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Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

nytimes.com

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Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#141

Post by cookiecaper »

michaelchisari wrote: post #98
cookiecaper wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* The ban is a temporary measure and has nothing to do with religion. President Obama signed a list of countries into law for enhanced visa scrutiny and President Trump used that exact list without modification, directly referencing the statute in which it was codified. They'd already been identified as terrorism hotspots that warranted additional scrutiny from immigration officials by the Obama administration. Trump…

has nothing to do with religion. After what Giuliani has publicly stated and explained, how can you say this?

Did you read what Giuliani stated, or just go off the headline? He explicitly said it wasn't about religion. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13527870.

This is "seriously, but not literally". Trump seriously meant he wanted to halt immigration from terrorists hotspots (which, yes, at the moment, are predominantly Muslim -- but that doesn't mean Muslims are predominantly terrorists). He asked his people to take his loose statement of intent and make it into something serious, legal, and valid.

Giuliani indicates that in order to do that, the Trump admin avoided any conflation of terrorism with religion, and that this was both "totally sensible" and "totally legal". Do you disagree?

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#142

Post by probably_wrong »

grzm wrote: post #69
probably_wrong wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has an international audience. Most of us are not allowed to post about our own countries' political turmoil, so we flag other countries' politics in return.

Of course, if you think the submission is inappropriate for HN, please do flag it. I would hope that you're not doing so out of spite, however. When you say that you're not "allowed to post", would you elaborate?

> When you say that you're not "allowed to post", would you elaborate?

Politics are explicitly forbidden by the guidelines (and also implicitly). Even this story was flagged, and only brought back to life by a moderator, but it's clearly against the rules.

Now, it could be argued that this article is noteworthy and therefore included in the exceptions, to which I'd reply: every single day there's a story here about Trump. The coup in Turkey, which is arguably much worse for the Turkish than this ban is for US citizens, only had three posts with anything resembling frontpage, including one about how it affects the US and one about which app was used[1]. In comparison, I feel that Trump's presence here is overrepresented.

So by "I'm not allowed to post", I mean "both by the guidelines who forbid it and by the community that doesn't come here to read about that". Which I'm okay with, btw.

[1] Based on search results for "Turkey Coup". Searching for "Turkey" yields more results, but the proportion tends to hold.

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#143

Post by mc32 »

sfifs wrote: post #129
ivl wrote: post #2

If I understand it right this is the first time an AG has been relieved for purely political reasons. If the AG doesn't think it's likely they'll win a defense, that usually doesn't cause an issue. As an edit: it probably wouldn't have been reasonable for her to put up an intentionally weak case, but if the order isn't able to stand up in court, then what? The major worry for me is Trump's seeking to punish anyone wh…

Can Sally Yates sue for wrongful termination?

I think those people tend to "serve at the pleasure of the president".

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#144

Post by diogenescynic »

rohshall wrote: post #135

Almost my whole adult life, I looked up to America. Whatever I know and my life's value system is mostly because of the books I read by American authors. I couldn't belive the news when I heard that Americans chose Trump. When did America become so stupid to vote in these people?

We've been this way since Reagan and it just seems to get worse every cycle.

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#145

Post by Retra »

Spooky23 wrote: post #59
ssalazar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nuremberg defense. Classic.

No. The Nuremberg defense is to sit there and do something unethical justifying your continued employment. The ethical course is to resign.

If the law is illegal, then everyone in that position would have to resign, which would make the resignation pointless. Someone shouldn't have to fall on their sword in order to do the right thing. That way leads to dictators surrounded by spineless yes-men.

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#146

Post by mr_spothawk »

workerIbe wrote: post #86
aub3bhat wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Thiel will go down in history as Trump/Bannon's useful idiot. He might have come up in short term betting correctly on Trump but he is down on long. If he thinks that he is going to get a piece of the pie after Kushner/Tillerson/Preibus(establishment) have had their take, then he is in for a cake.

What I think alot of Trump supporters are taking seriously is the phenomena that is the left feeding off It's own hyperbole, it's pretty disturbing.

> it's pretty disturbing.

It's far worse than the election cycle. My own read on the situation is that a lot of folks have wrapped up their ego/identity in opposition.

I'm incredibly happy to see so many people participating & engaging with the government. It reminds me of the satisfying experience of watching the enormous online response to Collateral Damage / CISPA,CISA,etc... / PRISM / and all the rest.

We've seen that online protest isn't as effective as we would like. And I'm thrilled to have discussions with my friends in which they express their desire to participate in government in a direct way (trying to become elected, for instance).

I think it's a lot of "millennial" participation, too... which makes me wonder how similar this is to the Vietnam protests, I'm to young to know.

But yes... it's a nasty spin-cycle, and the news all seems to have a stench of fairness to it.

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#147

Post by [deleted] »

workerIbe wrote: post #86
aub3bhat wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Thiel will go down in history as Trump/Bannon's useful idiot. He might have come up in short term betting correctly on Trump but he is down on long. If he thinks that he is going to get a piece of the pie after Kushner/Tillerson/Preibus(establishment) have had their take, then he is in for a cake.

What I think alot of Trump supporters are taking seriously is the phenomena that is the left feeding off It's own hyperbole, it's pretty disturbing.

[deleted]

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#148

Post by diogenescynic »

jbyers wrote: post #73

Respectfully, can we maintain the political detox on Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404 I'm personally as engaged in reading and debating politics as I ever have been, but elsewhere. As dang put it: "Political conflicts cause harm here."

I disagree. This is a historic moment and immigration definitely affects technology.

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#149

Post by diogenescynic »

jbyers wrote: post #73

Respectfully, can we maintain the political detox on Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404 I'm personally as engaged in reading and debating politics as I ever have been, but elsewhere. As dang put it: "Political conflicts cause harm here."

I disagree. This is a historic moment and immigration policy definitely affects technology.

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#150

Post by cookiecaper »

pcwalton wrote: post #117
cookiecaper wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she is unable to faithfully discharge her duty to execute U.S. law, she should resign. She offers no argument to support her claim that the order was not lawful, other than her self-evident personal disagreement. Do you know of a credible legal argument that the president is not allowed to issue instructions to the Department of Homeland Security via executive order? Ms. Yates apparently does, but she doesn't wish…

> There is nothing in Trump's EO that singles anyone out by religious affiliation or background. This is false. It has explicit exceptions for "religious minorities". Wikipedia: "After the resumption of USRAP, refugee applications will be prioritized based on religion-based persecutions only in the case that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in that country."

Yes, you're correct.

My language was imprecise in that I was referring specifically to the orders limiting entry of foreign nationals, and also specifically referring to singling out specific religious affiliations rather than religious background as a general principle.

But yes, the order does also contain an instruction to prioritize refugees seeking asylum from generalized religious persecution, and states that the refugee's claim should only be prioritized if they are legitimately a religious minority (which seems more like an implicit implementation detail). That section of the order is completely unrelated to the travel ban on foreign nationals.

I appreciate the correction and I will attempt to keep the language precise moving forward.

One other note, it would be best to link to primary sources next time. The full text of the EO is available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/execu....

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