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Congress just passed, and Trump signed, a law that makes all properties adjacent to the rail system operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Constitution free zones.
From TFA on zerohedge.com:
"In performing its duties, the Commission, through its Board or designated employees or agents, may: Enter upon the WMATA Rail System and, upon reasonable notice and a finding by the chief executive officer that a need exists, upon any lands, waters, and premises adjacent to the WMATA Rail System, including, without limitation, property owned or occupied by the federal government, for the purpose of making inspections, investigations, examinations, and testing as the Commission may deem necessary to carry out the purposes of this MSC Compact, and such entry shall not be deemed a trespass."
As we all know, the standard in the 4th Amendment is a particularized warrant based on probable cause, "reasonable notice and need" as determined by the cops (i.e. agency chief), is not the same thing at all.
We already have constitution free zones within 100 100 miles of any border, and this provides a convenient framework to do a similar thing along any rail line (or road) so the Feds can liberate the center of the country from any form of Constitutional protection. Anyway ... the 4th Amendment is already dead at this point, but its piecemeal demise should provide a useful education for those clamoring for the demise of the 1st.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:03AM (3 children)
I would not call what Trump has done business as usual.
The media has been quick to politicize numerous large companies leaving Trump's advisory committees but they rarely mention why. However, the companies themselves have been surprisingly open about it. For instance when Inge Thulin, CEO of 3M, left Trump's Manufacturing Advisory Council he stated: "I joined the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative in January to advocate for policies that align with our values and encourage even stronger investment and job growth – in order to make the United States stronger, healthier and more prosperous for all people. After careful consideration, I believe the initiative is no longer an effective vehicle for 3M to advance these goals." 'Investment, job growth, and greater GDP' directly translate to "We were seeking corporate welfare." And Trump is not giving into this.
You have to keep in mind that nearly all of our media comes from huge corporations. Time Warner owns CNN. Comcast owns NBC. Disney owns ABC. And so on. Mega corporations could not care less that Trump makes some distasteful comments. Look at the most oppressive fascist regimes in the world and you'll find all these companies supposedly concerned about some politically incorrect tweets. He's being attacked because he's not playing ball. Bush was a cokeheaded fool who destroyed us internationally with war and domestically with the Patriot Act yet he faced little more than the standard token opposition from the media. Organizations like NYT and CNN worked and blindly faithful drummer boys for his warmongering. The difference is that Bush played ball. And with everything from deciding to literally appoint a Monsanto VP [wikipedia.org] as the nations regulatory 'food czar' to the TPP, Obama never met a corporate handout he didn't like. And the media was in love with him.
It feels weird for me to find myself in this position. I do not like Trump. I do not like what he stands for. I am by every conceivable metric extremely liberal. Yet Trump is one of the first presidents we've had in decades that is not a complete crony capitalist. This is obviously not to say that he does not engage in crony capitalism (he seems to have a bizarre love for oil) but rather that it isn't the cornerstone of his platform. The unfortunate thing is that our media has become mostly useless. The corporate media is sold out to anybody that supports their corporations and damns those that do not. And the "independent" media is left to compete against social media which means it invariably trends towards extremism (in one direction or the other) in order to maintain a demographic. In our increasingly intolerant nation individuals on either side of the aisle are reluctant to patronize reporting organizations that don't actively condemn "the other side."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 28 2017, @08:27AM
"Look at the most oppressive fascist regimes in the world and you'll find all these companies" competing for those regime's business.
FTFY
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:07PM (1 child)
By what metric is this at all true?
1) He hands off his finances to his direct family, rather than a blind trust.
2) He has his family (in particular is son-in-law) as a major political advisor and representative.
3) He regularly goes to his (well, technically now his family's, see #1) own hotels and resorts for political and personal meetings, increasing their visibility and effectively using his office as a marketing campaign.
4) There is a suspiciously high correlation between middle-east countries not on his travel ban, and middle-east countries where he has a hotel and major business dealings.
5) He's appointed how many Goldman Sachs/Fortune-100 people to political office?
6) I've not seen his tax records to know his domestic and foreign entanglements... have you?
I could go on, but I'm too lazy to spend 30 seconds searching google. About the only metric I can think of which makes this statement true is that pretty much everything he's done has been wildly flailing and inconsistent, so horrible and blatant corruption by comparison to his other failings is not that bad.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:24PM
Yeah...Perhaps he just pisses off the corporate masters because he's doing things backwards.
Instead of giving a bunch of money to various corps so that he can get paid by them once he leaves office, Trump already has his own corps and he's just giving the money to them. And I suppose some people think he looks impartial for not taking bribes -- but that's only because he's bribing himself!