Political Roundtable Part XXVI

[dckingsfan]

I just don't think it's possible to hate HRC's policies that much. They're Dem policies, which enjoy a majority of support. To hate Dem policies on abortion that much that you would vote for Trump instead is unthinkable, unless you are also motivated by hate. Because what Trump is doing is so bad, so hateful that any reasonable person who didn't secretly agree that immigrants should be rounded up for eventual extermination, to "dissuade" them from coming here, would've said "woah hey this is a civilized country. I want abortions and to have doctors commit govt mandated sexual assault with unnecessarily invasive vaginal probes, but otherwise I'm a decent human being and can't support this regime that gives me what I want but at the expense of setting democracy and the rule of law on fire."

This is why I don't understand. The people who support Trump loudly say things like "I want Trump to lock up his political enemies," "the press are the enemy of the people," "I will use my guns to murder liberals 'in self defense,'" many of them have murdered abortion doctors and others say they endorse it, so why are we too squeamish to ask all Trump supporters, "at what point would Trump go too far for you? Only with mass gas chamber exterminations of immigrants, non-fox journalists, abortion doctors, anyone who's too liberal- only when it's far, far too late to stop him? What would it take you to believe the GOP is on this road and therefore pull your support? Or do you secretly support all these things?"

I don't know about you guys but I really, really want to know the answer to these questions. I'd like to start with all the pro Trump people on this board. How much extermination would be too much for you? What would it take to convince you that we are right and Trump and the GOP are leading us down this path? AGAIN?

Or only after all the bodies are piled up in mass graves will you admit your mistake? Or even then will you continue to deny the truth?

Zonk - why are you on this extermination "thing" again. I think you should get out and go to a R bar somewhere. I know, you may have to drive a few hours but it is worth it.

You might find that they are actual human beings. You might find that zero of them would support mass exterminations.

I find your arguments are losers because of Godwin's law.

So are the people migrants who are seeking asylum. It is an undeniable fact that children in these camps have died. Let’s read that again children are dying and the party that’s supposedly pro life supports this. It shouldn’t be a bipartisan issue, any American should not want a single preventable death of any migrant or illegal immigrant. Yet here we are dckings, those same Republicans you say people should talk to simply look away or support the policies that I’ll reiterate, leads to death of people. Some Trump supporter at a rally yelled that they should shoot them and Trump just brushed it off. How many excuses do you need to give Republicans before you admit that this is who the party is?

Asylum seekers are legally allowed to cross over to US soil to claim asylum, they should be treated in the best conditions given what they’ve gone through. There’s a very easy solution to help alleviate the asylum problem, instead of wasting money sending troops, they could send immigration judges and other administrators to process the claim and move them through the process, but instead the Trump administration and Republicans have chosen cruelty. So in all fairness to Zonk I can see why emotions are heightened when Republicans support and praise policies that are leading to children dying. It starts off slowly and builds up to something much worse.

Sorry - that is twisting it. There was an equation of Rs with concentration camps. Not internment camps or that like. Language matters. Zonk (and others) calling them concentration camps does so for effect - not to actually focus on what is happening, why or what the intensions (or unintended consequence) might be... We get pissed off when folks say we are baby killers - and we know it is much more nuanced.

Again, con·cen·tra·tion camp
[ˌkänsənˈtrāSHən ˈˌkamp]
NOUN
A place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.

[dckingsfan]

like, seriously. this is a big deal. if you don't think this is a big deal, there's something wrong with you.

"Obama did it too"

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/18-migrant-children-died-obama/

[Zonkerbl]

Good, you can read the dictionary. Now that you are capable of recognizing actual concentration camps, wake up and pay attention to what is going on around you. I'm not EXAGGERATING you ass. I'm describing PRECISELY what I see in front of me. Why can't you?

[dckingsfan]

You aren't exaggerating - you are seeing things through a lens that makes them far worse than they actually are. Well, you can't exaggerate Trump's stupidity.

But you are seeing incompetence and you are layering on a filter of intention that isn't there.

That doesn't mean that this group doesn't need to go - they do - and badly.

And focusing on the 20 or so that have recently died in these camps vs. the many thousands that have died from the trek or along the Mexican US border is focusing on the wrong thing, IMO.

And I believe both of us have had relatives that went through the actual concentration camps... putting this in context of the 10+M that died there - well, I think you need a new name.

[I_Like_Dirt]

No, dc. You're wrong here. It's charged language but it's also charged language for a reason. If we keep cutting those crucial parts of language out of the discussion just because something horrible happens and nobody is ever willing to discuss anything honestly out of fear of association, then history is going to simply repeat itself faster.

