Donald Trump 2018

[Mojo Hand 4580]

8 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Bullshit.  Any educated rational American could easily see Trump was an extremely dangerous candidate. 

Any alternative that espoused or even paid lip service to democracy was a better option.  

Voters should have gone out of their way to ensure he was never given any real power, even if that meant voting for a shitty candidate.

You say "Bullshit," but then simply restate one of the positions I took in that post.    Yes, those voters made a bad choice, given the alternative.   

[atomheartbevo 89425]

18 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Oh NATO is about to be blown up.  The G7 Summit was just a preview.  Trump will shit all over our allies (AGAIN) then fly off to suck Putin’s dick.  The consequences of this could go a few different ways.  None are good for the United States.

And the Trumpkins will gladly support Russia over our allies.  Because Dear Leader assured them it was alright.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

7 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

You say "Bullshit," but then simply restate one of the positions I took in that post.    Yes, those voters made a bad choice, given the alternative.   

The “bullshit” is directed at the Hillary part.  Even if we conceded everything wrong about Hillary and her approach, it doesn’t excuse Trump getting elected.

Edited June 28, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[yoladu 4067]

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

One of his more pathetic tweets.  Clearly the Russia investigation is on his mind 24/7

 

Jesus Christ. Pathetic.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

13 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

The “bullshit” is directed at the Hillary part.  Even if we conceded everything wrong about Hillary and her approach, it doesn’t excuse Trump getting elected.

No, it doesn't, but we're responding to a tweet that focuses the blame on the small number of lib voters who didn't eat the shit sandwich that was handed to them.   Yes, they should have eaten it.  But the primary blame falls on the chef and server, who could have easily given them something edible but didn't for a bunch of shitty reasons.  And it's more productive for the party and activists to focus on the chef and server going forward than the diners.   Because it's much easier (and simply better) to make an edible sandwich than to get people to eat shit. 

Edited June 28, 2018 by Mojo Hand

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

6 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

No, it doesn't, but we're responding to a tweet that focuses the blame on the small number of lib voters who didn't eat the shit sandwich that was handed to them.   Yes, they should have eaten it.  But the primary blame falls on the chef and server, who could have easily given them something edible but didn't for a bunch of shitty reasons.  And it's more productive for the party and activists to focus on the chef and server going forward than the diners. 

I don’t agree entirely with this but I understand it.

[Chad Fuck 17565]

This is probably in the NK thread already, but deserves a spot here.  We are mere days removed from The Greatest Diplomatic Success of ALL TIMEZ!!! in Singapore, and Dotus is being made a fool of once again as Lil Kim just moves forward with more nuke progress since he knows he's pulled the wool over Dotus's eyes.  Goddam Trump is an idiot.  

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/27/politics/north-korea-infrastructure-improvements-nuclear-facility/index.html

 

[TornACL 7675]

Pee tape, save us. You're our only hope.

[jimmyjazz 45557]

11 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

No, it doesn't, but we're responding to a tweet that focuses the blame on the small number of lib voters who didn't eat the shit sandwich that was handed to them.   Yes, they should have eaten it.  But the primary blame falls on the chef and server, who could have easily given them something edible but didn't for a bunch of shitty reasons.  And it's more productive for the party and activists to focus on the chef and server going forward than the diners.   Because it's much easier (and simply better) to make an edible sandwich than to get people to eat shit. 

I disagree.  As a left-of-center voter, I can comfortably write off the vast majority of Trump voters as complete fucking morons who wouldn't know how to read a history book if it was published by Highlights For Children.  However, I can to some degree get the perspective of a 3rd party liberal who didn't like Hillary.  What I can't abide is them going across the aisle and voting for Donald Trump, of all people.  It was NOT in their best interests to do so, and now we're all fucked because of their petulance.

[Fudge Nuggets 19151]

God damnit Mueller, hurry the fuck up already.

[·Johnny Sack 6]

1 hour ago, retread said:

That's complete bullshit. In 20 years there won't be any coloreds in American schools with righteous God fearing white American children. The coloreds will be in slave, uhhhhhh I mean "tender skill learning" facilities learning useful trades like picking cotton for no pay. 

