Results 1 to 30 of 2899

Thread: Trump Thread

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1

    Default Re: President Trump's Reign

    Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post

    There are many things structurally wrong with the political system in the USA - many because things haven't been altered in over 100 years when the country was much more rural; others such as the electoral colleges are no longer required - direct voting with a decent AV system would be more likely to get a candidate that more people liked or a more balanced system of votes in at least the House if not the Senate as well.

    But comparing it to other large bodies - which only the EU, India (and arguably China) exist it is the best by a country mile. Which itself is rather depressing.

    We were able to start from scratch. I have been listening to Mike Duncan's Revolution's podcast, most recently the series on the (failed?) 1848 Revolutions. It seems that even post-WW2, the legacy of nobility and elitist power structures weighs on current European political structures. For instance, why hasn't the UK gone full Republic? The PM is clearly the one running the show, the royal family is just a tourist trap that prints money for the state by luring us curious Americans to come over.
    Last edited by a completely inoffensive name; 06-26-2018 at 06:52.


  2. #2
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Taplow, UK
    Posts
    8,690
    Blog Entries
    1

    Default Re: President Trump's Reign

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    We were able to start from scratch. I have been listening to Mike Duncan's Revolution's podcast, most recently the series on the (failed?) 1848 Revolutions. It seems that even post-WW2, the legacy of nobility and elitist power structures weighs on current European political structures. For instance, why hasn't the UK gone full Republic? The PM is clearly the one running the show, the royal family is just a tourist trap that prints money for the state by luring us curious Americans to come over.
    At this moment in time, the USA / France and Turkey are the best reasons why keeping the Monarchy is better than the alternative: a weak structure with technically all the power helps prevent a strong structure from grabbing all the power. And the UK needs every method of getting in revenue - if this is one I'm all for it!

    Elitist power tends to be in power since whoever has power is called the elites. So, yes they've remained and I imagine always will. If the UK were to become a Republic what would be gained exactly?

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
    Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
    "If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
    If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
    The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. Winston Churchill

  3. #3
    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    15,617

    Default Re: President Trump's Reign

    Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
    Elitist power tends to be in power since whoever has power is called the elites.
    Sounds like you've been missing out on recent developments, this isn't universally the case anymore:





    "Topic is tired and needs a nap." - Tosa Inu

  4. #4
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Taplow, UK
    Posts
    8,690
    Blog Entries
    1

    Default Re: President Trump's Reign

    Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post
    Sounds like you've been missing out on recent developments, this isn't universally the case anymore:



    Very droll...

    By almost every metric I measure the value of a human being the man is worthless, but in terms of most metrics of power he is in the top fraction of a percentage point, and therefore is one of the "Nuveau Riche" Elite.

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
    Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
    "If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
    If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
    The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. Winston Churchill

  5. #5

    Default Re: President Trump's Reign

    Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post

    Elitist power tends to be in power since whoever has power is called the elites. So, yes they've remained and I imagine always will. If the UK were to become a Republic what would be gained exactly?

    Not sure how accurate that statement is. I wouldn't define elites simply as the ones who have power in government. Decision making powers are delegatable, easy to imagine that through an aristocracy that bribes the politicians (a legitimate worry among the left in the US under citizens united). In the other extreme who are the elites in a theoretical democratic body picked by random among the population every four years? Unless you are just making a tautological argument that the elite have 'power' in any form, thus those who have power are elites.

    As far as what the UK would gain, it depends on what you put into it. The political process shapes the culture and vice versa. What are the expectations of the house of lords under the current system? To be the detached, conservative element of land owners able to check the passions of the commons? Does that class even exist in 21st century capitalism? Over here, captains of industry are often just as impassioned and active in the world around them as the public.

    If the remnants of the Kingdom were thrown off and the UK went full republic, how would the perception of the house of lords in this new political context change and adapt? Could this new perception bring about new public expectations and thus higher accountability to the upper chamber? This isn't so far fetched, the US has this exact conversation with our own Senate, which used to be selected by state legislatures, now by popular vote.


  6. #6
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Taplow, UK
    Posts
    8,690
    Blog Entries
    1

    Default Re: President Trump's Reign

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    Not sure how accurate that statement is. I wouldn't define elites simply as the ones who have power in government. Decision making powers are delegatable, easy to imagine that through an aristocracy that bribes the politicians (a legitimate worry among the left in the US under citizens united). In the other extreme who are the elites in a theoretical democratic body picked by random among the population every four years? Unless you are just making a tautological argument that the elite have 'power' in any form, thus those who have power are elites.

    As far as what the UK would gain, it depends on what you put into it. The political process shapes the culture and vice versa. What are the expectations of the house of lords under the current system? To be the detached, conservative element of land owners able to check the passions of the commons? Does that class even exist in 21st century capitalism? Over here, captains of industry are often just as impassioned and active in the world around them as the public.