These aren't death camps but they're clearly concentration camps by the very definition you site. When concentration camps happen, the worst doesn't always happen but the point is thay it can. The discussion isn't being railroaded by using the terminology. It's being railroaded by people who aren't willing to own their actions by comparison and definition. The argument is really if some concentration camps are worse than others and if some are justified. Why is nobody willing to stick their necks out and make that argument? Hint: it isn't really the fault of people who object to the obvious.

[pancakes3]

we don't have to wait until we get to the edge of repeating the holocaust before taking action.

also, counting lives is gross.

[Zonkerbl]

You aren't exaggerating - you are seeing things through a lens that makes them far worse than they actually are. Well, you can't exaggerate Trump's stupidity.

But you are seeing incompetence and you are layering on a filter of intention that isn't there.

That doesn't mean that this group doesn't need to go - they do - and badly.

And focusing on the 20 or so that have recently died in these camps vs. the many thousands that have died from the trek or along the Mexican US border is focusing on the wrong thing, IMO.

And I believe both of us have had relatives that went through the actual concentration camps... putting this in context of the 10+M that died there - well, I think you need a new name.

That is exactly what I'm doing. Putting what's happening now in context with how the Holocaust BEGAN. It didn't START with death camps. It started with *this* :looks around: It started with a populist demagogue demonizing the "other." Then he put the "other" in concentration camps - camps where you hold a specific minority separate from the population for political reasons, without trial. NOT TO MURDER THEM - that happened *much* later. Just to make them miserable, to encourage them to emigrate. Ring a bell? Aided by a state propaganda campaign that ensured everyday people didn't know the truth. Seem familiar??? That's where we are now - about three years into the same playbook Hitler used when he became Chancellor in 1933. The death camps weren't in full swing until 1945, 12 years later, or in our timeline, 2028.

[dobrojim]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/inside-a-texas-building-where-the-government-is-holding-immigrant-children

So, on Wednesday, we received reports from children of a lice outbreak in one of the cells where there were about twenty-five children, and what they told us is that six of the children were found to have lice. And so they were given a lice shampoo, and the other children were given two combs and told to share those two combs, two lice combs, and brush their hair with the same combs, which is something you never do with a lice outbreak. And then what happened was one of the combs was lost, and Border Patrol agents got so mad that they took away the children’s blankets and mats. They weren’t allowed to sleep on the beds, and they had to sleep on the floor on Wednesday night as punishment for losing the comb. So you had a whole cell full of kids who had beds and mats at one point, not for everybody but for most of them, who were forced to sleep on the cement.

...

I’m not going to say that most of the guards care about the kids, because we didn’t talk to most of the guards, but I do believe in the inherent goodness of people. And when I’ve talked to guards, they seemed caring, and they had guards who, when the children were there for these very lengthy interviews, would bring the children lunches in the conference room. They’re terrible lunches. That’s how some of the guards are, but the fact is that some of the guards are bad people, and there’s no question about it.

...

[Y]ou’ve got a guard who is manipulating these kids, very similar to what we heard about in the concentration camps. I’m not going and calling these concentration camps, although I know that some people do.

like, seriously. this is a big deal. if you don't think this is a big deal, there's something wrong with you.

One other damning thing about this detention of children issue is that according to reports
from the lawyer who visited one of these facilities, the govt is spending something like $800
per child per day to PRIVATE (obviously) for profit contractors. So the profit motive has
incentivized the basic immorality of putting children in cages. It should go without saying
that that kind of money ought to provide much better care than what these people are
receiving.

[Zonkerbl]

I hate how people are like "well Trump isn't nearly as smart as Hitler was." Hitler and Trump are almost exactly the same person. Hitler was an idiot savant, extraordinarily gifted at manipulating people and knowing how much he could get away with, and a complete disaster at everything else, just like Trump.

[Zonkerbl]

And I'm not saying the Dems are not without sin. The whole infrastructure that Trump is turning into concentration camps started under Obama. Trump intentionally made it much, much worse, so he is like 90% guilty here. But the Dems are responsible for 10% of this mess, largely because they also have been very xenophobic, arguably just as xenophobic as the GOP, over the last several decades. That's why I've always considered the latinx vote an opportunity for the GOP that they have just squandered. And the Dems have accepted the GOP gift of latinx voters kicking and screaming the entire time. Because unions HATE immigrants. Dems have TREASURED the union vote for decades, even a decade or so after the GOP and globalism killed unions dead. Trump has those (racist, xenophobic) voters now and the Dems are reluctantly picking up the latinx voter scraps like the POS garbage jerks they are. I'm not blind. I see what's going on. This whole country is a garbage fire of xenophobia and racism. But whatever, the Dems are the "good guys" now, if involuntarily.

