A lawsuit against a Twitter account is not a criminal proceeding. Rep. Wilson wants to make the things with which she disagrees a criminal offense--those are two separate things. Incidentally, I don't visit "far right" sites just like I don't visit "far left" sites since both are designed to distort actual events into things which they are not.
As far as "appropriating money"...well, the money is coming from the National Parks fund to go towards an event being held in...a national park. It is gaudy and ostentatious but not a crime. I won't be watching it, anyway, because I have more important things to do on the Fourth: Fallout, Civilization, and--finally--season 3 of Stranger Things. Just wrapped up Jessica Jones--what a shame that Netflix cancelled all those shows.
Well they cancelled Jessica Jones (and the other Marvel shows) due to Disney +. I don’t think they had a choice. I am expecting them all to reappear on there once it launches.
That's a shame because I don't want to support Disney more than I already do (every ticket to an MCU movie I buy is money in their pockets).
Oh, be on the lookout for the Sherman tanks Trump says will be in the parade. I presume that at least some of them must still be in working order even though Shermans have not been produced since the late 1950s.
On an earlier piece of news: the authorities have dropped charges against the Alabama woman who was initially going to be charged with manslaughter for an altercation resulting in the termination of her pregnancy.
After the E.U. failed to reach an alternative solution that would allow Iran to avoid Trump sanctions that broke the nuclear deal, Hassan Rouhani has said that Iran intends to increase enrichment of uranium.
Make no mistake about this. This is no longer just trying to delay the census (which was absurd and unconstitutional on it's own). This is the President ignoring a Supreme Court ruling. What will be the response from the usual crowd?? "Nothing to see here, carry on, both sides". All 100% wrong. This Administration is now beholden to no one, even the highest authority in the land. It means our system of government is dead. Another prediction made by those of us who could see it coming, another one the "what's the big deal??" crowd will shrug off. They'll keep piling up, inch by inch, and one day you'll wake up and ask where your country went. Don't come crying to the rest of us you wouldn't listen to. Because this is effectively becoming a dictatorship, with only a severely flawed election system still standing. Trump is waging total war on the American system of government and winning:
Burning a rainbow flag falls in the hate speech category because it’s a statement against a protected group of people.
So "American citizens" are not protected, which is why burning an American flag is acceptable? The rainbow flag does not equate to "LBGT people"--the symbol is not the same as the thing it represents, according to Joseph Campbell. If we cannot burn *all* flags then we should not be allowed to burn *any* flags.
Each state legislature decides which groups constitute a protected class. Hate speech is free speech according to the Feds, but some states see it differently.
A lawsuit against a Twitter account is not a criminal proceeding. Rep. Wilson wants to make the things with which she disagrees a criminal offense--those are two separate things. Incidentally, I don't visit "far right" sites just like I don't visit "far left" sites since both are designed to distort actual events into things which they are not.
As far as "appropriating money"...well, the money is coming from the National Parks fund to go towards an event being held in...a national park. It is gaudy and ostentatious but not a crime. I won't be watching it, anyway, because I have more important things to do on the Fourth: Fallout, Civilization, and--finally--season 3 of Stranger Things. Just wrapped up Jessica Jones--what a shame that Netflix cancelled all those shows.
It's not due to a disagreement over policy. She wants to arrest people advocating violence, which is a problem for the right because the far right committed over 50 extremist murders last year (2018) while antifa has never killed anyone ever. So what legitimate news site did you hear about this then? I only saw this as a thing on far right websites - because it's not a thing it's spin. It is being spun into the fake narrative that "democrat calls for prison for jokes!" when it's really about her wanting to stop the spread of hate speech. Why is it the right is always making and trying to protect hate speech?
Make no mistake about this. This is no longer just trying to delay the census (which was absurd and unconstitutional on it's own). This is the President ignoring a Supreme Court ruling. What will be the response from the usual crowd?? "Nothing to see here, carry on, both sides". All 100% wrong. This Administration is now beholden to no one, even the highest authority in the land. It means our system of government is dead. Another prediction made by those of us who could see it coming, another one the "what's the big deal??" crowd will shrug off. They'll keep piling up, inch by inch, and one day you'll wake up and ask where your country went. Don't come crying to the rest of us you wouldn't listen to. Because this is effectively becoming a dictatorship, with only a severely flawed election system still standing.
