It is not uncommon for presidents to rush through regulations and changes in their final months or even days in office. Thus, the move of President Obama to protect pristine areas from drilling is not unprecedented, particularly as the continuation of his long-standing policies on the environment. However, as I discussed yesterday on NPR, the President made a move that runs against the grain of tradition this week. Obama negated the regulations underlying the dormant National Security Entry-Exit Registration System or NSEERS program. That was not action to advance a positive policy but a purely obstructionist move targeting your successor. There was no reason to destroy the structure except to delay any effort of President-Elect Donald Trump to carry out his campaign pledges to tighten entry rules and impose greater scrutiny of people coming from Muslim countries. NSEERS would have given Trump a readily available structure and pro-immigration groups lobbied Obama to destroy the program. It was a move that was reminiscent of General William Tecumseh Sherman. General Sherman famously left a scorched earth behind his March to the Sea and Obama appears intent to leave the same charred path for his successor.
NSEERS was created after 9-11 to require registration for people coming from 24 Muslim countries. The system included port-of-entry registration and domestic registration. It was discontinued in 2011 under the Obama administration. The US-VISIT program was instituted as a replacement.
Putting the policy issues aside, the move to eradicate the dormant structure of NSEERS was a Sherman-like move to harass an opponent and slow his progress. Many presidents would likely find the move a bit too obstructionist, but there is certainly precedent for aggressive moves in the twilight of an Administration. The famous case of Marbury v. Madison is one such example. The controversy arose after Thomas Jefferson beat John Adams in 1800. Since Jefferson did not take office until March 4, 1801, the federalists moved in the lame duck session to create new judicial positions and, on March 3, Adams appointed 16 Federalist circuit judges and 42 Federalist justices of the peace to offices created by the Judiciary Act of 1801, including financier William Marbury who was appointed to the position of justice of the peace in the District of Columbia. The problem is that not all of the appointments could be delivered by John Marshall, who was acting as Secretary of State before assuming his positions as Chief Justice. When Jefferson entered office, he ordered the halt to the deliveries — leading to the litigation. Incredibly, it would be Marshall who would rule in the case even though he was involved in the underlying dispute.
The comparison to Marbury however is telling. Adams was merely using every minute of his term to pursue his policy objectives. In the NSEERS controversy, Obama is burning a structure to the ground to avoid it being used by his successor to pursue his different priorities. It is a regulatory version of the Clinton staff removing the “W”s from keyboards to harass the including Bush staff. In the end, of course, this can only delay rather than avoid the inevitable. It will force the Trump Administration into probable “notice and comment” procedures in the publication of new regulations in the federal register. It will add a political benefit for Democrats. The deal will push new regulations closer to the midterm elections and could be used to rally voters in an election where Democrats are more vulnerable than Republicans.
Quit worrying about this people! Obama just signed the govt. propaganda law and you won’t be reading about this kind of thing any longer. It doesn’t fit with the ministry of truth! The man is full of the spirit of Christmas giving!
Obama Quietly Signs The “Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act” Into Law
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-24/obama-signs-countering-disinformation-and-propaganda-act-law
Obama is easily, the Worst President ever. I truly believe he is an actual Psychopath. No hyperbole.
Sherman? Not saying i agree with Obama (don’t), but the program has been dormant (at least you acknowledged that) for years and has had no successes.
Maybe a better Sherman comparison would be the travesty in North Carolina suceeding mostly as a result of unconstitutional gerrymanded partisan politics…….but only crickets on alt right sites such as………..
“In the NSEERS controversy, Obama is burning a structure to the ground to avoid it being used by his successor to pursue his different priorities.”
I don’t doubt, at all , that this was to obstruct the presumed policies of Trump.
But I don’t see how anyone can object, with a straight face, without also objecting to 8 years of Republican obstruction taken all the way to the point jeopardizing the US credit rating – over expenses already incurred and contracted for. Or what about actions of the Republican legislature toward the office of governor in North Carolina.
Ignoring the scorched earth approach of Republicans makes complaints about Obama seem like meaningless carping and nit picking.
It is a proven fact that Obama’s birth certificate was indeed a forgery. Two independent companies that specialize in examining documents have both come to that conclusion, one of which is in Italy…he was born in Kenya. He is a Muslim extremist, and his boyfriend, “Michelle”, is a known transexual. None of these facts are conspiracy theories, they are simply the facts.
