Jeff Sessions Dismisses Hawaii as ‘an Island in the Pacific’

[IAMX 3,055]

8 minutes ago, ccneat said:

but according you your link the Federal Court was overturned more

"the federal court" 

 

Those are all federal courts.

[CaliCat 3,957]

15 minutes ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

I will be adding Island and pacific to offensive trigger words that are totally racist I cant use anymore

That might be a good idea, especially if you are unable to understand context.

 

http://time.com/4752856/jeff-sessions-hawaii-pacific-island-travel-ban/

 

Jeff Sessions' Hawaii Comment Was a Throwback to American Imperialism

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell what year the Trump Administration thinks it is. Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressed amazement that “a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific” could block President Donald Trump’s latest travel ban. It seemed he was stuck somewhere pre-1959, before that far-off land, which most of us just call Hawaii, became a state.

Sessions later claimed that he was just stating a geographic fact: Hawaii is, indeed, located in the Pacific Ocean. But he cannot deny the subtext. By overtly portraying our fiftieth state as a distant region rather than part of his own homeland, Sessions said: This place is foreign, not really part of us. He channeled a complicated chapter in American history — one that the President has explicitly praised and that still pains other islands in the Pacific.

 

In March 2016, the New York Times asked then-candidate Trump to pinpoint when, exactly, he thought America had been “great.” His answer: Around 1900, which he called “a pretty wild time for this country and pretty wild in terms of building that machine, that machine was really based on entrepreneurship etc., etc.”

That sentence seems to be about money. Indeed, having passed Great Britain as the world’s largest industrial economy in 1890, the country was doing well. But the wilder, more notable times were happening in the geopolitical sphere, where the United States, a country founded on ideals of anti-colonialism, was creating a sprawling overseas empire in the island-grabbing image of Great Britain and other European powers. This was United States’ central ambition of the time. It intended to expand trade, increase military might and show the world that the U.S. had arrived.

The reason Hawaii is now a part of the U.S. is that in 1893, American interests overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani, the ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii, imprisoning her in her bedroom at ’Iolani Palace. It was a violent action against a sovereign nation. A century later, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed an Apology Resolution, acknowledging the U.S.’s role in this conspiracy. But American leaders of the nineteenth century celebrated , including William McKinley, who was elected president in 1896, on the Republican ticket. During the campaign, he vowed to annex Hawaii, and two years later, he did just that, saying, “We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California — it is manifest destiny.”

Hawaii was merely the starting point. After the Spanish-American War, in 1898, the U.S. took over Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, followed in 1900 by American Samoa and in 1917 by the Danish West Indies, which were immediately rechristened the U.S. Virgin Islands. Aside from the Philippines, all of these remain American territories. (They were joined in 1976 by the Northern Mariana Islands.)

 

Historians refer to this as the U.S.’s Imperial Moment, and it was the catalyst for the American century, paving the way for later nation-building and other overseas dalliances from the Panama Canal to Iraq to all-but-forgotten moments like the 1983 invasion of Grenada.

The Americans often arrived with saviors’ proclamations, a mask for the paternalist and racist enterprise. The residents of these new territories were, in this view, conquered people. Theodore Roosevelt, who succeeded McKinley, defended colonialism by saying, in 1909, that “the expansion of the peoples of white, or European, blood during the past four centuries has been fraught with lasting benefit to most of the peoples already dwelling in the lands over which the expansion took place.”

For many Americans, this also meant that the newly-acquired islands should never be fully politically integrated with the rest of the nation. Author Willis Fletcher Johnson made the case in his 1903 book A Century of Expansion, saying that Hawaii should remain a territory in perpetuity, to prove “the ability and right of this nation to acquire and to hold colonies, never intended for statehood, at any distance in any part of the world.”

Look closely at Jeff Sessions’ “Pacific Island” remark, and at Trump’s love for the Imperial Moment, and it’s hard not to see a connection to McKinley, Roosevelt and A Century of Expansion. There’s a line in the sand between “real” America and everywhere else — a nationalism-fueled decree that only the so-called authentic citizens have access to the full rights and benefits of conferred by the government and the broader society.

And, critically, the subtext of Sessions’s comments goes beyond Hawaii — which did, after all, eventually get statehood. In many important ways, the Imperial Moment is alive for the four million Americans who live in the territories — those islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Territory residents can’t vote for President and, in the case of American Samoans, aren’t even American citizens by birth. (They’re nationals; it’s complicated.) Across federal programs and services, there are many funding discrepancies, such as the fact that Guam, despite proudly boasting a military-enlistment rate higher than any state, ranked last in per-capita spending for veterans’ services by the Department of Veterans of Affairs in 2012 .