Trump is waging total war on the American system of government and winning
And the same crowd that claimed to be the sole authority of patriotism are the ones rolling over for the death of America. With their excuses like but he didn't mean it when he said it. And you aren't understanding what he said. And it's in the news so it's fake news. And ( excuse... excuse... excuse... excuse... )
The Conservative activist judges on the Supreme Court just legalized Gerrymandering in a 5-4 decision and said no one can ever file a lawsuit in federal court about gerrymandering ever.
There's no way Trump, and the Republican party which is at best "reluctantly" along on the ride towards fascism, is going to allow a census without rigging it as much as he can when there's so much at stake now that they could gerrymander the crap out the districts after 2020. By suppressing the census numbers in 2020, they figure that's another chance to ensure they have more power which will give them more seats which will allow them to gerrymander more and use those seats to steal more power through voter suppression etc etc etc. They can't win in the "marketplace of ideas" so they have to cheat and they aren't going to stop until someone makes them. And Trump and McConnell has rigged the Supreme Court to let it happen. Thanks Putin, I hate it. lol.
Make no mistake about this. This is no longer just trying to delay the census (which was absurd and unconstitutional on it's own). This is the President ignoring a Supreme Court ruling. What will be the response from the usual crowd?? "Nothing to see here, carry on, both sides". All 100% wrong. This Administration is now beholden to no one, even the highest authority in the land. It means our system of government is dead. Another prediction made by those of us who could see it coming, another one the "what's the big deal??" crowd will shrug off. They'll keep piling up, inch by inch, and one day you'll wake up and ask where your country went. Don't come crying to the rest of us you wouldn't listen to. Because this is effectively becoming a dictatorship, with only a severely flawed election system still standing.
Trump is waging total war on the American system of government and winning
And the same crowd that claimed to be the sole authority of patriotism are the ones rolling over for the death of America. With their excuses like but he didn't mean it when he said it. And you aren't understanding what he said. And it's in the news so it's fake news. And ( excuse... excuse... excuse... excuse... )
The Conservative activist judges on the Supreme Court just legalized Gerrymandering in a 5-4 decision and said no one can ever file a lawsuit in federal court about gerrymandering ever.
There's no way Trump, and the Republican party which is at best "reluctantly" along on the ride towards fascism, is going to allow a census without rigging it as much as he can when there's so much at stake now that they could gerrymander the crap out the districts after 2020. By suppressing the census numbers in 2020, they figure that's another chance to ensure they have more power which will give them more seats which will allow them to gerrymander more and use those seats to steal more power through voter suppression etc etc etc. They can't win in the "marketplace of ideas" so they have to cheat and they aren't going to stop until someone makes them. And Trump and McConnell has rigged the Supreme Court to let it happen. Thanks Putin, I hate it. lol.
How is it cheating? It isn't clear to me why illegals should be counted for representation to begin with. Explain to me why a district or state should get more representatives because people who shouldn't be there in the first place live there?
It has nothing to do with illegals being counted. The constitution calls for an accounting of "all persons" in the country. There are scores of people here legally who aren't citizens. The census is used to allocate funds and resources. Including a citizenship question is explicitly meant to scare immigrants and depress participation. And we know this because this is the EXACT argument the brain force behind this question admitted to. We just happen to know this because he died and his daughter found the whole plan on his laptop. This is WHY the Roberts voted against it. Not because he was against it on principle, but because the government was clearly arguing in bad faith once these documents were revealed. So now the Administration is basically saying "ok, we got caught red-handed on that one, so is it ok if we just make-up a new reason and move forward??":
And if you can't imagine why even perfectly legal hispanic residents would be hesitant to answer a citizenship question put forth by THIS administration, then I suggest attempting to put yourself in someone else's shoes for even 10 seconds.