[dckingsfan]

So let me see if I have this right. We are going to run 2020 on the issue that Trump is actually Hitler light. And anyone that votes for Trump or anyone that doesn't vote for the D candidate is secretly a supporter of concentration camps. Kind of like a mean version of Hillary's deplorables. Brilliant.

The level of extreme projection will be enough to get Trump reelected. But maybe that is what is going on - maybe secretly Ds really want Trump reelected so that they can prove how bad Rs really are. All of that stuff about the environment, healthcare and higher ed is just a deflection on what the really want?

[dckingsfan]

And I'm not saying the Dems are not without sin. The whole infrastructure that Trump is turning into concentration camps started under Obama. Trump intentionally made it much, much worse, so he is like 90% guilty here. But the Dems are responsible for 10% of this mess, largely because they also have been very xenophobic, arguably just as xenophobic as the GOP, over the last several decades. That's why I've always considered the latinx vote an opportunity for the GOP that they have just squandered. And the Dems have accepted the GOP gift of latinx voters kicking and screaming the entire time. Because unions HATE immigrants. Dems have TREASURED the union vote for decades, even a decade or so after the GOP and globalism killed unions dead. Trump has those (racist, xenophobic) voters now and the Dems are reluctantly picking up the latinx voter scraps like the POS garbage jerks they are. I'm not blind. I see what's going on. This whole country is a garbage fire of xenophobia and racism. But whatever, the Dems are the "good guys" now, if involuntarily.

Actually, you only have this partially right. The Ds intentionally let the mess play out - it was political advantage that they were seeking. (Although they did actually come up with a plan that would partially fix the mess - but note that they left out any method to actually have the dreamer situation not repeat itself.)
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s744/text

So, now we have a situation where one party (the Rs) pushed for illegal immigration to work on their farms and the other (the Ds) intentionally let this play out because there was political advantage. And then when it got to much (the Ds) (immigration was hurting the social programs) put into play the camps. And then the incompetent Rs overused the camps and killed a bunch of kids.

Perfect. The last party holding the bag are the Nazis.

[Jamaaliver]

UBS: World economy ‘one step away from global recession'

The world economy is on the leading edge of a recession, UBS said on Monday, which could prompt all major central banks to ease monetary policy in response.

The U.S.-China trade war is amplifying fears of a global downturn —which according to UBS means President Donald Trump may get his wish for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.

Thus far, the world’s two largest economies have not been able to strike a deal to end their trade dispute, and an additional $300 billion worth of tariffs are currently on the table.

“U.S. tariff escalation is NOT our base case,” the bank said. “But if escalation is not averted in the next week or so ... we anticipate making major changes to our forecasts.

It added: “We estimate global growth would be 75 [basis points] lower over the subsequent six quarters and that the contours would resemble a mild ‘global recession’” that would rival Europe’s debt crisis and the oil collapse of the mid-1980s, according to UBS analysts.

“If we are right on the growth impact, all major central banks would ease,” the bank’s analysts wrote in their report, given the fragile state of the world’s economy.

Yahoo Finance

[Jamaaliver]

'Imagine your own children there': Grim reports mount from border detention camps



As more reports surfaced of inhumane conditions at the government’s migrant detention facilities, the movement to label them “concentration camps” picked up steam with backing from a major newspaper.

Dolly Lucio Sevier, a physician, and a group of lawyers visited border facilities in two Texas cities: McAllen and Clint. In an assessment obtained by ABC News, Lucio Sevier wrote that “the conditions within which they are held could be compared to torture facilities.” Lucio Sevier was granted access after lawyers expressed concern about a flu outbreak in the McAllen facility.

Lucio Sevier described the conditions as “extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food” and added that teens there said they had no access to hand-washing. Mothers of infants said the camps lacked facilities for washing bottles. Lucio Sevier said the conditions were “tantamount to intentionally causing the spread of disease.”

“It just felt, you know, lawless,” Lucio Sevier said in an interview with ABC News. “I mean, imagine your own children there. I can’t imagine my child being there and not being broken.”