[Mojo Hand 4580]

6 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I disagree.  As a left-of-center voter, I can comfortably write off the vast majority of Trump voters as complete fucking morons who wouldn't know how to read a history book if it was published by Highlights For Children.  However, I can to some degree get the perspective of a 3rd party liberal who didn't like Hillary.  What I can't abide is them going across the aisle and voting for Donald Trump, of all people.  It was NOT in their best interests to do so, and now we're all fucked because of their petulance.

To be clear, I'm talking purely about the libs who refused to vote Hillary and went for Jill Stein or didn't vote on principle.   Which is how I interpreted the tweet that started this discussion.    Actual Trump voters are a different category. 

[jimmyjazz 45557]

And Dems who voted Trump more than account for his victories in MI, WI and PA.  I blame those people.  100%.  It is their fault.

[bad_teammate 13132]

11 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I disagree.  As a left-of-center voter, I can comfortably write off the vast majority of Trump voters as complete fucking morons who wouldn't know how to read a history book if it was published by Highlights For Children.  However, I can to some degree get the perspective of a 3rd party liberal who didn't like Hillary.  What I can't abide is them going across the aisle and voting for Donald Trump, of all people.  It was NOT in their best interests to do so, and now we're all fucked because of their petulance.

The Bernie->Trump slice was well within the normal historical distribution. ~10% of people are going to switch around no matter what. That's statistical noise.

2008:
Romney->Obama: 14% (McCain nominee)

2012:
Romney->Obama: 11% (Romney ran away with this primary, I couldn't find any stats on switchers from Santorum or Paul)

2008:
Hillary->McCain: 25% (Obama nominee)
Obama->McCain: 9% (9% of the people who voted for Obama in the 2008 primary voted for McCain in the general)

2016:
Bernie->Trump: 12% (Hillary nominee)

Look at those stats. More Mitt Romney 2008 primary voters went for Obama in the general than Bernie primary voters went to Trump in 2016.

There is one statistical outlier from a major party that I've seen recently, and that's dogshit Hillary Clinton's dogshit voter base.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

You don’t see being hoisted on your own petard as rather...Classic?

My point is that I want NOBODY to experience that. But we’ve decided that it’s ok. And we’ve decided that being a bystander is a morally responsible path. So, based on those realities...all things considered, I’d prefer the misfortune to fall on the bad actors and the complicit.

I’m good with that.

You have an odd way of communicating that you don't want harm to come to posters here, seeing as how you sometimes do wish direct harm on them and their families and occasionally damn them to hell. 

I say the following preachy message to you as someone who likely has far more in common with you than differences and who still believes that within you there is a reasonable man wondering around lost in a temporary state of disillusionment:   You talk about your wife either in formal training to be a minster or already a minster.  If she were to read your posts here, would she say "I agree; fuck those assholes and may they burn in hell" or would she say something closer to "why on earth do you talk like that?"  

 

7 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

Anastasis runs perpetual interference for fascism by focusing the entirety of his "well, actually, both sides" bullshit on shouting down those who oppose the growing power of the fascists. There is no functional difference between the useful idiot, the quisling, and the fascist himself. All up against the wall, please.

Even though he doesn't like Trump and is not even very conservative as far as I can tell, you equate Anastasis with a fascist because he points out that both political parties have serious faults in common and doesn't readily accommodate the overt fear based propaganda that is pumped on a daily basis.   And you also say in this thread "Some are simply capable of recognizing there are degrees of dysfunction and the world is full of grey areas, not simple black and white."  On your grey spectrum, what's the shade of accusing anyone who doesn't fall lockstep in line with you of being a fascist?

 

[Tuco 5076]

59 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Bullshit.  Any educated rational American could easily see Trump was an extremely dangerous candidate. 

But here is the problem: many educated rational Americans didn't see Trump was an extremely dangerous candidate.

We can bang our heads against the wall and wail at the injustice of it all, but the fact is, there were educated, rational, patriotic, moral people who decided there wasn't really a discernible difference.  That's the reality and the Trump presidency is the result of that reality.

Several years ago, I was working on a large proposal for a customer.  We did a really good job on it, but the customer went in a different direction.  After listening to the customer's explanation of his decision, which was focused on certain capabilities we couldn't offer, I was okay with it.  I felt confident that we had explained our offering sufficiently, the customer understood what we offered, but what he was looking for, we couldn't really provide.  I'm okay losing a job if we can't meet the customer's needs. 

