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

[Mister Mets]

You can't answer a question accurately until you know the extent of the problem at hand and Trump's lies and distortions on family separations make that virtually impossible -- the answer I'd provide (using government funding to hire more immigration judges for faster processing and to build better facilities for those seeking asylum) is reasonable, but a non-starter since Republicans would never allow tax funds to be used for that purpose, and instead prefer giving tax cuts to the rich and unnecessarily increasing military spending while pushing our country into record debt to providing for (brown immigrant) families in need.

Conversely, the Republican solution seems to be -- as I noted earlier -- to treat these immigrants as inhumanely as possible and separate them from their children to "deter" them from coming to America and requesting asylum.

The only thing "telling" about this situation is that Republicans (once again) don't seem to have a problem with mistreating non-whites in an effort to preserve white cultural hegemony in America and will openly lie while attempting to hide the truth about how badly they are willing to treat other human beings just to satisfy their racist "base".

Your suggestions (more judges, improved facilities) do leave some questions unresolved. Do you want the migrants to stay in the facilities until the judges make the decision? If so, what about the Flores settlement, which limits the amount of time minors can be kept? What do we do until facilities are built?

What criteria should the judges use to determine whether someone meets the standards for Asylum? Does it require persecution, or is it enough to come from a government that can't guarantee safety? Should it be extended to survivors of domestic violence?

The idea that Republicans are the only hardliners is ridiculous given the Democrats who thought it was important to turn down the Senate bill, which passed 84-8.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/polit...lls/index.html

[aja_christopher]

Your suggestions (more judges, improved facilities) do leave some questions unresolved. Do you want the migrants to stay in the facilities until the judges make the decision? If so, what about the Flores settlement, which limits the amount of time minors can be kept? What do we do until facilities are built?

What criteria should the judges use to determine whether someone meets the standards for Asylum? Does it require persecution, or is it enough to come from a government that can't guarantee safety? Should it be extended to survivors of domestic violence?

The idea that Republicans are the only hardliners is ridiculous given the Democrats who thought it was important to turn down the Senate bill, which passed 84-8.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/polit...lls/index.html

The Democrats preferred a bill with oversight but once again the Republicans were Republicans and would only allow their legislation to pass.

The questions you are asking need to be examined by professionals who know exactly what is happening with the kids (and adults) in those facilities -- I won't try to answer them on a message board without knowing all of the facts. What I do know is that I would put the basic needs of those human beings above money and racial hegemony, which is the core of the problem at hand with regards to the Republican party.

None of the questions you are asking directly address the issue of the current mistreatment of those in the camps, so they are of secondary concern to me.

I likewise know that none of what I'm suggesting matters so long as Republicans are in power since it would most likely involve eliminating the corporate tax cuts, so that's what I am addressing first and foremost, rather than rhetoric and hypotheticals on a message board.

[aja_christopher]

"Let the Doctors In"

"I was one of the lawyers permitted to interview children detained at the border patrol facility in Clint, Texas. As you’ve no doubt read by now, my colleagues and I met with dirty and distressed children held for days without access to soap, showers, toothbrushes, clean clothing, adequate nutrition or adequate sleep. We were not, however, allowed to visit with the sickest children. The government refuses to allow independent doctors in to help them.

At the Clint facility, my colleagues and I learned about a flu epidemic that left young children quarantined. We had a doctor on our team and wanted to ensure that these children were receiving appropriate care. I pleaded with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials for permission to visit the children in the quarantine. But CBP blocked us from doing so. Eventually we were able to negotiate phone calls to the quarantine. This meant we could talk with sick teenagers but had no way to evaluate tender age children. You just can’t gather any meaningful information from a very sick baby, toddler, or preschooler by phone.

How do I know it’s so important for independent doctors to evaluate these children? The previous week, during interviews with teenage moms at a border patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, lawyers and a pediatrician on our team had identified five detained babies who needed immediate hospitalization and were admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of a local hospital. Over the past year, at least seven children are known to have died in federal immigration custody or shortly after being released. These tragedies occurred after nearly a decade of no reported child deaths. As this public health crisis unfolds, doctors across the nation are volunteering to care for these vulnerable children, just as lawyers rushed to airports at the start of Trump’s Muslim Ban. But the government won’t let them in. This is indefensible.

