Summations Only

All this discussion about whether Mueller should have explicitly accused Trump of crimes is pretty much what the Republicans want. It distracts the public from a more important issue: that Barr deliberately lied to Congress and the American people in his initial summary of Mueller's report. Added by edit:Not that I don't agree that this is an issue that can be discussed on its own merits, but let's also remember that regardless of how Mueller should have written his report, it's pretty clear what he did write, and Barr has no excuse for the misrepresentations - oh hell, the outright lies - he made about it. And that is the important point.Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.Edited by Chiroptera, : Got confused on the triple negative!

From the New York Times: Globalization Is Moving Past the U.S. and Its Vision of World OrderYeah, just like large corporations used their tax cuts to buy back stocks rather than raise workers' wages, tariffs are causing businesses to move operations to different, not the US, countries.So far, the axing of the neoliberal free trade regime has resulted in instability as companies have to readjust and because Trump and his cabinet full of fraud are too unpredictable to make proper plans.Paul Krugman has already pointed out that in the long run, the US economy probably won't have any more jobs than it would have had under free trade, but the protected markets will be less efficient (that is, the same goods will be more expensive to make).

And the reason - "We won't investigate them because they are good customers." - kind of makes it worse.And "And they buy stuff from us that they use to kill other people" - that's even worse still.Anyway, isn't the Republican controlled Senate now on record that Saudis buying weaponry is bad?

Worship words.Communist = "Stuff I don't like."

Heh. I just added a comment about this to the gerrymand/voter suppression thread. Added by edit:It's a long comment. I was worried someone else would beat me to it while I was writing it.Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

They could also expedite the process by not asking the question at all. Not only are there other methods to collect citizenship data, but the citizenship question hasn't been asked since 1950. Clearly there's no urgency to include it on this census; this could wait until 2030. Unless the fear is that the artificial majority the Republicans want to lock in will be greatly reduce in ten years.

I was thinking exactly the same thing.I will say, though, I always did think trying to influence North Korea by trying to bully them isn't very productive. I am at least glad that a direct dialogue between leaders has begun, even if it is for the wrong reasons.If this creates an oppurtunity that the next President uses to fashion a workable agreement between the parties in east asia that results in better security in the region, I will give Trump at least grudging credit for starting the ball rolling.

From The Guardian: Ocasio-Cortez details 'horrifying' conditions at migrant detention facilityThe article describes a visit to a detention facility by a Congressional delegation.

I'm pretty sure Leni Riefenstahl filmed it so maybe I'll be able to catch it on TV.Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo.

Well, that's the Constitution for you.You probably already looked it up, but here's the direct quotation from Article One for our international audience: Notice that it says "free persons". Not voters, not even citizens.The Fourteenth Amendment reiterates this, just removing the now deprecated distinction between free persons and other persons: It does, though, add a new provision if a state were to deny people their right to vote: Notice the apportionment is still base on all persons, but can be cut down based on the proportion of citizens denied the right to vote.

Uh, I don't think you understand what most people object to when discussing the 3/5 compromise. It isn't that people were counted for representation who weren't allowed to vote. It's that African slaves were counted for representation but were property in every other situation.In fact, by the time the Constitution was written, only a couple of states had universal (male) sufferage. Most states had property qualifications for voting and so had lots of people who were counted for representation but weren't allowed to vote.Representation in Congress has never been about counting voters, ever, in any state. Added by edit:Although, come to think of it, it would be interesting to see the reaction of certain red states, the ones engaged in voter suppression tactics, to the proposal to base representation on numbers of voters!Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

Well, okay.But I was mostly commenting on your reducing the issue of the 3/5 compromise as merely one of allowing non-voters to be counted for apportionment. It really is an odd way of looking at it, and as you can see it obscures the point you're trying to make (neither Theodoric nor I understand what your point actually is), and as you can see we've gone off topic and We've been distracted from your point.It's up to you to decide how to proceed, but I'd suggest moving on from trying to draw an analogy from the antebellum South and just try to make your point as clearly as you can.

I am interested in your original point, though.You brought up that immigrants tend to be concentrated in particular states which boosts their representation in Congress as compared to those states' proportion of actual voters.What is your concern with this? What problems do you see with this?Edited by Chiroptera, : Minor typo.

Citizens of a country are allowed to vote in their country's elections even when they live abroad. That seems so obvious to me I can't imagine what the objections are.What does this have to do with the issue of the constitutional requirement that the US census must count all persons?Edited by Chiroptera, : Typo.

The topic under discussion was about the census, and you even mentioned the census in your first post to this thread: Message 3010It wasn't very clear that you were actually moving onto a different topic.It's still not clear what you think the important issues are and why they're important.