This system could not exist without the aid of the other branches of government. It is also in large part thanks to a series of Supreme Court cases, called the Insular Cases, which began in 1901. The Insular Cases established that the territories belonged to the U.S. but were not wholly part of it. They lacked the full protection of the Constitution or the local sovereignty of states — they were, effectively, colonies. In one of the earliest cases, Downes v. Bidwell, the court ruled that the territories were “foreign in a domestic sense,” unworthy of full inclusion in the U.S. because they were “inhabited by alien races” unable to adapt to “Anglo-Saxon principles.”

Archaic as that sounds, the Insular Cases still stand. There are no signs of change, and there haven’t been regardless of who was in charge: Last year, the Obama Administration effectively endorsed the Insular Cases in a Supreme Court case regarding Puerto Rican sovereignty. No sitting president has visited more than three territories. No sitting president has ever even been to the Northern Mariana Islands.

It’s still early in the new Administration, and the President is famously unpredictable. But the evidence so far indicates that his Administration is particularly disinclined to help the territories. Millions of Americans will continue to live as second-class citizens as long as people like Jeff Sessions remain stuck in the Imperial Moment, thinking of them as lesser places and lesser people.

[IAMX 3,055]

One could write a novel with how far the left can stretch an utterly harmless comment. Stay tuned on TantrumTV.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

7 minutes ago, IAMX said:

"the federal court" 

 

Those are all federal courts.

shhhh the MDL thinks they scored an epic fail.... Be very very quiet. 

 

[CaliCat 3,957]

6 minutes ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

shhhh the MDL thinks they scored an epic fail.... Be very very quiet. 

 

 

Offices, I swear! I was driving right down the middle of the road, and lost control I don't remember how... Will anyone notice if I just pretend nothing happened?

 

 

Edited April 25, 2017 by CaliCat

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

1 minute ago, CaliCat said:

Offices, I swear! I was driving right down the middle of the road, and lost control I don't remember how... Will anyone notice if I just pretend nothing happened?

 

 

That was strong. Very strong 

[CaliCat 3,957]

2 minutes ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

That was strong. Very strong 

You practically asked for it.

[smilesammich 10,727]

49 minutes ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

Of the cases it reviewed from the 9th it overturned 80%. why does the MDL always try to play semantics with words. Words mean things, and what I am saying is pretty clear. 

 

No where did I make a claim it review 80 of its decisions. 

 

Your like a basketball player that got barely bumped by someone, but falls down with a great deal of poor acting trying to draw a foul.  it did not work 

review or overturned, 80% of its decisions.

semantics? really? "the left is bullying sessions over referring to hawaii as an island, what gives" 

LOL.

[yuna628 9,873]

2 hours ago, IAMX said:

You're getting 100% of your views from whats "legal" and not from a few court rulings from the 9th, a heavily overturned circuit for a reason. Given all this whining and protesting of everything-Trump since November that you clearly support, along with Russia conspiracies that still have not one iota of proof behind them, I seriously doubt you can be trusted to understand the law, never mind understand someone you didn't want to be elected is your President. Your "Jeffy" statement says it all, this is far too personal for you.

Actually you don't know where I get my views from or how I base them. That would be an emotional assumption, and I believe you stated you liked to avoid that. Also I don't believe I've ever said I've supported whining and protesting, either - though as a whole, given that this is a Constitutional Republic Democracy, and not a dictatoriship - people are allowed to protest about whatever they want, on whatever subjects they want, whether or not that is agreed by you or not. I can understand the law quite clearly, as I am educated enough to read, study, understand, and formulate an opinion, after hearing all sides of an argument on a subject. The topic of the travel ban vs what the law says has come up quite a lot on this forum, and I'm sorry you missed out discussing it, as most of the time it was civil, even when there was disagreeing viewpoints. It required a lot of reading on the subject instead of tossing out assumptions, and I know that a great deal of study on the subject is sometimes not what people want to do or care about doing - but even those most ardent conservatives began to understand sometimes the administration screws up, and there's consequences to that. I don't require to ask to be trusted to understand the law, as I'm not seeking to convince you away from your baseless assumptions of other people on this forum, their differing opinions, what the law actually says vs what some would like it to be, or even get you to give me a thumbs up approved validation on the thoughts of this current President. That wouldn't be just a bit weird now wouldn't it?

