[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2018-June-26, 13:04, said:

I have pulled out only two of your paragraphs, but I want to address them. I will pose a hypothetical.
The NYT posted above suggests
"Helping these nations stabilize themselves is key to reducing the flow of asylum seekers"
Suppose this was developed from a suggestion to a plan, open for discussion.

Could it be, as I think it could, that some people with concerns about immigration would say "Sounds like it might be worth a try"?
These some people might be a mix of Rs and Ds. The basis would be on two points:
1. The situation for many people is horrible, something must be done
2. Having 30 million or so people who now live in Honduras, El Salvador or Guatemala move to the USA might be a solution, but maybe we could do better.

I am not suggesting Donald Trump would like this idea. Or even that he would be willing to give it some thought. The man does tweets, slurs and confrontations, thinking is not his style. I am suggesting that it might be a start on a viable solution that would have broad support. I am not saying it would be easy. I am not saying that it is the only thing we must do. While we are waiting for this miracle, we need to address the problems of the here and now. I am not claiming I have the answers. But I am suggesting that we get beyond expressions of horror and defiance to see if we might actually be able to do some things that would help.

We are reaching the point where we do not look for good ideas. We don't listen. We fight. Total war is sometimes necessary but it is always very destructive.

I agree that something positive should be done. I agree I don't know what that something should be. I agree that it needs to be a bipartisan solution - maybe even multi-partisan with international cooperation.

I do not think Dennison will allow this to happen as it would make him look and seem "weak". Without a commanding change in the makeup of the Senate and House, there is no way to override a veto.

We are stuck with Dennison - and the only way to deal with a demagogue is to outlast him. And resist in the meantime. Salvaging the remnants of the republic from the destructive force of demagoguery to me seems more important than immigration solutions. I wish it were not so.

[blackshoe]

Al_U_Card, on 2018-June-25, 19:11, said:

What hath God wrought?

What makes you think God had anything to do with it?

[andrei]

cherdano, on 2018-June-25, 16:34, said:

I would also like to congratulate andrei on his WIN!!! Yes, the US government has is, possibly permanently, separating children and toddlers from their parents and stores them away in detention centres. BUT ALL THAT MATTERS IS THAT IT ALLOWED YOU TO CATCH THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA WITH A POSSIBLY MISLEADING COVER PHOTO!!! THAT'S SUCH A HUGE WIN!!! YOU CAN BE REALLY PROUD OF YOUR GOVERNMENT SEPARATING CHILDREN AND TODDLERS FROM THEIR PARENTS!!! FINALLY YOU HAVE THE GOVERNMENT YOU DESERVE!!!!! YOU'VE GOT TO SHOW IT TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA!!! WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

angry white man?

[Winstonm]

Isn't it about time for the Dennisonettes to crawl out into the daylight and celebrate dear leader's great and magnificent SCOTUS victories? 5-4. 5-4, 5-4.

I notice one of the rulings favored religious rights over abortion rights. It may seem tiny and insignificant, these gradual tips of the legal hat toward the Christian right, but it start us down a slippery slope much like what has transpired over the past 20 years in Turkey, where religion and the body politic has been steadily merging into a state that is not longer fully democratic with a government as much religious as secular.

[cherdano]

andrei, on 2018-June-26, 18:19, said:

angry white man?

Yes, the US government detaining 2000 children makes me angry. I am glad it makes you happy as it allows you to score WINS against FAKE NEWS MEDIA and liberal BBF posters. CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN!!

[y66]

From Catie Edmondson's NYT story about today's Supreme Court ruling:

Quote

WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., reading for the majority on Tuesday morning, spoke clinically. Justice Stephen G. Breyer followed, working his way through his dissent mildly and analytically.

Then it was Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s turn.

Steely and unwavering, she began: “The United States of America is a nation built upon the promise of religious liberty. Our founders honored that core promise by embedding the principle of religious neutrality in the First Amendment.”

The crowded courthouse fell silent.

In upholding President Trump’s ban on travel from several mostly Muslim countries, Justice Sotomayor continued, the Supreme Court had failed to “safeguard that fundamental principle.”

For the next 20 minutes, Justice Sotomayor remained resolute as she delivered an extraordinarily scorching dissent, skewering the court’s decision and condemning the ban as “harrowing” and “motivated by hostility and animus toward the Muslim faith.”

