just focus on ourselves.
The actual headline (from the local ABC station) was "Trump suggests Tesla vandals should face 20 years in jail, be sent to El Salvador."
And even that's a little sensationalistic. (Trump says a lot of things. And this is an off-hand comment he made on Truth Social...) But even there he only went as far as to say the vandals had "a very good chance" of going to jail for "up to" 20 years, and that "perhaps" they'd go to El Salvador.
Also, we all know judges issues sentences, right? I mean, a president can say what he hopes will happen... But ABC7.com shouldn't be this credulous.
He nominates judges. He's also threatening judges that go against his whim. He's _also_ instructing law enforcement to do things without the involvement of judges, including sending them to El Salvadoran prisons.
> I don't think it's sensationalist to report that something might happen
I guess I'd put it this way. I think we can agree that it is sensationalistic to report something that won't happen.
I'm not a Trump booster - but I do think these two HN comments are giving him too much power.
Presidents have no power to remove judges. (And everybody knows it - especially judges.) Wishing that his friends in Congress would help him out by launching impeachment hearings won't make it happen -- mainly because it would need something like 7 Democratic votes in the Senate to actually succeed. (So "threatening" a judge... does nothing. You might as well stand in a field and say "Ooh, I wish you weren't a judge any more!")
It's also convoluted to say there's some credible threat in the fact that Trump nominates judges. (What are you saying -- that during the vetting process for future judges he'll ask each candidate, "What's your stance on sending future parking lot protesters to foreign prisons for 20-year sentences?")
It's mildly newsworthy that he's talking out loud about such an outrageous hypothetical. But it's clearly just posing as powerful and in control for his base. A president does not have this power - and I honestly don't think he even cares. He just wants to act like he does for a few moments on Truth Social.
The only really newsworthy thing here is the protests upset him enough that he had to specifically address it with some made-up hypothetical to make himself and his base feel like he's not losing popular support.
You're going to be telling yourself "he can't do that!" right up until he just does it, and then again for the next thing. Who is going to stop him from doing whatever he wants?
A huge amount of what he has already done falls into the general category of “he can’t do that”. No-one really appears to be that excited about stopping him. It is not unreasonable to report on him threatening to do _yet another_ unconstitutional thing.
Though, actually, even if you are correct and there is a magic line in the sand of unconstitutionality that he somehow will not or cannot cross, that’s _still_ news, in that it must then be read as “president is issuing illegal threats” or “president is stark raving mad”. There is no way to read this as “not news” or as “not concerning”.
I don't think it's sensationalist to report that something might happen that the president says he wants to make happen, even if there's not a clear legal path for him to accomplish it in one step. The fact that US president "says a lot of things" doesn't make it reasonable to take what the US president says not seriously.
> why is the NYPD investigating trademark infringement?
They were infridging the trademarks of a former European state that made territorial demands against other countries and put people in concentration camps without due process.
> When asked about his comments at the White House on Friday afternoon, Trump called the vandalism suspects "terrorists" and appeared to argue what was happening with Tesla vehicles was worse than what happened during the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.
> "You didn't have that on Jan. 6, I can tell you. You didn't have anything like that on Jan. 6, which is sort of amazing," Trump said.
All the police officers (one of whom died the next day) beaten and assaulted with weapons by the Jan 6 rioters, how few Teslas were they worth?
You'll see a deluge of news, articles and comments on Hacker News explaining why it's perfectly normal, legal and justified. And then any discussion here will be flagged into oblivion.
107 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 268 ms ] threadJust because a judge has a different opinion doesn’t mean they are right. Just like the government’s interpretation might be wrong.
The government is testing boundaries here…soon laws will be clarified and those boundaries will be determined. In the interim the theater aspect of all of this has an effect to discourage illegal immigration and encourage self deportation.
> In the interim the theater aspect of all of this has an effect to discourage illegal immigration and encourage self deportation.
Also legal immigration as they've revoked green cards from people who emigrated legally and some of those people have apparently been "disappeared." It's not about "illegals" and it's dangerous at this point to continue spreading this misinformation.
Most of the Venezuelans have been deported under the Alien Enemies Act, under an extremely tenuous reading of what an “invasion” is, by claiming they are members of a gang which is “invading” the country. If they can read the law this way then it’s not clear we have rule of law anymore. Anyway, the only court case testing this law didn’t turn on determining whether the members were factually members of the class. In this case there are serious questions about whether the people deported were actually members of the gang. Even in WWII relevant nationality individuals went before a civilian board to determine if they were of the nationality to deport.
The people being disappeared from colleges are being held and deported under the theory that they “pose a threat” to the United States, based on the Secretary of State making that determination, which again, not really due process. They are also being whisked to a more favorable circuit for their habeus petitions, which is pretty suspect.
Arguably maybe citizens will be afforded an actual appearance before a judge, but remember that they can just claim you’re a member of a Venezuelan gang and whisk you away. And once you’re gone how do you prove otherwise?
