Last week the Supreme Court decided that the census may not contain a question on whether a person is a citizen. For many of us who are not lawyers, that seemed an easy decision. The Constitution specifies the enumeration of persons, not citizens, although there is a bit of fudging with respect to Indians and people who don’t count as whole people. Additionally, tapes became available between the time the case was argued and when it was decided saying quite explicitly that the purpose of the question was to exclude certain groups, which meant that the government’s case to the Supreme Court was a lie.
The Justice Department said yesterday that the census forms were being printed without the question. Things seemed settled. And then the President tweeted.
The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2019
A federal judge, George Jarrod Hazel, involved in the enforcement of the decision happened to be on Twitter and caught the tweet. He called a teleconference among the relevant lawyers. The transcript is here, and something of a hoot. It’s relatively short and worth reading, but I’ll excerpt some of the good parts.
So I guess the reason I wanted to have this call, obviously, we had our call — I guess it was yesterday; feels like a while ago, but I think it was yesterday — and then this morning I saw a tweet that got my attention. I don’t know how many federal judges have Twitter accounts, but I happen to be one of them, and I follow the President, and so I saw a tweet that directly contradicted the position that Mr. Gardner [counsel for the government] had shared with me yesterday.
The judge asks
Is the Government going to continue efforts to place a citizenship question on the 2020 census?
MR. GARDNER: Your Honor, this is Mr. Gardner. I want to back up just a step and say that I’ve been with the United States Department of Justice for 16 years, through multiple Administrations, and I’ve always endeavored to be as candid as possible with the Court. What I told the Court yesterday was absolutely my best understanding of the state of affairs and, apparently, also the Commerce Department’s state of affairs, because you probably saw Secretary Ross issued a statement very similar to what I told the Court.
The tweet this morning was the first I had heard of the President’s position on this issue, just like the plaintiffs and Your Honor. I do not have a deeper understanding of what that means at this juncture other than what the President has tweeted. But, obviously, as you can imagine, I am doing my absolute best to figure out what’s going on.
I can tell you that I have confirmed that the Census Bureau is continuing with the process of printing the questionnaire without a citizenship question, and that process has not stopped.
One of the plaintiffs’ lawyers asks for a stipulated order that the printing go ahead without the question and a provision that the defendants not communicate the contrary to the public. Judge Hazel is concerned that they are talking about issuing the order to the President.
From another of the plaintiffs’ lawyers:
The President’s tweet has some of the same effects that the addition of the question would in the first place and some of the same effects on the 18-month battle that was just waged over the citizenship question. It leaves the immigrant communities to believe that the Government is still after information that could endanger them. If you add that to the interview that the President did, sharing that his reason for wanting the citizenship question on the form was so that the Government could distinguish between citizens and illegal aliens and how nonsensical that is, it has the effect of leading the public to believe that the Census is not only after that information but is willing to violate some of the provinces of protection that our plaintiff organizations have been trying to reassure communities about.
So we strongly believe that we’re going to need some affirmative commitment, whether it’s through a stipulation or by order of this Court, an affirmative commitment from the Government to counter misinformation wherever in the Government that it comes from, a commitment that they will respond quickly and comprehensively to that kind of misinformation.
Uh-huh, looks like she’s talking about the President.
Joseph Hunt, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, says that they are looking at a way to come back to the court to justify including the question.
Judge Hazel wants the parties to come back Friday at 2 pm.
I either want a stipulation, as we’ve been discussing, indicating that the citizenship question will not appear on the census, or I want a proposed scheduling order for how we’re going forward on the equal protection claim that’s been remanded to this Court.
And there’s more good stuff. The transcript is definitely worth reading.
I am seeing speculation on Twitter that Trump’s blowup over this decision was the security emergency that caused Vice President Mike Pence to abort his trip to New Hampshire.
Open Thread!
UPDATE: I just noticed that I failed to link the transcript and corrected that. Enjoy!
TenguPhule
I expect the judge to disappointed and quite upset when the government provides neither.
Mary G
Disgusting. He gets bolder and more lawless every day and Republicans will back him to the hilt.
Sloegin
Suspecting Trump badly wants to pull an Andy Jackson and tell the SCOTUS to pound sand. President Nutter Butter doesn’t have any people left around him who will say no.
boatboy_srq
Cue the Reichwing “activist judges” whinge in 5… 4… 3…
NotMax
@Mary G
Old Russian proverb: Durakam zakon ne pisan (yesli pisan, to ne chitan, yesli chitan, to ne ponyat, yesly ponyat, to ne tak).