President Trump has claimed he is simply continuing the policy of separating families begun by former President Barack Obama, but that is untrue. The Obama administration did occasionally split families but did not have a blanket policy to do so. The default separations began with the declaration of a “zero tolerance” policy in April 2018, under which any migrant who crossed the border illegally would be referred to criminal prosecution.

In interviews with CNN and NPR, former secretary of Homeland Security and White House chief of staff John Kelly said he was considering family separation as a “deterrent” to migration and that children would be taken care of by “being put into foster care or whatever.”

Spoiler:

Lucio Sevier’s report is the latest horror story from the detainment facilities. Last week the Associated Press reported that immigration attorneys said younger children in a border facility were being left in the care of older children, including a 4-year-old in the care of an 8-year-old.

“In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention, I have never heard of this level of inhumanity,” said Holly Cooper, who co-directs University of California, Davis’s Immigration Law Clinic and represents detained youth, in an interview with the AP.

Warren Binford, one of the lawyers who visited the Clint facility last week, told the New Yorker that there were approximately 350 children at a facility built to hold 104. Many of the children being kept there told Binford that they had barely showered or been able to brush their teeth.

Human Rights Watch reported in February 2018 on what they called “abusive conditions” for women and children in U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The HRW document from February included concerns similar to those documented in many of the more recent reports: sleeping on the floor in freezing cells with limited blankets and a lack of access to soap, toothpaste or toothbrushes. A Department of Homeland Security inspection found “egregious violations of detention standards,” including expired food and nooses found in cells and bathrooms that were “dilapidated and moldy.” The DHS has also warned of “dangerous overcrowding,” including “detainees standing on toilets in the cells to make room and gain breathing space, thus limiting access to the toilets.”

Per NBC News, at least seven children have died in immigration custody over the last year.

The reported horrific conditions at the facilities have led to a war over the semantics of what to call the facilities. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among those criticized for referring to the detention facilities as concentration camps, a term that has a technical meaning but is sometimes conflated with Nazi extermination camps.

On Sunday, the Salt Lake Tribune weighed in via its editorial page, concurring with the assessment that the facilities were concentration camps.

“Yes, we do have concentration camps,” stated the paper’s editorial board. “They are not work camps. They are not death camps. At least, not on purpose. Our government is not building massive gas chambers and industrial crematoria. It is not conducting sick medical experiments on members of an unfavored class. But that does not mean that the places into which we are herding tens of thousands of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers are not properly called concentration camps. Because that is precisely what they are.”

Yahoo News

[I_Like_Dirt]

So let me see if I have this right. We are going to run 2020 on the issue that Trump is actually Hitler light. And anyone that votes for Trump or anyone that doesn't vote for the D candidate is secretly a supporter of concentration camps. Kind of like a mean version of Hillary's deplorables. Brilliant.

The level of extreme projection will be enough to get Trump reelected. But maybe that is what is going on - maybe secretly Ds really want Trump reelected so that they can prove how bad Rs really are. All of that stuff about the environment, healthcare and higher ed is just a deflection on what the really want?

Who is actually saying this? You're adding a lot of stuff to the argument here. It isn't about Trump being Hitler light. It has nothing to do about running or not running. It's about not denying the obvious. If we're supposed to deny the obvious before thinking of how to proceed afterwards, surely you can see the problems that causes. It's entirely about policies happening that are a problem and why they're happening.

The projections you're talking about are going to happen whether you want them to or not and it's the ones from Trump's supporters that matter. The ones saying that this kind of stuff is fine and not at all really concerning because there are bigger issues they're worried about more which usually relate to their own wallet or imagined fears somehow. Those people are going to pick up on this regardless of what anyone who won't vote Trump says or does and despite what you suggest, it's something that appeals to many of them because it's going to draw many of them out to vote. In fact, the last election was already effectively won by the very same issue: immigration. The idea that somehow there is a way to even attempt to stop a significant percentage of the people trying to cross the border from doing so that doesn't involve mutually supporting economies and society and instead involves greed for it's own sake while barricading the doors. This whole wall talk wasn't a particularly big leap to what we're witnessing now.

No, it's not all of them but they're turning their nose on this. And frankly, I'd prefer a better option than the current version of the Democratic party at this point. But make no mistake, it has nothing to do with running or not running. Like I said, the second we have to pretend like this kind of stuff is something different than what it actually is and start disassociate the obvious truth from the discussions we've already lost. That's a hole that doesn't actually have an end and it's terrifying the whole way down.