As far as being within US borders, that’s a strange argument given that no statute requires imprisonment within the US borders… I guess it’s legally untested but it seems insane to me that detention could be allowed to be under non-US custody. Among other things, that would move those detained literally outside of US jurisdiction. I don’t think it’s been done outside of espionage situations of dubious legality with people not resident in the US. Even the Guantanamo bay prisoners were under US jurisdiction.
However, it is still important for these folks to go in front of a judge because the government has a responsibility to show evidence that the people they plan to deport are who they say they are, that this collection of atoms is the person named X. If Person X says they should not be deported because they are a citizen, a court is the proper place to adjudicate that. Let Person X bring purported proof of citizenship, let the court assess the validity of such proof. ICE and other law enforcement agents are not equipped to do any of this in a neutral fashion.
A key objection right now is that we are skipping this long-established legal process because it is too slow to serve political ends. (It is slow in part because we don't care enough to spend more money to make it faster.)
Without bringing folks before a judge, all of this gets short-circuited. The inevitable result of skipping judicial adjudication at scale will be that US citizens will end up in foreign prisons with their only recourse being lucky enough to have people in the US going to extreme lengths to locate them and find a sympathetic court. This is quite literally the entire point of habeas corpus, the reason why it has been part of English legal tradition for nearly 1000 years (US inherited this via English Common Law).
It's not going to end well that an allegation can have someone rapidly deported, without that person having the chance to e.g. show their proof of citizenship.
Edit: Most people do not carry proof of citizenship on their person. Most US driver's licenses, even REAL IDs, do not display citizenship status. For example, Georgia does not accept REAL IDs issued by Georgia as proof of citizenship. Further, a person walking on the street (or in their home) may not even be carrying their ID. We have judicial processes because courtrooms are neater than the messy processes that occur in the field.
Where’s the exaggeration?
Also, the quotes you’ve excerpted do not mention due process even once, but do in fact mention that those people may perhaps be sent to El Salvador.
So your own quote only contains evidence for people being sent to El Salvador, and contains no evidence for them being provided due process, not even a “perhaps” they may be provided due process.
The amount of indoctrination and brain twisting it takes to take a quote that does not mention due process, but does mention the possibility of people being sent to El Salvador, and use that as evidence that there will be due process but people will not be sent to El Salvador absolutely astonishes me.
Judge being involved…yet. There is a lot of flexibility within the INA and its subsequent legal modifications to detain a noncitizen while their case is being heard. My guess is the weakest argument for the government in all of this is that they were actually physically removed from the US prior to their hearing being completed. Their detention is lawful. Where they are detained might have to be remedied by SCOTUS.
Citation needed
https://americanindian.si.edu/sites/1/files/pdf/seminars-sym...
Personally I wasn't a huge fan of the bureaucratic authoritarians either, but at least they brought us a measure of relative stability instead of, well, this (gestures vaguely around).
The difference between legal liberals and legal conservatives is their views of whose ideas define the scope of individual liberty versus government power. For example, whose ideas do you turn to to decide whether blue laws are an infringement of religious liberty, or within the legitimate scope of state power to regulate the “public health, welfare, and morals?” Legal liberals believe in a “living constitution.” They not only believe that contemporary ideas can inform the meaning of the constitution, but believe in certain privileged sources of those ideas. So, in their view, blue laws can be unconstitutional based on modern political philosophy, even if the founding generation regarded them as consistent with individual liberty, and contemporary voters support retaining them.
In my view, legal liberals should be held to their own standard. If the meaning of the constitution can be informed by contemporary ideas, Stephen Miller is just as valid a source of such ideas as the Harvard Law faculty.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-venezuela-el-salvador-immig...
Constitution does not matter in this administration. They control the ICE and just do whatever they want. It's not like a judge can physically stop ICE from arresting and deporting people.
Well, Musk emphasised, they need to go after the people who are 'behind' the protests. He already shared multiple tweets with 'leads' (for now it's only Soros and the likes).
I'd argue South Korea or Peru are more democratic countries because they've actually had presidents thrown in prison.
Defenders aren't required to resort to any sort of force. Merely a commitment to truth, and tirelessly repeating it is useful.
All persons have a right to due process.
The idea a political party owns the Constitution, gets to define what it means contrary to the text, is as untruthful as 2+2≠4
It’s that basic.
Make them reject the Constitution outright. Some people associated with the regime have done exactly that. If it’s not wrong, why hide it? They admit their opposition to the Constitution.
If suspected criminal non-citizens are persons, the law says persons get due process. If the simplest reading of text can be set aside by mere opinion, on what basis can’t it be set aside for anybody at anytime based on an updated opinion, equally contrary to the law?
No one is safe at all.
Neither is how to use the em-dash, which was front page on HN the other day.
That being said, this is tech news, albeit indirect. When the rule of law is tossed into the woodchipper, it kind of affects everything, including tech.