Make no mistake about this. This is no longer just trying to delay the census (which was absurd and unconstitutional on it's own). This is the President ignoring a Supreme Court ruling. What will be the response from the usual crowd?? "Nothing to see here, carry on, both sides". All 100% wrong. This Administration is now beholden to no one, even the highest authority in the land. It means our system of government is dead. Another prediction made by those of us who could see it coming, another one the "what's the big deal??" crowd will shrug off. They'll keep piling up, inch by inch, and one day you'll wake up and ask where your country went. Don't come crying to the rest of us you wouldn't listen to. Because this is effectively becoming a dictatorship, with only a severely flawed election system still standing.
Trump is waging total war on the American system of government and winning
And the same crowd that claimed to be the sole authority of patriotism are the ones rolling over for the death of America. With their excuses like but he didn't mean it when he said it. And you aren't understanding what he said. And it's in the news so it's fake news. And ( excuse... excuse... excuse... excuse... )
The Conservative activist judges on the Supreme Court just legalized Gerrymandering in a 5-4 decision and said no one can ever file a lawsuit in federal court about gerrymandering ever.
There's no way Trump, and the Republican party which is at best "reluctantly" along on the ride towards fascism, is going to allow a census without rigging it as much as he can when there's so much at stake now that they could gerrymander the crap out the districts after 2020. By suppressing the census numbers in 2020, they figure that's another chance to ensure they have more power which will give them more seats which will allow them to gerrymander more and use those seats to steal more power through voter suppression etc etc etc. They can't win in the "marketplace of ideas" so they have to cheat and they aren't going to stop until someone makes them. And Trump and McConnell has rigged the Supreme Court to let it happen. Thanks Putin, I hate it. lol.
How is it cheating? It isn't clear to me why illegals should be counted for representation to begin with. Explain to me why a district or state should get more representatives because people who shouldn't be there in the first place live there?
The cheating is part of a multi-pronged assault on Americans in order to steal power from the people to the GOP.
The census is held to count all persons period. There's zero legitimate reason to ask for citizenship when all people must be counted. And in fact the reason they are asking was among the documents handed over by a dead Republicans daughter - the question was designed to suppress the count and overrepresent Republicans.
This is not the only assault on America by the GOP. Mitch has been packing the court with partisan activist judges. The GOP is the party of gerrymandering and voter suppression. The Republican President got fewer votes from people than the Democratic candidate. The Senate Minority represents like 40 million more Americans than the Republican "majority".
Frankly, at this point, whether it's included or not, I'm 95% convinced they'll cook the numbers anyway. Who the hell is going to stop them?? There isn't a single, solitary rule they haven't already obliterated. How the hell can ANYTHING be assumed to be on the up and up anymore coming out of this White House?? That's like having a daughter addicted to heroin and assuming the $400 you just gave her is going towards "rent". How many hundreds of lies does it take before any reasonable person just assumes EVERYTHING is a lie??
If we're talking about determining the number of representatives for a given area, then illegals absolutely should not be counted--having a larger population of illegal immigrants would not entitle an area to greater political power. The method might not be the same as gerrymandering, but the net effect is much the same. I have little doubt that plenty of GOP politicians are only interested in the question as a means to enhance their political power, and I'm sure there are Democratic politicians who view it as a threat for the same reason.
If we're talking about determining funding for government services, that kinda depends. Funding for direct spending to individuals should be allocated based on the legal resident population, but I can see other, more indirect forms of spending that should be based on total population.
For the purposes of collecting data, the citizenship question would reduce the amount of data we got--the only useful information would be a better indication of the number of illegal residents, and I believe we already have some other means of indirectly measuring that. I can see the value in adding the question to one year's census, and then removing it from future ones, which would give us an idea of how much the citizenship question depressed response rates without crippling the census' utility for years to come.
Ideally, we'd have some way of separating the citizenship question from the rest of the census such that it wouldn't prevent immigrants, illegal and especially legal, from contributing to the data. I don't know how that would work out in practice, however.