There is no law written for fools (if it is written, it is not read, if it is read, it is not understood, if it is understood, then in the wrong way).
hueyplong
My favorite part is when the DoJ lawyer “steps back” and summarizes a long career
as a non-shill in an attempt to avoid wrath over the clear bad faith of the United States as directed by the shitgibbon.
ThresherK
Judge Hazel: “You are aware, I hope, that crossing your fingers behind your back has no legal effect.”
boatboy_srq
@Mary G: Makes you wonder what trying an entire political party for crimes against humanity would look like.
geg6
Can some of that lighting from the predicted storms in DC hit the right mark during his vanity parade tomorrow, please?
I’m pissed that I can’t even watch PBS’s Capital Fourth because this fucking asshole ruins absolutely everything.
MagdaInBlack
I was hoping for a post on this, Cheryl. I started seeing reporting on this earlier this afternoon. Thank You.
FelonyGovt
Classic experience of a lawyer who has carefully coached his or her client what to say and what not to say, then the client goes off the reservation, leaving the lawyer stammering in front of the judge.
But I wonder if we celebrated too soon. And the plaintiffs’ lawyer is right, the more this nonsense is publicized, the more people will be afraid to respond, whether or not the question does get added.
feebog
Cheryl, the link to the transcript is not showing up in my feed. Could you please repost?
Cheryl Rofer
Another court decision goes against the Lawbreaker-in-Chief.
TS (the original)
My first read on this was from Wapo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-appears-to-contradict-his-own-administration-on-census-citizenship-question/2019/07/03/b720bb94-9da4-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html?utm_term=.42e044cfb4e6
Cheryl Rofer
@feebog: See my apologetic update in the OP.
TS (the original)
@Cheryl Rofer:
The law doesn’t apply to trump – he just tweets and suddenly everything is fixed as he wanted.
Spanky
@geg6: Small consolation, but the current weather pattern is hot and humid during the day with t-storms rolling in from the northwest around sunset. So my guess is that everything will go off as “planned” except for the fireworks.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mary G:
I used to read stuff about how he’s got frontal lobe dementia or is mentally unstable and is headed towards a breakdown and get hopeful. Then he’d do an interview or pull some stunt and realize, no, he’s just a fucking asshole and dictator wanna be.
But lately I truly believe something serious is finally reaching a crisis level, and with no checks on his erratic behaviors by staffers means he’s working himself towards a total meltdown. Every time he travels he gets more and more disorganized and emotionally labile, and i really think Javanka are there to be his full time-mental health caregivers as much as anything else. My first thought about the Pence plane reversal was that is may very well have been some kind of emergent, desperate attempt to stem yet another potential unmasking of just how sick the Wizard is behind the curtain.
They’re all just pretending right now, hoping for the best. But like all “caregivers”, they’ll eventually burnout and some accident is gonna occur which will prove to the public just how frigging diseased this man’s brain is.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TS (the original):
That’s not what happens
SiubhanDuinne
I am starving for competence. Not even brilliance. Just basic fucking workmanlike competence.
Trump couldn’t find his own ass if you spotted him both hands and a map. Couldn’t organise a two-car funeral if you spotted him the hearse. Couldn’t put together a BLT if you spotted him the B, the L, and the T . . . .
Another Scott
I assume that Commerce and Justice will slow-walk Donnie’s demand to put it on the Census and that it actually will not be on the Census. But they can’t say that, in so many words, to the Judge where Donnie will hear it, so that’s why this happened today.
I also assume that they will try to find some other way to get the citizenship information via the Census Bureau (they’re collecting and analyzing data every day – not just every 10 years). And they’ll try to roll that into the Census as some sort of “technical correction” or something. That’s what I would worry about going forward. And that’s why we have to keep the House, take the Senate, and elect Democrats to the White House and every statehouse that we can. They won’t give up trying to tilt the playing field to their exclusive benefit as long as they’re in power.
But I’m no expert and may very well be wrong.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@geg6:
They haven’t preempted it. I’ve seen promos for it.
Can someone buy this idiot a dictionary? Incorrect and Fake are not synonyms.
Kay
TenguPhule
@boatboy_srq:
We can only hope we get to find out.
HAL
Longing for old time tyranny, like when Michelle Obama wanted kids to eat vegetables.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Adjust your sarcasm detector.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Now we know who still supports Trump.
Frankensteinbeck
@Another Scott:
The lawyer said they’re already printing. Getting the change made now would be a debacle the likes of which DC hasn’t seen until tomorrow.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
Now the multi-million dollar question is did they go to the printer with the illegal question still on the form?
