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MorningStar1337 The Encounter that ended the Dogma from 🤔 Since: Nov, 2012
The Encounter that ended the Dogma
#252201: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:30:26 PM

Here's a catchy phrase to write on Picket signs: "Put ICE on Ice!"

Out of context pagetoppers strikes again.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Aug 15th 2018 at 1:33:30 AM

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#252202: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:34:36 PM

Better one: "Melt ICE".

i'm tired, my friend
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#252203: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:35:43 PM

"Ice don't play nice"

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#252204: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:36:15 PM

[up][up][up] Out of context pagetoppers are always he most fun.

[up][up] Also a good line.

Just to be sure it doesn't get lost on the last page, I'm going to repost the articles/context in question.

Two articles from The Post that caught my eye:

There's a new litmus test to see if you're Republican enough: did you back Trump when the Access Hollywood tape broke in 2016? (Note: opinion column)

Long story short, anyone who criticized Trump over the Access Hollywood tape is being attacked by Republican rivals in the primaries, and being cast as disloyal cowards for not having Trump's back at the time, and being failures to conservatism considering the stakes of the election. And many of those who dared to criticize Trump are losing primaries this year.

Several sections bolded for emphasis.

The big news in Tuesday night’s elections is the defeat of GOP establishment pick Tim Pawlenty in the Minnesota GOP gubernatorial primary, at the hands of a full-blown Trump loyalist. This makes a Democratic victory in the state more likely, and crucially, it probably makes it easier for Democrats to hold a couple of House seats they are defending in the state, which is key to Democrats’ hopes of taking back the lower chamber this fall.

Beyond this, Pawlenty’s loss provides a useful way to try to understand what is happening in the GOP of the Trump era. After it happened, Pawlenty told reporters:

“The Republican Party has shifted. It is the era of Trump and I’m just not a Trump-like politician.”

The phrase “Trump-like politician,” it turns out, is basically a euphemism for a “politician who is willing to defend President Trump at his most reprehensible moments.” The man who decisively defeated Pawlenty, local commissioner Jeff Johnson, actually ran an ad that blasted Pawlenty for failing to stand by Trump after the news broke of the “Access Hollywood” video, which featured Trump boasting in extremely lewd fashion about his ability to carry out sexual assaults with impunity.

Johnson’s ad hits Pawlenty for calling Trump “unhinged and unfit to be president,” just weeks before the 2016 election, a reference to the statement that Pawlenty put out after the “Access Hollywood” news broke. In the ad, Johnson then says, “When the Supreme Court and our economy were on the line, Tim Pawlenty stuck his finger in the wind,” before declaring himself the real “conservative” in the race and promising not to “panic when it matters most”:

It turns out that this is part of a pattern. As a Democratic operative points out to me, multiple Republican candidates have been placed on the defensive during this cycle for the same thing: failing to support Trump not just in a general sense, but more precisely for failing to support Trump when the “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced.

In the Michigan gubernatorial primary, for instance, Trump’s pick — Attorney General Bill Schuette — hammered his opponent, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, specifically for pulling his support for Trump when the tape became public. “You deserted Trump,” Schuette said. “The president knows who was with him and who was not.” (Schuette went on to win the primary.)

Notably, Schuette ran an ad on this that used almost exactly the same language that Johnson’s ad did in Minnesota. “With the White House and Supreme Court hanging on the line,” Schuette’s ad said, “Brian Calley deserted Donald Trump.”

In Florida, GOP gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam recently came under fire for displaying insufficient loyalty to Trump, and a key point against Putnam was his heretical description of Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape behavior as “vile and obscene.” Primary opponent Ron De Santis seized on those comments, hammering Putnam for criticizing Trump “when we were trying to beat Hillary Clinton.”

...

In most of these cases, the offending act was not merely a personal betrayal of Trump. More precisely, the offending act was to display weakness — in the face of widespread moral condemnation of Trump’s reprehensible misogynistic boasting over his dalliances into sexual abuse and assault — when the stakes were high enough to demand fortitude in response to that condemnation.

