These aren't people.

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Xmo1, May 17, 2018.

  1. Xmo1 Registered Senior Member

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    USA Today "Trump ramps up rhetoric on undocumented immigrants: 'These aren't people. These are animals.'"
    Don: Read the sign: the sign to resign.

    Not sure if this is hyped out of context click bait, which I wouldn't expect from USA Today, the President is losing it, or something else. I'm not reading the article. I'll watch it on the 24/7 news. Unbelievable.
     
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  3. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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  5. Xmo1 Registered Senior Member

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    I see they changed the headline in Ggl News. So it was click bait. Still, we know the reason for gangs primarily is a fight for resources, especially money. Maybe if the focus was to take care of people there would be fewer people in gangs. I guess it's easier and cheaper for the upper class just to label them, and brush them off as animals.
     
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  7. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not sure that's an entirely fair judgment. The country is founded on personal independence; it's not like they can just go around deciding what people need and then make them take it. The American government and policy is not meant to be socialist.
     
  8. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    how do the political right define "taxation" & paying of government officials & departments ?
    (i am not asking you to resolve thier issues LoL ! just asking if you comprehend the supposed logical middle ground of the premis that some elude to as a wholey capitalist system... per say...)
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Like salvation and believers, there are at least as many theses on justifying governance according to the thesis that government doesn't work as there are conservatives in these United States. Some days, more, as enough conservatives might have the sort of now and then when they can't make up their minds.
     
  10. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    I just mean there is a bit of a gap between 'let's make fewer people in gangs' and actually making policy that makes that happen. It's not like a one-shot solution.

    I am pretty confident there is no practical way to eliminate gangs merely by providing a virtually limitless list of resources.
     
  11. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    soo... moving forward(generic MSM political labels that the masses choose to acclimate to)... would you define a gang as capitalist or socialist or facist ?
     
  12. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    do you think the conservatives would be able to run an entire country full of conservatives and still have it a liberal democracy that allows them to have an opinion & thier chosen life style ?
     
  13. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Eventually. It's all a matter of definitions. They could, as such, literally install a new Reich and kill everyone who publicly disagrees with them, whereupon they can call the society whatever they like, liberal democracy or otherwise.

    Redefinition is an American tradition.

    Well, okay, it's a human neurotic tendency. But the American tradition in this range is, well, rather quite American. Watch what we do with Christianity.

    • • •​

    Well, if you go by the opinion column penned by the assistant editor of a right wing hype site, I suppose so. If you go by what the President actually said↱, Hashmi's histrionics are a bit overdone.
     
  14. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    No supposing. The video/transcript has the words spoken by the woman asking the question. That's the actual context.

    So ... you agree.
     
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  15. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    None of the above. non sequitur straw man.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2018
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    I think you're ignoring the President's words, as well as some other related considerations.

    We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in—and we're stopping a lot of them—but we're taking people out of the country. You wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals. And we're taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that's never happened before. And because of the weak laws, they come in fast, we get them, we release them, we get them again, we bring them out. It's crazy.

    He's not actually talking about Sheriff Mims' talking point. Her talking point is that ICE should be helping local enforcement shake down suspected Hispanics.

    Donald Trump is talking about, "people coming into the country". And we're not going to ignore what he said about who is coming from Mexico.

    The thing about Donald Trump is that he doesn't stick to his talking points. The number of counterintuitive presuppositions we have to make on behalf of Hashmi's self-righteous freak-out is problematic.

    No. I don't agree efforts to license the dehumanization of foreigners.

    Read Amendment XIV §1↱:

    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

    Notice how the Citizenship Clause and Privileges and Immunities Clause refer to citizens, but the Equal Protection Clause specifies person.

    That's why it's important when a President of the United States calls anyone "animals".

    And we already know why:

    Between October 2016 and December 2017, he said, the agency was unable to locate almost 1,500 out of the 7,635 minors that it attempted to reach—or about 19 percent. Over two dozen had run away, according to Wagner, who said the agency did not have the capacity to track them down.

    (Miller↱)

    And there is more of that to come; as Chief of Staff John Kelly explained to NPR↱:

    Are you in favor of this new move announced by the attorney general early this week that if you cross the border illegally even if you're a mother with your children [we're going] to arrest you? We're going to prosecute you, we're going to send your kids to a juvenile shelter?