Were they lying then or now?
TenguPhule
This is like watching baby ducks being fed into a wood chipper.
TenguPhule
SMH.
Jackie
@debbie: Not speaking for geg6, but I think she means she won’t watch it because trump is ruining it for her normal enjoyment of watching the 4th celebrations on PBS.
cynthia ackerman
@Mary G:
I am not encouraged that all of this is backing them into a corner.
Kay
You do wonder at what point people get tired of the chaos and incompetence. They use the census to distribute federal funding to schools. The real number of kids are still going to show up, not the imaginary Trump number. I imagine just about every district in a state like Texas will be harmed. They just won’t stop beating themselves over the head. They’re harming themselves at this point and they won’t stop. I don’t know what to do with people like that.
JR
Trump is looking for scapegoats if/when he loses. Just watch, he can and probably will twist this census question into the old republican voter fraud bullshit. It doesn’t matter that it is irrelevant nor does it matter that it is completely irrational. This is who they are.
JPL
@Kay: Well no shit.. When children are in cages in the border how can you feel pride
Cheryl Rofer
Not a good day for the Prez
jimmiraybob
@HAL:
When the first shovel of dirt was turned for the new WH vegetable garden i knowd it was time to buy a tricorn hat and a musket and some powder and some balls. I turned and said to the famly, “it’s time to fight for freedom and liberty and the honor of my country!”
…………is what I imagine the “real Americans” fantasized while standing in line to see Sarah of the North.
Kay
@JPL:
I feel like you can probably measure the level of pride by how many tanks you have to put on a flatbed trailer to show someone or other that it’s “high”.
They’re trying too hard.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
Republican respect for local control extends only to localities controlled by Republicans.
Fair Economist
That should ruin a couple of lawyers’ Fourth of July celebrations.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: Yet more bad news for Donnie on something he really cares about – Twitter:
It’s kinda obvious that Donnie has been interfering with the redevelopment of the FBI headquarters site. Another volume of impeachment charges is going to be filled with that…
Cheers,
Scott.
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott:
You have a macro that types this, don’t you?
NotMax
It will be the show of a lifetime!
Not even in a mayfly’s lifetime.
Chyron HR
@Another Scott:
Oh, no. Big men, big justice department men came to him with tears in their big men eyes, they didn’t even cry when they crushed illegal babies’ skulls, but the big men are crying now, and they said to him “Sir, sir sir sir, sir sir, sir. Sir sir sir sir sir.”
Another Scott
@Steve in the ATL: I should!
And one for “We have to fight them every single day!” also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ella in New Mexico
@Kay: Now Kay, that would be a rational, non-tribal thought process. You know that’s a challenge for the MAGA crowd.
@Another Scott: I
They could just find a way for the follow up, in-person interviewers to squeeze out the question verbally. Not sure if that’s actually legal, though. The Census laws/rules about what they can and cannot ask go beyond anything Trumptsters can manage to implement through executive branch “discretion”.
My hubby had a temporary job as a Special US Census worker in 1987 after getting out of the Navy and I can tell you lots of people are already distrustful and amateur paranoid conspiracy theorists about the way Census information could be used against them, immigration status or not. He had the door slammed in his face every day by people worried the government was intruding on their privacy or that someone would find out they had renters in their guest house or were clearly doing illegal shit in their garages, as well as because they were undocumented and suspected he’d call Immigration on them. He also met a lot of really nice and kind people but dang, it was an emotionally rough temp job.
I feel so sorry for the folks who’ll be doing the follow up work next year.
NotMax
#44: Wrong thread and blockquote fail.
Le sigh.
bbleh
@TenguPhule: @ThresherK: Lol. I suspect the judge knows perfectly well that he will be disappointed. This whole thing was an exercise in everyone — very much including the DOJ lawyers — avoiding talking about the dead elephant in the living room.
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer: Late to this thread, Cheryl.
Thanks for all you do around here. Your contributions to Balloon Juice are much appreciated. Have a nice 4th.
Cheryl Rofer
@Quinerly: Thanks, Quinerly! You have a nice holiday too!
Ruckus
@Ella in New Mexico:
I pretty much agree with your take.
I’ve had to deal with people in early and late stage Alzheimer’s and in non Alzheimer’s dementia and as a non medical person I’d say that he’s absolutely decompensating. And interesting bit from Wikipedia
Chetan Murthy
@JPL:
No artist I, but I sure would buy (and wear EVERYWHERE) a t-shirt with “SHAME” in red, white, and blue, perhaps with a little dripping down, onto a picture of these camps, or (shudder) a tastefully-done editorial-cartoon version of the poor dead father and his daughter.