In both ads cited above, the disloyal Republican was condemned for going weak-kneed when the Supreme Court (and with it, long-term conservative priorities) were “on the line.” As the ad from Johnson (who won in Minnesota) noted, it was a mark of him being a true “conservative” that he did not “panic when it matters most.”

Reflecting on Pawlenty’s loss, Post reporter Robert Costa noted that it signals the degree to which Trump has “transformed” the GOP, with the result that above all, GOP voters want “solidarity in grievance.” In a way, you can square this with the idea that deserting Trump in the face of the “Access Hollywood” tape has emerged in some quarters of today’s GOP as a badge of shame. When Trump is under fire in moments like this, the important fact about it is not what Trump did. It’s the liberal media establishment’s agenda in victimizing him for it as part of the broader project of trying to destroy conservatism.

Remember, this is exactly how Stephen K. Bannon, the keeper of the flame of Trumpism, built a new narrative to try to rescue failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore against abuse allegations. As one Bannon ally told Joshua Green at the time, the claims of numerous credible victims of Moore’s alleged sexually predatory behavior actually constituted “a missile launched at the conservative movement by the mainstream media.”

"Remember, it's not about what one of our guys actually did, it's about how someone else is victimizing us by criticizing us for it" sounds like a pretty decent summation of the Trump era GOP.

It's also a reminder, I think, why leftists can't hold out for nothing but perfection when it come to politics. You can't keep your hands perfectly clean, you can't wait for just the perfect candidates who exactly reflect what you want and how you want it to be said when the other side is working specifically to harm you, and is willing to stoop to any depth to do it. If you want to make any progress in the face of that kind of opposition, you have to be willing to get down, and you have to be willing to be eternally vigilant, not hope that one vote or one cash donation to your own personal favorite politician solves everything.

The other article from The Post is another one about ICE to get the blood boiling. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is conspiring with ICE to inform ICE when legal immigrants are present to work towards becoming citizens so ICE can detain them according to the ACLU

Lilian Calderon told her daughter not to worry, that she would be coming right back. Calderon and her husband, Luis, had an interview they couldn’t miss at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Rhode Island Jan. 17.

All they had to do was prove their marriage was legitimate, the first step on a long path toward a green card. They brought family photographs, their children’s birth certificates and their marriage documents. Luis was a U.S. citizen. Calderon was undocumented. She had been brought to the United States illegally from Guatemala when she was 3.

The interviews were quick and painless. Calderon’s included “football banter,” she said.

But then ICE showed up — and it was quickly clear to Calderon that she would not be returning home to her daughter.

The 30-year-old mother of two wound up handcuffed and then detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for nearly a month, capturing the attention of the ACLU and leading to a class-action lawsuit over what attorneys have described as a “cruel bait and switch” arrest operation. According to emails between federal officials unsealed in federal court documents this week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had been coordinating with ICE to alert the agency when certain immigrants eligible for deportation showed up at the CIS office for routine interviews.

The ACLU of Massachusetts is accusing the agencies of conspiring to “trap” unsuspecting immigrants on a path toward legal permanent residency by inviting them to these interviews only for ICE to arrest them there. This happened to at least 17 people in 2018 including Calderon, although only 13 qualify as members of the class, according to the lawsuit. The ACLU argues this violates their rights to due process and the Immigration Nationality Act, among other things, for detaining the immigrants before they’ve had a chance to complete the process for seeking legal status.

ICE’s Boston field office spokesman, John Mohan, said in a statement Wednesday morning that any allegations of “inappropriate coordination” between the agencies were “unfounded.”

“This routine coordination within the Department of Homeland Security, not unlike the cooperative efforts we maintain with many other federal partners, is lawful and legitimate in the work we do to uphold our nation’s immigration laws,” Mohan said.

