© Damon Winter/The New York Times
That burning flag stuff is not so exciting. The oh, so liberal Hillary Clinton tried to punish flag burning too. In 2005, as Senator from New York, she introduced the Flag Protection Act of 2005 to achieve that:
It called for a punishment of one year in jail and a fine of $100,000.The act was not taken up by Congress. During her recent campaign Clinton strongly condemned the burning of an Israeli flag.
In 2006 a vote for a constitutional amendment to punish flag burning failed in the Senate. The Supreme Court had ruled in 1989 that the burning of the U.S. flag, or any other flag, is free speech covered by the first amendment. It is settled law and there is little to no chance that it will change. The issue is a political gimmick that is used every once a while to set up certain conservative groups against certain free speech defenders.
As such it is a diversion.
More important is that Trump is suggesting a "loss of citizenship" as a punishment. That should really enrage people. Loss of citizenship for using free speech rights?!? If Trump would try to implement that a real revolution would be justified.
But I believe it is, like many other things Trump says, just red meat for the media and his supporters. They will be busy covering this for a full news cycle or even longer.
During his campaign Trump used such gimmicks to divert attention from this or that scandal involving him or his business whenever such threatened to creep up to the top news line. It always worked like a charm. The media fell for each and every new "scandal" he fabricated with a few tweets or lines on the campaign trail. Journalists, "experts" and editors went off to discuss his latest bit while Trump's huge scandals, like his University scam, barely made the headline.
But why is Trump doing this now? Where does he has to divert attention from?
The recounts the Green candidate Stein tries to initiate are not endangering him. Stein collected several million dollars knowing that the legal conditions and time for such recounts do not exist. It is basically a scam to cover her pension.
Trump's cabinet selections are the usual horror troupe of Republican U.S. administrations. There is no real surprise there and no scandal.
So what is Trump trying to cover up here? Is some long-read piece with scandalous details about him and his daughter ready to go to print? Is he doing something else he does not want us to see?
I have been looking around all day and find no answer. Any ideas?
The-tyranny-at-Standing-Rock-The-governments-divide-and-conquer-strategy-is-working-martial-law-in-actionstein? Lolita Island? That child rape case that is allowed to go forward???