All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[Tami]

How an internet mob falsely painted a Chipotle employee as racist

(CNN)Dominique Moran knew something was wrong as soon as she awakened that Friday morning. She turned on her smartphone and saw the first of what would become a barrage of texts and voicemails.

"Are you okay?"

"I just wanted you to know there's a video of you going around with you and this person..."

"Hey, you're on Twitter."

Only the night before, Moran was an unknown 23-year-old student in St. Paul, Minnesota. She had moved there from Southern California to attend college on a softball scholarship. Living alone in a new city, she worked at a Chipotle to make ends meet and attended a Lutheran church.

That morning, though, she discovered she had become someone else. Strangers were calling her nasty names on social media. Her photo was plastered across internet news sites. A video was circulating online, and she was its villain. In it, she could be seen refusing to serve a group of black men at the restaurant the previous evening.

t started about 10 minutes before closing time on a Thursday night. A group of about a half-dozen young black men walked in, chatting loudly among themselves while aiming smartphone cameras at Chipotle employees.

"They're back," one of Moran's colleagues told her as the men streamed into the food line.

Moran recognized two of them. Only two days before, she said, their credit cards had been declined when they lined up to pay. She had also been warned about them not paying before, and seen video footage of them "dining and dashing." They had ordered their food in the takeout line, given the cashier a credit card, then dashed with their food after the card was declined.

"You gotta' pay 'cause you never have money when you come in," Moran told them.

The men erupted in indignation. At least one started recording.

"She's making crazy accusations."

"Y'all racist!"

Moran's mother is still so disturbed by what happened that she declined to speak to CNN for this story. But Moran's sister, Elizabeth Perez, recalled how their mother reacted to the video.

"I just remember her breaking down," Perez said. "She cried. She was like, 'I don't want people hurting my daughter.' ''

There were obvious holes, though, in the emerging online narrative. Start with a basic question Perez asked after she noticed the way people kept referring to her sister in online discussions.
"When they said 'racist white woman,' I was like, 'My sister is not white,'" Perez said. "I was just so confused."

The incident was framed as a white person's humiliation of black men, but Moran is Mexican-American. Still, many people kept identifying her as white as her story spread.

Why didn't someone notice she wasn't white as the video rocketed around social media?

[Iron Maiden]

Howard Stern: Trump's candidacy for president was a 'publicity stunt'

I happen to catch most of this interview last night. Very well done and I found Howard to be believable. Trump also wanted him to come to the Republican convention, which as you recall was very light on star power compared to the Democrats (not that it seemed to matter that much to voters). Howard told Trump that he planned to vote for Hillary and wasn't going to change his mind. But he felt sure that had he done the convention and switched, he felt sure he would get some kind of post in Trump's administration. I have no problem believing that!

[Malvolio]

Here's my strategy for whoever wins the Democratic nomination next year: Go on Howard Stern's radio show and challenge Trump to a debate with Stern as the moderator. I'm sure Howard Stern would go for it and if Trump refuses, he looks like a coward who won't even trust a friend like Stern to be a fair and impartial moderator.

[Tami]

Can a Pardon Be a War Crime?: When Pardons Themselves Violate the Laws of War

President Donald Trump’s inclination to grant pardons to several military and contractor personnel accused or convicted of war crimes may itself be a violation of the laws of war, if not a war crime. In an extraordinary public statement issued Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – an international organization that usually acts through confidential communications with parties to armed conflict – explains the distinction between pardons and amnesties. The ICRC does not comment on specific cases, and in this statement, does not opine on the legality, let alone the possible criminality, of any particular grant of pardon/amnesty. But the fact that the organization chose to weigh in on such a hot button issue suggests how serious a threat such action by President Trump would be to the system of international law. Here’s what’s at stake.

What else these men have in common is the attention of President Trump, who is reported to be considering pardons for them, just in time for Memorial Day. The President essentially confirmed he is considering this action on Friday. Pardoning these men, especially the ones who have not yet been tried (amnesties), is an insult to the legal and moral standards the U.S. military is bound to uphold. It undermines the ability of the military to enforce discipline among its ranks and after the torture scandals of post-9/11, further damages the reputation of the United States for adherence to its international human rights obligations and the laws of war. This much has been broadly recognized by legal and military experts, including here and here on these pages. In the first of these essays, a group of retired military leaders go so far as to note that as Commander in Chief of the armed forces, the President, acting in compliance with the U.S. Law of War Manual, “should not interfere with his commanders’ fulfillment of their legal duties when they face strong evidence that their subordinates have breached [the] law.”

