American politics 2016: Lawyers, Guns, and D-Money

Ok, I mean if your argument is "I don't think we should have a constitution" or "I don't think we should take the constitution very seriously" that's fine. There are functioning modern democracies that don't have constitutions at all.

From a more practical standpoint, it's also worth noting that it would be a grossly underinclusive list. Have there actually been any mass shootings by people on the no-fly list that we know of? This guy was not.

Almost. We should not take parts of the constitution seriously when they transgress a significant moral principle - like saving lives. Consider a settled analogue that was also enshrined in law- like slavery.

Once you've extended the no fly list to gun ownership -- which, like it or not, is a constitutional right legally equivalent to free speech -- how do you then make a legal argument against extending the no fly list to cover other constitutional rights, like speech, assembly, arbitrary detention, etc.? I get that you're making a moral rather than a legal argument. My response is that you can't wish the legal argument away when creating laws that may set precedents for further expansions? (The flip side is that this is the very reason why such an expansion may not survive a legal challenge.)

Right I did mention above that there is a principle of respect for the rest of the constitution that flagrant disregard for the second amendment could erode. I think that's a serious consideration.

Almost. We should not take parts of the constitution seriously when they transgress a significant moral principle - like saving lives. Consider a settled analogue that was also enshrined in law- like slavery.

― Mordy, Thursday, June 16, 2016 11:22 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gun ownership and slavery are not morally analogous. Slavery is an absolute moral wrong and a direct harm to another person in all instances.

I mean that's really the sticking point right - how direct a threat to human life is the right to buy guns.

my objection is moral: it's wrong to expand, buttress, and give justification to the tactics of a secret-police state. it does irreparable harm. it offends my moral sensibilities. the legal case comes in because the moral objection to the injustice of secret courts and arbitrary lists has been instantiated in a legal tradition called "due process rights."

no one here is talking about a moral right to own a gun; if it seems like i am, then i've been misunderstood, or there is some kind of rhetorical switcheroo going on here akin to bowers v. hardwick's refusal of a due process right (substantive, not procedural, but still) to engage in consensual sexual conduct unmolested by the government - "gosh i've never heard of a right to sodomy" - that wasn't the right that was actually being claimed or disputed but the judges chose to hear it that way. if that's what's going on here then it really bothers me, but i'm going to assume i'm just not expressing myself clearly.

imo if "we should link it to, or model it on, the no-fly lists!" is accepted as a solution to problems then the fascists have already won. and again if you're just trying to adopt some radically pragmatic approach - eff rights, there's a crisis, we need results! - can you really argue that this solution actually promises any compelling results? moreso than others? every story i've ever read about someone trying to get off the no-fly list, or have their status explained or justified or discussed in open court without all the documents redacted beyond legibility, makes my skin crawl. it really is kafkaesque ("before the law," specifically). we don't need more of that.

to my knowledge only one person has ever successfully gotten her name taken off the no-fly lists in the courts; it took ten years and it turned out it was because some agent or bureaucrat mistakenly thought they were checking the boxes of lists NOT to put someone on. ten years of stalling, court battles, legal fees, and generally fucking up someone's life (and in this case their academic career), in order to, i guess, keep that check-box goof from getting out there. and we want this to become more normal?

re terror watch list proposed bills:

the Feinstein bill allowed law enforcement officials to block a sale only after showing that a prospective gun buyer on the watch list was known or suspected to be involved in terrorism. If blocked, the person could challenge that denial in federal court. (A competing bill introduced by Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, would give authorities only three days to prove that a suspect is about to commit an act of terrorism — a nearly impossible standard to meet.)

Yeah, intending to commit a crime in the future is notoriously hard to criminalize (cf. a stupid movie, plus it is the reason the FBI couldn't just arrest the Orlando shooter - he hadn't shot anybody yet).

afaik there's about 1m people on the terror watch list, and about 300k on the no fly list (don't remember where i saw these figs). no idea how many of them are american citizens, or if that even matters.

that's a tiny number of people compared to the amount of shooting deaths & crimes in this country

omar mateen was background checked and armed as a part of his job

idk this is all pointless, obviously in dicey territory constitutionally. sometimes i like political theater but here i just don't. this has only a stretched relationship to what happened in orlando

Solution: put all Americans on no-fly list, ban weapon sales/ownership for all on no-fly list, decide on case-by-case basis who's cool to fly.

Regarding The Pulse nightclub shootings

“Barack Obama is directly responsible for it, because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al-Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama’s failures,” McCain said.

he's losing it imo

lol yes if only we had just occupied Iraq indefinitely, things would've gone great

(he never had it)

god what a moron

I hold McCain directly responsible for consistently voting for the legality of assault weapons

there, that was easy

Ha, just coming over to post the McCain thing. I guess he means it's George Bush's fault, because there would have been no troops for Obama to pull out of Iraq had Bush not sent them there to begin with. I wonder where McCain stood on that one.

That shit is so transparently disingenuous. What a douche.

Trump hold him directly responsible for getting himself shot down.

good old John McCain

"I was referring to President Obama’s national security decisions, not the President himself."

What is the distinction here? "Not him, just what he did."

It's not what he does but rather what's in his heart that matters.

I must have missed isis having anything to do with that shooting whatsoever bar the murderer giving them a shout-out

can we get a list of Republicans who aren't walking dumpster fires

sure here it is

[this page intentionally left blank]

tempting to list any republicans who have refused to endorse trump but then you'd be including the bushes who are really ultimately responsible for the whole mess in the first place

Chuck Todd yesterday that McCain has never quite recovered from losing in 2008; he's still amazed people chose Obama over him.