The law is clear. Children in federal immigration custody must be provided with “safe and sanitary” conditions. This requirement is set forth in the Flores settlement agreement from 1997. Earlier this month, a draft report by inspectors from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recommended immediate action to remedy the hunger, overcrowding, and prolonged detention of children and adults in CBP custody. This isn’t about comfort: Unless unsafe and unsanitary conditions at border patrol facilities are addressed immediately, the spread of illness will continue, endangering even more children’s lives.

Because CBP blocked our access to the quarantine at Clint, we are left with the children’s reports of what it is like there. A 14-year old girl explained:

I was in the first cell for 7 days, sleeping with no mattress…. It is hard to sleep when you don’t have a mattress. I then came down with the flu. I then went into the flu cell for 7 days.

When you are in the flu cell, you also sleep on the floor, but you have a mattress. There were 21 other kids in that space with the flu. I had a fever in there and I was shaking. Some of the other kids were vomiting. They all had fevers. No one was taking care of the kids with the flu….

We were not allowed to leave the flu cell, ever. It was very boring. I did nothing to entertain myself nor was anything offered. It was sad, very sad. I felt locked up and closed in. In the other cells, we can go out of the cell to get water one time a day….

An 11-year old held in CBP custody for 13 days, despite having parents in New Jersey, shared:

About three days ago I got a fever. They moved me alone to a flu cell. There is no one to take care of you there. They just give you pills twice a day. I also am having an allergic reaction all over my skin. My skin is itchy and red and my nose is stuffed up. Two times they gave me a pill for it but not anymore.

On Wednesday, the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and co-counsel filed a motion to enforce the 1997 settlement agreement on behalf of class members, i.e., the kids currently in custody, submitting hundreds of pages of evidence documenting the inhumane conditions they are experiencing. Their demands are simple. Among them: Independent doctors should be allowed immediate access to assess and triage children’s medical needs. A public health expert should inspect facilities and determine how to make them safe and sanitary.

On Thursday, the government opposed these requests, calling them “coercive remedies.” The government wants more time, “an opportunity to fully review and respond.” The government says that the children’s demands go “beyond simply ordering that [the government] comply with the plain terms of the Flores Settlement Agreement”— an argument strikingly similar to the administration’s argument before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that “safe and sanitary” conditions do not require the government to provide detained children with toothbrushes, soap, and beds.

But the government fails to address the central question: Why should the government ban independent doctors from assessing children in custody? If there’s nothing to hide, why not let the doctors in?

Apparently blocking access is CBP’s default position. But the outcry by the American public in recent days has forced the agency to make changes. During the week of June 17, more than 2600 children were detained in border patrol facilities. Because of the public attention, that number has dropped to less than 1000. At Clint, the changes have been dizzying. 249 children were transferred on Monday. The facility was cleaned up. Then 100 children were brought in so that CBP could stage a highly restricted media tour, during which reporters were barred from speaking with any children, taking any photographs, or going into cells. But toothbrushes and even a soccer ball were on site. That’s a baby step in the right direction.

It should not take a national outcry for children in custody to have toothbrushes. It should not take a national outcry to ensure that babies, toddlers, and children held in carceral settings are safe with adequate food, beds, and showers. It should not take a national outcry to ensure that there are no more babies dying in custody. But that outcry—the outcry of the American public—must continue. Because for now, independent doctors are still banned from border detention facilities where vulnerable children languish.

Let’s not sanction another child’s death in our country and in our name."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...e-doctors.html

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

This is some circular logic to avoid definitions and just say that Biden isn't progressive because people who consider themselves progressive don't see him as progressive.

Progressive itself is a term that can exist outside the political landscape. There is in fact a subset of the political apparatus that defines itself as being part of the progressive wing in politics that has set up it's own parameters for what is deemed conventionally politically progressive.