    The name of the game to a large degree. Let me step back and tell you that the vast majority of the people that move illegally into United States are not bad people. They're not criminals. They're not MS-13. Some of them are not. But they're also not people that would easily assimilate into the United States into our modern society. They're overwhelmingly rural people in the countries they come from – fourth, fifth, sixth grade educations are kind of the norm. They don't speak English, obviously that's a big thing. They don't speak English. They don't integrate well, they don't have skills. They're not bad people. They're coming here for a reason. And I sympathize with the reason. But the laws are the laws. But a big name of the game is deterrence.

    Family separation stands as a pretty tough deterrent.

    It could be a tough deterrent—would be a tough deterrent. A much faster turnaround on asylum seekers.

    Even though people say that's cruel and heartless to take a mother away from her children?

    I wouldn't put it quite that way. The children will be taken care of—put into foster care or whatever. But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.

    That "whatever" is resonating; from Miller's article for Frontline:

    Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) pressed Wagner on why more than half of unaccompanied minors in 2017 did not show up to their immigration hearings. When asked how HHS tracks the missing children, Wagner said that finding out whether children have attended their immigration hearing is not part of its protocol.

    “We do not know who is showing up and who isn't,” he said. “We don't know those kids … We don't follow up to ensure they go to the hearing.”

    The thing is that you or I have to decide how much of a vacuum we intend to maintain around any circumstance we are examining. I am not joking, for instance, about President Trump and talking points. Sheriff Mims took her time setting him up with a very pointed question; Trump had every reason to answer on point. The laws she is denouncing, that she and the president call a disgrace, are pretty straightforward human rights laws arising in response to widespread allegations of abusees by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The President should have stuck to his talking points, but instead, went for a red-meat response that was less than half the length of the question. Instead of hammering on California, which was the point of Mims' setup, he went after "people coming into the country", and then stammered his way into dangerous hyperbole.

    It is, to the other, true enough that Donald Trump is an imbecile who cannot speak properly, which, after Dubya, ought to mean something in and of itself as far as Republicans are concerned, but for our purposes it's enough to note how much Hashmi↱ needs to leave out in order to manufacture such self-righteous messaging:

    And if you still take issue with the fact that Trump called MS-13 "animals," then do a quick Google search on MS-13 and the crimes they've committed. Given their brutality, you might even come to the conclusion that calling them "animals" is a generous characterization.

    That kind of talk might be well enough for some in low colloquial settings, but when one sworn to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" starts handing out excuses for the states to leave suspected Hispanics out of Equal Protection, there is a problem.

    Even if we constrain ourselves to Hashmi's vacuum, there is still the point of justifying dehumanization, so he's pretty much embarrassing himself.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Hashmi, Siraj. "It was MS-13 Trump called 'animals;' not undocumented immigrants". Washington Examiner. 16 May 2018. WashingtonExaminer.com. 17 May 2018. https://washex.am/2KuH48c

    Miller, Leila. "HHS Official Says Agency Lost Track of Nearly 1,500 Unaccompanied Minors". PBS. 26 April 2018. PBS.org. 16 May 2018. https://to.pbs.org/2k1J5O0

    National Public Radio. "Transcript: White House Chief Of Staff John Kelly's Interview With NPR". 11 May 2018. NPR.org. 16 May 2018. https://n.pr/2rKG8G0

    The White House. "Remarks by President Trump at a California Sanctuary State Roundtable". 16 May 2018. http://bit.ly/2rNuAAR

    U.S. Constitution. 1992. Law.Cornell.edu. 16 May 2018. http://bit.ly/2r9FFNM
     
  17. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    What he's talking about is a matter of interpretation.
    But it definitely cannot be judged accurately without knowing the context. That allows readers to decide for themselves how to interpret his comments.
     
  18. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Agree. If that's the interpretation you prefer.

    If he's talking about vicious gangs being animals, then it's really just more of Trump going hyperbolic.

    I'm not condoning it, I'm simply separating out sensationalist and misleading headlines from facts.
     
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    "Without knowing the context"?

    Okay: What questions of context have you?

    We have the transcript. We have the history. We have the screeching diva retort from the associate editor of a conservative hype site.

    Consider, please, as a question of rhetorical form and argumentation, making such an assured statement↑

    —yet offering up histrionics and hyperbole, e.g., Hashmi, as a supporting case, such that you're falling back to stages of vagary, about matters of interpretation; well, okay, we do appear to have arrived at a particular intersection but seem to describe it differently.