[Zonkerbl]

So let me see if I have this right. We are going to run 2020 on the issue that Trump is actually Hitler light. And anyone that votes for Trump or anyone that doesn't vote for the D candidate is secretly a supporter of concentration camps. Kind of like a mean version of Hillary's deplorables. Brilliant.

The level of extreme projection will be enough to get Trump reelected. But maybe that is what is going on - maybe secretly Ds really want Trump reelected so that they can prove how bad Rs really are. All of that stuff about the environment, healthcare and higher ed is just a deflection on what the really want?

Give me a break. "I can't possibly hold Trump accountable for his crimes because it will make white people SO ANGRY he'll be reelected." That's cowardice speaking.

[dckingsfan]

So let me see if I have this right. We are going to run 2020 on the issue that Trump is actually Hitler light. And anyone that votes for Trump or anyone that doesn't vote for the D candidate is secretly a supporter of concentration camps. Kind of like a mean version of Hillary's deplorables. Brilliant.

The level of extreme projection will be enough to get Trump reelected. But maybe that is what is going on - maybe secretly Ds really want Trump reelected so that they can prove how bad Rs really are. All of that stuff about the environment, healthcare and higher ed is just a deflection on what the really want?

Give me a break. "I can't possibly hold Trump accountable for his crimes because it will make white people SO ANGRY he'll be reelected." That's cowardice speaking.

Speaking of anger - you got sucked down the Trump vortex.

This next election Trump will again trumpet immigrants as evil. He will run on limiting abortion (I wonder how many of his mistresses have had abortions?). And he will run on tax reduction.

Ds should run on healthcare. Ds should run on tax fairness. Ds should run on climate change. Ds should run on immigration.

But for each of those - they need actual policy ideas that will stand the test of an election cycle.

Which of the candidates do you feel can do that?

[dobrojim]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-border-crisis-nazis-nuremberg-trial-ben-ferencz-family-separation-migrants-un-a8485606.html?fbclid=IwAR2DXZR_4KxjQlSz8V0Yc8o8zSfsY1blvExm9vzRf3kH8RlAptOoehmZSnQ

relevant to the current discussion

Last surviving prosecutor at Nuremberg trials says Trump's family separation policy is ‘crime against humanity’

“We list crimes against humanity in the Statute of the International Criminal Court. We have ‘other inhumane acts designed to cause great suffering’. What could cause more great suffering than what they did in the name of immigration law? It’s ridiculous,” the prosecutor of war criminals said regarding the family separation policy.

[Zonkerbl]

So let me see if I have this right. We are going to run 2020 on the issue that Trump is actually Hitler light. And anyone that votes for Trump or anyone that doesn't vote for the D candidate is secretly a supporter of concentration camps. Kind of like a mean version of Hillary's deplorables. Brilliant.

The level of extreme projection will be enough to get Trump reelected. But maybe that is what is going on - maybe secretly Ds really want Trump reelected so that they can prove how bad Rs really are. All of that stuff about the environment, healthcare and higher ed is just a deflection on what the really want?

Give me a break. "I can't possibly hold Trump accountable for his crimes because it will make white people SO ANGRY he'll be reelected." That's cowardice speaking.

Speaking of anger - you got sucked down the Trump vortex.

This next election Trump will again trumpet immigrants as evil. He will run on limiting abortion (I wonder how many of his mistresses have had abortions?). And he will run on tax reduction.

Ds should run on healthcare. Ds should run on tax fairness. Ds should run on climate change. Ds should run on immigration.

But for each of those - they need actual policy ideas that will stand the test of an election cycle.

Which of the candidates do you feel can do that?

Nice deflection. Know what a good policy would be? NOT RUNNING CONCENTRATION CAMPS

[dckingsfan]

Give me a break. "I can't possibly hold Trump accountable for his crimes because it will make white people SO ANGRY he'll be reelected." That's cowardice speaking.

Speaking of anger - you got sucked down the Trump vortex.

This next election Trump will again trumpet immigrants as evil. He will run on limiting abortion (I wonder how many of his mistresses have had abortions?). And he will run on tax reduction.

Ds should run on healthcare. Ds should run on tax fairness. Ds should run on climate change. Ds should run on immigration.

But for each of those - they need actual policy ideas that will stand the test of an election cycle.

Which of the candidates do you feel can do that?

Nice deflection. Know what a good policy would be? NOT RUNNING CONCENTRATION CAMPS

With respect - very happy you aren't running the D 2020 campaign. Is the point not to get Trump the hell out of there? Or is the point to vent (in which case - you have a winner )