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

[PaulBullion]

Nope. I'm trying to show a correlation. Despite the guy cowardly killing black union officers he was honored in Arkansas and Mississippi with a city named after him. And apparently with the law in Tenn he continues to be honored. The Confederate is an racist institution in the South. Something like this can't simply be dismantled by shaming someone for carrying out the orders of a law that was already on the books. If the Democrats are serious about rebuking the first KKK leader they need to launch a campaign and repeal all of the honors that had been bestowed on him since the Civil War.

But they are only trying to bank political points by blaming the Republican.

Well, you convinced me to #WalkAway .... from your insincere, bad grammar troll posts. Buh bye.

[TriggerWarning]

The circumstances behind the shooting stink like day old diapers. Something else I smell, a police coverup.

They released the bodycam. Much to chagrin of those who don't like police this was absolutely justified. The cop walks around the corner of a car to see Hannah in a shooting stance pointing a gun right at him. The cop shoots back having every reason to believe the gun is real. It was one of those replica guns that cannot be distinguished from the real thing unless your actually holding it. Pretty clear suicide by cop.

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2019...y-shot-in-ois/

[Malvolio]

That's is not what you did. You tried to pull a Clinton is the same because there was a town in his State. Let me explain it to you, right now there is one party that want's to stop honoring the Confederacy and remove the monuments that honor it, and one party, including it's leader, that wants to keep the legacy in place. But keep doing your "both sides" backflips, it's fun watching the gymnastics.

They do this all the time. As if the Democratic Party of the 19th century is exactly the same as today's Democratic Party, and as if Lincoln is still the figurehead of the Republican Party.

[worstblogever]

In one of the more blatant violations of the Hatch Act from the Trump administration (and that's saying something considering the s*** Kellyanne Conway's been pulling), Donald Trump used his official Twitter account to retweet a Trump organization ad about Trump golf courses. That would be the same Trump organization whose affairs he's supposed to be removed from, and his children run without him.

[Mister Mets]

As usual, the problem with these "dialogues" is that you're saying what you think Republicans should do instead of directly addressing the inhumanity and outright lawlessness of what Republicans are actually doing -- likewise much of what you are suggesting has also been suggested by Democrats, not just Republicans, so that's a false "left/right" divide.

Regardless of the results, nothing justifies how the current Republican administration is treating immigrants, Mets -- treating asylum seekers worse than prisoners and separating children from their families is not a "solution" you should take any pride in as a Republican.

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"Obama Tripled Migrant Processing at Legal Ports — Trump Halved It"

"The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been turning away asylum seekers, families, and other migrants without paperwork as they attempt to apply for entry at legal ports along the U.S-Mexico border. Migrants are then forced to wait days, weeks, or months homeless in Mexico. The policy clearly violates U.S. asylum law, which has no limit on asylum applications, and according to the DHS Office of the Inspector General, the practice results in many choosing to enter illegally.

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Congress in December 2018 that the turnback policy — which she refers to as “metering” or “queuing” — was due to a lack of “capacity” at ports. She also denied that the agency had instituted any policies that would intentionally reduce processing migrants at ports. However, Jud Murdock, Customs and Border Protection’s acting assistant commissioner, told members of Congress in a closed meeting that same month that “the more we process, the more will come,” implying that the administration does not want to increase processing.

Murdock’s version is more plausible based on the data on port processing of “inadmissible aliens” along the southwest border — generally those without documents proving pre-approval to enter. Monthly arrivals of undocumented migrants at ports steadily rose under the Obama administration. The port arrivals more than tripled from a monthly average of 5,788 in fiscal year (FY) 2012 to a peak of 20,524 in October 2016 (Figure 1). However, since that peak, the numbers have fallen 51 percent to 10,029 in December 2018 — the month when Nielsen told Congress that ports could handle no more...

Congress needs to demand answers on why the Trump administration is processing half as many asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants at ports of entry than the Obama administration did in October 2018. The administration’s normal responses simply don’t explain it. The processing is far below what it was two years ago, but given that CBP has been turning back migrants since at least May 2016, it needs to explain how it has not found solutions to this problem in the meantime. The agency cannot simply suspend U.S. immigration law for years on end.

The anecdotal evidence and the statistics point in a single direction: that the government is intentionally inflating “capacity” issues in order to justify turning away asylum seekers. The culmination of this political stance is the “Remain in Mexico” policy that the administration has started to implement in San Diego, under which nearly all asylum seekers will be sent back to Mexico even after waiting under the turnback policy. This administration’s goal is what White House adviser Stephen Miller reportedly said, “I would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched American soil.”

Its policies are moving America closer and closer to that goal."

Democrats might support much of what I've suggested regarding the migrant camps, but that stuff only works if we also go with the policies that resolve the problem of too many people claiming asylum. If we just have an investigation into wrongdoing and other problems, funding for higher standards in migrant centers, and some kind of mechanism for emergency spending if there's an increase of asylum-seekers in the future, it turns asylum claims into an appealing way for economic migrants to come to the US.