    The press is interpreting Donald Trump according to the accrued weight of history; this is, of course, interpretive of diverse aspects. While it is certainly possible to imagine constructions whereby "he was actually referring to the criminal group MS-13", but none of them achieve any function reflecting your assured declaration or Hashmi's screech; the best we can afford President Trump on this occasion is splitting hairs between gaslighting or exceptionally lazy two-bitting, whereby his incompetence somehow justifies him. I suppose we can also include considerations of incompetency, but that is a standing concern, Hashmi did not account for it, and it does not preclude the prospect of Trump changing the subject, i.e., not actually talking about Sheriff Mims' talking point.

    Yes, the press, generally and particularly, does take some risk with their own confidence; it's hard to explain the advice, except that they should remember the markets they work, and be very careful about undertaking vectors that require more than one cable-news segment on a punditry program in order to explain. And, honestly, if Frank Rich, or some such, ever undertakes to explain it, there is always a question of whether anyone can do so efficiently, but even still, if it's Frank Rich, who among the readers who stay to the end, or, at least, skim all the way through, won't be nodding along as they go?

    (Note aside: Don't you just love revising sentences and then failing to finish the revision? It's true, I don't agree [with] efforts to license the dehumanization of foreigners.)​

    Oh, right:

    As it turns out, while I'm refilling my coffee cup, Dubya administration aide Elise Jordan is on Andrea Mitchell's show trying a more modest version of Hashmi's argument, and what stands out, still, as she talks about machetes and brutality, is that the President did, in fact, choose the word, "people".

    You might have noted in the passing news how, from time to time, some discussion of how Donald Trump's own words↱ are held against his presidential administration in courts of law. This is one of those, and it is really, really severe.

    Consider, please, this very week—indeed, the day before Sheriff Mims' t-ball setup—via Slate↱:

    On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez shot down the federal government's efforts to strip Daniel Ramirez Medina of his DACA status. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement had arrested and detained Ramirez last year, then falsely claimed that he was affiliated with a gang and attempted to deport him. He filed suit, alleging that ICE had violated his due process rights. Martinez agreed. His order barred the federal government from voiding Ramirez's DACA status, safeguarding his ability to live and work in the United States legally for the foreseeable future. What may be most remarkable about Martinez's decision, though, is its blunt repudiation of ICE's main claim—that Ramirez is "gang-affiliated." The judge did not simply rule against ICE. He accused the agency of lying to a court of law.

    What Mims is referring to is a jurisdictional question that comes up from time to time. Recall Sheriff Mims'↱ words:

    And it was perfect—because we didn't have to take our time, with our staff, to do anything. ICE was in there doing their work in a safe, controlled, environment. And then, the initiatives started happening—the TRUST Act, the TRUTH Act, and finally, SB 54, the Values Act. And that is causing us all kinds of turmoil ....

    .... We had a great relationship; we still do. But now ICE is the only law enforcement agency that cannot use our databases to find the bad guys. They cannot come in and talk to people in our jail, unless they reach a certain threshold. They can't do all kinds of things that other law enforcement agencies can do. And it's really put us in a very bad position.

    That certain threshold is probable cause; as we see in the case out of Seattle, it is easy enoguh to wonder at phrases like, "doing their work in a safe, controlled environment".

    (No, really, it sounds kind of like, "There I was, just mindin' my own business like any other law-abiding citizen when, all of a sudden ...". Oh, did I say kind of? I meant, it really, really sounds like that.)​

    "There could be an MS-13 member I know about," Mims complains, "if they don't reach a certain threshold, I cannot tell ICE about it." Everything about the statement reeks. What does it mean that she knows about someone? What is that certain threshold compared to reasonable probable cause? What does she mean she cannot tell ICE about it? Those are all questions arising from her political statement. And as we learn from the Slate report:

    [Judge Ricardo S.] incensed by the agency's lies. ICE's "conclusory findings," he wrote, have "been contradicted by experts and other evidence." The government "produced no evidence" to contradict multiple experts' testimony discrediting ICE's bizarre interpretation of Ramirez's tattoo. And its claims are "completely contradictory to the government's own previous findings after extensive background checks that were meant to uncover evidence of 'known or suspected gang association.'"

    "Most troubling to the Court," Martinez continued, "is the continued assertion that Mr. Ramirez is gang-affiliated, despite providing no evidence specific to Mr. Ramirez to the Immigration Court in connection with his administrative proceedings, and offering no evidence to this Court to support its assertions four months later."