The remarkable dissent was delivered by a woman who has championed her own upbringing as an example of the American dream. Justice Sotomayor, whose parents moved from Puerto Rico during World War II, was raised in a housing project in the Bronx. Her father did not speak English and her first language was Spanish. But determined to become a judge, she would go on to attend Princeton University and become the Supreme Court’s first Latina justice.

Justice Sotomayor once said that “personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.” She again drew upon that idea in her dissent on Tuesday, in which she accused the majority of “ignoring the facts, misconstruing our legal precedent, and turning a blind eye to the pain and suffering the proclamation inflicts upon countless families and individuals, many of whom are United States citizens.”

That was the crux of the Justice Sotomayor’s damning conclusion: The president’s ban is “inexplicable by anything but animus,” and to argue anything else is to divorce oneself from the facts.

The court voted 5-to-4, with the more conservative justices in the majority and with Justice Breyer writing his own dissent. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Justice Sotomayor’s.

What a shameful day.

[cherdano]

https://twitter.com/...227163137142784

Quote

“G and her mother said goodbye to each other while crying, but G’s mother comforted her, saying she was going to visit her wherever she was going. Only later did G realize this was not true.”
Declaration by an investigator inside Washington AG’s office.

“When I took off his clothes he was full of dirt and lice. It seemed like they had not bathed him the 85 days he was away from us.”
Mother from El Salvador on her youngest son “M,” born in August 2016

“I did not receive information about my grandchildren’s whereabouts after they were separated from me on April 25, 2018.”
Grandchildren’s ages: 3 and 7.

“I was finally able to get through to someone at the shelter, but learned that the only way for S.K. to be returned to me was to submit a ‘reunification packet request’ to the shelter in order to be qualified as a ‘sponsor’ of my own daughter.”
S.K. is eight years old.

“Because the detainees were chained together at the ankles, several stumbled and fell as we struggled to ascend and descend the steps of the bus and airplane. One man urinated himself as the detainees were not given bathroom privileges.”
Honduran mom, ripped from daughter 3 mths

“My daughter is at such an enjoyable age, when it is so sweet to be with her. ... My thoughts run in circles, and I feel as though I am going to lose my name.”
The daughter is half a year old, separated from her asylum-seeking father, who is detained in Oregon.

“The lawyer said that if I did not declare myself guilty, I would be unable to contact my daughter.”
Mother of a six-year-old girl from El Salvador

“The officer kept saying that I wasn’t my daughter’s mother. ... My life is my daughter.”
Asylum-seeking mother separated from her six-year-old and detained in the “icebox.”

“No one has interviewed me about my request for asylum.”
Mexican mother of twins, who crossed the border on May 19

“My daughter heard this and cried, she came to me and, crying said, ‘oh mom, oh mom’ (ay mami, ay mami), and she grabbed my leg. ... She was crying and crying while they took her away. I couldn’t say goodbye to her. My soul was breaking apart. (...) They did not tell me where they were taking her."

“When I first spoke with ICE officers, they told us, ‘why did you come from your country?’, ‘don’t you know that we hate you people?’, ‘we don’t want you in our country.’ ... We are being treated like criminals in chains and everything. We’re just seeking refuge.”
Guatemalan mom

“They did not let me say goodbye to him and I did not see him again... If no one can get him, he will stay in a place with children with no parents. I felt as though my life was over.”
Honduran mother separated from her son since May 18.

“I was in a section with only women. Karla was in another with only girls her age. I only saw her once when she was in line to get her food. We said hello from afar. She looked very sad. I never saw her again.”
Mother from El Salvador separated from her six-year old in May.

“The following day the officer told me that they were going to take my son to shower and they sent me somewhere else and they never returned with my son. I felt deceived. I never saw him again. ... I only ask that I be reunited with my son. He needs me.”
Mother of a 6-year-old.

Note: We are not one quarter of the way through these declarations, shared by @NewYorkStateAG this morning in three documents filed in the Western District of Washington.
This is the first of them.

If you still support "My dear President" Miller-Sessions, then that is your choice. But the rest of us don't have to keep pretending you are someone that you are clearly not.

[diana_eva]

cherdano, on 2018-July-04, 07:00, said:

https://twitter.com/...227163137142784



If you still support "My dear President" Miller-Sessions, then that is your choice. But the rest of us don't have to keep pretending you are someone that you are clearly not.