Emails between the agencies released Tuesday show USCIS employees scheduling interviews with certain married couples or other family members around ICE agents’ availability. When immigrants and their spouses or family members showed up, USCIS employees would alert ICE. If ICE agents were running late, ICE would ask USCIS to reschedule the interviews to accommodate them.

One ICE agent appeared to prefer scheduling the arrests to avoid drawing media attention.

“As far as scheduling goes, I would prefer not to do them all at one time as it is not only a strain on our ability to transport and process several arrests at once, but it also has the potential to be a trigger for negative media interest, as we have seen in the past,” Andrew Graham, an ICE officer in the fugitive operations division, wrote in an October 2017 email included in court documents. “If you have the availability to schedule one or two at a time and spread them apart, that works best for us.”

At the very least, this particular department of ICE must be disbanded, and ever single person who had any part in its actions must be blacklisted from federal level law enforcement. Not a single one of them is worthy of the office they currently hold.

Edited by TheWanderer on Aug 15th 2018 at 4:36:23 AM

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#252205: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:39:43 PM

I could have sworn Trump started revoking clearance from certain previous officials ages ago. So this may not be exactly new.

Edited by kkhohoho on Aug 15th 2018 at 3:42:10 AM

Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#252206: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:41:43 PM

ICE really cannot exist. There is no reason for it to. It's not some great institution, and its name and reputation is less than mud. The good stuff it does can be rebranded, but if the next president doesn't disband ICE I'd be shocked.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#252207: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:43:47 PM

Eh, while I agree that ICE as an organization should be dissolved for the optics alone I don't think it's accurate to say that it doesn't need to exist. While the pre-9/11 status-quo wasn't nonviable it was still suboptimal, there is a clear benefit to centralizing immigration related efforts in a single agency and it's not like all of ICE is terrible.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#252208: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:49:47 PM

They've got to go. I'll admit I'm not that well versed on the issue, but my understanding is that the "legit version" of what people think ICE does is covered by Customs and Border Protection and as it is, besides being a new agency in itself, ICE deliberately (from the ground up) changed its enforcement priority from stopping gang and terrorist activity to deporting undocumented immigrants. Including (dare I say especially), as per that article, targeting undocumented immigrants pursuing legal status.

I know it's Godwin's Law, but the comparison that comes to mind is the fact that Germany had law enforcement and espionage agencies before and after the Nazis, but no one questions why the SS and Gestapo were scrapped rather than being "reformed". I use those as comparisons based on the similar newness and combination of bad people enforcing bad policy goals.

Edited by Hodor2 on Aug 15th 2018 at 3:52:39 AM

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#252209: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:52:08 PM

I really hate to have to always defend ICE, because this stuff is seriously vile, but I’m getting the sense most people don’t realize that the large majority of what ICE does has little to do with deportation.

If it needs a new name that’s one thing, and I can see the arguments for that, but there’s no real reason to “disband” the agency, and the feeding frenzy afterwards as federal and local agencies competed to prove they should be the ones to handle deportation would probably end up being worse for undocumented people.

[up] CBP is an enforcement-focused agency, ICE is an investigative-focused one. It’s sort of like the difference between a beat cop and a detective, they both need each other for the police department to work.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 15th 2018 at 1:57:02 AM

They should have sent a poet.
Reflextion from a post-sanity world (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
#252210: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:52:39 PM

'"You can't spell "MALICE" without "ICE"'

But seriously, everyone in that organization from the head honcho down to the guy who does the donut run needs to be Nuremburg'd.

EDIT: So much [nja]

Edited by Reflextion on Aug 15th 2018 at 4:54:50 AM

Someone did tell me life was going to be this way.
BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#252211: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:54:41 PM

So two articles I think are worth reading today. The first one is about the North Carolina GOP failing - again - to rig their state supreme court through legislative take-backsies.