    If the remnants of the Kingdom were thrown off and the UK went full republic, how would the perception of the house of lords in this new political context change and adapt? Could this new perception bring about new public expectations and thus higher accountability to the upper chamber? This isn't so far fetched, the US has this exact conversation with our own Senate, which used to be selected by state legislatures, now by popular vote.
    In the reality most live, politicians are bought by the wealthy. Sure, there are exceptions such as Theodore Roosevelt, but they are generally hated by those who rather like the status-quo.

    The House of Lords shouldn't work. All the ingredients are utterly wrong. Yet somehow it seems to do a much better job and at less of a cost than most alternatives. The Lords is mainly not the landed gentry. Sadly there are a fair number of ex-politicians who have been kicked upstairs but there are also people who are genuinely competent and able to properly review legislation.

    If one is holding up the Senate as a great example of a better second chamber I'd really rather stick to the Lords, thanks - copying that gridlocked mess of a Federal Government would be a disaster.

    If we were to have a President, if we are lucky we go the way of the Nordics and Germany (so many sentences seem to end up like that). Or we might go the way of France / the USA / Turkey. There is definitely a small theoretical upside - but there is a massive theoretical downside: Tony Blair as President anyone with the two houses stacked with his yes-men? He did enough damage as it was!

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
    Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
    "If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
    If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
    The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. Winston Churchill

  7. #7

    Default Re: President Trump's Reign

    Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) visited a few of the internment facilities:

    Sunday morning, I flew to McAllen, Texas to find out what's really happening to immigrant families ripped apart by the Trump administration.

    There's one thing that's very clear: The crisis at our border isn't over.

    I went straight from the airport to the McAllen Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processing center that is the epicenter of Donald Trump's so-called "zero-tolerance" policy. This is where border patrol brings undocumented migrants for intake before they are either released, deported, turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or, in the case of unaccompanied or separated children, placed in the custody of Health and Human Services.

    From the outside, the CBP processing center looks like any other warehouse on a commercial street lined with warehouses. There's no clue about the horrors inside.

    Before we could get in, CBP insisted we had to watch a government propaganda video. There's no other way to describe it – it's like a movie trailer. It was full of dramatic narration about the "illegals" crossing our border, complete with gory pictures about the threats that these immigrants bring to the United States, from gangs to skin rashes. The star of the show is CBP, which, according to the video, has done a great job driving down the numbers.

    Then an employee described what we were about to see. "They have separate pods. I'll call them pods. I don't really know how they name them." Clearly they had gotten the memo not to call them what they are: cages. Every question I asked them had a complicated answer that led to two more questions – even the simple question about how long people were held there. "Nobody is here longer than 24 hours." "Well, maybe 24-48 hours." "72 hours max." And "no children are separated out." "Well, except older children."

    The warehouse is enormous, with a solid concrete floor and a high roof. It is filled with cages. Cages for men. Cages for women. Cages for mamas with babies. Cages for girls. Cages for boys.

    The stench – body odor and fear – hits the second the door is opened. The first cages are full of men. The chain link is about 12-15 feet high, and the men are tightly packed. I don't think they could all lie down at the same time. There's a toilet at the back of the cage behind a half-wall, but no place to shower or wash up. One man kept shouting, "A shower, please. Just a shower."

    I asked the men held in cage after cage where they were from. Nearly all of them were from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras.

    Then I asked them how long they had been there – and the answers were all over the map, from a few days to nearly two weeks (72 hours max?). The CBP agents rushed to correct the detained men, claiming that their answers couldn't be right. My immigration specialist on the trip who speaks fluent Spanish made sure the men understood that the question was, "How long have you been in the building?" Their answers didn't change.

    Cage after cage. Same questions, same answers.

    Next we came into the area where the children were held. These cages were bigger with far more people. In the center of the cage, there's a freestanding guard tower probably a story or story-and-a-half taller to look down over the children. The girls are held separately in their own large cage. The children told us that they had come to the United States with family and didn't know where they had been taken. Eleven years old. Twelve. Locked in a cage with strangers. Many hadn't talked to their mothers or fathers. They didn't know where they were or what would happen to them next.
    The children were quiet. Early afternoon, and they just sat. Some were on thin mats with foil blankets pulled over their heads. They had nothing – no books, no toys, no games. They looked shell shocked.

    And then there were the large cages with women and small children. Women breast-feeding their young children.

    When we went over to the mamas with babies, I asked them about why they had left their home countries. One young mother had a 4-year-old child. She said she had been threatened by the gangs in El Salvador. She had given a drink of water to a police officer, and the gang decided she must be in with the police. The longer she spoke, the more agitated she got – that she would never do that, that she understood the risk with the gangs, but that the gangs believed she did it. She sold everything she had and fled with her son to the United States.