That's NOT how I feel about Hillary or really the Democrats in general.  We do a piss-poor job of explaining what we offer and how it affects people.  Hillary did a piss-poor job of defending her record, parrying the nutball bullshit, or explaining her strengths.  There are still a bunch of rational, intelligent people who think the Clinton Foundation is a reason to vote against Hillary, rather than for her.  She was instrumental in raising 100s of millions of dollars for impoverished people throughout the world, which literally saved lives, and the term "Clinton Foundation" polls poorly.  You have to recognize and respect the consistent negative advertising of conservative media.  And we have to figure out a way to counter it.  The Democrats offer a better product than Republicans, and a much, much better product than Trump, but our marketing sucks. 

Edited June 28, 2018 by Tuco

[Tuco 5076]

19 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

The Bernie->Trump slice was well within the normal historical distribution. ~10% of people are going to switch around no matter what. That's statistical noise.

 

What's your source.  All of those numbers seem surprisingly high.

[jimmyjazz 45557]

19 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

The Bernie->Trump slice was well within the normal historical distribution. ~10% of people are going to switch around no matter what. That's statistical noise.

I don't disagree that it's a fairly normal % of voters crossing the aisle.  What I disagree with is the implicit assumption that Donald Trump is just another random opposition party candidate.  If you couldn't see he was fucked from the jump, what business did you have supporting Bernie in the first place?

[pdmd_api 11]

@Tuco I struggle to call those people "educated." Maybe they have actual degrees, but they have very little in the way of critical thinking skills. It shouldn't have taken much thought to see how Trump kept telling lie after lie and how he, and he alone, would be the one who could fix everything. Or maybe they joined the Anastasis-like idiots because everything is equally as bad as the next thing, but even those people possess little in the way of detecting bullshit.

[Brisketexan 104604]

Even though he doesn't like Trump and is not even very conservative as far as I can tell, you equate Anastasis with a fascist because he points out that both political parties have serious faults in common and doesn't readily accommodate the overt fear based propaganda that is pumped on a daily basis.   And you also say in this thread "Some are simply capable of recognizing there are degrees of dysfunction and the world is full of grey areas, not simple black and white."  On your grey spectrum, what's the shade of accusing anyone who doesn't fall lockstep in line with you of being a fascist?
 

The problem is (1) he wants the patient to die, and (2) the patient is us.

Maybe an analogy will help: a cancer patent shows up at the hospital with a life-threatening infection and fever. We all know that the cancer is a big, long-term problem. And it’s systemic. But every sane doctor will FIRST treat the IMMEDIATE threat - the infection that threatens to kill the patient. Failing to do so, and standing back imperiously, saying “but the cancer is a real problem, and we must also treat that”...while the patient fucking dies from an infection....well, that’s what the Anastasis types are doing.

Now, imagine that patient was one of your loved ones - your wife, your child. And Dr. Anastasis stands there, yammering about the underlying cancer while your child dies from an infection. You’d want to throttle that Dr, and you’d be right.

[SmokeyTheBear 5562]

1 hour ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Bullshit.  Any educated rational American could easily see Trump was an extremely dangerous candidate. 

Any alternative that espoused or even paid lip service to democracy was a better option.  

Voters should have gone out of their way to ensure he was never given any real power, even if that meant voting for a shitty candidate.

I've said it before but I'll say it again. My uncle was a Deputy Director of the FBI and voted for Trump. Regrets it like nothing else and is truly frightened about the country's future, but voted for Trump nonetheless because.....Hillary. His hate for Hillary was stronger than the risk of Trump. 

And the reason for this is, I think, there is a fundamental disagreement about the idea of 'success' and how those have obtained it. Trump understands how to play within those sets of rules (or lack thereof) of business and people thought that it would translate. Fortunately/Unfortunately it doesn't work that way for government. Ethics and morality have a much larger role in governing and those are frankley not attributes of value in Trump's reality. But enough voters thought that by bringing in a dirty fighter of business, he would clean up the dirty fighters of government. And now we are seeing the results of it. 

Edited June 28, 2018 by SmokeyTheBear

[Tuco 5076]

To pdmd...

There are a lot of educated people who lack critical thinking skills. But, I think the bigger issue is there are a lot people who only half pay attention to politics.  I think there are a lot of voters who think, "I like low taxes and a strong military.  I think people on welfare should have to work.  I don't support abortion.  I am a Republican.  Who are the Chiefs playing this weekend."  That's pretty much it.  The campaigns are noise, which they endeavor to tune out.