I understand that it may be too divisive, but maybe whoever runs HN can moderate these threads so they maintain some substance and don't devolve into screaming matches.
moderation on HN is largely left to the users, and stuff like this getting flagged is an indication of what the community wants at large. there is still an absolute ton of political stuff that doesnt get flagged
Fair enough. But part of the reason I like HN is there is a lot of thoughtful discussion about non-tech things. FWIW, I'm probably more conservative than most--e.g., I think undocumented immigration is a genuine problem in the US and "defund the police" is just nonsense.
But I don't see respect for due process these days and that is an enormous problem.
I'll stop there. Thank you for the reply.
the problem with political discourse, in terms of the comments we see, is that it's overwhelming not about sharing interesting information, but rather just expressing opinions - opinions that are mostly formed by the content we expose ourselves, which is content that is overwhelmingly influenced by billionaires and the established ruling elites. if your worldview very closely aligns to any corporate news outlet, whether it be CNN or Fox News, then you're probably mostly a result of what those owners want you to belief.
Failed impeachment (or conviction) is much better than no impeachment at all.
Also they should impeach signalgate people. Rather than write strongly worded letters.
They tried that, it didn't work, and no one cares anymore.
You don't get someone like Trump without having a garbage opposition. If his critics really want to counter him, they need to take extreme measures, like:
1. Refactoring their platform into something that can attract super-majoritarian support, and win even in "red" states.
2. Running broadly popular candidates.
However, I predict they'll take the easy route: tend to their base and give swing voters a harder choice, and blame the voters if they don't win.
Also, it's fair to blame the voters if they make a bad choice. Voters have the most agency, it's their responsibility to choose wisely. The choice has been crystal clear for a long time now.
Afaik, he either invents a national emergency reason to not hold elections, or does a gerrymandering++ to make sure he wins.
That’s been the centerpiece of the D playbook for years—pull towards the center. Hell, in the last election Harris even got Dick fucking Cheney to stump for her. Dick Cheney, one of the most republican Republican vice presidents, on stage trying to get a Democrat elected president!
And it failed. It’s an utterly garbage strategy that fails every time. This advice needs to be thrown out and never suggested again.
So what you're suggesting is that Democrats refactor their platform into a Republican platform in order to win over Republican voters?
That might work, but I don't know how effective it would be as a counter to Republicanism.
>2. Running broadly popular candidates.
Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton were broadly popular, or at least not significantly less popular than Donald Trump by some measures. Hillary Clinton got more votes than Trump (popular, not electoral.) Even Kamala Harris only lost by a small margin.
This is the problem with thinking "that doesn't apply to me" when you see abuses of privilege and position - we need to think of others in our community, not just focus on ourselves.
And even that's a little sensationalistic. (Trump says a lot of things. And this is an off-hand comment he made on Truth Social...) But even there he only went as far as to say the vandals had "a very good chance" of going to jail for "up to" 20 years, and that "perhaps" they'd go to El Salvador.
Also, we all know judges issues sentences, right? I mean, a president can say what he hopes will happen... But ABC7.com shouldn't be this credulous.
You are a fool if you think this isn't a threat.
I guess I'd put it this way. I think we can agree that it is sensationalistic to report something that won't happen.
I'm not a Trump booster - but I do think these two HN comments are giving him too much power.
Presidents have no power to remove judges. (And everybody knows it - especially judges.) Wishing that his friends in Congress would help him out by launching impeachment hearings won't make it happen -- mainly because it would need something like 7 Democratic votes in the Senate to actually succeed. (So "threatening" a judge... does nothing. You might as well stand in a field and say "Ooh, I wish you weren't a judge any more!")
It's also convoluted to say there's some credible threat in the fact that Trump nominates judges. (What are you saying -- that during the vetting process for future judges he'll ask each candidate, "What's your stance on sending future parking lot protesters to foreign prisons for 20-year sentences?")
It's mildly newsworthy that he's talking out loud about such an outrageous hypothetical. But it's clearly just posing as powerful and in control for his base. A president does not have this power - and I honestly don't think he even cares. He just wants to act like he does for a few moments on Truth Social.
The only really newsworthy thing here is the protests upset him enough that he had to specifically address it with some made-up hypothetical to make himself and his base feel like he's not losing popular support.
Though, actually, even if you are correct and there is a magic line in the sand of unconstitutionality that he somehow will not or cannot cross, that’s _still_ news, in that it must then be read as “president is issuing illegal threats” or “president is stark raving mad”. There is no way to read this as “not news” or as “not concerning”.
They were infridging the trademarks of a former European state that made territorial demands against other countries and put people in concentration camps without due process.
> "You didn't have that on Jan. 6, I can tell you. You didn't have anything like that on Jan. 6, which is sort of amazing," Trump said.
All the police officers (one of whom died the next day) beaten and assaulted with weapons by the Jan 6 rioters, how few Teslas were they worth?