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

[InformationGeek]

Because why not attack our allies more.

Scoop: The Trump administration considered imposing tariffs on imports from Australia last week, but decided against the move amid fierce opposition from military officials and the State Department https://t.co/yuL8vw6b4N with ⁦@maggieNYT⁩ ⁦@jimtankersley⁩

[Mister Mets]

So you have now come to the conclusion that's been obvious to most people for a long time, that our immigration system is specifically set up to create a large population of illegal immigrants that employers can then use to circumvent labor laws, and that our entire economy has become so dependent on this source of cheap labor that it makes our immigration laws a complete joke. If we simply allowed most of these people to enter the country legally, then this pool would not exist and employers would be forced to pay living wages to someone, unless you really think that someone who was free to enter the US legally would still choose to remain undocumented just for the privilege of being able to work a below minimum wage job.

There is also the issue that in many cases, it was the destabilizing influence of American intervention that is driving most of these people to emigrate in the first place. You can point to a country like Japan having much stricter immigration laws than the US, but the Japanese military is not all over the globe toppling governments and Japanese corporations are not strip mining countries of resources on a massive scale. America is unique in that our policies impact the lives of people across the globe whether they want it or not, so it's only right that our immigration policy acknowledges that we have a responsibility to take care of these people in a way that other countries don't.

I don't think I ever said or suggested that the point of the immigration system is to create a pool of illegal immigrants working outside the protection of labor laws. It is a consequence that some people are taking advantage of, but I doubt there's a grand conspiracy pushing for this.

If the conclusion that the purpose of our immigration system is to create an underclass for circumventing labor laws is something that's been obvious to most people for some time, I'm curious for more reading on the matter. Especially since, as you say, most knowledgeable people have reached this conclusion. If this is the case, it's presumably stated clearly and unambiguously in multiple media outlets.

While allowing anyone who wants to come in legally would fix the one problem of employers taking advantage of an underclass, it would still have significant downsides.

1) It is currently very unpopular. The majority of Democrats do not want an increase of any kind in legal immigration. This push would likely have a major backlash.
2) It is going to require significant infrastructure changes, given the massive increase in population.
3) It will change the composition of the country in unpredictable ways. If we allow a lot of immigrants full citizenship very quickly (say 50,000,000 adults in three years), that might not be conducive to assimilation, and can have unpredictable policy implications when they exercise their voting power, especially if they come from countries that aren't WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic.) Some of the strongest claims for Asylum with the caravan-seekers came from LGBT Migrants fleeing persecution at home (El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.) What happens if tens of millions of others take those attitudes to the US and form new voting blocs?
4) If these new immigrants receive any former of government support, that's going to be expensive.

Here's the reason the smart person (Pelosi doesn't want to impeach).

1. The Senate will vote and give him an acquittal.
2. You aren't impeaching for conspiracy, you are impeaching for obstruction.

So the end result will be that Trump will have an acquittal he can hold onto and the narrative they will push is "the Demrocats spent two years screaming collusion, the President was cleared of collusion, so they tried to get him out by charging him of obstruction of an investigation of a crime that the special counsel said their was no evidence of (collusion) and then the President was vindicated of partisan attack via his Senate acquittal".

That will be redmeat for the Republican base as perceived unfair treatment and a victory. They'll be fired up. And even if it isn't effective with Democrats and Independents, the net result is that after all this time the Democrats are left with nothing to show for the Mueller investigation as the final outcome was an acquittal by the Senate. Which will most likely leave a bad taste in their mouths and leave them holding an L.

It's political horrendous. You don't engage in a battle where your opponent gets to decide who wins in the end. You don't let let the bad guys finish the story for you.

The smart manuevre is to slop drip all the dirt from the Mueller report for the next year and a half and have it be an albatross on him.

They're also free to impeach if more comes out.

A complicating factor is that impeachment proceedings give the House more power to investigate the President, so that increases the chances of finding something that can be more easily explained to voters. However, it would probably box in Democrats since the base probably won't let them stop once it gets started, even if there's nothing new.