    Full article text 
Emphasis mine.
A North Carolina court issued a preliminary injunction on Monday blocking the General Assembly’s attempt to throw a state Supreme Court race to the Republican incumbent. The court found that the GOP-dominated legislature likely violated the state constitution by stripping a Republican candidate of his party affiliation. Its ruling, if upheld on appeal, will thwart legislators’ efforts to protect the GOP incumbent from Republican challengers in the November election.

The mayhem in North Carolina began in 2017 when the legislature abolished judicial primaries over the veto of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Republicans hoped to shield Republican Justice Barbara Jackson from competitors and hoped that several Democrats would run against each other in the general election. That didn’t happen. Instead, civil rights lawyer Anita Earls filed as the sole Democratic candidate, while Chris Anglin, a Raleigh attorney, filed as a Republican. Anglin was a registered Democrat until just before he joined the race. But he insisted he was running as a “constitutional Republican” to “stand up for the independence of the judiciary”—not as a Democratic plant. (There is no evidence that he colluded with the Democratic Party to spoil Jackson’s candidacy.)

In response, the General Assembly passed a new law that bars Supreme Court candidates from running with a party affiliation unless they were registered with that party at least 90 days before filing. The measure, pushed through during a special session in July, is clearly aimed at Anglin, who filed a lawsuit to preserve his GOP affiliation on the ballot, alleging the law infringed on his rights under the state constitution.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Rebecca Holt agreed in a forceful ruling handed down Monday afternoon. Holt explained that Anglin has “a vested right to have his party affiliation listed on the ballot”—a right the legislature infringed upon by changing the rules and applying them retroactively. This switcheroo “violates fundamental principles of fairness,” Holt found, “thereby violating [Anglin’s] right to due process” under the North Carolina constitution. She also held that the new law “severely burdens” Anglin’s “associational rights” under the state constitution by preventing him from affiliating with his chosen party. And because the law is justified by no compelling or legitimate state interest, she concluded, it must be set aside.

Holt’s decision may not be the last word in this battle. Republicans could appeal the ruling, though time is running out, as ballots must be finalized this week. If they do appeal, the case will probably wind up at the state Supreme Court, where the Democratic majority has not hesitated to rein in legislative power grabs. Jackson will presumably recuse herself from the dispute given its direct bearing on her re-election. So it is quite likely that the high court would affirm Holt’s preliminary injunction, ensuring that Anglin will remain listed as a Republican in November. If that happens, Earls, the Democrat, has an excellent shot at winning the election, since Anglin will probably split the GOP vote. Her victory would give Democrats a 5–2 majority on the court, further emboldening progressive justices to strike down legislative overreach.

Ironically, Anglin’s fight to retain his party affiliation lends credence to his justification for entering the race. Although Republicans continue to allege, without proof, that Anglin is a mere spoiler, he has consistently asserted that he wants to combat “the constant assault on the independent judiciary.” He told me on Monday that Republicans’ last-minute attack on his candidacy has “shown exactly why I’m running. They want to make the judiciary an extension of the legislature.” Luckily for Anglin, they have not yet succeeded.

The article makes me doubt the GOP, at state or federal level, will actually appeal the ruling; I find it far more likely that they'll search for some other way to steal - possibly literally - the seat.

The second article is a rather short editorial about why we need to change the language about immigration. In short, stop focusing on where immigrants come from and focus more on what they've done here. Of course, we all know why the Republicans focus on the original countries of immigrants, given that they've turned ICE to rounding up legal immigrants and tearing families apart.

    Full article text 
Emphasis still mine.
David S. Glosser’s extraordinary condemnation of his nephew Stephen Miller, the presidential adviser, in a widely read Politico op-ed this week, is the story of an American mystery: How can a man who owes his very life to the country’s tradition as a safe haven for refugees and immigrants turn his back on said history?