Once again, we have concrete proof from the daughter of the guy in NC of WHAT the GOP's intentions were, and how they misrepresented them. And for the Democrats we have speculation of what their intentions might hypothetically be based on assumption. And we both-sides it and call it a wash. And this is how this narrative worms it's way into everything. Everyone just assumes the Democrats are engaged in the same nefarious behavior, even when in the moment the burden of proof is SO great against the other side that even John Roberts, as partisan as any of the other right-wing judges, has to reject their argument because it was argued in such bad faith given the revealed evidence. I am so sick of this. Both-siderism is killing this country as much as Trump ans McConnell are.
If we're talking about determining the number of representatives for a given area, then illegals absolutely should not be counted..
Well, if you don't like the Constitution the way to change it is an amendment.
The Constitution explicitly lists a broader category: “persons” instead of citizens. It was no mistake either. Instead, the inclusion of persons, or people, in the Constitution was the result of a deliberate concession to slaveholders made during the Constitutional Convention. The Trump administration is now attempting to do exactly what slaveholders did in the eighteenth-century: use the Constitution to inflate the political power of a vocal minority.
What may seem to some as a fairly innocuous question could actually have quite drastic consequences for what our country looks like for the next ten years. By adding the question, the administration hopes to scare non-citizens into not filling out the census. The logic being non-citizens, whatever their immigrant status, would be too intimidated to announce themselves to an administration which has made anti-immigrant ideology a central plank of its governance.
The fear, by many immigrants, is certainly well founded, considering the president of the United States opened his campaign with violently racist remarks against immigrants, and his administration has made it a point to manufacture a humanitarian crisis on the southern border.
And of course, it ALWAYS comes back to the same place (be it the census, electoral college etc), which is that slaveholders in the South wanted to be able to own humans who had no rights, but ALSO wanted them to count as partial or full numbers (even though they didn't even view them as human) for solely their own benefit, to expand their power and make sure they could keep them in bondage in perpetuity.
If we're talking about determining the number of representatives for a given area, then illegals absolutely should not be counted--having a larger population of illegal immigrants would not entitle an area to greater political power. The method might not be the same as gerrymandering, but the net effect is much the same. I have little doubt that plenty of GOP politicians are only interested in the question as a means to enhance their political power, and I'm sure there are Democratic politicians who view it as a threat for the same reason.
If we're talking about determining funding for government services, that kinda depends. Funding for direct spending to individuals should be allocated based on the legal resident population, but I can see other, more indirect forms of spending that should be based on total population.
For the purposes of collecting data, the citizenship question would reduce the amount of data we got--the only useful information would be a better indication of the number of illegal residents, and I believe we already have some other means of indirectly measuring that. I can see the value in adding the question to one year's census, and then removing it from future ones, which would give us an idea of how much the citizenship question depressed response rates without crippling the census' utility for years to come.
Ideally, we'd have some way of separating the citizenship question from the rest of the census such that it wouldn't prevent immigrants, illegal and especially legal, from contributing to the data. I don't know how that would work out in practice, however.
I agree with this. The point is that census results are used for many purposes. For some of those, whether an individual is a citizen or not is clearly crucial information (allocating House of Representative seats has already been mentioned for instance). Therefore, in principle, that information should be collected.
There is though a legitimate concern about the possibility that including a question on citizenship would depress response rates. The Census Bureau did a 2018 report that concluded response could be reduced by up to 5%. That was based on the difference between responses to the 2010 census (which did not have a citizenship question) and the annual American Community Survey (the ACS is also carried out by the Census Bureau and does ask about citizenship). There are other possible explanations for differences in response rates, but if we accept that a question on citizenship has a potential impact it's necessary to evaluate whether quality or quantity of data is more important. Ross said clearly that quality of data is more important, but that opinion is arguably politically slanted - and effectively that's the grounds on which the Supreme Court blocked adding the question back.
To provide a bit of balance, it might be helpful to review the historical position:
- in early censuses there was no citizenship question. As @jjstraka34 said, that can best be explained by the strong slavery lobby wanting to ensure slaves were counted.
- a question was added to the 1820 census and appeared in all subsequent censuses to 1950 except for 1840.
- with the increasing political consciousness of the issue of illegal immigration and the impact this could have on response rates, the 1960 census did not have a citizenship question for everyone. However, the 1940 census had split data collection into a short form and long form. A citizenship question remained on the long form return (sent to about 1/6 of households) between 1960 and 2000.