    Martinez concluded that ICE had violated Ramirez's rights by depriving him of "his constitutionally protected liberty and property interests without due process of law." The judge also found that ICE had violated federal law by stripping Ramirez of his DACA status in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner without any "rational explanation for its decision." Accordingly, he barred the government from terminating Ramirez's DACA benefits, shielding his right to continue living and working in the U.S. And he prohibited the government from "asserting, adopting, or relying in any proceedings on any statement or record … purporting to allege or establish that Mr. Ramirez is a gang member, gang affiliated, or a threat to public safety." In other words, he ordered ICE to stop lying.

    As a matter of comparative history, it seems worth suggesting that once upon a time, Sheriff Mims' words were not so much absolutely extremist, but, rather, the sort of thing acknowledged in close company but not spoken aloud in public. And it is worth considering this, I think, because even with that kind of carefully prepared setup, Donald Trump still went and did something else, and in doing so, in playing to his base instead of simply being president, he actually handed a law enforcement official explicitly bound by the Equal Protection Clause not only the kind of rhetoric the courts are holding against the federal government, but, in this particular episode, what amounts to cover for disqualifying suspected Hispanics from personhood and therefore human and civil rights including the equal protection of the laws.

    And as an argumentative consideration, there is a posture that interprets diverse aspects of accrued history, but it is never quite clear what anyone is supposed to say about the posture that would overlook that history while saying things like you have:

    "What he's talking about is a matter of interpretation."

    "But it definitely cannot be judged accurately without knowing the context."

    Yes, indeed, we have that evidence.

    "I'm not condoning it, I'm simply separating out sensationalist and misleading headlines from facts."

    By constricting and thereby distorting context. That is to say, you don't condone it, but would help it by defeating your own stated purpose.
    ___________________

    Notes:

    Benen, Steve. "Trump's own words are again used against him in court". msnbc. 30 March 2018. msnbc.com. 17 May 2018. https://on.msnbc.com/2IsfkAp

    Stern, Mark Joseph. "Bad Liars". Slate. 16 May 2018. Slate.com. 17 May 2018. https://slate.me/2Iu9oLC

    The White House. "Remarks by President Trump at a California Sanctuary State Roundtable". 16 May 2018. http://bit.ly/2rNuAAR
     
  20. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    I don't have questions of context because I looked past the article to see what he was saying it about. I doubt casual readers did.

    I'm simply saying that the original article did not bother to include the quote in-context, so the article seemed more sensational than it is.

    It would be sensational if Trump really did say that about all immigrants. It's not really very sensational for Trump to have said that in the context of a question about MS-13.

    I'm not defending Trump; I'm simply defending truth in journalism.
     
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  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, it is. Unless you have decided to regard that kind of talk as not sensational, from a President.
    Granted such headlines could be reserved for the really serious stuff only (like if he had said half of MS-13 was deplorable), but the minor league talk radio stuff that only affects gang members, their families, their friends, their communities, and anyone who looks like them to a street cop anywhere in the US, is still kind of striking from a President.
     
  22. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    From Trump, it's business as usual.
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    No, that's not what you're doing.

    Sure, there are a lot of things you might be doing, and no, they need not be horrible; "defending truth in journalism", however, ain't on the list.

    Opinion-column hyperdrama↑, and fallacies of omission↑ do not a defense of any truth make, except perhaps the truth you hold self-evident according to your outlook.

    What I actually find striking, as the news cycle and social media commentary evolve, is that the critique against the press is so rigid and immobile.

    Consider, please, as to questions of truth: As I said, if you go by the opinion column penned by vested interest, then your interpretation is correct; if you go by what the President actually said, then that opinion column is overdone.

    Here is your argument:

    "No supposing. The video/transcript has the words spoken by the woman asking the question. That's the actual context." — One question that arises is whether this is circumstantially exceptional or more of a general principle; to wit, there arises a question whether everyone else sets Donald Trump's context for him regardless of what he actually says.

    "So ... you agree." — In addition to representing something of a false dichontomy, it seems a curious expression of priority. After all, our consideration next tacks away from definitive assertions and dualistic constructs.​

    "What he's talking about is a matter of interpretation." — Well, okay, but looking back to your previous assertion, "no supposing", the tack to interpretive questions is a lot less definitive. You are, in fact, making a very straightforward observation, but what of your own "interpretation" according to what Sheriff Mims says? Well, right:

    "But it definitely cannot be judged accurately without knowing the context." — What really stands out about this point is that you started by lopping out a lot of context.

    "That allows readers to decide for themselves how to interpret his comments." — It's just a weird conversation, Dave. In essence:

    D: Checking the larger context, he was actually referring to [____].