Miller, whose family fled poverty and anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, might be one of the most glaring examples of this contradiction, but he’s not the only one. The president’s inner circle is full of radical nativists with deep immigrant roots. All but one of John Kelly’s great-grandparents emigrated to the United States from Italy and Ireland, including a fruit peddler and a wagon driver. Jared Kushner’s grandparents were immigrants. Chief nativist ideologue Kris Kobach is of German and Norwegian descent. And, of course, Donald Trump would not exist without his paternal grandfather, Friedrich Drumpf, who fled Germany as a teenager to avoid military conscription and built a life in the United States of America. Trump’s mother, Mary Anne Mac Leod, was also an immigrant, as was the mother of his eldest children, Ivana Zelnickova, and his current wife.

Glosser’s piece, however, is more than a mere reminder of the blatant moral failings of Trump’s team. By recounting his own family’s story of assimilation into American life, a tale of hardship and achievement shared by generation after generation of immigrants since the country’s foundation, Glosser has suggested a shift in the immigration debate away from the administration’s refusal to welcome immigrants and refugees to a much more complex dilemma. What happens if we stop focusing on immigration itself—the difficulty of simply getting to America—and instead begin to ponder the lives immigrants have built in the United States? Once we contemplate those lives in all their intricacy, would we then reconsider who deserves to be uprooted through the trauma of deportation? In other words: What kind of life can an immigrant build after a quarter of a century in the United States? At what point does that life deserve to be considered fully American? (1)

This is not a rhetorical question. Under the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become unhinged, a deportation machine that increasingly fails to discern between those immigrants who deserve removal—like members of Trump’s bête noire, the feared MS-13 gang—and those who have led peaceful and productive lives for decades in the United States and now face repatriation after being detained by the federal government’s ruthless immigration enforcers for, say, jaywalking or other minor traffic violations.

Who exactly is being deported? The Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles recently shared with me a comprehensive study, which has not yet been published, that offers a dramatic glimpse. Over the course of a year, personnel at the consulate interviewed more than 1,200 Mexican immigrants detained for deportation in Southern California. Sixty-seven percent of them had lived in the United States for at least 16 years. Half of those had been in America since the mid-’80s.

Most of the interviewees held steady jobs and had at least finished middle school. Only 2 percent declared they were unemployed. Ninety-seven percent said their children were American citizens. The trend extends far beyond Los Angeles. An increase in arrests made in the interior of the country has produced a dramatic upsurge in the detention of long-term residents. The government has even stepped up efforts to target U.S. citizens for denaturalization.

Are these lives “American” enough to deserve an opportunity to prosper, like previous generations of immigrants who arrived in America when settlement laws were far friendlier? Many communities across the country seem to think so, coming to the rescue of immigrants who have been arrested for deportation after years of leading honest lives as assimilated members of American society.

The town of Morristown, in Hamblen County, Tennessee—which Trump won with ease in 2016—movingly fought back after a wide-ranging ICE raid in a local meatpacking plant rounded up almost 100 immigrants. Some of those arrested had lived in Morristown since the early ’90s and had, between them, 160 children who had been born in the U.S. Something similar happened last year in Lincoln Heights, a mostly Hispanic neighborhood east of downtown Los Angeles, where the community fought tooth and nail for the release of Romulo Avelica, an undocumented cook who had lived there for about a quarter century. Immigration authorities detained Avelica while he was dropping off Fatima, one of his daughters, at school. Fatima recorded her father’s arrest and can be heard crying while Romulo is led away. The apprehension—and the video—roused the public, and, following ample coverage of the case and backing from local authorities and the neighborhood, Avelica was released after six months.

Ultimately, though, the responsibility for halting the fracture of these lives—so wholly American were it not for the paperwork—falls on the president’s shoulders as well as those of his closest advisors. They should be mindful of their own life stories. After all, after he disembarked in New York harbor, young Friedrich Drumpf traversed the country and built a business in the northwest that, in time, allowed him to become a U.S. citizen and return to New York. It took him seven years to take full advantage of his new country’s generosity toward men like him, hardworking and dedicated immigrants who were given a fair chance at belonging. His grandson Donald would be born over 50 years later.