Edited June 28, 2018 by Tuco

[jimmyjazz 45557]

6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Maybe an analogy will help: a cancer patent shows up at the hospital with a life-threatening infection and fever. We all know that the cancer is a big, long-term problem. And it’s systemic. But every sane doctor will FIRST treat the IMMEDIATE threat - the infection that threatens to kill the patient. Failing to do so, and standing back imperiously, saying “but the cancer is a real problem, and we must also treat that”...while the patient fucking dies from an infection....well, that’s what the Anastasis types are doing.

Now, imagine that patient was one of your loved ones - your wife, your child. And Dr. Anastasis stands there, yammering about the underlying cancer while your child dies from an infection. You’d want to throttle that Dr, and you’d be right.
 

He literally chided me last night for a similar metaphor:  I suggested that when one is currently in the throes of cardiac arrest, one's biggest problem is the fact that the heart is no longer beating, not a long history of eating fatty foods.  For some reason, I was off base in his mind.  He never actually cleared that up.  I went to bed and don't have it in me to pursue further.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8799]

1 hour ago, Js1 said:

No one has ever called the people in North Dakota "elite."

Also, he has a gold toilet and a living room painted like the Sistine Chapel.

"Oh my god, he's one of us!"

i saw a picture of a guy in an old school Randy Moss vikings jersey  waiting to get into the rally yesterday. Id say hes elite

Edited June 28, 2018 by MNLonghornFUKM

[scottsins 1953]

Brow beating those who didn’t vote or voted for Stein is such a flawed, but typical DNC approach.

It’s like the game plan is:

“OK! We are going to just have the same voters come out for us again...BUT THIS TIME THEY WILL VOTE WAY HARDER!!!”

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The problem is (1) he wants the patient to die, and (2) the patient is us.

Maybe an analogy will help: a cancer patent shows up at the hospital with a life-threatening infection and fever. We all know that the cancer is a big, long-term problem. And it’s systemic. But every sane doctor will FIRST treat the IMMEDIATE threat - the infection that threatens to kill the patient. Failing to do so, and standing back imperiously, saying “but the cancer is a real problem, and we must also treat that”...while the patient fucking dies from an infection....well, that’s what the Anastasis types are doing.

Now, imagine that patient was one of your loved ones - your wife, your child. And Dr. Anastasis stands there, yammering about the underlying cancer while your child dies from an infection. You’d want to throttle that Dr, and you’d be right.
 

I don't think that an internet poster discussing the merits of restructuring our current political system and a doctor being cavalier about the death of one's child are analogous.  

[jimmyjazz 45557]

4 minutes ago, scottsins said:

Brow beating those who didn’t vote or voted for Stein is such a flawed, but typical DNC approach.

It’s like the game plan is:

“OK! We are going to just have the same voters come out for us again...BUT THIS TIME THEY WILL VOTE WAY HARDER!!!”

There is zero doubt that Hillary and the DNC fucked up the election in an unimaginable way, and that it would have taken almost no effort to reverse fortunes to the point that the electoral college would have swung.  That said, I still cannot abide pissy 3rd party voters going against their best interests and tanking an election.  Yes, to head off the obvious retort -- I am saying I know what their best interests were.  I think we all do, except Trumpkins, and they're stupid, and fuck them.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

9 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

There is zero doubt that Hillary and the DNC fucked up the election in an unimaginable way, and that it would have taken almost no effort to reverse fortunes to the point that the electoral college would have swung.  That said, I still cannot abide pissy 3rd party voters going against their best interests and tanking an election.  Yes, to head off the obvious retort -- I am saying I know what their best interests were.  I think we all do, except Trumpkins, and they're stupid, and fuck them.

The media's and voters' infatuation with Trump and Hillary's emails was also a big problem.  

Eh, fuck it. I'm sick of re-litigating the 2016 election. 

Edited June 28, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Tuco 5076]

11 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

I don't think that an internet poster discussing the merits of restructuring our current political system and a doctor being cavalier about the death of one's child are analogous.  

Then you have a problem understanding analogies. 