1 hour ago, TBoneTX said:

Take care now, folks:  we can disagree without being disagreeable.

I hope we can TB. It's really sad when people just assume and toss labels around though. It really doesn't help the respect level and overall tone ya know?

1 hour ago, ccneat said:

calling someone "Jeffy" is personal?  I would think comparing someone to a Keebler elf would be personal

 

Maybe IAMX's name is Jeff, and they took it personally. Sorry about that, if that's the case! I've known a lot of Jeffs in my time. Some brilliant, some not so much. Since the AG likes to use funny ''humour'' about confusing the state of Hawaii with just some dinky island, I think Jeffy wouldn't mind a humourous play on his name. I'm sure, he's been called worse. But he can tell me that himself if he'd like. I make a nice pot of tea and brownies.

40 minutes ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

I am going to ask my awesome wife, when I get home tonight if she is from an Island in the Pacific. I wonder if she will be offended. News at 7

Is that island one of the United States of America? I know it's raining so hard out there right now, please drive safely and get out of the middle double yellow line!

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

1 hour ago, smilesammich said:

review or overturned, 80% of its decisions.

semantics? really? "the left is bullying sessions over referring to hawaii as an island, what gives" 

LOL.

Actually its not semantics. its so clear Helen Keller could see it .What i said --""""" No its not. 80% of its cased that make it to the supreme court are vacated. """""

 

Unlike an Obama liberal and the constitution, there is no interpretation needed here. It means what it means 

[Teddy B 17,252]

On 4/21/2017 at 2:49 PM, Nature Boy Flair said:

so basically a Judge on an Island in the Pacific issued the ruling. 

Has anyone heard any update on Guam recently? Has it capsized yet?

 

 

 

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

1 hour ago, IAMX said:

"the federal court" 

 

Those are all federal courts.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit; in case citations, Fed. Cir. or C.A.F.C.) is a United States court of appeals headquartered in Washington, D.C. The court was created by Congress with passage of the Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982, which merged the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and the appellate division of the United States Court of Claims, making the judges of the former courts into circuit judges.^[1][2] The Federal Circuit is particularly known for its decisions on patent law, as it is the only appellate-level court with the jurisdiction to hear patent case appeals.^[3]

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

5 minutes ago, Teddy B said:

Has anyone heard any update on Guam recently? Has it capsized yet?

 

 

 

Georgia Pride 

[smilesammich 10,727]

14 minutes ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

Actually its not semantics. its so clear Helen Keller could see it .What i said --""""" No its not. 80% of its cased that make it to the supreme court are vacated. """""

 

Unlike an Obama liberal and the constitution, there is no interpretation needed here. It means what it means 

no dear, your initial claim had a sentence after it..something about "that's a pretty high number of cases" or something (words matter!). in fact, it isn't a remarkably high number and that's what makes the whole 80% commentary null.

 

Among less than one tenth of one percent of circuit court decisions reviewed by the Supreme Court, about 80 percent of the Ninth Circuit Court's decisions were overturned.

...

"In short, social media claims that 80 percent of cases decided by the Ninth Circuit were overturned were flat out false; more than 99 percent of that circuit’s decisions stood and the Supreme Court reviewed a scant 0.106 percent of circuit court cases each year. Although figures from 2010 maintained the “Ninth Circuit [had] the second highest reversal rate at 80 [percent],” the “highest” was the Federal Circuit court’s median of 83 percent. However, left out of both the rumors and the blog post was the fact that the average rate of accepted cases ruled upon differently by the Supreme Court than a lower circuit court was over 68 percent across all courts. So of less than one percent of all cases reviewed by the Supreme Court, 68 percent of decisions across all circuits were overturned. Eighty percent of decisions by the Ninth Circuit were overturned when escalated to the Supreme Court, but the numbers were misleading taken out of context."

 

[smilesammich 10,727]

10 minutes ago, ccneat said:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit; in case citations, Fed. Cir. or C.A.F.C.) is a United States court of appeals headquartered in Washington, D.C. The court was created by Congress with passage of the Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982, which merged the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and the appellate division of the United States Court of Claims, making the judges of the former courts into circuit judges.^[1][2] The Federal Circuit is particularly known for its decisions on patent law, as it is the only appellate-level court with the jurisdiction to hear patent case appeals.^[3]

way to copy and paste. SKILLZ.