Conservative is another such term. It exists outside of politics and I can broaden then scope of it significantly compared to how you discuss it on this board. You define as a conservative. Bernie Sanders did some conservative things when it came to gun rights once. Would you say that he's been conservative and that's enough to define him as conservative and be embraced by the conservative base of political voters? I think we both know the answer. And unless you are willing to agree to that,

It's silly to suggest that certain broader terms don't have narrower political context and the people that define by those labels don't have some agency in the parameters set to fit within them. That's literally what political ideology is.

[Tami]

Trump 2020 campaign secretly working with former Cambridge Analytica staffers: AP

A company run by former officials at Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm brought down by a scandal over how it obtained Facebook users' private data, has quietly been working for President Donald Trump's 2020 re-election effort, The Associated Press has learned.

The AP confirmed that at least four former Cambridge Analytica employees are affiliated with Data Propria, a new company specializing in voter and consumer targeting work similar to Cambridge Analytica's efforts before its collapse. The company's former head of product, Matt Oczkowski, leads the new firm, which also includes Cambridge Analytica's former chief data scientist

Oczkowski denied a link to the Trump campaign, but acknowledged that his new firm has agreed to do 2018 campaign work for the Republican National Committee. Oczkowski led the Cambridge Analytica data team which worked on Trump's successful 2016 campaign.

The AP learned of Data Propria's role in Trump's re-election effort as a result of conversations held with political contacts and prospective clients in recent weeks by Oczkowski. In one such conversation, which took place in a public place and was overheard by two AP reporters, Oczkowski said he and and Trump's 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, were "doing the president's work for 2020."

[aja_christopher]

Trump 2020 campaign secretly working with former Cambridge Analytica staffers: AP

"Bannon and Cambridge Analytica planned suppression of black voters, whistleblower tells Senate"

"Appearing before the Senate Judiciary committee today as part of the ongoing investigation of Cambridge Analytica and various forms of meddling in the 2016 elections, former employee and whistleblower Christopher Wylie said that the company and its then-VP Steve Bannon were pursuing voter suppression tactics aimed at black Americans.

Although Wylie insisted that he himself did not take part in these programs, he testified to their existence.

“One of the things that provoked me to leave was discussions about ‘voter disengagement’ and the idea of targeting African Americans,” he said. “I didn’t participate on any voter suppression programs, so I can’t comment on the specifics of those programs.”

“I can comment on their existence, and I can comment more generally on my understanding of what they were doing,” he explained under questioning from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).

“If it suited the client’s objective, the firm [SCL, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company] was eager to capitalize on discontent and to stoke ethnic tensions,” read Wylie’s written testimony."

https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/16/ba...-tells-senate/

[Malvolio]

"Let the Doctors In"

"I was one of the lawyers permitted to interview children detained at the border patrol facility in Clint, Texas. As you’ve no doubt read by now, my colleagues and I met with dirty and distressed children held for days without access to soap, showers, toothbrushes, clean clothing, adequate nutrition or adequate sleep. We were not, however, allowed to visit with the sickest children. The government refuses to allow independent doctors in to help them.

At the Clint facility, my colleagues and I learned about a flu epidemic that left young children quarantined. We had a doctor on our team and wanted to ensure that these children were receiving appropriate care. I pleaded with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials for permission to visit the children in the quarantine. But CBP blocked us from doing so. Eventually we were able to negotiate phone calls to the quarantine. This meant we could talk with sick teenagers but had no way to evaluate tender age children. You just can’t gather any meaningful information from a very sick baby, toddler, or preschooler by phone.

How do I know it’s so important for independent doctors to evaluate these children? The previous week, during interviews with teenage moms at a border patrol facility in McAllen, Texas, lawyers and a pediatrician on our team had identified five detained babies who needed immediate hospitalization and were admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of a local hospital. Over the past year, at least seven children are known to have died in federal immigration custody or shortly after being released. These tragedies occurred after nearly a decade of no reported child deaths. As this public health crisis unfolds, doctors across the nation are volunteering to care for these vulnerable children, just as lawyers rushed to airports at the start of Trump’s Muslim Ban. But the government won’t let them in. This is indefensible.

