On the Supreme Court Oral Arguments about the Muslim Ban

1. The government says there are three (3) standards by which the handful of nations were picked out of the fifty-five (55) or so nations which have a primarily Muslim belief population. But, in arguments, Noel Francisco said that someone trying to come to America from a nation designated as a "terrorist state" may still be denied if that nation's government refuses to provide certain documentation. What that means is that there is really only one (1) standard.

I suspect this means there is really an ulterior motive to the Ban. And that is (essentially) to tell those visa applicants their government has refused to cooperate with the United States and that they have to stay in that country and perhaps they should get mad, protest, demonstrate, riot, and even overturn that government to make us happy. This would most likely apply to a nation such as Iran which many Conservatives have wanted to attack for many years. During the 2008 presidential campaign it was the Republican candidate for the presidency, John McCain, who repeatedly chanted "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran".

If this is true it means the Ban may appear to be a political promise kept, but in fact be a foreign policy statement which the public did not vote to put into place.


2. Though the statements of a private citizen during the presidential campaign may have no meaning after that person becomes president, our current president, Donald Trump, has made statements after taking office which confirm his view that his political statements (racist as they are) were in fact the basis for the Ban and that he knew it wouldn't pass muster (as indeed his first tries failed) with SCOTUS, so he specifically had his advising agencies find a set of tests which they believed could pass muster. They did so. This process makes it clear that it was not THEY who were advising the president we had a national security issue he must address with the Ban. Even more clearly, the changed list of nations indicates the original lists were more about finding nations where he could ban individuals and less about national security. In the end, even with the Ban in place, there are many nations with Muslim individuals who might come here to perform terrorist acts. If this were a national security issue that would not be possible.

This shows we can not trust that the Cabinet departments analysis and suggested list has any meaning beyond satisfying the President who views himself as a Unitary with sole power to decide things in the Executive branch (as he has said). We don't know the process by which they chose standards, such that a list of some nations were produced. We don't know what other set of standards might have been considered. Given the proclivity of this president and his assistants to lie on a regular basis we don't know anything about their intents or methods. The only thing we only know for certain is the text of the Ban. We don't know if the process the Ban outlines would be upheld or if a pure and complete Ban of all Muslims would in fact be installed. There is no real oversight or Judicial Review despite the suggestion by Justice Kennedy that review would obviously or naturally occur.

3. There is Congressionally written law on this issue and the Ban attempts to unilaterally change that. We simply do not give any president the power to change law by themselves. That way leads to dictators and disaster.

4. There is no mention in the text of the Ban (according to Mr. Katyal, representing the state of Hawaii) of a limit to the ban. And, despite the suggestion there is a report to be made, there is no time limit or rationale for the Ban to end or "sunset". This kind of unlimited ban makes no sense when the purported reason for the Ban is 'national security dangers'. Those do not last forever. If the Ban were a Presidential Executive Order which enabled a state of national emergency and giving the president sole government power, eliminating Congress and the Courts, then perhaps the Courts could see more easily a reason for such Orders to have a time limit or some other kind of conditions-based duration and/or oversight and review by other interested parties than the Executive branch.

5. I would like to be able to say our president is NOT in the grips of a foreign power and that he has NOT tried to subvert our FBI and judicial processes, but I cannot. He cannot be trusted with any kind of unlimited powers. That isn't a Constitutional Law argument of a normal kind, but it was the very basis for the creation of our nation. The leading lights of the Colonies didn't trust the King of England with such powers to decide matters in the Americas and neither should we trust any individual to decide them for us now. Congress can act if it deems this important.

6. If it were a true national security issue we would have felt the impact by now of not having it. We haven't. There is no national security basis for the Ban.

Cops and Cell Phones

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/desmond-marrow-arrest-video_us_5ae3833ce4b02baed1ba3cc5

How long will it take for police officers to get used to black people holding a cell phone in their hand and not immediately believing it is a gun?

Microsoft Wins Again -- Man Sentenced to 15 Months for "Stealing" Free Software

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180426/00051939718/how-microsoft-convinced-clueless-judges-to-send-man-to-jail-copying-software-it-gives-out-free.shtml

Microsoft offers their Windows recovery software for free. You have to provide a license ID to make it actually work.

A man copied the recovery software and put it on discs and gave it away to PC shops which help people. He didn't steal any license IDs.

Microsoft claims he stole "intellectual property" from them and a Court agreed. The Court may not have understood he didn't steal License IDs.

The man has been sentenced to 15 months of jail. I hope he appeals and the conviction is overturned. Greedy prosecutors and crazy Microsoft should be punished for this huge over-reach.

Microsoft is concerned their software will have malware included in it when it is given to someone else. They prefer that their software move directly from their servers to a user's PC. But, they give away the software for FREE, so it's hard to see how they can claim it was "stolen". Perhaps the Judges on the Court were simply out of touch with the reality of the software world. Their average age (according to the article) is 65.

Two Koreas Shake Hands

Apparently North and South Korea have agreed on some major changes to be secured by the end of the year.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-27/two-koreas-agree-to-end-war-this-year-pursue-denuclearization

The ideas about building North Korea into something new are coming forth and ways of financing it are being discussed. I would certainly hope that with the major changes toward solar and wind power, that any new energy construction in N. Korea would include those. In America almost all new energy construction is with wind, solar, and natural gas. If commercial businesses which seek to make a profit have made this decision (to move away from nuclear, coal, oil), then there is little reason to talk of bringing N. Korea into the present world, but to then push them back to 20th Century energy plans.

It is a symbolic start with much work ahead. I hope it is successful. Any financial costs will be less than that of constant potential of nuclear war.

Capitalism, Middle-Class Buying Power, and Retail Stores

http://theweek.com/articles/761124/how-vulture-capitalists-ate-toys-r

The fact that Amazon.com has become the nation's largest retailer and that Walmart hasn't disappeared is interesting. Many retailers without the power of a Walmart have indeed failed. The article (see link) is about the failure of Toys R Us and how Vulture Capitalists sped the way over the cliff for that firm. It says the middle-class is buying more via the Internet and they have less money to spend on frivolities like toys for the kids. In these changes there will be opportunities for some people, but a lot of agony for others.

America is a nation and as such has to be beneficial for all citizens or it is in trouble if not a failure. Right now it's hard to say it works well for the vast majority of Americans. There is still time to improve on that and a growing economy may help avoid catastrophe while we work to improve distribution of the benefits to everyone. But, we can't just look at a growing GDP and think that's all that matters. If we start to see Walmart closing stores in large numbers, then you may want to reconsider stocking up for the Apocalypse.

A New Nuclear Accord with Iran?

http://www.leparisien.fr/international/macron-et-trump-appellent-a-un-nouvel-accord-sur-le-nucleaire-iranien-24-04-2018-7681917.php

Why would Iran be willing to return to the negotiation table? What's in it for them? Haven't they already gotten millions of dollars freed from American banks? Does anyone think they would return that money to its previous state (locked up so they couldn't use it)?

We can either stick with the treaty or wonder if N. Korea would ever stick with a treaty we would sign with them. Let's stick to our "word" (the treaty we signed with Iran).

The Statement of the Day has to be ...

Some people were discussing Michael Cohen and whether he might turn state's evidence (flip) when one commenter wrote, "Trump would flip on himself" if he thought he could escape trouble.