[Dbeasy 14966]

The Republicans are clearly the more incompetent party right now, having passed an irresponsible tax cut without spending cuts, whining about ACA and then having a big bag of nothing when able to do something about it, letting Trump run roughshod over them, etc. However the Democrats are the impotent party. They just don’t matter right now. They aren’t fighting this battle effectively. Incompetent and impotent, a great combination.

[Pancho 44474]

 

[wildcat09 29240]

18 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

There is zero doubt that Hillary and the DNC fucked up the election in an unimaginable way, and that it would have taken almost no effort to reverse fortunes to the point that the electoral college would have swung.  That said, I still cannot abide pissy 3rd party voters going against their best interests and tanking an election.  Yes, to head off the obvious retort -- I am saying I know what their best interests were.  I think we all do, except Trumpkins, and they're stupid, and fuck them.

The problem isn't even the pissy third party voters going against their own best interests. The problem is the pissy third party voters bitching about how awful both choices were for other people (poor people, mostly minorities) whom they think should be better served by the system (which they were right about), and allowing an explicit fascist to win. It was pure heighten-the-contradictions thinking which is almost always (1) stupid because it rarely actually works (see W), and (2) selfish, because it's poor brown people and not the white college liberals that have to bear the brunt of the cost.

[jimmyjazz 45557]

6 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The problem isn't even the pissy third party voters going against their own best interests. The problem is the pissy third party voters bitching about how awful both choices were for other people (poor people, mostly minorities) whom they think should be better served by the system (which they were right about), and allowing an explicit fascist to win. It was pure heighten-the-contradictions thinking which is almost always (1) stupid because it rarely actually works (see W), and (2) selfish, because it's poor brown people and not the white college liberals that have to bear the brunt of the cost.

Yep.  That's well put.  I'm stealing it.

[Chad Fuck 17565]

26 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The problem isn't even the pissy third party voters going against their own best interests. The problem is the pissy third party voters bitching about how awful both choices were for other people (poor people, mostly minorities) whom they think should be better served by the system (which they were right about), and allowing an explicit fascist to win. It was pure heighten-the-contradictions thinking which is almost always (1) stupid because it rarely actually works (see W), and (2) selfish, because it's poor brown people and not the white college liberals that have to bear the brunt of the cost.

Yup.  

"Both candidates suck, so we are voting for someone who will never be president in the quixotic hope that both parties will come courting to get our 5% vote in the NEXT election by providing us with the perfect unicorn candidate who we can get behind 100%."  

Grow the fuck up.

[Pancho 44474]

Be civil y’all!

 

[Js1 85109]

33 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The problem isn't even the pissy third party voters going against their own best interests. The problem is the pissy third party voters bitching about how awful both choices were for other people (poor people, mostly minorities) whom they think should be better served by the system (which they were right about), and allowing an explicit fascist to win. It was pure heighten-the-contradictions thinking which is almost always (1) stupid because it rarely actually works (see W), and (2) selfish, because it's poor brown people and not the white college liberals that have to bear the brunt of the cost.

 

9 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

Yup.  

"Both candidates suck, so we are voting for someone who will never be president in the quixotic hope that both parties will come courting to get our 5% vote in the NEXT election by providing us with the perfect unicorn candidate who we can get behind 100%."  

Grow the fuck up.

[Chooky 13302]

 

[Brisketexan 104604]

59 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

I don't think that an internet poster discussing the merits of restructuring our current political system and a doctor being cavalier about the death of one's child are analogous.  

I think that someone being cavalier about the situation that our country is in -- which presumably is reflected in his real-world attitude and actions -- is quite analogous.

[Brandywine 1313]

The Democratic Party will never learn. They totally screwed up when they didn’t take Trump running seriously, not voting because they thought Hillary was a done deal. They have no simple message and no good candidate to take on Trump. It’s going to be a long walk through the hot desert. I’m fed up with them. I’m so mad right now about this SC pick that I could kick my cat. But I don’t have a cat. So I’ll stew.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

16 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The problem isn't even the pissy third party voters going against their own best interests. The problem is the pissy third party voters bitching about how awful both choices were for other people (poor people, mostly minorities) whom they think should be better served by the system (which they were right about), and allowing an explicit fascist to win. It was pure heighten-the-contradictions thinking which is almost always (1) stupid because it rarely actually works (see W), and (2) selfish, because it's poor brown people and not the white college liberals that have to bear the brunt of the cost.