[PwrdOn]

I don't think I ever said or suggested that the point of the immigration system is to create a pool of illegal immigrants working outside the protection of labor laws. It is a consequence that some people are taking advantage of, but I doubt there's a grand conspiracy pushing for this.

If the conclusion that the purpose of our immigration system is to create an underclass for circumventing labor laws is something that's been obvious to most people for some time, I'm curious for more reading on the matter. Especially since, as you say, most knowledgeable people have reached this conclusion. If this is the case, it's presumably stated clearly and unambiguously in multiple media outlets.

While allowing anyone who wants to come in legally would fix the one problem of employers taking advantage of an underclass, it would still have significant downsides.

1) It is currently very unpopular. The majority of Democrats do not want an increase of any kind in legal immigration. This push would likely have a major backlash.
2) It is going to require significant infrastructure changes, given the massive increase in population.
3) It will change the composition of the country in unpredictable ways. If we allow a lot of immigrants full citizenship very quickly (say 50,000,000 adults in three years), that might not be conducive to assimilation, and can have unpredictable policy implications when they exercise their voting power, especially if they come from countries that aren't WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic.) Some of the strongest claims for Asylum with the caravan-seekers came from LGBT Migrants fleeing persecution at home (El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.) What happens if tens of millions of others take those attitudes to the US and form new voting blocs?
4) If these new immigrants receive any former of government support, that's going to be expensive.

It's not a conspiracy, it just so happened that things worked out this way and because it clearly has benefits for entrenched business interests, nobody is in a rush to change things anytime soon despite considerable political pressure from both sides to do so.

1. So what? The American public usually can't be trusted to make the correct moral judgment on issues like this, as our history has shown repeatedly.
2. A lot of our infrastructure needs upgrading anyway, and the new immigrants will provide the labor with which to do it.
3. Are you worried that too many refugees will become American citizens and then vote that we stop bombing their home countries? Hysterical fear of some foreign-bred fifth column has been around since the founding of this country, there is zero evidence that it has ever been justified.
4. Better hope that employers follow labor laws then, so that taxpayers aren't left to pick up the slack.

[Mister Mets]

It's not a conspiracy, it just so happened that things worked out this way and because it clearly has benefits for entrenched business interests, nobody is in a rush to change things anytime soon despite considerable political pressure from both sides to do so.

1. So what? The American public usually can't be trusted to make the correct moral judgment on issues like this, as our history has shown repeatedly.
2. A lot of our infrastructure needs upgrading anyway, and the new immigrants will provide the labor with which to do it.
3. Are you worried that too many refugees will become American citizens and then vote that we stop bombing their home countries?
4. Better hope that employers follow labor laws then, so that taxpayers aren't left to pick up the slack.

You said earlier " that our immigration system is specifically set up to create a large population of illegal immigrants that employers can then use to circumvent labor laws." That requires organized intent (IE- conspiracy.)

1. "The American public usually can't be trusted to make the correct moral judgment on issues like this" is not going to be a winning campaign slogan. Voters will have their say in the primaries and general elections.
2. If infrastructure is built quickly, there's still the problem of what to do with tens of millions of new citizens before the new houses and roads are built. There are all sorts of potential causes for slowdown, as evident in a Vox piece on the failure of California's High Speed Rail. Before anything gets built, various boards will need to make zoning decisions. Workers will need to be trained. Public sector unions will have all sorts of protections and regulations. There are all sorts of laws on environmental regulations.
3. That doesn't concern me, and seems like a dishonest swerve, since I never suggested that would be a problem. Can we be sure that most of the new voters will have political opinions within the norms of the US in terms of domestic policy?
4. Why do you assume that a sudden influx of immigrants will all be able to get jobs at above a living wage?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Jared Kushner Still Won’t Hold Saudi Crown Prince Accountable For Jamal Khashoggi

The White House adviser told Axios he’s noncommittal on holding Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the journalist’s murder. Noncommital, code for: "I don't give a **** CPM was mixed up in what happened to Khashoggi."

**********

Pentagon Reaffirms ‘Mandate’ To White House That Military ‘Will Not Be Politicized’

The message from acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan directly contradicts Mick Mulvaney’s claim that efforts to hide USS John McCain were “not unreasonable.” Newsflash, Patty, that ship (pardon the pun) about the military not being politicized already sailed into the sunset.