In David Glosser’s telling, it took his own family a whole generation to consolidate a business that allowed future generations to prosper, Stephen Miller among them. What would have happened to either man’s ancestors under the current punitive mayhem? What would they have done if, after years of living in the United States, their adoptive country, they found themselves having dinner after a long day of work, sharing their quintessentially American dreams in half-broken English, and the immigration police had come knocking? It is a moral question that Miller and Trump have chosen to avoid. History will not be so kind.

(1) Of course, we all realize that to the GOP, being an "American" is still judged by the one-drop rule. Had their own ancestors been subject to the same scrutiny, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess; but then most of us wouldn't be here to protest it, either.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#252212: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:55:53 PM

[up][up][up] We fundamentally agree, but at this point it's so hated that just a plain rebrand would be seen as the copout it is and would need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

And yes, the pre-9/11 normal wasn't perfect. So what? That's a falser dichotomy than I'm used to hearing in this thread, frankly. Even if it were completely melted down and not replaced by anything (which again, is not and never was what I was advocating), we would still be leagues ahead of where we were pre-9/11 in terms of security.

Edited by Larkmarn on Aug 15th 2018 at 4:56:24 AM

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#252213: Aug 15th 2018 at 1:59:15 PM

With the revocation of Brennan's security clearance, I'm seeing a few outlets repost Paul Ryan's comment about how Trump was "just trolling" as a means of making him eat crow.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#252214: Aug 15th 2018 at 2:02:26 PM

I really hate to have to always defend ICE, because this stuff is seriously vile, but I’m getting the sense most people don’t realize that the large majority of what ICE does has little to do with deportation.

If it needs a new name that’s one thing, and I can see the arguments for that, but there’s no real reason to “disband” the agency, and the feeding frenzy afterwards as federal and local agencies competed to prove they should be the ones to handle deportation would probably end up being worse for undocumented people.

Pretty much this, I think that it needs to be "majorly reorganized" and given a new name alongside a purge of the employees who make it into the immigration Gestapo that it is right now.

Which frankly will probably be called an abolishment anyway, true ICE as an organization won't actually be abolished but in politics perception is just as important as reality.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 15th 2018 at 5:09:32 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#252215: Aug 15th 2018 at 2:03:06 PM

[up][up][up] No offense, but “rebuilt from the ground up” in this context is just PR-speak for cleaning house. We don’t need to do any radical restructuring of the agency, or change its logistical footprint or mission. We need to clean house, and maybe do a little marketing. If that needs to be sold as “destroying ICE” for people to get onboard, so be it.

[up] ERO, the division responsible for deportations, is about 3000 employees and change out of 20000 employees total. Even if we fired every single one of them the agency would still be more or less intact, and keep in mind that I’m very much for firing every single one of them.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 15th 2018 at 2:06:26 AM

They should have sent a poet.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#252216: Aug 15th 2018 at 2:12:40 PM

ERO, the division responsible for deportations, is about 3000 employees and change out of 20000 employees total. Even if we fired every single one of them the agency would still be more or less intact, and keep in mind that I’m very much for firing every single one of them.

We're in agreement then smile

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#252217: Aug 15th 2018 at 2:16:56 PM

The trouble with ICE is that even if they (The Trump administration) shut it down they'd probably set up another organisation under another name which could be even worse

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#252218: Aug 15th 2018 at 2:18:33 PM

One complete with armbands with a big letter T on them as part of the uniform.

Disgusted, but not surprised
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#252219: Aug 15th 2018 at 2:23:06 PM

[up][up][up] Funnily enough, there are loud calls from within ICE to get rid of ERO. The other agents in ICE are typically involved in investigating and building cases against cross-border criminal operations like human traffickers and large cartels. This involves lots of talking to people and working with local law enforcement, which is hard to do when people see ICE on your vest and automatically hate you. Agents from other parts of ICE have been asking for ERO to be moved or gotten rid of since the Obama years.