The sad truth is that this imposter is the worst president in American history, but you people got what you deserved. Your society is just as morally bankrupt as he is so it was a good match. Judgment will soon be upon you, repent while you still can.
Soooo, where or what is your society….scarecrow? OZ?
It is a proven fact that Obama’s birth certificate was indeed a forgery.
The two ‘authorities’ who supposedly offered this report to Sheriff Arpaio consist of a graphologist whose expertise does not include assessment of electronic images and another firm that’s never examined the original. The thesis Arpaio is pushing is, of course, nonsense. Two residents of Honolulu conceive a child. The two are impecunious college students living on foundation stipends, whatever they can cadge from part time and seasonal wage employment, and whatever cash the salesman father of the bride will give her out of his earnings. So, they undertake expensive and time-consuming international travel so the bride can avail herself of the splendors of Kenyan medical care while the groom can introduce his bride to his legal wife and to her new father-in-law (who’d told his son by mail that she was unsuitable). Just for s***s and giggles, Kapiolani Hospital in Hawaii (or, perhaps, the father of the bride) sends a birth notice to the Honolulu papers informing the world that the baby was born at Kapiolani Hospital. Bride and groom return to the United States with the child, and manage to elude customs and immigration at the airport and each and every passenger manifest as well.
DesperatelySeekingSusan – if you watch the video to the explanation of the man leading the team, you will see how they are making their decision. Their decision is just that the long form birth certificate presented by President Obama is fraudulent. They are not making a case that Obama is fraudulent.
Many years ago David Belin of the Warren Commission was asked to comment on the report of the House Committee on Assassinations which concluded that acoustical evidence demonstrated there was a second gunman in Dealy Plaza. He stated his position thus: (1) the acoustical evidence was quite esoteric (i.e. no one really has any critical engagement with it; you accept their authority or you don’t) and (2) the acoustical evidence did not fit with established factual information about the assassinations or sensible assessments of how people behave (among other things, the interval between the supposed shots mapped to frames on the Zapruder film would have had Lee Harvey Oswald firing at the limousine through a tree in full foliation and had someone at the grassy knoll firing one shot, missing the president and the limousine, and then disappearing). Belin’s conclusion: do not trust this ‘evidence’. He was right. The acoustical evidence was discredited within three years.
Here we have the same thing: arguing that a digital image is fake on grounds that cannot be evaluated outside a small technical fraternity. The argument implicit in the presentation posits a sequence of events which makes no frigging sense. The examiners never looked at the original, and Arpaio throws chaff in everyone’s face by adding the views of a graphologist whose business is evaluating handwriting samples.
It’s all very persuasive to people who have an emotional commitment to this s*** sandwich thesis, not to anyone else.
DesperatelySeekingSusan – Arpiao’s analysis is not based on graphology, but rather on computer analysis. If you watch the complete 20 minute demonstration it is compelling.
Obama’s father was a Muslim from Kenya, so in his own country he was allowed four wives. Nonetheless, I would agree that his Kenyan wife and her family would not be thrilled to have him show-up with some pregnant white hippy chick who was apparently enamored with the Third World. I doubt that Obama’s mother would have any reason to go to Kenya to give birth. Even if she thought it would be cool to have her child in a thatched hut with a witch doctor prancing around shaking a spear, there is the issue of the cost of travel, as you pointed out. But the fact that Obama was so reluctant to produce a birth certificate has lead to speculation and conspiracy theories. All of which could have been avoided if he really had a Hawaiian birth certificate and simply produced it when initially asked.
Perhaps President Obama is just trying to make it more difficult for Donald Trump to pursue his xenophobic bigotry and bias. Clearly Trump isn’t concerned with the Welfare of the US. For him being President is about the opportunity to enrich himself financially. This country and the welfare of its citizens is of no consequrnce to Trump. Kudos to President Obama.
Oh please! Trump became President “for the opportunity to enrich himself financially?” That’s utterly absurd! Trump has already declined his presidential salary, and having to step aside from his numerous successful businesses and have them run by others is putting his own financial interests at risk.
This column makes no sense at all. Since the program was dormant, and had been replaced by a more legally valid US VISIT system, eradicating it hardly equates to a Shermanesque scorched earth policy! It is like Sherman only burning down ghost towns,something the South would have much preferred. So I can only conclude that Turley is trying to earn his chops for FAUX News by mimicking their fake news stories that are all propaganda and fake talking points.