[Mister Mets]

Nope. I'm trying to show a correlation. Despite the guy cowardly killing black union officers he was honored in Arkansas and Mississippi with a city named after him. And apparently with the law in Tenn he continues to be honored. The Confederate is an racist institution in the South. Something like this can't simply be dismantled by shaming someone for carrying out the orders of a law that was already on the books. If the Democrats are serious about rebuking the first KKK leader they need to launch a campaign and repeal all of the honors that had been bestowed on him since the Civil War.

But they are only trying to bank political points by blaming the Republican.

I think a lot of them don't understand the situation. It's described as if this governor went out of his way to honor a confederate, when the law mandates him to make these proclamations. The law should be changed, but that is an onerous process, while time and resources are finite.

[shooshoomanjoe]

They do this all the time. As if the Democratic Party of the 19th century is exactly the same as today's Democratic Party, and as if Lincoln is still the figurehead of the Republican Party.

Republicans were liberal and dems were conservative in Lincoln's time. The values of both parties may have switched but liberals are still liberal and conservatives are still conservative.

[PaulBullion]

I think a lot of them don't understand the situation. It's described as if this governor went out of his way to honor a confederate, when the law mandates him to make these proclamations. The law should be changed, but that is an onerous process, while time and resources are finite.

"just following orders", so to speak?

[Gray Lensman]

I think a lot of them don't understand the situation. It's described as if this governor went out of his way to honor a confederate, when the law mandates him to make these proclamations. The law should be changed, but that is an onerous process, while time and resources are finite.

They were able to go out of their way to punish Memphis for finding a legal loophole to remove their Confederate statues, so what's important seems obvious.

[aja_christopher]

Democrats might support much of what I've suggested regarding the migrant camps, but that stuff only works if we also go with the policies that resolve the problem of too many people claiming asylum. If we just have an investigation into wrongdoing and other problems, funding for higher standards in migrant centers, and some kind of mechanism for emergency spending if there's an increase of asylum-seekers in the future, it turns asylum claims into an appealing way for economic migrants to come to the US.

Mets, you're always talking about what you think is right while ignoring the facts right in front of your face -- it's not about what the Democrats "might" do, it's about the criminal and inhumane behavior that your party is engaging in right now as we speak.

You continue fearmongering about "immigrants" while your party blatantly engages in lawlessness, corruption, and promoting white nationalist talking points like "open borders" in order to try to justify intentionally placing people in overcrowded camps and denying adequate hygiene and medical care to children.

You didn't even bother to address the fact that Republicans under Trump are intentionally creating this "crisis" by processing claims at half the speed as the Obama administration despite "faster processing" being the first item on your list -- you just went straight to the fearmongering about what Democrats "might do" instead of addressing the fact that your party doesn't even do what you suggest.

With that in mind, explain to us why you think supporting a party that believes family separation and denying children hygiene supplies and medical care is acceptable and why you don't have a problem with the Trump administration violating laws in order to do so -- your bias is overwhelming and it's way past time you addressed it directly.

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"TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ARGUES DETAINED MIGRANT CHILDREN DON'T NEED TOOTHBRUSHES, SOAP"

"The Trump administration went to court this week to argue that migrant children detained at the United States-Mexico border do not require basic hygiene products like soap and toothbrushes in order to be in held in "safe and sanitary" conditions. Trump's team also argued that requiring minors to sleep on cold concrete floors in crowded cells with low temperatures similarly fulfilled that requirement.

Arguing in a 9th district San Francisco court about the conditions that they must hold migrant children in, the administration said that they did not violate a precedent set by a landmark 1985 class action lawsuit which established guidelines for the way minors held in federal immigration detention must be treated. The case, Jenny Lisette Flores v. Edwin Meese, created rules around the timely release of migrant minors to their parents, and said that those not released must be kept in facilities that are "safe and sanitary."

But on Tuesday, the Justice Department's Sarah Fabian claimed that the ruling did not list specific requirements like "toothbrushes" or "towels," to establish a sanitary condition.

"One has to assume it was left that way and not enumerated by the parties because either the parties couldn't reach agreement on how to enumerate that or it was left to the agencies to determine," Fabian said to the three Clinton-appointed federal judges on the court.

"You're really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn't a question of safe and sanitary conditions?" U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked Fabian.

Other judges also expressed outrage.

"Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you've got an aluminum foil blanket?" U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher asked Fabian. "I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary."

Still, Fabian said that the Trump administration plans to apply for a motion of reconsideration and continue to appeal the ruling.

At least seven migrant children have died in U.S. custody since late 2018 when the president began his policy of detaining them separately from their families."

https://www.newsweek.com/migrant-chi...ration-1445090

[SquirrelMan]

Optics.

[Iron Maiden]

In one of the more blatant violations of the Hatch Act from the Trump administration (and that's saying something considering the s*** Kellyanne Conway's been pulling), Donald Trump used his official Twitter account to retweet a Trump organization ad about Trump golf courses. That would be the same Trump organization whose affairs he's supposed to be removed from, and his children run without him.