The law is clear. Children in federal immigration custody must be provided with “safe and sanitary” conditions. This requirement is set forth in the Flores settlement agreement from 1997. Earlier this month, a draft report by inspectors from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recommended immediate action to remedy the hunger, overcrowding, and prolonged detention of children and adults in CBP custody. This isn’t about comfort: Unless unsafe and unsanitary conditions at border patrol facilities are addressed immediately, the spread of illness will continue, endangering even more children’s lives.

Because CBP blocked our access to the quarantine at Clint, we are left with the children’s reports of what it is like there. A 14-year old girl explained:

I was in the first cell for 7 days, sleeping with no mattress…. It is hard to sleep when you don’t have a mattress. I then came down with the flu. I then went into the flu cell for 7 days.

When you are in the flu cell, you also sleep on the floor, but you have a mattress. There were 21 other kids in that space with the flu. I had a fever in there and I was shaking. Some of the other kids were vomiting. They all had fevers. No one was taking care of the kids with the flu….

We were not allowed to leave the flu cell, ever. It was very boring. I did nothing to entertain myself nor was anything offered. It was sad, very sad. I felt locked up and closed in. In the other cells, we can go out of the cell to get water one time a day….

An 11-year old held in CBP custody for 13 days, despite having parents in New Jersey, shared:

About three days ago I got a fever. They moved me alone to a flu cell. There is no one to take care of you there. They just give you pills twice a day. I also am having an allergic reaction all over my skin. My skin is itchy and red and my nose is stuffed up. Two times they gave me a pill for it but not anymore.

On Wednesday, the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and co-counsel filed a motion to enforce the 1997 settlement agreement on behalf of class members, i.e., the kids currently in custody, submitting hundreds of pages of evidence documenting the inhumane conditions they are experiencing. Their demands are simple. Among them: Independent doctors should be allowed immediate access to assess and triage children’s medical needs. A public health expert should inspect facilities and determine how to make them safe and sanitary.

On Thursday, the government opposed these requests, calling them “coercive remedies.” The government wants more time, “an opportunity to fully review and respond.” The government says that the children’s demands go “beyond simply ordering that [the government] comply with the plain terms of the Flores Settlement Agreement”— an argument strikingly similar to the administration’s argument before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that “safe and sanitary” conditions do not require the government to provide detained children with toothbrushes, soap, and beds.

But the government fails to address the central question: Why should the government ban independent doctors from assessing children in custody? If there’s nothing to hide, why not let the doctors in?

Apparently blocking access is CBP’s default position. But the outcry by the American public in recent days has forced the agency to make changes. During the week of June 17, more than 2600 children were detained in border patrol facilities. Because of the public attention, that number has dropped to less than 1000. At Clint, the changes have been dizzying. 249 children were transferred on Monday. The facility was cleaned up. Then 100 children were brought in so that CBP could stage a highly restricted media tour, during which reporters were barred from speaking with any children, taking any photographs, or going into cells. But toothbrushes and even a soccer ball were on site. That’s a baby step in the right direction.

It should not take a national outcry for children in custody to have toothbrushes. It should not take a national outcry to ensure that babies, toddlers, and children held in carceral settings are safe with adequate food, beds, and showers. It should not take a national outcry to ensure that there are no more babies dying in custody. But that outcry—the outcry of the American public—must continue. Because for now, independent doctors are still banned from border detention facilities where vulnerable children languish.

Let’s not sanction another child’s death in our country and in our name."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...e-doctors.html

I remember reading a story about what happened during WW II when the Red Cross came to inspect the concentration camps. The Nazis would make the camps look nice and pretend to be treating the prisoners well, but as soon as the Red Cross was gone, they would go back to starving the prisoners before exterminating them. I'm afraid of the Trump administration doing the same thing when and if they let independent doctors in.

[JackDaw]

I remember reading a story about what happened during WW II when the Red Cross came to inspect the concentration camps. The Nazis would make the camps look nice and pretend to be treating the prisoners well, but as soon as the Red Cross was gone, they would go back to starving the prisoners before exterminating them. I'm afraid of the Trump administration doing the same thing when and if they let independent doctors in.

This is one story where I would be very sceptical of its veracity.