I don't think it's that simple.  Hillary has some big blemishes on her record when it comes to issues that affect the poor and minorities.  Her hawkishness on war, the crime bill, and other stuff we've all discussed ad nauseum.  The reality is that she was not an exciting candidate on issues affecting the powerless.    And that's part of why some poor white Obama voters went for Trump and black turnout dropped significantly in swing states.  There's no question in my mind that was a bad decision, and that Hillary was better than Trump on those issues.  But a non-poor white lib third party voter (or non-voter) could have had the poor and minorities in mind but simply made the same bad choice. 

[bad_teammate 13132]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

There is zero doubt that Hillary and the DNC fucked up the election in an unimaginable way, and that it would have taken almost no effort to reverse fortunes to the point that the electoral college would have swung.  That said, I still cannot abide pissy 3rd party voters going against their best interests and tanking an election.  Yes, to head off the obvious retort -- I am saying I know what their best interests were.  I think we all do, except Trumpkins, and they're stupid, and fuck them.

You are working under the flawed assumption that all Bernie primary voters were natural Dem voters. Bernie had crossover appeal with socially conservative economic populists.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

 

[Goredho 17348]

17 hours ago, zork said:

the red hen protest dude with the big sign has to be one of those westboro baptist douches.

Just an FYI, but much of the current GOP (Mike Pence, et al) more closely resemble Westboro Baptist douches than they do Eisenhower or Reagan.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

Will President Trump Ignore the Court Order Against His Lawless Family Separation Policy?

The crisis is nowhere near over. Here’s how you can still help.

By WALTER M. SHAUB JR.

 

What is the duty of a citizen? That depends on whether you believe a country is more than a plot of land bounded by borders and walls. The past few weeks in the family separation crisis, which led on Tuesday to a District Court judge in California ordering the Trump administration to cease the practice and immediately reunite separated families, should mark a clarifying moment for the citizens of this country.

Tuesday’s orders from Judge Dana Sabraw in the case of Ms. L. v. ICE are categorical: First, the judge certified as a class nearly all families affected by the child separation practice. Second, and most importantly, the judge ordered family separation halted and parents reunified with children younger than 5 within two weeks and reunified with children older than 5 within 30 days.

This is just an order, though. We have to see how the Trump administration responds to it. Given recent history—the government has been waging a bitter campaign to defend its child separation practice and avoid family reunification—it seems as though this president will try to get away with anything he can. Further, reunification may be nearly impossible in some cases—as the judge noted, there have been reports of parents being deported without their children, and the government has taken many infants who may not even be able to say their parents’ names.

In the midst of this crisis, the congressional majority has wholly abdicated its constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of the Trump administration; its failure to hold emergency hearings is the point of abject disaster. That these crimes against humanity didn’t prompt Congress to act tells us nothing ever will. Only a dead heart is unstirred by the intentional infliction of suffering on children and babies as a weapon of deterrence.

Ultimately, the burden to ensure that these families are reunited and kept safe falls on the public to pick up where our leaders have failed. What’s needed now is pressure. Continued, sustained public pressure to make sure those in government move heaven and Earth to comply with Judge Sabraw’s order. We’ve all just seen what the president is capable of, so the public needs now more than ever to send a message that we won’t stand for crimes against humanity.

Hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens will stand up against child separation and family detention this Saturday. The largest rally will be held in Washington, and I hope you’ll join us. If you’re unable to get here, I hope you’ll join one of the 500 other rallies being held simultaneously across the nation that day. This is the moment of crisis when we must fulfill our duty as citizens.

Spoiler

 

Direct action helps. In ordering an end to these horrific child separations, Judge Sabraw emphasized the public’s active response: “This situation has reached a crisis level. The news media is saturated with stories of immigrant families being separated at the border. People are protesting.” Condemning President Donald Trump’s recent executive order for failing to provide for family reunification, the judge added that, “Public outrage remained at a fever pitch.”

This past weekend, I had the chance to observe firsthand the depth of that outrage and the power of direct action. I bought a last-minute plane ticket and went down to the border, where I joined a group rallying outside the Tornillo, Texas, child internment camp. There I witnessed hundreds of citizens who felt duty bound to stand up against the government’s horrific new child detention practice. The Trump administration has been arresting families that cross the border anywhere other than a port of entry, separating the children indefinitely and detaining them alone. According to the judge in the Ms. L. v. ICE lawsuit, the practice wasn’t constrained to people who committed the misdemeanor offense of entering without border inspection—many lawful asylum-seekers who presented themselves at a port of entry had their children taken according to the affidavits in that lawsuit.