Mayim
As a genealogist, I know that citizenship questions of various wordings have been asked on the US census for much of the last two centuries.
But there’s no way I want this administration to have that current data ~ and I certainly do NOT trust the current administration to respect the privacy laws/regulations around census information that were enacted after WWII and the use of some aggregate data about heavily Japanese-American neighborhoods.
Mike in NC
This is what happens when you give power to a 74-year-old man-baby who’s never been told NO in his entire rotten, entitled life.
Ruckus
@Kay:
That’s easy.
Faux News.
It is destroying the fabric of life in a democracy, even a representative one. They aren’t the only ones trying, just in case you were thinking that I was giving them full responsibility. The republican party is at fault, Faux News is just one of their mouthpieces and enablers.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Or, they’re already printing the forms with the citizenship question and if they get a court order otherwise, they’ll just do the Jackson thing. See which dotted line on the org chart the U. S. Marshals will obey–and, after all, there’s no time to reprint the forms without the question. If it sticks, that establishes that they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and there is no law.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
It does seem to get more ridiculous each day…….
Steve in the ATL
@jimmiraybob: as I recall, back in 1776 only 3% of Americans stood up to the tyranny of vegetable gardening
AThornton
@Ella in New Mexico:
I’ll bet a goodly amount of virtual lollipops Trump has brain damage from cocaine abuse to go along with the – completely obvious – NPD.
TS (the original)
@Mayim:
Also as a genealogist I know that many of my families lied in answer to these questions. Back then many immigrants were not treated well. Some things stay the same forever.
Ella in New Mexico
@Ruckus:
Also, it’s well documented in the literature that people with pre-existing mental/neurological disorders (in Trump’s case, NPD, and Bipolar Disorder, I strongly suspect by his history) have brains that are already damaged and weakened by their illnesses, and are much more susceptible to dementia later in life, often at an earlier age than their peers without those disorders.
I just keep hoping that 73 is old enough for him to so fully manifest this that it simply cannot be denied anymore.
Patricia Kayden
Ha!
https://twitter.com/chbooksdc/status/1146423970960482305
I detect no lies.
Mandalay
@HAL:
I was disappointed to hear from some pundit the other day that one of the first things Trump did in office was to get rid of the vegetable garden. But apparently that was complete BS, and the First Lady is a fan:
Obviously Mrs. T. can’t ever mention the vegetable garden in public because black reasons, but … plant a seed and watch it grow.
geg6
@debbie:
But I cannot watch it. If I even glimpse him, my day is ruined. Completely.
plato
“Checks and balances”. What a joke.
Another Scott
@Patricia Kayden: Good for them.
(Don’t read the comments… :-/)
Cheers,
Scott.
SFAW
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, I was thinking there’s a non-zero probability of that being the case.
But as I was told countless times between mid-2016 and January, 2017, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell will rein him in when he goes too far.
plato
@Patricia Kayden: Ouch. LOL. Touché
rikyrah
Dessalines (@Kiriende) Tweeted:
Millions of people who grew up in the DC area have memories of going down to the Washington Mall to watch the fireworks on the 4th. It’s about family, country, and memories. The crowd is diverse and apolitical. Trump is about the turn that tradition into a Klan rally. https://twitter.com/Kiriende/status/1146582608425472000?s=17
plato
That particular shitshow lasted for what, 24 hours?
Ella in New Mexico
@AThornton:
Oh HELL yeah. That is incredibly likely, and combined with Bipolar II it would have driven his aggressive, rapey sexual behaviors.
Also, in my experience, when people stop using after being heavily into it and other stimulants, they can really struggle with attention, focus, sleep, cognition, and complex thinking, kind of a secondary form of ADD. It would explain a whole lot about how he behaves not.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: “They” – the people in the trenches – work in Suitland, MD:
Suitland is in PG county, in 2010 Suitland was ~ 92% African American. PG county is the richest African American county in the USA.
I seriously doubt that people who work there, who swear an oath to the Constitution like all federal workers, who can read the news like all the rest of us, will roll over and put an illegal question on the Census.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
plato
Finally some common sense.
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott: you left out “Grr…”
Mandalay
While suggestions here about dementia and lawlessness may be valid, Trump is simply making a very smart political move. His tweet is deliberately vague but assertive (“We are absolutely moving forward…“), and he knows that he has very strong public support on the issue:
He wins the political argument whatever the courts say, and it is a great wedge issue for him during the campaign.