Conditions in most of the camps were so extreme that there was no way that they could pass a reasonably careful inspection...and then return to “business as usual” the next week. The prisoners severe mal-nourishment would be an unmistake-able give away.

And..of course..the Red Cross should have insisted on private conversations with the inmates.

All my returns from quick googles on subject (e.g. “Red Cross inspection of Auschwitz”) suggest Red Cross probably did know conditions were vile, but did not publicise those concerns. (To be fair Red Cross was in a difficult position, speaking out may well have resulted in them losing visiting privileges and stopped the limited help they could bring to the POW’s.)

[kidfresh512]

My reply was specifically to the "O’Rourke is hoping to shut down facilities like Casa Sunzal and others that house undocumented kids." quote. I'm all for transparency and humane treatment. My question, specifically, is that if we shut down or stop funding these facilities, WHERE will the children go? Many are unaccompanied or traveling with non-family members. As for the ones with family members, I agree that they should be with their parents. So to facilitate that, what should we do? The parents are held until they are processed, and the places they are being held are already overcrowded and get worse every day with the constant flow of migrants. If we stop funding these facilities, as many progressives suggest, things will get even worse and there certainly won't be room for kids.

So that's really two questions: 1) What do we do for kids who are here without parents if we close the facilities. They have to go somewhere. And 2) Where do we put the kids with parents if the parents are already at facilities that are overcrowded and underfunded?

Number one is there must be transparency NOW. This not allowing representatives in, not allowing the media in, the secrecy the leaks of conditions needs to stop. As already reported they were ordered to reunite parents already. And they still haven't reunited all. There should be no reason to be so secretive with the conditions in these private concentration camps. If everything is on the up and up the peoples representatives should be able to get in these places and report to the American People what is going on period. If they aren't up to snuff, or being humanely treated then yes these private contracts should be yanked.

There is NO excuse not to. If the contractor cannot provide humane and safe living conditions then they shouldn't be getting tax payer funds and need to have their contracts yanked. PERIOD. Close the shit up and take them somewhere they can be treated humanely. This is America you cant tell me we cannot do better. This administration doesn't give a shit until the leaks are too blatant to ignore. Then its save face mode and try to plug the leaks of information rather than fix the filthy problem.

On another note I just saw the viral video of Ivanka trying to "fit in" at G20 and talk to world leaders. Gross

https://twitter.com/ParhamGhobadi/st...74623035449357

[BeastieRunner]

Biden needs to withdraw.

He is super out of touch.

[Mister Mets]

The Democrats preferred a bill with oversight but once again the Republicans were Republicans and would only allow their legislation to pass.

The questions you are asking need to be examined by professionals who know exactly what is happening with the kids (and adults) in those facilities -- I won't try to answer them on a message board without knowing all of the facts. What I do know is that I would put the basic needs of those human beings above money and racial hegemony, which is the core of the problem at hand with regards to the Republican party.

None of the questions you are asking directly address the issue of the current mistreatment of those in the camps, so they are of secondary concern to me.

I likewise know that none of what I'm suggesting matters so long as Republicans are in power since it would most likely involve eliminating the corporate tax cuts, so that's what I am addressing first and foremost, rather than rhetoric and hypotheticals on a message board.

A concern on the right is that much of the worry about mistreatment of migrants in detention centers is pretext from people who just want them to be released into the United States ASAP. I'm sure it's more complex than that (IE- someone who wants to be generous to unauthorized immigrants is also going to worry about their treatment in the centers; someone who assumes the worst of Republicans is going to think there may be Beria-style abuses going on.)

I can appreciate the desire for an investigation. However, we still need to get through the logistics of handling migrants who are currently detained and coming over the border. Do you want the migrants to stay in the facilities until the judges make the decision? If so, what about the Flores settlement, which limits the amount of time minors can be kept? What do we do until facilities are built? What criteria should the judges use to determine whether someone meets the standards for Asylum? Does it require persecution, or is it enough to come from a government that can't guarantee safety? Should it be extended to survivors of domestic violence? These questions aren't resolved by an investigation into the past on a different topic. In addition, a potential downside of detailed investigations is that it can further slow down the process by keeping migrants in places that are crowded because of the lack of turnover, and taking employees away.