The principle of command responsibility is well established in the laws of war, reflecting not only what is morally right, but also the importance of discipline to the accomplishment of the military mission. After the Second World War, a U.S. military tribunal convicted Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita for his troops’ torture and massacre of civilians in the Philippines. There was no evidence that Yamashita ordered or participated in the crimes. It was enough that he either knew or should have known and failed to prevent the atrocities or punish his troops. General Yamashita was executed. During the Vietnam War, U.S. Army Captain Ernest Medina was prosecuted under the command responsibility doctrine for the massacre by his troops of civilians at the village of My Lai. He was acquitted.

Normally, it would be highly suspect to charge a president with war crimes under a command responsibility theory. Certainly, President Trump did not know, and probably couldn’t have known or prevented these acts. He wasn’t even president when they were committed. But presidents don’t normally pardon war criminals. The law of command responsibility doesn’t only address crimes a commander ordered his or her troops to commit, or even only those which he or she failed to prevent. It also requires a commander to impose consequences for violations committed by his or her subordinates. It is hard to imagine a clearer violation of this obligation than a pardon.

[Iron Maiden]

Here's my strategy for whoever wins the Democratic nomination next year: Go on Howard Stern's radio show and challenge Trump to a debate with Stern as the moderator. I'm sure Howard Stern would go for it and if Trump refuses, he looks like a coward who won't even trust a friend like Stern to be a fair and impartial moderator.

I think that is a great idea. Bill Maher has been advocating that Democratic Presidential hopefuls go on Fox for a while now and Mayor Pete and Bernie followed through on that. Elizabeth Warren has refused so far. Mayor Pete even trashed some of the Fox hosts on their own channel. You'll never sway the hard core Trumpers but you might get others to see how sane most of the other candidates are compared to the lunatic in the White House.

[Mister Mets]

Hey, remember when some people oin this board defended the border patrol and ICE?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/musli...9da2-391858029

Point being?

[Tami]

This Seb Gorka video is not a parody. Really. Seriously.

It's real, but it sounds like something from bizarre Hollywood movie.

[JCAll]

Here's my strategy for whoever wins the Democratic nomination next year: Go on Howard Stern's radio show and challenge Trump to a debate with Stern as the moderator. I'm sure Howard Stern would go for it and if Trump refuses, he looks like a coward who won't even trust a friend like Stern to be a fair and impartial moderator.

I really don't want Democrats to become "Debate Me" Bros.

[Kirby101]

Didn't you know - They had over 54 people killed and ran a child sex ring out of a pizzeria!!!

I understand people saw Hillary pouring water on a drowning man. And i heard Bill shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.

[Tendrin]

Point being?

The point being that they're indefensible.

[Kirby101]

The point being that they're indefensible.

And yet...I was just on another board discussion Flesk Publishing, which is suffering due to Trumps idiotic tarriff/trade war.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/marv...nt-t34758.html

And yet one poster still defended the Orange doufus, and protested how he so strong for standing up to the Chinese.

There are none so blind....

[Tendrin]

And yet...I was just on another board discussion Flesk Publishing, which is suffering due to Trumps idiotic tarriff/trade war.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/marv...nt-t34758.html

And yet one poster still defended the Orange doufus, and protested how he so strong for standing up to the Chinese.

There are none so blind....

Anti-China demagoguery, twenty years of it, is a thing. I remember my sibling telling me Clinton was bad because twenty years ago because he 'sold us out to China'.

Meanwhile, China is running enormous slave labor concentration camps but no one care because the victims are Muslim.

[Malvolio]

I really don't want Democrats to become "Debate Me" Bros.

What does that even mean? You do realize that the Howard Stern of 2019 is significantly more mature than the Howard Stern of 1987.

[Mister Mets]

The point being that they're indefensible.

So we should get rid of ICE and border patrol? What replacement do you seek and what politician is asking for it?

[Malvolio]

So we should get rid of ICE and border patrol? What replacement do you seek and what politician is asking for it?

Just have border patrol go back to what they used to do. Stop anyone who looks suspicious, but let them go if there's no evidence. The problem is that some of the officers there now see anyone with brown skin as looking suspicious.