- the 2010 census was the first for a long time that did not have a citizenship question at all. The rationale for that was the introduction of the ACS, although it's certainly possible to argue that Democrats decided to get rid of this question for exactly the same political reasons Republicans are currently wanting to add it back in.
I came across this set of FAQs published ahead of the 2000 census. That notes that the overall return rate in 1990 for the long form census was less than 1% below that for the short form census. Given the increased complexity of the long form census would itself be expected to have an impact on response rates, that suggests any impact of a citizenship question would have been small. However, that was in 1990 when there was less political rhetoric about the problem of immigration and far less concern that government would break the law stating that census data cannot be used for purposes unconnected with the census. Given the extent to which the current administration is changing some laws and simply ignoring others I would certainly advise illegal immigrants in the US today not to complete any census return that could potentially identify them as illegal. I suspect therefore that including a question in the census now would be likely to have a significant impact on response rates ...
I read that. I am only wondering if this company has donated fireworks to past administrations (who wouldn’t go out of there way and tweet about it). That would kinda make it a nothing story (except the fact that Trump once again broke the law tweeting about it).
I think Trump cancelling the tariffs is in line with how he operates, threaten something huge to make the news, then back down at the last second to once again make the news.
Maybe they have donated them in the past. No past Administration turned it into a fundraiser/campaign event, which this clearly is.
Moroever, this is the crowning example of how the American right views patriotism, as almost exclusively a calvacade of meaningless theatrics rather than ideals:
It's a tax payer funded campaign rally with tickets for RNC VIPs and donors, tanks in the capital, the military as props, while we are quibbling over the definition of government run concentration camps for imprisoning the 'others'.
He's even calling it a "Rally of Freedom" (Reichsparteitag der Freiheit).
Thunderstorms in DC, as well as pictures of chainlink fences preventing anyone without a ticket from getting anywhere near the Lincoln Memorial. Karma finally makes a cameo appearance after 2 1/2 years. In before Alex Jones blames it on liberals manipulating the weather and something something chemtrails.
This story explains the idea of 'social credit'. It's an old story, but there have been recent updates about the trial schemes currently in place ahead of universal roll-out expected next year. Effectively it's a credit score applied to everyone, but incorporating both social and financial information. What seems particularly scary to me is that you can boost your own score by informing on lapses by other people (like a failure to sort recycling properly for instance). Mao had a strong drive to welcome informers, so this builds on an existing tradition. I wouldn't expect this to help with social cohesion though, which is supposed to be one of the main aims.
While posting about China I'll also throw in a story about an argument with the UK about Hong Kong. The British originally took ownership of Hong Kong island through an 1840 treaty with China. That territory was extended in an 1860 treaty. Both of those treaties were essentially forced on China as a result of the opium wars, but a major extension of the territory in 1898 was a more genuine bargain - and that extension was made under just a 99 year lease. As the end of that period came closer, the UK and China reached an agreement in 1984 that would hand back the whole of Hong Kong to China, but based on the "one country, two systems" principle until at least 2047. There have been ongoing arguments about that agreement ever since. The UK regards it as a binding legal agreement, but China does not (which is a bit of a 'have your cake and eat it' position, since China is certainly not going to return the parts of Hong Kong previously owned by the UK).
It is a good thing Nike saved us all from that evil, racist Betsy Ross flag. It is definitely a shame that Barack Obama thought it was worth displaying at his second inauguration for all to see. I guess it wasn't racist in 2013, though.
There are no Constitutional requirements stating what questions may or may not be placed on the Census; the only actual requirement is that everyone be counted, regardless of whether or not they are citizens. A lot of the things they ask are not requirements--religious preference, ethnicity, income, etc. The Census form itself could be made to be very simple, containing only 2 questions on a postcard: 1) name and 2) city where you currently reside/zip code (might need to include street address to deal with people having the same name living in the same city).