They should have sent a poet.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#252220: Aug 15th 2018 at 2:34:32 PM

I really hate to have to always defend ICE, because this stuff is seriously vile, but I’m getting the sense most people don’t realize that the large majority of what ICE does has little to do with deportation.
The problem is that it feels as if most of ICE itself has forgotten that fact. There was even an article or op-ed a while back about some ICE members wishing they could just drop the immigration stuff because it's getting in the way of those other tasks.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#252221: Aug 15th 2018 at 2:34:49 PM

[up][up]I remember hearing about that, IIRC Vox had an article about it.


Vox has an article that is both interesting and extremely relevant to US politics, Elizabeth Warren has a plan to save capitalism

Essentially Warren is arguing in her bill The Accountable Capitalism Act that if corporations persons then they should have the same responsibilites as persons to uphold the social contract, this will be done by creating a Office of United States Corporations that would order the directors of $1 billion corporations to consider consumers and their employees in their strategic decisions instead of just their shareholders.

Not just that but it would also require corporations to have their workers elect 40% of their board of directors.

There's more in the article but honestly this bill is really exciting to me, I'm not opposed to capitalism but the current form of our capitalism where the profit motive is king and corporations have no obligation to engage in healthy social behavior is at best counterproductive at-worst unsustainable.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 15th 2018 at 5:40:00 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#252222: Aug 15th 2018 at 3:11:13 PM

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/08/15/day-573/

Day 573: Erratic

1/ Trump revoked former CIA director John Brennan's security clearance, citing what he called Brennan's "erratic conduct and behavior." Brennan has been one of Trump's most prominent critics. Last month, the White House threatened last month to revoke the clearances for Brennan, Susan Rice, and James Clapper. Trump is also reviewing James Comey's security clearance. Revoking their access to classified information could impact their ability to work as consultants, lobbyists and advisers in Washington. (Washington Post / New York Times / CNBC)

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/trump-revokes-former-cia-director-john-brennans-security-clearance.html

John Brennan: Trump is "trying to get back at me" for criticism of his conduct and actions. (CNBC)

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/brennan-trump-is-trying-to-get-back-at-me-by-revoking-my-security-c.html

2/ The FBI has investigated several cyberattacks over the past year targeted at the Democratic opponent of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. The 15-term incumbent is widely seen as the most pro-Russia and pro-Putin member of Congress, who has voted against Russian sanctions and was warned by the FBI that Moscow was trying to recruit him as an asset. Last month, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said the warning lights for future cyberattacks aimed at the U.S. were "blinking red" and last week Sen. Bill Nelson said that Russian hackers had "penetrated" county voting systems in Florida. (Rolling Stone)

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/california-election-hacking-711202/

3/ The Treasury Department has delayed turning over financial records related to the Russia probe and has refused to provide an expert to make sense of the money trail. Some of the department's personnel have questioned whether the Treasury is intentionally impeding the investigation. At one point, the Treasury went at least four months before responding to a Senate Intelligence Committee request for sensitive financial documents. (Buzz Feed News)

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmaloop/senate-intel-wants-to-follow-the-money-in-the-russia-probe

4/ The Treasury Department retweeted-and-then-deleted a Trump tweet celebrating Republican midterm chances this fall, which experts say was a potential violation of federal campaign law. The department's official Twitter account shared a tweet from Trump touting an upcoming "Red Wave." The Hatch Act bans federal employees from engaging in political activity while on duty or servicing in an official capacity. (The Hill / CNBC)

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/401912-treasury-retweets-trump-celebrating-election-results