Ruckus
@Ella in New Mexico:
For the average person that’s pretty much what happens. However this ass is far less than average. He has people that are willing to lie, cheat and yes steal for a lot less than the presidency. They’ve got one of their own sitting on his gold painted throne. And they have no problem protecting him. I mean how would it look if he was declared unstable by one of them or an actual doctor?
Cheryl Rofer
@plato: This is pretty typical for North Korea. The BBC piece doesn’t really get at it, but a big part of this is that North Korea is trying to drive a wedge between Trump and his advisors. I’d dig up the letter itself, but it’s the end of the day and I’m tired.
Another Scott
@Steve in the ATL: I’m having trouble with the macro.
Let’s see…
⍎’⎕’,∊N⍴⊂S←’←⎕←(3=T)∨M∧2=T←⊃+/(V⌽¨⊂M),(V⊖¨⊂M),(V,⌽V)⌽¨(V,V←1 ¯1)⊖¨⊂M’
Workee?
Cheers,
Scott.
VOR
Even if Trump defies a clear Supreme Court decision, he knows there is no way he would be impeached. The Republicans are such cowards and will absolutely put Party over country. Even if Trump left office they would still live in fear of a tweet summoning the deplorables. Trump has to be discredited, not just dismissed.
Back in 2008 McCain had the slogan “country over party”. They thought it was an attack on Obama, but I saw it as pure sarcasm since nobody on the Republican side was putting country over party, not even St. McCain.
Ella in New Mexico
@Another Scott:
I felt the same way until I started looking at the commenters profiles…LOTS of trolls botting under that post.
debbie
@geg6:
But Carole King assures me you can watch safely!
Another Scott
@Mandalay: Yeah and something like 92% want mandatory background checks for gun purchases. That and $10 will get one lunch at Wendy’s.
People are polarized about Donnie. His tweets aren’t changing any minds or driving up prospective turnout.
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@plato:
Good. Now charge the woman with the damn gun. ?
Ella in New Mexico
@Ruckus:
Yes, that IS a problem.
Can we pray the DC Press Corp finally catches him on camera taking his daily shit in the Michelle Obama Vegetable Garden?
Chetan Murthy
@plato: Heh, Li’l Kim read _The Art of the Deal_! Get the other guy to give up whatever he is able; then kick over the table to start the negotiation again from these (now new) starting-positions! It’s just like how Shitler stiffs contractors!
Ha!
Mandalay
@Another Scott:
Assumes facts not in evidence. While his plan may be unpopular here on BJ, he already has 52% of Democrats agreeing with him on this issue.
Just because you and I think it sucks doesn’t mean everyone does.
Mike in NC
@plato: Fat Bastard will schedule three more summits with Lil Kim and have squat to show for it in the end. What a fucking maroon.
Another Scott
@Mandalay: So some non-trivial number of Democrats are going to vote for Donnie because of a Census question? You really believe that?
Cheers,
Scott.
The Lodger
@Patricia Kayden: No lies? You must have skipped the comments.
Mandalay
@plato:
Sadly no. The only reason the charges were dropped because some lawyer who had nothing to do with the case had the temerity to point out that the charge made against the pregnant woman was explicitly not allowed under Alabama law:
So common sense didn’t come into it. The only question is whether the DA’s office was pulling a fast one until they got caught, or was hopelessly incompetent. I suppose “both” is a third possibility.
Mandalay
@Another Scott:
I didn’t say that; knock it off with your straw man bullshit. But Trump has the podium and he has very strong public support for his position, including 63% of independents.
If you honestly can’t see that as a potential problem for his Democratic opponent I really can’t help you.
plato
@Cheryl Rofer: What advisors? All the dumbfuck has around him are asskissers, toadies and grifters.
plato
@Another Scott: You left out the square root.
plato
plato
@Mandalay:
Another Scott
@Mandalay: 90% support background checks for gun purchases. So, therefore, Republicans would never get elected without supporting background checks for gun purchases.
It’s just logic.
In Mandalay’s world, anyway.
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Another Scott: I’d bet a tidy sum that most of the people polled don’t actually understand the purpose of the Decennial Census, nor the constitutional requirements it must adhere to. And that at least Dems, once educated, would change their opinion pretty firmly. After all, we’re the ones who, when the facts change, change our minds.