    One thing you won't see much of in the CBP processing center? Fathers caged with their children. After pressing the CBP agents, they explained that men traveling with children are automatically released from the facility. They just don't have the cages there to hold them. Women with small children, on the other hand, could be detained indefinitely. I pressed them on this again and again. The only answer: they claimed to be protecting "the safety of the mother and children."

    CBP said that fathers with children, pregnant women, mothers of children with special needs, and other "lucky ones" who are released from the processing center are sent over to Catholic Charities' Humanitarian Respite Center for help. That was my next stop in McAllen. Sister Norma, her staff, and volunteers are truly doing God's work. Catholic Charities provides food, a shower, clean clothes, and medicine to those who need it. The center tries to explain the complicated process to the people, and the volunteers help them get on a bus to a family member in the United States.

    Sister Norma introduced me to a father and his teenage son from Honduras. The father said that a gang had been after his son, determined that the boy would join the gang. The only way for the boy to escape was to run. The man left his wife and four daughters in Honduras to bring his son to the United States. His only plan is to find work here to send money home to his family. His cousin lives in New Jersey, so CBP sent their paperwork to the local ICE center in New Jersey, and they would soon begin the long bus ride there.

    Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley provides a lifesaving service to people of all faiths and backgrounds, but with a humanitarian crisis in their backyard, they're clearly stretched as thin as it gets. With more money and volunteers, they would gladly help more people.

    I asked Sister Norma about the women and babies who were in indefinite detention. She said her group would open their arms and take care of them, get them cleaned up and fed and on a bus to a family member – if only ICE would release them.

    "This is a moral issue. We are all part of this human family," they say.

    Next, I met with some of the legal experts on the frontlines of this crisis – lawyers from the Texas Civil Rights Project, the Border Rights Center of the Texas ACLU, and the federal public defenders.

    I gave them a rundown of everything I'd seen so far in McAllen, particularly when it comes to reuniting parents and children, and they raised some of my worst fears:

    The Trump administration may be "reunifying" families, but their definition of a family is only a parent and a child. If, for example, a 9-year-old crosses with an 18-year-old sister – or an aunt or uncle, or a grandparent, or anyone who isn't the child's documented legal guardian – they are not counted as a family and they will be separated.

    Mothers and children may be considered "together" if they're held in the same gigantic facility, even if they're locked in separate cages with no access to one another. (In the world of CBP and ICE, that's how the 10-year-old girls locked in a giant cage are "not separated" from their mothers who are in cages elsewhere in the facility.)

    In the process of "reunifying" families, the government may possibly count a family as reunited by sending the child to a distant relative they've never met – not their parents. Some relatives may be unwilling to claim these children because it would be inviting ICE to investigate their own families.

    Parents are so desperate to be reunited with their children that they may be trading in their legal right to asylum.

    The system for tracking separated families is virtually unknown, if one exists at all. One expert worries that for some families, just a simple photo may be all the documentation that the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Health and Human Services have to reunite them. (I sincerely hope that's not true.)

    The longer the day went on, the more questions I had about how the Trump administration plans to fix the crisis they've created at the border. So my last stop of the day was at the Port Isabel Detention Center, about an hour east of McAllen. It's one of the largest detention facilities in Texas.

    The Department of Homeland Security had released some details on its plan to reunify families. The release noted that Port Isabel will be the "primary family reunification and removal center for adults in their custody."

    Let's be clear: Port Isabel isn't a reunification center. It's a detention center. A prison.

    There's no ambiguity on this point. I met with the head of the facility. He said several times that they had no space for children, no way to care for them, and no plans to bring any children to his locked-down complex. When I pressed on what was the plan for reunification of children with their parents, he speculated that HHS (the Department of Health and Human Services) would take the children somewhere, but it certainly wasn't going to be to his facility. When I asked how long HHS would take, he speculated that it would be weeks, but he said that was up to them. He had his job to do: He would hold these mothers and fathers until he received orders to send them somewhere else. Period.

    So let me say it again. This is a prison – not a reunification center.

    We toured the center. It is huge – multiple buildings isolated on a sun-baked expanse of land far from any town. We didn't go to the men's area, but the women are held in a large bunk-bed facility with a concrete outdoor exercise area. It's locked, double-locked, and triple locked. Tall fences topped with razor wire are everywhere, each backed up by a second row of fences also topped with razor wire.

    An ICE official brought in a group of nine detained mothers who had volunteered to speak to us. I don't believe that ICE cherry-picked these women for the meeting, because everything they told me was horrifying.

    Each mother told us her own story about crossing the border, being taken to a processing center, and the point that they were separated from their child or children. In every case, the government had lied to them about where their children were being taken. In every case, save one, no mother had spoken to her child in the days since the separation. And in every case, no mother knew where her child was.