*SAID yesterday

anyway good ol' maverick John McCain, barbecuing for the press

McCain seems to forget the years between 2001-2008 as to why nobody would pick him over Barry

heh:

http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/06/16/congresswoman-proposes-top-1-act-to-drug-test-wealthy-people-who-get-tax-breaks-quotes/

I must have missed isis having anything to do with that shooting whatsoever bar the murderer giving them a shout-out

― The Nickelbackean Ethics (jim in glasgow), Thursday, June 16, 2016 4:07 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't worry, there isn't one. McCain's beady political eyes can't distinguish the difference between a lone wolf who shouted out an allegiance to three competing bitter radical Islamic enemy cells and a coordinated ISIS attack

I read that Nancy Pelosi thinks that the measure Rep. Cicilline is pushing--- a discharge petition that would force a vote on banning assault weapons, is too risky to try. It would get around Paul Ryan's obstruction and force every House Republican to take a position and be accountable to voters.

According to Politico, Pelosi is limiting Democrats' focus to a measure to bar terrorists from buying guns that she says is "easier to explain to the public."

Solution: put all Americans on no-fly list, ban weapon sales/ownership for all on no-fly list, decide on case-by-case basis who's cool to fly.
― Manspread Mann (Old Lunch), Thursday, June 16, 2016 12:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

flying is terrible for the environment, so I’m down with restricting flying, period.

Chuck Todd yesterday that McCain has never quite recovered from losing in 2008; he's still amazed people chose Obama over him.

i kind of forgot that he ran even, i realize that the current D cycle has somehow left me with the impression that hillary is who obama beat in 2008. like poor mccain was an afterthought

http://www.theonion.com/article/biden-lines-sweet-summer-gig-installing-above-grou-53112 gonna miss these

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/283637-gop-obamacare-plan-will-leave-out-key-dollar-figures

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) office declined to comment on the plan ahead of its release next week, and noted it is still being finalized.

Republicans have said previously they will not be introducing their ObamaCare replacement plan in the form of a bill, but will instead release a white paper that is less detailed than legislation would be.

Keeping the plan in the form of a broad outline puts off some of the difficult tradeoffs and preempts lines of attack that would be raised with a specific and detailed plan.

No surprise here

"We think prices are going up because people have too few choices, not because they have too many," Ryan said in a speech in December at the Library of Congress laying out his ideas. "And we think this problem is so urgent that, next year, we are going to unveil a plan to replace every word of ObamaCare."

Well fair enough, they've not had long to think about it.

Senate rejects Dem all inclusive background gun check bill and Republican weak one; plus they rejected bills re terrorists and guns

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/284182-senate-rejects-first-background-check-bill

But Democrats resoundingly rejected the GOP background check measure, arguing it would do little to make sure potential criminals or terrorists couldn’t buy a gun.

“It’s a shield for members who don’t want to do the right thing,” said Sen. Chris Murphy,
(D-Conn.), who led a recent unofficial filibuster on gun control. Grassley and Sen. Ted Cruz
(R-Texas) offered a similar proposal during the Senate’s 2013 gun control debate, but it also largely fell along party lines.

Instead Democrats largely backed a measure from Sens. Charles Schumer
(D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Richard Blumenthal
(D-Conn.) and Murphy, that would require a background check for most sales or transfers of guns.

But that measure, which also needed 60 votes, failed in a 44-56 vote.

Democrats have pledged for months to push for expanding background checks in the wake of a string of recent high-profile shootings, but their effort faces an uphill battle in a GOP-controlled Congress.

“The Murphy legislation is very broad...and I think that there are concerns about it,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) told reporters Monday, asked about the proposal. “I’ve previously said that I think it’s important to fix the current system.”

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) noting that the Democrats’ proposal went further than legislation he authored with Sen. Joe Manchin
(D-W.Va.) in 2013, blasted his colleagues for “talking past each other.”

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Jon Tester
(Mont.) voted against moving forward with the proposal. Sen. Mark Kirk (Ill.), the most vulnerable GOP incumbent up in November, supported it.

Both of the measures were widely expected to fall short Monday. Senators also voted on two proposals to block suspected terrorists from buying guns, which both also failed.

I figured we had all just chosen to silently mourn the most recent example of the senate's continued and unsurprising failure as a governing body.

If senators followed the example of Elizabeth Warren on Twitter, some of that legislation deserved to die.

Elizabeth Warren ‏@SenWarren 15h15 hours ago
.@ChrisMurphyCT said it right: The @SenateGOP have decided to sell weapons to ISIS.

Republicans argued that Feinstein’s proposal doesn’t do enough to protect against situations where someone mistakenly on a terror watch list, or mistakenly suspected of links to terror groups, would be denied their Second Amendment rights.

Democrats countered that the time limitations in Cornyn’s alternative would make it functionally impossible to actually prevent suspicious individuals from purchasing firearms.

http://www.pressherald.com/2016/06/20/senate-blocks-democratic-measure-to-close-gun-show-loophole-and-expand-background-checks/

Could some sort of compromise bill between these 2 options possibly pass? Probably not (NRA types will oppose everything), but I kinda wish Dems would come up with a bill with enhanced due process rights

Wasserman Stain effectively out (but may stay as a figurehead -- thru the election?), and acc to Howard Dean hey guess who will handpick her successor?

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a46022/dnc-chair-replaced/

Lol I always assume DWS was handpicked by HRC

my congressman. so proud:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/philadelphia-congressman-and-associates-convicted-rico-conspiracy-public-corruption

lol Lil Marco wants to go back to the Senate after all

John Lewis leading some kind of House sit-in re: gun control legislation...?

Rep. John Yarmuth‏ @RepJohnYarmuth

I'm on the House floor with @repjohnlewis & Dems staging a sit-in to demand action on commonsense gun legislation
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Jun 22, 2016, 10:34 AM