    T: If you go by the hype, sure. If you go by what he actually said, the hype is overdone.

    D: No supposing. The context is established by the woman asking him the question. (So, you agree?)

    T: I think you're ignoring his words, as well as some other related considerations. (The thing is that you or I have to decide how much of a vacuum we intend to maintain around any circumstance we are examining.)

    D: What he's talking about is a matter of interpretation. But it definitely cannot be judged accurately without knowing the context. That allows readers to decide for themselves how to interpret his comments.

    Notice how you moved through that portion from a very definitive assertion to trying to carry the banner on interpretation and context. So it continues, again, in essence:

    T: "Without knowing the context?" Okay, what questions of context? We have the transcript, the history, and the political retort.

    D: I don't have questions of context because I looked past the article to see what he was saying it about. I doubt casual readers did. I'm simply saying that the original article did not bother to include the quote in-context, so the article seemed more sensational than it is.

    It's always weird when someone raises a fuss, and we might ask, "Okay, so, what's wrong?" and they respond, "Oh, I don't have a problem. Somebody else might." There's always this moment of, "He's fucking with us, isn't he?"

    The little mad face, toward the end, is ... okay, (¡chortle!) At some point it seems you're simply upset the press didn't interpret Donald Trump the way you want them to.

    As I said: The press is interpreting Donald Trump according to the accrued weight of history; this is, of course, interpretive of diverse aspects. And where you end, that you don't have questions but are instead merely concerned for people who aren't as smart as you are, is a far cry from your constricted interpretation—

    "No supposing. The video/transcript has the words spoken by the woman asking the question. That's the actual context."

    —that would in fact, refuse to look past the political retort aiming to constrict context and thus interpretation.

    And we do come back to the question of priority, and that little mad face really does make its point. Consider, please:

    • lazy two-bitting

    • the press, generally and particularly, does take some risk with their own confidence​

    Right there is what is going on. Donald Trump was his lazy, irresponsible self, and the press seized on the opportunity; as you have made clear, it can be a difficult discussion if one is already predisposed against the press and willing to invest Donald Trump's credibility in someone else entirely. Your worry seems entirely self-inflicted: If you don't have questions of context because you looked past the article to see what he was saying it about, but doubt casual readers did, then the larger questions of the accrued weight of history—you know, the other related considerations I mentioned?—establishing context are conveyed to those more casual readers. And if you really want to dive into it, the press is going to win this argument on points; the challenge, as I noted, the risk the press takes with such confident assertions of reportage, is whether the market will pay attention through the explanation.

    If you want to talk about truth in journalism, that's it in a nutsack, this time. Nutshell. Sorry. Nutshell.

    But where you're whiffing has to do with your priority: Truth in journalism, so you started with Hashmi. Seriously. C'mon. That's not fooling anyone, Dave, except maybe the casual reader who doesn't look beyond the screeching political retort you offered.

    Even still, there is also this:

    A couple things go here: Yes, actually he did. That's the thing. When he two-bitted for the base instead of actually addressing the most blatant setup the Sheriff could have offered him, he didn't mention gangs or criminals, but people, and as I've noted, he has already made clear what he thinks of the people coming to our southern border. I recognize, Dave, that for whatever reason it's really, really important to you that he did not say what he said, but look at the knots you just tied yourself into on that count. The contrast between your constriction of and then appeal unto context is striking.

    And there is also this:

    • Amendment XIV obliges the states to Equal Protection of the Laws for all persons in the state.

    • Sheriff Mims, while a county official, has authority vested by the State, and, in turn, when her county office requires prosecution of a suspect, that prosecution is carried out by and under the explicit rubric of the State.

    • The President of the United States has sworn an oath to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution.

    • Limiting ourselves to the question of MS-13, the sworn defender of the Constitution has just told a state official the people they're throwing out at record rates aren't people, but animals; if they are not people, then the States have no obligation to observe and respect their Equal Protection.

    ↳ The President of the United States has tergiversated°.​

    If it is not very sensational, that is a relativist market circumstance; a President of the United States openly turning against the Constitution like that, however, really is pretty damn spectacular.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    ° I know, I know. That's what happens when I decide apostasy might be too confusing for some; in working matters of interpretation, I was actually surprised to land on tergiversation. I would hate to accidentally overstate, you know, by saying, abandon, renounce, discard, abjure, forsake, abnegate, surrender ... oh, hey, I could say he betrayed his oath. Stepped out. Cheated on. That works, too. See? Apostasy is too complicated. And tergiversate is a fun word.)​
     

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