Medical professionals have been decrying the harm inflicted on these children, who range in ages from a few months old to teenagers. In Tuesday’s opinion, Judge Sabraw cited child development experts who warned that “separating children from parents is a highly destabilizing, traumatic experience that has long term consequences on child well-being, safety, and development,” emphasizing risks of severe mental and physical harm, toxic stress and increased vulnerability to exploitation.

In Tornillo, we all felt the heartbreak of being so close and so far from the children. The sterile grounds were steeped in an oppressive atmosphere of mystery. The compound was designed so that, despite the flatness of the desert terrain, the tents were obscured from our view. One guard denied knowing if there were tents on the property. Though he was polite, his response highlighted the crushing impersonality of bureaucracies, telling us the guards were not advised of the activities of “tenant agencies.”

A group of protesters at another site had more success than we did in spotting children. The protesters shared low-quality cellphone photos of little children peering out from a bus transporting them deeper into the bureaucracy. The agencies involved in this catastrophe have not been transparent. Their silence suggests they may have already lost track of the children’s parents, especially the parents who have already been deported without them. In the case of nonverbal babies and toddlers, we have no assurance that the agencies even know their names. For all we know, “Inmate 451” may be the new name of an infant who was ripped from the arms of her crying mother by an agent who didn’t record her name and parentage, or whose records were lost by a clerk at Step 22 of the detention process.

The local immigration activists on the ground are doing everything in their power to ensure that these children are ultimately returned, but they desperately need our help. The organizer of the Tornillo protest I attended was María Teresa Kumar of Voto Latino, and she was supported by a team of local immigration advocates, including Cynthia Pompa, Linda Rivas, and Melissa Lopez.

Pompa told me about her work in El Paso with the American Civil Liberties Union. She showed me a disturbing photo she had taken with her cellphone of a menacing man in a black mask carrying a large gun. The man, who claimed to be a government contractor, approached her on public ground on the U.S. side of the border and told her to leave the area where a border wall was being constructed. Pompa also talked about Juárez, Mexico, a place close to her heart. As she described El Paso’s sister city, I found myself thinking about how close we were sitting to the homes of its residents, our neighbors in every sense of the word. On the way back to the hotel, I could see the colorful lights of an event across the border.

In addition to being attorneys, Rivas is executive director of Las Americas and Lopez is executive director of El Paso’s Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services. They are currently trying to help the children taken by the administration. Their passion for the work was apparent. Some of us are new to this struggle but not them. They’ve been part of it all along, and they’re in it for the long haul.

I asked Rivas and Lopez about their work. They toil against overwhelming odds with limited funding. The work can take its toll on the good people in this field because there are always losses, but there are wins too. There is also the deep satisfaction of a life devoted to helping people. Lopez told me about a grateful client who, having nothing else to give, presented her with a dollar bill that he had folded into the shape of a heart. Such souvenirs strengthen resilience.

The child separations are different in meaningful ways than what has come before. Defenders of the child separations emphasize problems with the previous administration’s treatment of immigrants, especially its failures when a large number of unaccompanied children crossed the border alone and overwhelmed existing systems. Our immigration system has been bad for some time. There’s no denying that. There is also no denying that things changed drastically for the worse when the Trump administration needlessly imposed a zero-tolerance policy and adopted the brutal practice of turning accompanied minors into unaccompanied minors by arresting their parents for, in most cases, misdemeanors.

The administration has made matters worse by blocking asylum-seekers at the border. This arguably illegal tactic has left many desperate families with three bad choices: turn back and potentially die at the hands of those they are fleeing, face the health risks of sitting out in the hot sun for weeks on end in the hope that the border guards stop blocking them, or cross the border elsewhere and turn themselves over to the authorities on the American side. That third choice triggers Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, which he uses to justify the child separations.

These actions by the administration have artificially produced a humanitarian crisis. The vast federal bureaucracy is unequipped to reunite these children with their parents, and it has reportedly complicated matters by beginning to deport their parents without them. Some of these children may never see their parents again.