I wonder if because the news I get is largely mainstream and conservative, I'm not picking up a concern on the left that explains much of their rationale (There was a politics forum where someone has done a future of the President Bernie Sanders administration in which thousands of mass graves of migrants are found, and until now, I thought that was more of a parody than an expression of an actual fear.) The articles about the opposition of some House Democrats to Pelosi weren't really about the need to investigate what happened, but about different policy goals (budget cuts to border enforcement, higher negotiation leverage, particular standards of care.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/u...migration.html

Progressive itself is a term that can exist outside the political landscape. There is in fact a subset of the political apparatus that defines itself as being part of the progressive wing in politics that has set up it's own parameters for what is deemed conventionally politically progressive.

Conservative is another such term. It exists outside of politics and I can broaden then scope of it significantly compared to how you discuss it on this board. You define as a conservative. Bernie Sanders did some conservative things when it came to gun rights once. Would you say that he's been conservative and that's enough to define him as conservative and be embraced by the conservative base of political voters? I think we both know the answer. And unless you are willing to agree to that,

It's silly to suggest that certain broader terms don't have narrower political context and the people that define by those labels don't have some agency in the parameters set to fit within them. That's literally what political ideology is.

I get that labels are complex, but they do sometimes have clear meanings. The pro-life label refers to those who are against abortion; the pro-choice label refers to those who are generally in favor of abortion.

Some stuff is a little bit wobblier. A politician could say that they're religious and that's harder for an outsider to measure, although there are some metrics available (The "If you were on trial for being a true believer in your faith, what would be the prosecution's argument against you?" question.)

I'd also have no problem with determining categorizations for political figures. To determine whether Bernie Sanders is conservative, you could compare him to others in elected office. If we could agree that he's not more conservative than half of American statewide officeholders, he wouldn't fit in the category of conservative. My test, especially in these increasingly polarized times. to determine if someone's a centrist is whether if you rank the party members from most centrists to most extreme (here defined neutrally as the edge of a left to right line rather than in a pejorative sense), they would clearly be in the more centrist half.

I would expect progressives to be able to articulate clear standards, and a clear criteria for what makes one figure progressive and another not, beyond a cult of personality.

[Robotman]

Biden really can’t go a week without saying something stupid.

At a campaign event hosted by public relations executive Roger Nyhus, who is known as a leader in the Seattle gay rights community Biden said:


The presidential hopeful suggested public sentiment toward gay rights issues has come far in a short period of time, saying five years ago if someone at a business meeting in Seattle "made fun of a gay waiter" people would just let it go, according to a pool report of the event. The audience vocally responded to the remark and some in the crowd said homophobic comments would not have gone unchallenged even before five years ago, according to the report.


https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/06/30/pol....google.com%2F

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Biden needs to withdraw.

He is super out of touch.

He's always been this way

[aja_christopher]

A concern on the right is that much of the worry about mistreatment of migrants in detention centers is pretext from people who just want them to be released into the United States ASAP.

I'm not concerned about the "concerns on the right" -- I'm concerned about Republicans separating families and treating asylum seekers and children like prisoners, making them sleep on concrete floors while using my tax dollars to do so.

As any person with a sense of human decency would be.

I've already told you I'm not going to waste time on this rhetoric Mets -- you've already made it clear that you care more about "open borders" nonsense than making sure your party doesn't go full Nazi/white supremacist with regards to the treatment of "minorities" both here and abroad. For all your talk of "slippery slopes" that seems to be the one that "concerns the right" the least -- including you -- despite the obvious negative ramifications it will have for our nation (both domestically and internationally) going forward.

With that in mind, there's no point in even pretending that we can find common ground on these kinds of issues, just like there's no reason to pretend any (humane) solution I might offer would be seriously considered by the Republicans in Congress.

And that's not dodging your questions -- I've already pointed out those queries are best left to independent experts, like the doctors and government officials the Republicans won't let visit young sick children in the camps.

[Gray Lensman]

He's always been this way

Biden has that same 'bed of nails' defense against gaffes that Trump does - namely, that he makes so many of them it's too hard to concentrate on any one long enough for it to do any damage to him.