**********

Mick Mulvaney On Gun Reform After Virginia Beach Shooting: Can’t ‘Protect Everybody’

“Let’s not get too deep into politics too soon,” the acting White House chief of staff said following 2019’s deadliest mass shooting thus far. So, when DO we get into the politics of the situation? After the next mass shooting? Republicans have been saying that same **** since Sandy Hook. Repugnant!

**********

London Mayor Sadiq Khan Compares Donald Trump To ‘Fascists Of The 20th Century’

Ahead of Trump’s state visit to the U.K., Khan said it’s “un-British to be rolling out the red carpet” for the U.S. leader. Well said, Mayor Khan.

**********

Trump Visits Church On Franklin Graham’s ‘Pray For Donald Trump Day’ With Hat Hair, Golf Shoes

Trump stopped at a Northern Virginia church on the way back to the White House after another golf outing without bothering to change. If there had been a "Pray For Barack Obama Day", right wingers, conservatives, racists and holy rollers who believed Obama was a Muslim would've screamed bloody murder.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the current U.S. House Representative for West Virginia’s’ 2nd District, Alex Mooney, who we noted had carpetbagged his way across the Maryland border after serving for years as a state legislator, and waiting in vain for former U.S. House Rep. Roscoe Bartlett to retire, eventually just getting annoyed enough to move to West Virginia and try to run for office there. During his time as a Maryland state legislator, though, Mooney became synonymous with the issue of LGBT rights, and his extreme opposition to them. At one point during a 1999 debate on hate crime legislation, Mooney sarcastically asked if people who commit beastiality should also be protected under the law, and in 2008, during a debate on same sex marriage, went as far as to claim its legalization would lead to the gay community "oppressing" religious figures and they would be "coming for the children". Mooney also has pushed for legislation to allow the display of religious monuments in public buildings (which is a violation of the Establishment clause of the First Amendment that guaranteesa separation of church and state), considers any compromise on immigration to be amnesty, and speaks publicly about "gun-grabbers and pro-abortion zealots" (because that's totally the direction things have trended the past six years or so in our country). In September of 2015, Mooney also took to the floor of the House to give a speech where he accused Planned Parenthood of harvesting “baby parts” based on lies from the Center for Medical Progress, so there’s that, as well.

Now, we’re going to go ahead and lead our further discussion of Alex Mooney by pointing out that on March 28th, 2018, Alex Mooney recycled an idea from the Ron Paul school of thought regarding the American economy… he wanted to go back to the gold standard, and actually introduced legislation to try to make it a reality. Now, if that doesn’t mean anything to you, it’s because the United States hasn’t used the gold standard in 1971. That’s right, we’re approaching fifty years since we were on the gold standard. And guess what? Some folks in the 1980s were whispering in Ronald Reagan’s ear about doing this, and guess what they determined? Doing that would cripple not just the American economy, but the global economy. Yet every now and then, some hard right goofball from the Libertarian wing of the GOP starts flogging that dead horse to see if it will come back to life, even though almost 100% of economists oppose doing it, and it’s thought of as part of the reason it was so hard for the United States to recover from the Great Depression..

And, after he won re-election in 2018 with 54% of the vote, let’s just say Mooney has yet to dial back his extremism:

• January 27th, 2019: Alex Mooney voted against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attacking our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Mooney voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Alex Mooney votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Mooney votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Alex Mooney is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-autorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).

Mooney continues to sit in the catbird’s seat in one of the reddest districts in the country, where Donald Trump makes regular visits to suck up to coal miners. While the state overall has been slow to realize how much of a con artist they elected to the White House, they have started to notice. And whether or not they notice they have a carpetbagger representing them in West Virginia’s 2nd District… well… we’ll have to see if anyone figures it out in 2020.

[InformationGeek]

Just a reminder.

Who wouldn't take Kate's picture and make lots of money if she does the nude sunbathing thing. Come on Kate!

[shooshoomanjoe]

Just a reminder.