5/ Sarah Huckabee Sanders apologized for claiming that Trump has created three times as many jobs for black people as Obama did during his tenure. Sanders claimed that Obama created 195,000 jobs for black people during his eight years in office, while "Trump in his first year and a half has already tripled what President Obama did in eight years." The statement was false, as black employment between January 2009 and January 2017 increased by 3 million jobs. Since then, black employment has increased by about 700,000 jobs. (Washington Post / NBC News / CNBC)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/sarah-sanders-sorry-misleading-black-jobs-numbers-n900911

poll/ 51% of Republicans say the news media is the enemy of the people and not an important part of democracy. Overall, 65% of Americans say the news media is an important part of democracy and not the enemy of the people. (Quinnipiac)

https://poll.qu.edu/search-releases/search-results/release-detail?ReleaseID=2561&What=&strArea=;&strTime=28

poll/ In nationwide generic Congressional ballot, Democrats lead Republicans 52% to 41% – up three percentage points since June. (CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/15/politics/democratic-generic-ballot-advantage/index.html

poll/ 75% of Republicans and 72% of Democrats said they are "very motivated" to vote in the midterms. The difference between the two is within the poll's margin of error. 41.9% of eligible voters turned out in the 2014 midterms. (Politico)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/15/politico-poll-midterms-voter-turnout-778398

Notables.

Omarosa claimed Betsy De Vos said black students who booed her 2017 commencement speech lack the "capacity to understand" what she's trying to accomplish, "meaning, all those black students were too stupid to understand her agenda." She also goes after De Vos for being "woefully inadequate and not equipped for her job" in her book, "Unhinged." (Politico)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/14/omarosa-devos-black-college-students-777522

Roger Stone posted a Nazi Space Force meme on his Instagram before deleting it after public outcry. "I love this," Stone wrote in his original post. "Proud to be in this crew — but the only lies being told are by liberal scumbags." The caption in the photo read: "In space no one can hear you lie." Stone said he didn't notice the swastikas in the photo. (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/08/14/roger-stone-posts-then-deletes-nazi-space-force-meme-he-says-he-didnt-notice-the-swastikas/

One of James Mattis' most senior civilian advisers is under investigation for allegedly retaliating against staff members after she used some of them to run personal errands and conduct personal business. Dana White, the Pentagon's chief spokeswoman, has been under investigation for several weeks and is alleged to have misused support staff by asking them to, among other things, fetch her laundry, go to the pharmacy for her, and take care of her mortgage paperwork. She is also alleged to have inappropriately transferred and reassigned personnel after they filed complaints about her. (CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/14/politics/pentagon-white-spox-probe/index.html

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#252223: Aug 15th 2018 at 3:18:32 PM

[up][up][up] See what I posted above, agents have been complaining about that for a while.

I think the most important thing we could do is end deportation at a policy level. Someone should really only be deported if they’ve committed a serious felony or something along those lines, we shouldn’t deport people just for being here without paperwork. The majority of undocumented immigrants are law-abiding citizens, deportation as a first measure is inhumane. If anything, the government should be seeking them out to help them become legal citizens.

They should have sent a poet.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#252224: Aug 15th 2018 at 4:59:06 PM

@Fourthspartan56: The question is whether major international institutions would accept such a system; it verges rather uncomfortably close to state capitalism when you have government agencies actively directing corporate policy in accordance with state policy. Virtually all Western economists aren't particularly keen on that notion; while some will grudgingly admit that breaking through the middle income trap seems to require some degree of protectionism and central direction of industrial policy (in that regard China is following the same model as the other East Asian tigers), very few would endorse such policies in a developed country.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Aug 15th 2018 at 8:01:30 AM

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#252225: Aug 15th 2018 at 5:25:55 PM

[up]I don't see why they wouldn't, it's not like such a thing is unheard of.

Not to mention that if that's State Capitalism then I'm all for State Capitalism, our current corporate structure has done nothing but enrich a small minority at the expense of the greater whole. By providing the workers greater amounts of power it should balance out against the more myopic and selfish aspects of modern corporate culture.

It's fundamentally counterproductive and unsustainable.

If this plan turns out to be harmful or unworkable then it shouldn't be passed but to be perfectly frank I'm not nearly convinced that it is.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 15th 2018 at 8:33:54 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang

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