IF Turley is truly concerned about democracy and representative government, he should be writing on the FACT that North Carolina is destroying it wholesale. Of course, it will go against his paymasters views, so he cannot do that. Then we have the fact that Trump is going to be the most corrupt President in our history. Ranging from his fake foundation that he used for personal gain, to having massive conflicts of interest with his hotel in DC, to his kids running his businesses as though that is a blind trust. One has to recall that Carter was forced to sell his peanut farm when he became President. Of course, the DONALD is far above Carter so those rules only apply to Democrats and other low lifes. This was once a pretty interesting blog and had some integrity.
Republican’ts have for the last 8 years, conspired against doing their duty as elected public servants, yes plainly defected, on their sworn duty to our country and it’s taxpaying citizens. They all deserve to be hung using the same gallows that stretched Sodomized Insane’s neck.
Partisan Democrats fancy it was the responsibility of the political opposition to embrace BO’s tar babies. The entitlement mentality is pretty amusing.
Didn’t his press secretary say that Obama was a Catholic? He has let lots of Muslims into the country, but no Catholics from the same country. Funny that.
Obama’s father, step-father and sister are Muslims. He attended a Muslim school in Indonesia, where he was registered as a Muslim. His mother was likely a Muslim as well, as she married a Kenyan Muslim and then and Indonesian Muslim. I don’t believe he is a practicing Muslim. He is probably an agnostic. But given his background, certainly feels kinship for Muslims. He joined a Christian church for the first time as an adult in South Chicago, around the same time he married an American black (Michelle), in order to launch a political career. He needed to have an African-American wife and be a member of an AA church in order to have credibility in the black district he was hoping to represent.
His mother had no affiliation (and this has been verified from the accounts of people who knew her during her years in Seattle). His grandfather’s religious views were frivolous. His step-father Lolo Soetero was from Java, where the practice of Islam is famously lax and syncretistic. It’s a reasonable inference (not a slam dunk, there could be an alternative explanation of his liver problems) that his step-father was a lushington as well. His sister’s husband is ethnic Chinese. Between his birth in 1961 and the man’s death in 1982, he spent about 9 weeks in the same city as his father. His relations with his 11 Kenyan siblings are so tenuous that one of them was living as a vagrant in Boston when BO was ensconced in the White House. He had a friendship with a Pakistani national while at Columbia and visited Pakistan in his young adult years. That’s as close as he gets to Islam.
Here’s a suggestion: BO is post-national in his attitudes, something fairly banal among bicoastal professional-managerial types. Doesn’t mean he is actually knowledgeable about or savors any foreign culture, of course. Such people generally fancy they’re aesthetically and morally a cut above their countrymen.
Muchas Gracias, Obama.
If this entry- as well as the general paucity of entries on Trump’s violations of every conceivable political norm- doesn’t demonstrate that Turley is actually a hard right hack, nothing much will…
Thanks Obama!
A little payback for the 6 years of constant, needless, racist obstruction from the godawful republicans who voted against anything Obama tried even if it was republican policy. Republicans brought obstruction to a new harmful level that hurt Americans and only was used for partisan spite. Obama is giving them a taste of their own bad medicine.
Well said.
It gives on an insight into the fantasy life of the partisan Democrat.
Sayeth the troll from the bottom of the Red Kool Aid punch bowl.
And as usual the American citizenry is paying the price.
And Harry Reid was what? A Republican? Oh I’m sorry, it was another Republican who said “pass it so we can read it”???
How noble of him to weaken OUR national security out of spite. What’s next, send out holiday greetings via a public notice to all of our intelligence assets (by name) around the world?
The immigration policy should be based on a set of pro-active characteristics that are intended to enhance America and the principles that the nation embraces. If an individual does not meet that criteria, an invitation is not extended to them.
Trump will figure out a way to undo Ubama’s damaging last days as president. “last days as president”, what a nice sounding set of words.
The issue of the day and what will be the issue of his so called Legacy, is the UN Resolution yesterday in which Obama had our Ambassador abstain. This is the worst thing a President has done in international affairs since dog knows when.
every president since Johnson has done the same thing. Educate yourself and get off Fox News.
More damage will come in the next few weeks.