There are no Constitutional requirements stating what questions may or may not be placed on the Census; the only actual requirement is that everyone be counted, regardless of whether or not they are citizens. A lot of the things they ask are not requirements--religious preference, ethnicity, income, etc. The Census form itself could be made to be very simple, containing only 2 questions on a postcard: 1) name and 2) city where you currently reside/zip code (might need to include street address to deal with people having the same name living in the same city).
This is all true. Of course, the constitution also has a series of amendments that broadly apply towards the entire constitution as well. So while there is nothing specifically prohibiting a particular question being put on the census, there is an amendment (14th) that constitutionally mandates that the government cannot attempt to materially harm individuals unequally through the law.
In this instance, the recovered information from GOP strategist and gerrymander-redistricting expert Thomas Hofeller indicated that the GOP saw a potential way to game the system and harm the fair representation of both Latino citizens and non-citizens in general through the inclusion of the question.
Given the state of politics and the parties right now, it's pretty absurd to think that the Trump administration actually wanted to improve voting rights protection through the inclusion of the question. This was made more obvious since the impetus to put the citizenship question on the census started very early in the administration, and internal memos dont indicate that the VRA was a consideration to begin with. In fact - this was the primary reason that the SCOTUS shot it down: They felt the administration was being dishonest in its reasoning.
Comments
As far as "appropriating money"...well, the money is coming from the National Parks fund to go towards an event being held in...a national park. It is gaudy and ostentatious but not a crime. I won't be watching it, anyway, because I have more important things to do on the Fourth: Fallout, Civilization, and--finally--season 3 of Stranger Things. Just wrapped up Jessica Jones--what a shame that Netflix cancelled all those shows.
Oh, be on the lookout for the Sherman tanks Trump says will be in the parade. I presume that at least some of them must still be in working order even though Shermans have not been produced since the late 1950s.
After the E.U. failed to reach an alternative solution that would allow Iran to avoid Trump sanctions that broke the nuclear deal, Hassan Rouhani has said that Iran intends to increase enrichment of uranium.
Each state legislature decides which groups constitute a protected class. Hate speech is free speech according to the Feds, but some states see it differently.
It's not due to a disagreement over policy. She wants to arrest people advocating violence, which is a problem for the right because the far right committed over 50 extremist murders last year (2018) while antifa has never killed anyone ever. So what legitimate news site did you hear about this then? I only saw this as a thing on far right websites - because it's not a thing it's spin. It is being spun into the fake narrative that "democrat calls for prison for jokes!" when it's really about her wanting to stop the spread of hate speech. Why is it the right is always making and trying to protect hate speech?
And the same crowd that claimed to be the sole authority of patriotism are the ones rolling over for the death of America. With their excuses like but he didn't mean it when he said it. And you aren't understanding what he said. And it's in the news so it's fake news. And ( excuse... excuse... excuse... excuse... )
The Conservative activist judges on the Supreme Court just legalized Gerrymandering in a 5-4 decision and said no one can ever file a lawsuit in federal court about gerrymandering ever.
There's no way Trump, and the Republican party which is at best "reluctantly" along on the ride towards fascism, is going to allow a census without rigging it as much as he can when there's so much at stake now that they could gerrymander the crap out the districts after 2020. By suppressing the census numbers in 2020, they figure that's another chance to ensure they have more power which will give them more seats which will allow them to gerrymander more and use those seats to steal more power through voter suppression etc etc etc. They can't win in the "marketplace of ideas" so they have to cheat and they aren't going to stop until someone makes them. And Trump and McConnell has rigged the Supreme Court to let it happen. Thanks Putin, I hate it. lol.
How is it cheating? It isn't clear to me why illegals should be counted for representation to begin with. Explain to me why a district or state should get more representatives because people who shouldn't be there in the first place live there?
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-supreme-court-census-republican-advantage-20190530-story.html
And if you can't imagine why even perfectly legal hispanic residents would be hesitant to answer a citizenship question put forth by THIS administration, then I suggest attempting to put yourself in someone else's shoes for even 10 seconds.
The cheating is part of a multi-pronged assault on Americans in order to steal power from the people to the GOP.
