The Future President, Donald Trump

Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, says he's certain that Trump's proposal would violate the Constitution.

Yes, he says, some court decisions have found that the some parts of the protective mantle of the Constitution don't extend to foreigners. But according to Tribe's interpretation, some of the most well-known protections — such as the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process — are not limited by nationality or geography.

"The [Fifth Amendment] applies to U.S. conduct with regard to any 'person,' wherever located and of whatever citizenship," Tribe writes in an email. "And [the First Amendment] is a flat prohibition on actions that the U.S. government may take, including those actions that respect 'an establishment of religion' or prohibit 'the free exercise thereof.' "

What's more, Tribe says, a religious litmus test like the one proposed by Trump would violate the spirit of Article VI of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from requiring a religious test to qualify for public office.

US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim comments cost him business in the Middle East on Wednesday, with a major chain of department stores halting sales of his glitzy “Trump Home” line of lamps, mirrors and jewellery boxes.

The real estate mogul and reality TV star now makes most of his money from licensing his name on golf courses, luxury developments and retail goods, rather than owning buildings.

On Monday, Trump, who leads opinion polls in the race to be the Republican nominee for president in an election in November next year, called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, in comments widely repudiated by other US politicians.

Trump Home products, like a “table lamp in antique brass with crystal drops” and a decorative box with a “brilliant plume of a peacock ... redecorated in gold finish for an exclusive look“, have been on sale at Lifestyle department stores in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.


But the chain’s parent firm Landmark, one of the region’s biggest retail groups with 190 stores in the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan, said it was pulling all Trump merchandise off its shelves.

“In light of the recent statements made by the presidential candidate in the US media, we have suspended sale of all products from the Trump Home décor range,” CEO Sachin Mundhwa said in an emailed statement. The group did not give any details on the value of the contract.

Although there were no other immediate announcements of business partners breaking with Trump so far, others made clear they were uneasy using his brand name in the Middle East, where he has been actively expanding his footprint in recent years, heavily concentrated in the Gulf business hub of Dubai.

In its biggest regional partnership to date, his Trump Organization is working with Dubai-based real estate giant DAMAC Properties to build two golf clubs – including one with a course designed by Tiger Woods – and a gated island community outside the city.

The 42m sq ft AKOYA by DAMAC development, which will contain the Trump International Golf Club Dubai, Trump PRVT mansions and villas and a Trump Spa & Wellness Centre, is valued at some $6bn.

DAMAC drew a distinction between its partner’s business and political interests, but declined to say explicitly whether it was reconsidering the partnership.

“We would like to stress that our agreement is with the Trump Organization as one of the premium golf course operators in the world,” Niall McLoughlin, DAMAC’s senior vice president for communications, said in a statement.

“As such we would not comment further on Mr Trump’s personal or political agenda, nor comment on the internal American political debate scene.“

Dubai’s Al Tayer group, which bills itself as the Middle East’s biggest luxury retailer, opened two showrooms in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in June to sell “Trump Home by Dorya” furniture made by a firm that licenses Trump’s name.

Al Tayer called Trump’s comments “unfortunate” in a statement to regional news site Arabian Business, but could not be reached for comment on whether it would continue to sell his products.

Trump has long identified the Middle East as a major growth market for his business. His daughter Ivanka, executive vice president of development and acquisitions for his Trump Organization, told Hotelier Middle East in May that the company was looking at “many very compelling deals” in the region.

Dubai was a “top priority” for the company, which was also looking at investments in Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, she said.

In the Muslim world, Trump has also leant his name to an office and retail complex in Istanbul and a luxury development in Baku, capital of the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan. Representatives of those developments could not be immediately reached.

One former Trump business partner in Dubai, construction billionaire Khalaf al-Habtoor, told Reuters Trump had wrecked his prospects for successful future collaborations in the region.

“He is really creating war. He’s creating hatred between Muslims and Christians,” Habtoor, who at one time held the contract to build a later-cancelled Trump International Hotel & Tower in Dubai, told Reuters.

“Muslims have invested hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars [in America], creating jobs for Americans. They can go invest it somewhere else.”

Brandon: "My meaning was that Muslims seem to commit a disproportionate number of the terrorist acts in the West."

Fact: 69% of violent crimes in the US are committed by whites.

Do you know what a fact is?
FACT: Whites committed 69% of violent crimes in the US.
There were 1,165,383 violent crimes in the US in 2014.
69% represents over 804,000 violent crimes committed by Whites.
How does that compare to Muslim violent crimes in the US?

He may not be stupid CI. He may be an uneducated racist. Good to see your back CI.

Quote:

Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, says he's certain that Trump's proposal would violate the Constitution.

Yes, he says, some court decisions have found that the some parts of the protective mantle of the Constitution don't extend to foreigners. But according to Tribe's interpretation, some of the most well-known protections — such as the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process — are not limited by nationality or geography.

"The [Fifth Amendment] applies to U.S. conduct with regard to any 'person,' wherever located and of whatever citizenship," Tribe writes in an email. "And [the First Amendment] is a flat prohibition on actions that the U.S. government may take, including those actions that respect 'an establishment of religion' or prohibit 'the free exercise thereof.' "

What's more, Tribe says, a religious litmus test like the one proposed by Trump would violate the spirit of Article VI of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from requiring a religious test to qualify for public office.

source

Americans account for 99 percent of the world’s hydrocodone (Vicodin) consumption, 80 percent of the world’s oxycodone (Percocet and Oxycontin) consumption and 65 percent of the world’s hydromorphone (Dilaudid) consumption, according to the New York Times.

It is well known that Americans consume far more natural resources and live much less sustainably than people from any other large country of the world. “A child born in the United States will create thirteen times as much ecological damage over the course of his or her lifetime than a child born in Brazil,” reports the Sierra Club’s Dave Tilford, adding that the average American will drain as many resources as 35 natives of India and consume 53 times more goods and services than someone from China.

Tilford cites a litany of sobering statistics showing just how profligate Americans have been in using and abusing natural resources. For example, between 1900 and 1989 U.S. population tripled while its use of raw materials grew by a factor of 17. “With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper,” he reports. “Our per capita use of energy, metals, minerals, forest products, fish, grains, meat, and even fresh water dwarfs that of people living in the developing world.”

What I have said over and over and over is that the fraction of terrorist acts committed in the West which is committed by Muslims is disproportionate to their presence in the population.

I doubt it can be interpreted to force US authorities to allow foreigners to enter the US. An a visa is now "public office?"

[...]The claim is similar to one in a 2011 report by the US government's National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), which said: "In cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82 and 97% of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years."

However, the report did not say in what proportion of cases it had been possible to determine the victims' religious affiliation - or whether these cases were representative of the others. The answers are not easy to obtain, because the report is no longer produced.

Another US-based team, the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) at the University of Maryland, does still compile terrorism statistics - but it doesn't attempt to determine the religion of people killed or injured. To do so would be "very difficult" says the GTD's Erin Miller.