I love her reply:

Kate Middleton Fans
‏

@RoyallyKate
17 Sep 2012
More
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
@realDonaldTrump How about if someone takes a picture of your wife's breasts and makes money off of it?! How would YOU like it?! #douche

[TheDarman]

I don't think I ever said or suggested that the point of the immigration system is to create a pool of illegal immigrants working outside the protection of labor laws. It is a consequence that some people are taking advantage of, but I doubt there's a grand conspiracy pushing for this.

If the conclusion that the purpose of our immigration system is to create an underclass for circumventing labor laws is something that's been obvious to most people for some time, I'm curious for more reading on the matter. Especially since, as you say, most knowledgeable people have reached this conclusion. If this is the case, it's presumably stated clearly and unambiguously in multiple media outlets.

I'm dubious about this prospect as well. After all, a lot of our Visas are targeted at getting "high skilled" immigrants to come into the country. So, just as much as the focus is on getting "low skilled" immigrants into the country for really difficult agricultural work (and these industries are begging for more immigrants to do this work), we see that our country also appreciates fleshing out "high skilled" work.

Undocumented immigration allows for certain labor violations. But the answer is to move towards a system of both yielding disincentives to immigrating illegally (nationwide eVerify) and creating a pathway to citizenship for those already here and better streamlining our legal immigration system to allow more immigrants into the country legally.

While allowing anyone who wants to come in legally would fix the one problem of employers taking advantage of an underclass, it would still have significant downsides.

1) It is currently very unpopular. The majority of Democrats do not want an increase of any kind in legal immigration. This push would likely have a major backlash.

Support for both the present level of immigration and increasing it more than doubles the support for those who want to decrease it. We could break down what is understood to be "present level", but it stands to reason that these people would likely take a trade-off of higher legal immigration levels if it means stymying undocumented immigration. And, let's face it, those who want decreases in immigration are more likely to support Donald Trump than they are any Democrat. I think that the push would probably only have backlash, really, from those who would already be upset by the policy proposals of a Democratic President who replaced their favorite one.

2) It is going to require significant infrastructure changes, given the massive increase in population.

On the flip side, there are a lot of things that are in place in our social infrastructure that require a lot of immigrants. As with most developed countries, our replacement level fertility has slowed down--especially among native born Americans. Social Security's viability has suffered because of a lot of things but those structural changes have been another driving factor in people saying that Social Security is going bankrupt. A good half of our overall economic growth is from population growth in the past. Now, we are at a place in our economy where every year-over-year GDP increase has to come from pure productivity gains. That's why we haven't been able to get above 3% annual growth for a while--and why it is unlikely to happen again. Our infrastructure is faltering because of sociopolitical forces domestically driving down fertility rates. We can either try to address those multi-variate sociopolitical factors to drive up the fertility rates (which, frankly, isn't going to be through laissez-faire policy that allows for wage stagnation, university costs to skyrocket out of reach for a lot of people, or allows for continued cost increases in child care) or we can take the easier route: increasing immigration.

3) It will change the composition of the country in unpredictable ways. If we allow a lot of immigrants full citizenship very quickly (say 50,000,000 adults in three years), that might not be conducive to assimilation, and can have unpredictable policy implications when they exercise their voting power, especially if they come from countries that aren't WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic.) Some of the strongest claims for Asylum with the caravan-seekers came from LGBT Migrants fleeing persecution at home (El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.) What happens if tens of millions of others take those attitudes to the US and form new voting blocs?