Senior government officials have revealed that their real aim is deterrence. In this context, deterrence is a sinister term signifying an intent to inflict enough harm on these families to scare others away. When pressed by CNN’s Kate Bolduan, Sen. Lindsey Graham admitted, “I’m sure that people are going to be less likely to bring their kids to America if they get separated.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions admitted to Fox’s Laura Ingraham that deterrence is one of the goals of the new policy. White House chief of staff John Kelly also revealed to CNN as early as last year and to NPR as recently as last month that one of the goals of such a policy would be deterrence.

At one point, President Trump seemed to signal that funding for his border wall was a condition for negotiations over ending the policy, making hostages of the children. The executive order he issued last week is an incomprehensible mess that doesn’t look like anything a minimally competent lawyer would have drafted. Judge Sabraw on Tuesday himself correctly noted that the executive order is “subject to various qualifications,” that it still “allows the government to separate a migrant parent from his or her child,” and that it “is silent on the issue of reuniting families that have already been separated or will be separated in the future.” It is thus plainly inadequate to end this crisis, the judge ruled. The judge is absolutely correct. The administration has not offered convincing assurances that the separations won’t resume, perhaps in a new form that might somehow skirt his order, nor has the government released even the most rudimentary plan to reunite the families. Instead, it has trafficked in dehumanizing language to villainize these children and their parents, including the words infestation, invaders, illegals, and criminal illegal aliens. The president equates these babies and children with violent gang members. He never mentions that immigrants commit less crime once they’re here than the native-born population.

I wish I could say this atrocity was un-American, but the truth is that America has not always lived up to its ideals. What I can say is that many threads are woven in the great tapestry of America. Just as there are those who would commit atrocities, there are citizens who heed the call of civic duty and stand against them.

Taking a stand can be inconvenient. But the baton has been passed down through generations to us. We are citizens, and stopping these atrocities is our civic duty now.

 

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/will-president-trump-ignore-the-court-order-against-his-family-separation-policy.html

[Brisketexan 104604]

38 minutes ago, Chooky said:

 

And also....raise the black flag and start slitting throats (metaphorically, of course).  The opposition fights with lies, deception, and subterfuge.  Don't fall for their bullshit demand that everyone else fight by Marquess of Queensberry rules while they're poisoning your water bottle, filling their gloves with lead, swinging a 2X4 at you when the ref ain't looking, and paying off the ref on the chance that he IS looking.  There are no rules anymore.  They have made clear that the operative rule is "whatever means necessary."  Play by it.

33 minutes ago, Brandywine said:

The Democratic Party will never learn. They totally screwed up when they didn’t take Trump running seriously, not voting because they thought Hillary was a done deal. They have no simple message and no good candidate to take on Trump. It’s going to be a long walk through the hot desert. I’m fed up with them. I’m so mad right now about this SC pick that I could kick my cat. But I don’t have a cat. So I’ll stew.

I have a cat that I will loan out for kicking purposes.

Stupid fucking cat.

Edited June 28, 2018 by Brisketexan

[Johnny Sack 8397]

SCOTUS needs to take up nationwide injunctions next.  They hinted at them in the travel ban case.

Obama's policies were forum shopped to be challenged in friendly courts in Texas.  Trump's are forum shopped to Hawaii or California.

[SaucyJack 3487]

3 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

No, it doesn't, but we're responding to a tweet that focuses the blame on the small number of lib voters who didn't eat the shit sandwich that was handed to them.   Yes, they should have eaten it.  But the primary blame falls on the chef and server, who could have easily given them something edible but didn't for a bunch of shitty reasons.  And it's more productive for the party and activists to focus on the chef and server going forward than the diners.   Because it's much easier (and simply better) to make an edible sandwich than to get people to eat shit. 

Eloquently stated.

However, are  they now starving or dead?

[David Dennison 18656]

1 hour ago, Johnny Sack said:

SCOTUS needs to take up nationwide injunctions next.  They hinted at them in the travel ban case.

Obama's policies were forum shopped to be challenged in friendly courts in Texas.  Trump's are forum shopped to Hawaii or California.

How do you enjoin the federal government with a local injunction? 

Edited June 28, 2018 by David Dennison

[TornACL 7675]

1 hour ago, Pancho Negro said:

Be civil y’all!

 

wow
much projection
so idiot
such mean

[Chad Fuck 17565]

 

I’d argue it’s expected.