The arrogance of this man knows no bounds. He never had a true interest in protecting the borders of the United States so why should this action be of any surprise.
He’s a spiteful, graceless individual. Some of us figured that out 8 years ago.
And since Obama (unlike Bush and Gore) never released his college and law school transcripts, he doesn’t want us to know that he was admitted under affirmative action and didn’t do particularly well academically, and is not qualified to teach constitutional law. Unless being 1/2 black is a qualification.
He graduated from law school with honors. See Wm. Dyer (“Beldar”) on this point. His academic record was adequate.
If by adequate you mean graduating with an A average (Cum Laude), and being editor of the Harvard Law Review, that kind of adequate, then yeah, he was adequate. And, by that token, you are an intellectual titan.
And, by that token, you are an intellectual titan.
I’m not employed by the University of Chicago Law School. He was. What did he teach and what was his research programme ? The answer is: he taught boutique courses, for the most part, and he had no research programme. By some accounts, he wasn’t hired according to standard procedures and did not attend faculty meetings.
While we’re at it, he was the ‘President’ of the law review, a office-political position not analogous to the Editor at other law reviews.
More than 50% of Harvard Law School graduate with “honors.” It only means you’re above average. As far as law review, he was a “walk on.” Meaning he wasn’t selected based on grades. He wrote an essay and was accepted, which is how virtually all minority candidates at HLS are accepted. The school is liberal and they want diversity. Again, if he truly graduated with a stellar record, why not release the transcripts?
He graduated magna cum laude. Again, read Beldar, who is not an Obama admirer. His law school record was quite adequate, and testimony to his general intelligence. He’s never been deficient in that department. He just lacks curiosity and seriousness of mind.
Okay, I just looked at some of the Beldar comments on Obama’s career at HLS. On the blog it is noted that O never published anything while prez of the law review, and even more surprising, is that he never held a judicial clerkship following graduation, which is virtually unheard of for an HLS editor. The general consensus seems to be that his election was political, in that HLS wanted to elect its first black editor, and that once in the position that his performance was undistinguished.
A case note he wrote during his second year at the law school has been identified. His employment history is peculiar. He had no employment whatsoever for a year, and no employment in a firm for two years. He was hired as an associate in a 12 lawyer firm which specialized in a mix of labor law and landlord-tenant law. All rather meh for a graduate of Harvard Law School.
And here we see the racism that infects America. Birther once removed here. Obama graduated at the top of his class, Cum Laude (Latin for “With Honors) which meant he carried an A average. (A – as in Accomplished not D – as in Dumbass – The ignorant trolls leaving misinformation on websites) He was president of the Harvard Law Review, and even the Weekly Standard, not a fan of his work, had nothing bad to say about him because friends and even those who weren’t his friends in college loved and respected Obama. http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-real-obama/article/15419
Brian Ross – at the time Obama was a Harvard Law, they selected members for the Law Review to ways, one was faculty picks, and one was popularity picks. Obama was a popularity pick. Now the editor is elected by the members of the Review and after an 8 hour meeting he emerged as editor. He wrote a single unremarkable article for the Review.
So, if Obama was such a hot-shot scholar, why was he not pick by his professors for the Review? And if he was so popular, why did it take 8 hours to get him elected as editor?
I was elected an editor of my law review at U.C. Berkeley (Boalt Hall). Each candidate gave a speech to the members and they voted. It had nothing to do with our academic records, which were not disclosed. I simply focused on my vision for the law review, and practiced my speech until it was memorized. The other candidate for the position read his speech and didn’t seem as though he put that much effort into his preparation. I assume that is why I won, since I didn’t even know many of the students who voted.
Listen to Obama answer a question or speak off teleprompter. The man um’s and ah’s and stammers his way through. It is painful to listen. Then watch a video of someone like Bill Gates answer a question or speak ‘off teleprompter’ and you will see a vast difference between the two. One is a poser, imposter, fraud; the other is a true brainiac.
He did graduate with honors, but not at the top of his class. Again, his scholarly writing over a period of 15 years consisted of one unsigned case note composed when he was a law student. Pretty paltry from a man drawing a law school salary for 12 years.
The case note was what he used to gain admission to law review. Once accepted, he didn’t bother with any legal writing anything after that, even as a so-called “law professor.” Normally, professors must publish scholarly articles in order to keep their jobs, under the well known “publish or perish” standards. But he was a lightweight, affirmative action hire, so the normal academic standards didn’t apply to him.