The truth is that people who are scared of political change probably are right to be fearful of immigration. But they should also be scared of younger people who have a higher propensity to criticize capitalism and question whether or not socialism would be a better system. They should be concerned about the way that minority populations are growing faster to overtake, independent of immigration, of the majority population today. They should be concerned that, by millennial vote alone, Clinton won 49 out of 50 states in the United States. The only thing that doesn't change in our country is change. There will always be changing demographics, changing preferences, changing culture, and changing policy. Of course, your presumption is that 50,000,000 new immigrants would be eligible to vote immediately (they wouldn't be), that their opinions wouldn't be influenced by their environment in the United States while waiting to gain full citizenship status (which is unlikely), and that those immigrants would vote at 100% rates (which is highly unlikely, especially if they end up taking those lower paying jobs--as, statistically, we've seen people in these positions vote at much lower rates). Realistically, it could have an impact. But it would be in the long-term, not short-term, and it would be something that is probably going to either act, hopefully for conservatives and to the detriment of liberals, as a deterrent to continued liberalization of our politics or will only continue us down the path of liberalization of our politics. Either way, I'm dubious about the prospect of the idea that these people are going to change our political culture in a completely different way. Indeed, many people with authoritarian tendencies, tended towards Donald Trump in the previous election cycle. And, as we know, many of these people were native born Americans. I don't see many people fleeing from persecution being more damaging to democracy than voting for a candidate that praises dictators and ostracizes our allies, to the point where even the European Union has deemed us an adversary.

4) If these new immigrants receive any former of government support, that's going to be expensive.

But it will also be a way to increase revenue. Not only will it continue to increase GDP (as I've stated, population increases are correlated, positively, with economic growth), but it gives us more tax payers that pay into these social systems. Indeed, we should be raising Visa limits for both "high skilled" and "low skilled" workers which will provide that kind of economic balance between the two kinds of immigrants. In short, I doubt that this is going to be so detrimental that we ought to be allowing people to die south of our border.

They're also free to impeach if more comes out.

A complicating factor is that impeachment proceedings give the House more power to investigate the President, so that increases the chances of finding something that can be more easily explained to voters. However, it would probably box in Democrats since the base probably won't let them stop once it gets started, even if there's nothing new.

Ehh, I think that we probably won't see impeachment until support for it approaches closer to 50 percent. That might be a consequence of these other investigations that they are pursuing. If they can drive up the support for impeachment to start, the idea is that it will only continue upwards with further impeachment hearing. I think the idea of these other investigations is to see if there is a there there. That way, they can determine if there might be more information they can collect through impeachment proceedings. Then, and only then, can Democrats make a case to an American public that wanted to impeach their president that they tried and the Republican Senate took a partisan tack. That can be damaging. Heck, even with Bill Clinton, with the support for impeachment much lower, still hurt the Democrats in the next general election.

I don't see the Democratic base willing to punish Democrats, other in the primaries, with electing Republicans, who wouldn't have done anything in the face of this mounting evidence. I think that looking at the base for queues is probably not too terribly important. Indeed, I think that they will be even more fired up to get Donald Trump out of office in 2020 than they would be to get Mike Pence out. The idea is that not doing impeachment might have the same political effect as pursuing it as it continues to tie the Republican Party to Donald Trump and he remains perpetually unpopular.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I love her reply:

Kate Middleton Fans
‏

@RoyallyKate
17 Sep 2012
More
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
@realDonaldTrump How about if someone takes a picture of your wife's breasts and makes money off of it?! How would YOU like it?! #douche

The really scary, not to mention utterly predictable thing is....Trump WOULD like it. He has no moral center whatsoever and would prostitute Melania in a New York minute if it put some extra coin in his pocket.

[PaulBullion]

We've yet to establish that the deaths of migrant children are the result of US policy.

What a tragic coincidence that not a single child died in US custody in the decade before Trump took power. And now we have enough for a heavenly volleyball team.

[Tendrin]

People are dying in ICE custody all the time, though, unshockingly.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/03/polit...ath/index.html

(CNN)Two Salvadorans -- a transgender woman and a man -- died in US custody near the Mexican border after suffering health problems in separate incidents this weekend, authorities said.
Jonathan Alberto "aka Johana" Medina Leon, 25, died at the Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso on Saturday, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said.

Love CNN including her dead name in there as her primary. *sigh*

[PaulBullion]

Well, the dow dipped below 25,000 again, giving Trump a chance to celebrate the index breaking 25,000 for a fourth time at some point in the future, if it happens while Trump is still president. He did celebrate the last 3 times on twitter.

[Tendrin]

Oops! Doubled.

[Tendrin]

Leaked internal ICE documents cite that the deaths in their custody were preventable.

https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/...617851394?s=21

What will the apologists do now? Go back to not giving a damn, I suppose.