The census is held to count all persons period. There's zero legitimate reason to ask for citizenship when all people must be counted. And in fact the reason they are asking was among the documents handed over by a dead Republicans daughter - the question was designed to suppress the count and overrepresent Republicans.
This is not the only assault on America by the GOP. Mitch has been packing the court with partisan activist judges. The GOP is the party of gerrymandering and voter suppression. The Republican President got fewer votes from people than the Democratic candidate. The Senate Minority represents like 40 million more Americans than the Republican "majority".
If we're talking about determining funding for government services, that kinda depends. Funding for direct spending to individuals should be allocated based on the legal resident population, but I can see other, more indirect forms of spending that should be based on total population.
For the purposes of collecting data, the citizenship question would reduce the amount of data we got--the only useful information would be a better indication of the number of illegal residents, and I believe we already have some other means of indirectly measuring that. I can see the value in adding the question to one year's census, and then removing it from future ones, which would give us an idea of how much the citizenship question depressed response rates without crippling the census' utility for years to come.
Ideally, we'd have some way of separating the citizenship question from the rest of the census such that it wouldn't prevent immigrants, illegal and especially legal, from contributing to the data. I don't know how that would work out in practice, however.
Well, if you don't like the Constitution the way to change it is an amendment.
The Constitution explicitly lists a broader category: “persons” instead of citizens. It was no mistake either. Instead, the inclusion of persons, or people, in the Constitution was the result of a deliberate concession to slaveholders made during the Constitutional Convention. The Trump administration is now attempting to do exactly what slaveholders did in the eighteenth-century: use the Constitution to inflate the political power of a vocal minority.
What may seem to some as a fairly innocuous question could actually have quite drastic consequences for what our country looks like for the next ten years. By adding the question, the administration hopes to scare non-citizens into not filling out the census. The logic being non-citizens, whatever their immigrant status, would be too intimidated to announce themselves to an administration which has made anti-immigrant ideology a central plank of its governance.
The fear, by many immigrants, is certainly well founded, considering the president of the United States opened his campaign with violently racist remarks against immigrants, and his administration has made it a point to manufacture a humanitarian crisis on the southern border.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/7/1/20678047/census-three-fifths-compromise-slavery-racism-trump
/ˌdēˌ(h)yo͞omənəˈzāSH(ə)n/
noun
The process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities.
What else is not wanting people to count as people?
They count as people, just not as citizens...
I agree with this. The point is that census results are used for many purposes. For some of those, whether an individual is a citizen or not is clearly crucial information (allocating House of Representative seats has already been mentioned for instance). Therefore, in principle, that information should be collected.
There is though a legitimate concern about the possibility that including a question on citizenship would depress response rates. The Census Bureau did a 2018 report that concluded response could be reduced by up to 5%. That was based on the difference between responses to the 2010 census (which did not have a citizenship question) and the annual American Community Survey (the ACS is also carried out by the Census Bureau and does ask about citizenship). There are other possible explanations for differences in response rates, but if we accept that a question on citizenship has a potential impact it's necessary to evaluate whether quality or quantity of data is more important. Ross said clearly that quality of data is more important, but that opinion is arguably politically slanted - and effectively that's the grounds on which the Supreme Court blocked adding the question back.
To provide a bit of balance, it might be helpful to review the historical position:
- in early censuses there was no citizenship question. As @jjstraka34 said, that can best be explained by the strong slavery lobby wanting to ensure slaves were counted.
- a question was added to the 1820 census and appeared in all subsequent censuses to 1950 except for 1840.
- with the increasing political consciousness of the issue of illegal immigration and the impact this could have on response rates, the 1960 census did not have a citizenship question for everyone. However, the 1940 census had split data collection into a short form and long form. A citizenship question remained on the long form return (sent to about 1/6 of households) between 1960 and 2000.
- the 2010 census was the first for a long time that did not have a citizenship question at all. The rationale for that was the introduction of the ACS, although it's certainly possible to argue that Democrats decided to get rid of this question for exactly the same political reasons Republicans are currently wanting to add it back in.