    At the time of separation, most of the mothers were told their children would be back. One woman had been held at "the icebox," a center that has earned its nickname for being extremely cold. When the agent came to take her child, she was told that it was just too cold for the child in the center, and that they were just going to keep the child warm until she was transferred. That was mid-June. She hasn't seen her child since.

    One mother had been detained with her child. They were sleeping together on the floor of one of the cages, when, at 3:00am, the guards took her away. She last saw her 7-year-old son sleeping on the floor. She cried over and over, "I never got to say goodbye. I never got to say goodbye." That was early-June, and she hasn't seen him since.

    Even though the CBP officials at the processing center told me that mothers with children that have special needs would be released, one of the mothers I spoke with had been separated from her special needs child. She talked about her child who doesn't have properly formed legs and feet and walks with great difficulty. One of the mothers spoke of another mother in the facility who is very worried because her separated child is deaf and doesn't speak at all.

    The women I met were traumatized, weeping, and begging for help. They don't understand what is happening to them – and they're begging to be reunited with their kids.

    Detainees can pay to make phone calls, but all of their possessions are taken from them at the processing center. The only way they can get money for a call is for someone to put money on their accounts. I asked if people or charities could donate money so that they'd be able to make phone calls to their family or lawyers, but they said no – a donor would need the individual ID number for every person detained at the center, and ICE obviously isn't going to release that information.

    Three young lawyers were at Port Isabel at the same time we were. The lawyers told us that their clients – the people they've spoken to in the detention center – have strong and credible cases for asylum. But the entire process for being granted asylum depends on one phone call with an immigration official where they make the case for why they should be allowed to stay. One of the first questions a mother will be asked is, "Have you been separated from a child?" For some of the women, just asking that question makes them fall apart and weep.

    The lawyers are worried that these women are in such a fragile and fractured state, they're in no shape to make the kind of detailed, credible case needed for themselves or their children. They had no chance in our system because they've lost their children and desperately want them back.

    We stayed inside at Port Isabel for more than two hours – much longer than the 45 minutes we had been promised. When I finally went to bed that night, I thought about something the mothers had told me – something that will likely haunt me for a long time.

    The mothers say that they can hear babies cry at night.

    This isn't about politics. This isn't about Democrats or Republicans. This is about human beings. Children held in cages today. Babies scattered all over this country. And mamas who, in the dark of night, hear them cry.

    I'm still working through everything I saw, but I wanted you to know the full story. The fight for these children and families isn't over – not by a long shot.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  8. #8

    Default Re: President Trump's Reign

    So, socialist Latina ran against one of the top Democrats in the House of Reps in the D primary, the party boss in New York or somesuch, real Tammany Hall character, real cozy with Wall Street, major bursar and nexus of PAC money throughout the country for the Democratic epilektoi.


    https://theintercept.com/2018/06/05/...ampaign-video/

    She waaaann. She won decise.

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 15,897 57%
    Joseph Crowley 11,761 42%

    Those numbers are hilarious. (New York has a uniquely restricted primary system, but that's a story for another day.)

    Platform:

    *Medicare for all (TBF her opponent was one of the first national Democrats to push this on the agenda)
    *Tuition-free public college
    *Federal jobs guarantee
    *Federal Assault Weapons/Hi-Capacity Mag Ban
    *Abolish ICE
    *Housing as a human right
    *Restore Glass Steagall
    *Marshall Plan for Puerto Rico
    *etc

    All these socialist and social-democratic candidates surging across the country at least give us the opportunity for a testing bed, and hopefully a realization on the national level that a party needs a coherent agenda that persist beyond a single election cycle.

    Since this is the Trump thread, here is what Trump had to say about Crowley's defeat:

    Wow! Big Trump Hater Congressman Joe Crowley, who many expected was going to take Nancy Pelosi’s place, just LOST his primary election. In other words, he’s out! That is a big one that nobody saw happening. Perhaps he should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!

    In other news, but check it on your own time, multiple-run failure and centrally-directed interloper Juanita Perez Williams was handily beaten by a technocrat lefty in an upstate primary. Syracuse has become more competitive in the past 15 years, so a good case study this November for the center >> left vs. center-right theory.

    In a few months, look forward as well to the big matchup in state-level primary: Nixon v Cuomo.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Member thankful for this post:

    Husar 


  9. #9
    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    15,617

    Default Re: President Trump's Reign

    Just came across the Ocasio story as well, she's only a small Bernie and hasn't won against the Republican yet I assume (or is that an auto-win in her district?), but I still consider it a win for America.


    "Topic is tired and needs a nap." - Tosa Inu

    Member thankful for this post:



Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Single Sign On provided by vBSSO