He was a ‘lecturer’, so not on a tenure track or subject to up-or-out rules. He had no LLM. Still, pretty paltry.
Not quite as spiteful and graceless as Trump.
Not quite as brazen as the Senate’s refusal to consider Obama’s final Supreme Court nomination. Not nearly as brazen as what Republicans did in N. Carolina.
“Many presidents would likely find the move a bit too obstructionist,”
Who did you interview to reach that conclusion?
So true.
Disabling a system intended to keep ALL Americans secure is less brazen than not holding confirmation hearings for a SC nominee? Taking “W”‘s off keyboards is relatively harmless and even I can chuckle at that. But when you mess with national security, that’s a whole new level of “obstructionism” that should make even the most loyal follower cringe.
“Disabling a system intended to keep ALL Americans secure is less brazen than not holding confirmation hearings for a SC nominee?”
The system has not been used in years. So the hand wringing over security seems a bit overwrought.
Not only that, even more intrusive systems that one would assume would be even more effective (see NYC intelligence activities against Muslim communities) are reducing their efforts or being terminated altogether. And it should be noted that these very intrusive efforts to monitor minority communities have some up with naught – a great intrusion with no useful effect.
Every citizen can give a sight of relief and a shout of good riddance!!!
bfm – Obama has not used the system, that does not mean the system should not be used.
“campaign pledges to tighten entry rules and impose greater scrutiny of people coming from Muslim countries”
Unfortunately the solution is not to make Trump’s campaign pledge more difficult but to move it to a framework of monitoring all religious fundamentalists, immigrants and those already in the country. Religious fundamentalism generally, regardless of the specific religion, seems to serve as justification for atrocities.
“… move it to a framework of monitoring all religious fundamentalists, immigrants and those already in the country. Religious fundamentalism generally, regardless of the specific religion, seems to serve as justification for atrocities.”
So now Evangelicals are going to register? What ever will holy-rollers do now that Trump is in office?
Do you think it will start when Trump orders snake-handlers to wear a badge in the form of a yellow cross on their lapel?
Which Evangelical was it that drove a truck into a market of shoppers or gunned down their co-workers at a baby shower or gunned down people having a good time in a nightclub? Sorry, I missed that on the news….
“Which Evangelical was it … ”
According to the post we don’t have to worry about that. The post urges us to ” monitor … all religious fundamentalists …”.
fortunately, in our country we don’t have to worry so much about religious fundamentalist ‘driving a truck into a market of shoppers or gunning down their co-workers at a baby shower or gunning down people having a good time in a nightclub? ‘
The religious fundamentalist in our country have a different pattern of violence. They whip themselves into a frenzy and lynch people or blow up churches, or maybe burn the the churches down.
Nevertheless, I personally do not advocate registering or monitoring religious fundamentalists. Let LE do their job the right way and we will have plenty of people to monitor.
Lets be clear about it, the vast majority of religious fundamentalist are law abiding citizens much like you or me.
And I should know, I have lived among Christians all my life. Many of them are perfectly reasonable people. Many of them are perfectly capable of letting go of their superstitions and having a perfectly rational conversation. Overall my impression of Christians is that many of them are perfectly acceptable. I see absolutely no reason to register Christians for any LE purpose what so ever.
I say that instead of registering all Christians we should leave it to LE to ferret out the violent ones and make charges against those individuals alone.
BFM: re: “The religious fundamentalist in our country have a different pattern of violence. They whip themselves into a frenzy and lynch people or blow up churches, or maybe burn the the churches down.”
When was the last time a lynching happened in this country by a fundie? Or a church being blown up (abortion clinics excepted). Last burning down of a church I heard about was most recently by a black man in MS who pretended it was arson by a Trump supporter
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2016/12/21/mississippi-church-burning/93282352/
The US is a violent country so we have enough internal criminals to deal with who hate (Dylan Roof, abusive cops, etc.) so the last thing I would want is unvetted immigrants.
“(abortion clinics excepted)”
Why would you avoid talking about that. Isn’t that a perfect example of what we are talking about?
BTW, despite the terrible violence of some Christians, I oppose rounding up all Christians or making them register, or setting up intelligence groups to gather information on them.