Yet they don't seem to be getting far with the judges on some of this stuff. This week a federal appeals court dismissed the suit about him illegally profiting from foreign and state government visitors that book his hotel. Yet remember how Jimmy Carter had to put his peanut farm into a blind trust to satisfy the Republicans? In 1979 the GOP had a 6 month investigation known as PeanutGate led by a special prosecutor. It was alleged that money from the peanut farm warehouse was diverted into his presidential campaign. The investigation found nothing improper. IMO they were still smarting from Watergate and just wanted to stir up some negative stories about Carter.

[aja_christopher]

Here's another article Mets so you can't act as if you don't see them, even though you usually choose not to address them.

Again -- explain why you think this is acceptable behavior from your chosen party.

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"MIGRANT DETENTION CENTER INSPECTOR SAYS CHILDREN ARE UNWASHED, SOBBING AND CRITICALLY ILL"

"Elora Mukherjee, the director of Columbia Law School's Immigrants' Rights Clinic, recently interviewed 70 detained migrant children in Clint, Texas. They were so dirty they had a stench, she says, and was unable to be near them without feeling ill.

The lawyer testified to Congress on Friday, telling the House Committee on Oversight and Reform about the horrid conditions she saw while inspecting facilities that are a key part of the Trump administration's child separation policy.

Over the course of three days, Mukherjee said she witnessed inadequate bedding, clothing, and saw no hygiene tools like soap, toothbrushes and diapers.

"Never before have we learned of 700 children being detained in a facility built for 104 or 106 adults," Mukherjee said in her testimony. "Never before have we met with children detained in [Customs and Border Patrol] custody for a week, much less weeks and nearly a month. Never before have we had to directly intervene to get critically ill babies admitted to the hospital."

She said there were several occasions where her team had to intervene to get children fed because they were too scared to ask guards for food. Many children feared that their parents were dead or never returning.

Some children, she said, were too traumatized to even speak. One six-year-old girl couldn't even recite her name, she only repeated "I'm scared" over and over again. Another young boy sobbed for an hour straight.

"I spent nearly an hour with this child, first trying to interview him and then just letting him sit on my lap while I rubbed his back," she said. "He wept almost inconsolably for most of the time." Later, she told Congress, a guard came and attempted to bribe him with a lollipop so that he would return to his cell.

Mukherjee was part of a 10-person team sent to inspect conditions at the holding centers to make sure they complied with court-ordered standards that the camps be "safe and sanitary." The group was allowed to speak to detained children but they were denied free access or even tours of the facility.

"The extraordinary trauma inflicted on separated children is not an incidental byproduct of the administration's family separation policy — it is the very point," she said in her testimony. "The federal government seeks to inflict so much distress on children seeking asylum that other families would be deterred from trying to seek refuge in this country."

https://www.newsweek.com/migrant-det...-trump-1449043

[aja_christopher]

"Americans do not support Trump's ICE raids"

"You wouldn’t know it from watching cable news or listening to the conversation in Washington, DC., but the immigrants being mistreated in detention facilities or targeted by ICE raids have a powerful ally: the American people. And that’s important to remember this weekend.

Beginning Sunday morning, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), by order of President Trump, will begin a series of cruel, unnecessary raids aimed at rounding up, detaining and deporting thousands of people. Many of those immigrants detained will have had the removal orders against them filed in absentia — meaning they will have never been informed of the orders’ existence.

Among those specifically targeted will be families who had enrolled in the now-terminated Family Case Management Program — an effective, cost-efficient program that saw almost 100 percent compliance rates with immigration hearings and check-ins. Also targeted will be young immigrants who had previously been protected from deportation as unaccompanied minors, but who aged out of such protections when they turned 18.

By devoting resources to inflicting fear and hardship on immigrant communities at a time when children are being denied soap, toothpaste, blankets and other necessities in dangerously overcrowded Border Patrol facilities on the southern border, the administration is making the inhumanity of its policies plain for all to see.

Apart from their inhumanity, however, these immigration policies are also utterly ineffective at achieving their stated objective of discouraging migration. The administration came into office promising to block all irregular migration, but 30 months in, border crossings are at the highest level in more than a decade. And extensive evidence suggests that the acceleration of migration from Central America is a direct response to the administration’s threat to close the border.

The truth is, whether it is harmful treatment in detention facilities or this weekend’s expected raids, these flawed policies are profoundly out of step with the wishes of the American people.

Poll after poll shows majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents all view immigration as a good thing for this country. And new research from Global Strategy Group and the Immigration Hub exposes vulnerabilities for Trump on immigration — with less than half of all swing state general election voters supporting his immigration policies."

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigrat...umps-ice-raids

[GindyPosts]

They do this all the time. As if the Democratic Party of the 19th century is exactly the same as today's Democratic Party, and as if Lincoln is still the figurehead of the Republican Party.

Again, that's the Dinesh D'Souza school of intended ignorance. Assume that the historical reflects upon the present and that A = A.