MoCA Ace
Justice?
mad citizen
Stephen Colbert: “It is a well known fact that reality has liberal bias.”
plato
J R in WV
@Ella in New Mexico:
I think a day like tomorrow, for a guy like Trump, hot, humid, still, with stuff going wrong, like sparse attendance obvious to even Trump, he may well have a lot of trouble delivering even his standard racist-fascist stump speech, let alone sticking to the speech written for him to deliver on July 4th.
Is it too much to hope for that he breaks down and is unable to speak coherently at all? It has to happen eventually, I just hope it’s on live TV for all to see.
mad citizen
I know it’s fun to speculate on the dude’s mental decline, but I thought he’s been giving interviews lately–wasn’t he on Tucker Carlson the other night? I try to stay away from consuming any of his recordings for more than a few seconds, but I have to presume he’s been sounding pretty much the same as ever.
Baud
@plato:
Those numbers are heartening.
jl
Some commenters above said the citizenship question appeared regularly on the census. But that’s a matter of opinion, I think.
The questions was asked on the census itself, for everyone, in 9 out of the 23 decennial censuses. First in 1820, then in 1830 and from 1880 to 1950. I don’t think it can be called a regular feature.
And for the obsession with ‘what would the Founders do?’ bunch, a citizenship question was not on the first three censuses, 1790 to 1810. So, I guess they understood the primary purpose of the census is to count persons.
And… just heard a news report on rumors that Trump thinks he can over rule SCOTUS on census with an executive order. I don’t know how that would work. Looks like Trumpsters cannot manage or be bothered to come up with a cover story that will satisfy a friendly SCOTUS.
Baud
@plato:
I assume she also points out when she was wrong.
Jay
@Mandalay:
He’s a dumbfuck Christofacist Misogynist and it’s not the first time he’s pulled this sort of bs.
Pleasant Grove Police Lt. Danny Reid.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/beta.canada.com/news/world/you-have-to-go-by-the-law-alabama-defends-arrest-of-woman-whose-fetus-died-in-shooting/wcm/94c88056-1cd3-43a0-816c-3cb2d70da79c/amp/
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy: The questions seem designed to put people in two camps. (78 page .pdf)
p. 13 Top issues facing the country:
Immigration (!) 42%
Health Care 38%
Terrorism / National Security 23%
Economy and Jobs 22%
Environment / Climate Change 20%
Insane Russian Puppet Destroying the Federal Government 0% (not asked)
What does “Immigration” mean in the context of holding children in cages, ignoring laws about asylum, and all the rest?? Someone who wants to turn the Rio Grande into a moat and someone who wants Donnie to stop torturing people and obey the law could both pick “Immigration” but mean completely different things by it.
p. 67 – “Do you think U.S. immigration authorities have done a good job, fair job, or poor job dealing with children of illegal immigrants in custody?”
WTF??! How about “Behaving like fascist monsters”? Shouldn’t that be a choice?
(sigh)
Polls should be specific and not nebulous. Harris polls seem particularly bad about things like this.
Etc.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
jimmiraybob
@Ruckus:
Could a particularly severe delusional episode cause a vice president to divert from plans to return to the WH? You know, because panic.
Jay
@plato:
After the Serena Williams mess, they’ve decided they need a Brand Aid to bring Wimbledon into the 1970’s.
plato
@Baud: Of all the pundits out there, she is the one who is/has been more right than wrong. Also, too, not seeing how tonya harding someone who is clearly on our side and someone who has been bravely taking on the thug and his thug minions on teevee helps us.
Baud
@plato:
I don’t follow her but I recall her saying some dumb things early on. If I’m mistaken, I apologize to her.
john fremont
@HAL: And President Obama decreed we use our tire pressure gauges
schrodingers_cat
@jl: CIS is a known anti-immigrant hate group according to SPLC why are you linking to their website?
joel hanes
@mad citizen:
I have to presume he’s been sounding pretty much the same as ever
In my judgement, he’s much less coherent than he was in 2017.
Much.
Steve in the ATL
@plato: of all the pundits in all the Twitter feeds on all the Internet, she shows up on mine.
jl
@schrodingers_cat: I did not know that. Sorry.
Here is a list from pbs
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/23/630562915/see-200-years-of-twists-and-turns-of-census-citizenship-questions
Edit: Apparently too late to request deletion. Maybe a frontpager will see and see my request to delete it.
Cheryl Rofer
@jl: Deleted
Honus
@TenguPhule: the judge will get on or the other or there will be some very sore DOJ attorneys. Its much harder for a practicing lawyer to stiff a federal judge to his face than to ignore congress.