I think we should try to make friends with Christians and count on the vast majority of them who oppose violence to report unusual or suspicious events to LE.
In a very real sense we are all in this together – opposing violence by the fringe that compose only a very small percent.
The religious fundamentalist in our country have a different pattern of violence. They whip themselves into a frenzy and lynch people or blow up churches, or maybe burn the the churches down.
There hasn’t been a lynching in this country since 1959 (and there were only a scatter between 1946 and 1959). I doubt the views of the perpetrators on Biblical inerrancy have ever been limned.
What is the difference between a Christian and a evangelical? It it the same as a muslim and radical islamist? Are KKK christians? Broad brushes cover unintended areas.
I have not taken a survery, but I am pretty sure most KKK are Christian or lapsed Christian.
Nevertheless it is a mistake to judge most Christians by the actions of a few Christian terrorists.
We really must resists the simple solution of rounding up all Christians or making all Christians register with the Federal government.
We must remember that most Christians are law abiding citizens just like you and me.
Wade Michael Page – Sikh temple massacre – August 5, 2012
Jim David Atkisson – Tennessee Church Shooting – July 27, 2008
Army of God – The bombing of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and repeated bombings of Planned Parenthood and other clinics
Joseph Stack – Suicide attack on the IRS, February 2010
Assassination of Alan Berg by The Order, 1984
And then, of course, you can count any of the thousands of lynchings, cross burnings, businesses, homes, and churches torched by the KKK
You missed it because they’re not front-and-center at Fox News.
You have completely blown your credibility! You cite Joseph Stack, the guy who was having troubles with the IRS, so he flew a small plane into an IRS building in Texas. Are you serious? There is not one word in his manifesto about his religion (if any) nor that of anyone else. I haven’t researched your other citations, because I don’t need to. Your argument is totally flimsy when you have to reach back in history and pull out a handful of a few white Americans who committed political acts of violence and attribute that to Christianity. You’re no different than the Muslims who cite Tim McVeigh as an example of “Christian” violence, when in fact McVeigh was a known atheist. But I suppose your post is worthwhile in showing how few and far between are any acts of violence by Christians, as compared with the non-stop slaughter by Muslims.
http://murderpedia.org/male.A/a/adkisson-jim.htm
The Adkisson case does not apply either. As for Eric Rudolph, he was a complete free radical: an adherent to Christian Identity (a weird heretical sect) who had no formal affiliation anywhere.
He reaches back 30 years and what he pulls up is another Christian Identity adherent. When you haven’t got any decent cards to play…
And then, of course, you can count any of the thousands of lynchings, cross burnings, businesses, homes, and churches torched by the KKK
There weren’t thousands. The 2d incarnation of the KKK was a fad organization which had a five digit membership in 1919, a seven digit membership in 1923, and a five digit membership in 1935. The frequency of lynching was in rapid and continuous decline in this country from 1893 onward, including the period running from 1920 to 1935. There were fewer than 400 lynchings over that time period and the annual toll was declining. The most famous lynching during that era occurred in Marion, Indiana in 1930. The deed was done an ad hoc collection of locals, not by the Klan. Every lynching undertaken between 1877 and 1915 was undertaken by an ad hoc collection of locals.
The practice of lynching came to en end in 1946, more or less. There were only a scatter of cases over the next 13 years. Klavern members committed about 16 political murders between 1954 and 1982, but none had the characteristics of a lynching – the people killed were not criminal suspects, they weren’t killed by mobs making the use of the means of judicial executions, and most were not killed in public places.
Thank you for confirming important information regarding white Christian terrorists.
Speaking of white Christian terrorism we shouldn’t forget the Tulsa race riot of 1921 in which it is estimated approximately 300 AA citizens were murdered (official count: 39), with another 800 casualties admitted to hospitals, approximately 6,000 AA detained, and a large portion of the city devastated. BTW, a commission acting in 2001 determined that survivors of the riot should receive reparations due to the city’s cooperation with the mob.
And more recently, on a smaller scale, we should not forget the young white men in Mississippi who thought it was sport to hunt AA and try to run them over while driving in their pick up truck. They finally killed on and are now doing time for the crime (2015). I suppose we can’t lump these men in as terrorist since they don’t seem to have any political motive – just the racist joy of terrorizing AA citizens.
Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the Christian terrorist, who are using violence for the political purpose of keeping minorities in their place, from the Christian thugs, who are using violence for the simple racist joy of exerting power of minorities.
Still, it is a mistake to require that Christians register or that we deploy special intelligence teams to monitor their communities. Remember the vast majority of Christians oppose white Christian terrorism and violence just like you and me.
Hey Fatso, you forgot to mention all the black “Christians” who get their jollies playing the “Knockout Game” sucker punching unsuspecting white people, including women and the elderly.
“Hey Fatso, you forgot to mention all the black “Christians” who get their jollies playing the “Knockout Game” sucker punching unsuspecting white people, including women and the elderly.”
You are right I did not mention this form of violence. But this does not change the discussion in any way.
Reasonable people like me oppose this pattern of violence just as we oppose white Christian violence.
It is interesting to note that while this form of violence might generate terror in the minds of some individuals, it is not terrorism. This pattern of violence is not terrorism because there is no discernible political objective.
In contrast much, not all but much, of white Christian violence has a very clear political objective. In the past, white Christian violence has had the intention and the effect of keeping minorities in their place, of depriving them of economic influence, or of depriving them of political power. That violence is clearly terrorism.
Tulsa race riot of 1921? Damn, that was just last week!
That massive attack on an entire minority community is not recent. But it demonstrates conclusively that white Christian terrorists are capable of organizing and committing violence while operating in large units.
Much like terrorist movements everywhere, white Christian terrorist broke down and operate in smaller less organized units as they came under pressure from the state – note the actions of the small unit of approximately 18 individuals that took out Schwerner Chaney and Goodman during the Civil Rights Movement.
More recently, under continued pressure, white Christian terrorist have continued to broadcast their message of hate in hopes of motivating lone wolf attacks. And that effort has met with some success in the form of Roof who attacked a minority church and others.
In the past 100 years, white Christian terrorist have followed an almost classic pattern of a terrorist organization under pressure from LE and military. They rose in power and influence to the point they could mount large attacks against entire communities. Under pressure they broke down and continued their attacks in small unites. With their influence waning they still try to influence individuals to carry on their political violence.
The question for us to consider is whether the pressure will continue against white Christian terrorist to eliminate their violence from our society, or will there be wider acceptance of their hatred and violence?
It’s difficult to discern whether the category errors in your gassing here are unintentional or deliberate.
What do you think will happen when the investigators find no evidence of vetting and orders people not guilty of anything out of the country because Obama is destroying classified material for ‘other reasons.’
The only snakes are still found ini power for another 27days and then we can get rid of the war mongers and suipporters of a socialist dictatorship.
Wow. It’s true. Mindless trolls can’t spell. (supporters). Oh! And while we’re at it, ending a program isn’t destroying classified material. Though we should all thank you for your service to this nation: You’ve just demonstrated why the right to vote should accompany, perhaps, a mandatory civics class and, oh, maybe the ability to demonstrate a grasp of reality.
T Jefferson held that the ignorant and/or the uneducated, as voters, would end the American Experiment.
We’ve never had educational qualifications for the suffrage and property and tax qualifications had largely dissipated by the time James Madison died in 1836. We’ve limped along passably.
I am a somewhat religious fundamentalist myself, not of any group that you could readily identify, but I would be okay to extending it to religious or ideological or political extremes..actually they don’t have to be extreme..only anathema to American principles, American jurisprudence or American government. We don’t owe any of these people a rhyme or reason as to why we wish to exclude them, all we need are good reasons why we invite people in.
So by what specific legally defensible criteria would one declare something anathema? Is it akin to porn, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it”?
I don’t own one but would a full-auto Thompson or BAR be anathema? The Feds say I have to be a licensed dealer etc. Whose American principal is at stake here? Many of us Americans say it is our right based on an American principal as we see it.
“Religious fundamentalism generally, regardless of the specific religion, seems to serve as justification for atrocities.”
Doglover, that sounds like a reasonable statement to make, that is until the moment arrives that you need to prove it.
So prove it. What atrocities have been committed in the last 100 years by religious fundamentalists OTHER THAN Islam? Specifically, what atrocities were carried out in the name of a specific religion?
Well, you might try the T’aiping Rebellion. I think the leader of that was the manufacturer of a weird syncretistic sect, so not of much use to people attempting to smear American evangelicals.