I came across this set of FAQs published ahead of the 2000 census. That notes that the overall return rate in 1990 for the long form census was less than 1% below that for the short form census. Given the increased complexity of the long form census would itself be expected to have an impact on response rates, that suggests any impact of a citizenship question would have been small. However, that was in 1990 when there was less political rhetoric about the problem of immigration and far less concern that government would break the law stating that census data cannot be used for purposes unconnected with the census. Given the extent to which the current administration is changing some laws and simply ignoring others I would certainly advise illegal immigrants in the US today not to complete any census return that could potentially identify them as illegal. I suspect therefore that including a question in the census now would be likely to have a significant impact on response rates ...
Right, well the point is the census means counting people. Not only citizens.
Count them both...
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/july-4th-fireworks-donor-lobbied-president-trump-tariffs/story?id=64108794
I read that. I am only wondering if this company has donated fireworks to past administrations (who wouldn’t go out of there way and tweet about it). That would kinda make it a nothing story (except the fact that Trump once again broke the law tweeting about it).
I think Trump cancelling the tariffs is in line with how he operates, threaten something huge to make the news, then back down at the last second to once again make the news.
Moroever, this is the crowning example of how the American right views patriotism, as almost exclusively a calvacade of meaningless theatrics rather than ideals:
https://medium.com/@AviBueno/patriotism-as-theatrics-8c9ba8fa166b
He's even calling it a "Rally of Freedom" (Reichsparteitag der Freiheit).
@semiticgod has previously posted about the camps being used to re-educate Uighur adults in Xinjiang. This story covers a parallel effort aimed at children.
This story explains the idea of 'social credit'. It's an old story, but there have been recent updates about the trial schemes currently in place ahead of universal roll-out expected next year. Effectively it's a credit score applied to everyone, but incorporating both social and financial information. What seems particularly scary to me is that you can boost your own score by informing on lapses by other people (like a failure to sort recycling properly for instance). Mao had a strong drive to welcome informers, so this builds on an existing tradition. I wouldn't expect this to help with social cohesion though, which is supposed to be one of the main aims.
While posting about China I'll also throw in a story about an argument with the UK about Hong Kong. The British originally took ownership of Hong Kong island through an 1840 treaty with China. That territory was extended in an 1860 treaty. Both of those treaties were essentially forced on China as a result of the opium wars, but a major extension of the territory in 1898 was a more genuine bargain - and that extension was made under just a 99 year lease. As the end of that period came closer, the UK and China reached an agreement in 1984 that would hand back the whole of Hong Kong to China, but based on the "one country, two systems" principle until at least 2047. There have been ongoing arguments about that agreement ever since. The UK regards it as a binding legal agreement, but China does not (which is a bit of a 'have your cake and eat it' position, since China is certainly not going to return the parts of Hong Kong previously owned by the UK).
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2013/01/the-2nd-inauguration-of-barack-obama-in-photos/i31_34593731/main_1200.jpg?1420511071
There are no Constitutional requirements stating what questions may or may not be placed on the Census; the only actual requirement is that everyone be counted, regardless of whether or not they are citizens. A lot of the things they ask are not requirements--religious preference, ethnicity, income, etc. The Census form itself could be made to be very simple, containing only 2 questions on a postcard: 1) name and 2) city where you currently reside/zip code (might need to include street address to deal with people having the same name living in the same city).
This is all true. Of course, the constitution also has a series of amendments that broadly apply towards the entire constitution as well. So while there is nothing specifically prohibiting a particular question being put on the census, there is an amendment (14th) that constitutionally mandates that the government cannot attempt to materially harm individuals unequally through the law.
In this instance, the recovered information from GOP strategist and gerrymander-redistricting expert Thomas Hofeller indicated that the GOP saw a potential way to game the system and harm the fair representation of both Latino citizens and non-citizens in general through the inclusion of the question.
Given the state of politics and the parties right now, it's pretty absurd to think that the Trump administration actually wanted to improve voting rights protection through the inclusion of the question. This was made more obvious since the impetus to put the citizenship question on the census started very early in the administration, and internal memos dont indicate that the VRA was a consideration to begin with. In fact - this was the primary reason that the SCOTUS shot it down: They felt the administration was being dishonest in its reasoning.