You are forgetting that a worrying part of trump's base don't think these are people at all. Empathy won't get you anywhere. Oh it if were Ivanka's kids then maybe, but these little monkeys? A loving parent wouldn't have brought them there in the first place, they deserve what's happening to them, etc. I still have trump supporters in my FB feed, and you wouldn't believe the way this whole story unfolds from their POV, like a total WIN

[Winstonm]

Dear David (Donald) Dennison, a July 4th message to you from Abraham Lincoln:

Quote

Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began — so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.

https://www.theatlan...of-july/564431/

[cherdano]

Quote

Records linking children to their parents have disappeared, and in some cases have been destroyed, according to two officials of the Department of Homeland Security, leaving the authorities struggling to identify connections between family members.

https://www.nytimes....separation.html

[cherdano]

cherdano, on 2018-July-04, 07:00, said:

If you still support "My dear President" Miller-Sessions, then that is your choice. But the rest of us don't have to keep pretending you are someone that you are clearly not.

diana_eva, on 2018-July-04, 07:55, said:

You are forgetting that a worrying part of trump's base don't think these are people at all. Empathy won't get you anywhere.

I am not forgetting that, this is exactly my point.
If you defend someone who speaks and acts like a cruel racist, then you can't complain when you get called a defender of a cruel racist. Yes Ken, that might not help winning this person's vote in the next election - but there is also a time and place for calling a spade a spade.

[hrothgar]

cherdano, on 2018-July-06, 03:18, said:

but there is also a time and place for calling a spade a spade.

Yeah, but it kinda feels like the time was a couple years back...

[Winstonm]

I saw today that Dennison had another rally last night in Montana, and as I read about his words and the reactions of his "fans" I felt perplexed as to what it is that compels these normal-appearing people to cheer and stomp and hoot about their "enemies", like Hillary, and Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, and immigrants. And then it dawned on me that the reason is that when they are surrounded by other like themselves, there is no governor on their engine, no moral regulatory cap, that in these environs with other like-minded people they feel free to unleash their basest instincts without repercussions of mores - worse, with encouragement from everyone around them, including the leader.

Act I, Scene I

Leader: Follow me while I resurrect the Dark Ages!
Crowd: Cheers

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2018-July-06, 09:34, said:

I saw today that Dennison had another rally last night in Montana, and as I read about his words and the reactions of his "fans" I felt perplexed as to what it is that compels these normal-appearing people to cheer and stomp and hoot about their "enemies", like Hillary, and Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, and immigrants. And then it dawned on me that the reason is that when they are surrounded by other like themselves, there is no governor on their engine, no moral regulatory cap, that in these environs with other like-minded people they feel free to be unleash their basest instincts without repercussions of mores - worse, with encouragement from everyone around them, including the leader.

Yes, this is tribalism at its finest.

[Al_U_Card]

barmar, on 2018-July-06, 10:08, said:

Yes, this is tribalism at its finest.

In the macrocosm. The WC is the microcosm. Is the "tribe" that provides the greatest "good" (For the largest number?) right? I offer the history of pretty much every nation-state (US included) as evidence.

[kenberg]

cherdano, on 2018-July-06, 03:18, said:

I am not forgetting that, this is exactly my point.
If you defend someone who speaks and acts like a cruel racist, then you can't complain when you get called a defender of a cruel racist. Yes Ken, that might not help winning this person's vote in the next election - but there is also a time and place for calling a spade a spade.

I would not want anyone to think that I advocate people concealing their views in order to win elections. I do think the Ds should think give a little more thought to some of their positions and how they present them, but that's not qthe same thing. Other than that I don't have anything to say. We all know each other's views so well that we never surprise anyone with what we say. That is not exactly a complaint, just a summary of where I think we are in the WC.

[Al_U_Card]

Actually, he has a pretty decent swing for a man of his age...

https//edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/07/15/trump-golf-turnberry-before-putin-meeting-black-vpx.cnn

and his reply to John Roberts (Does anyone else remember "J.D. Roberts" the veejay from Muchmusic days?) when queried about "fixing" Crimea at the Helsinki summit with Putin, Trump replied: "If I knew, I wouldn't tell you because that would put us at a disadvantage ... "

The man is like a boxer with his feints, jabs and rope-a-dope .... perhaps a bit too much dope though ...

[kenberg]

Al_U_Card, on 2018-July-15, 05:41, said:

Actually, he has a pretty decent swing for a man of his age...

https//edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/07/15/trump-golf-turnberry-before-putin-meeting-black-vpx.cnn

and his reply to John Roberts (Does anyone else remember "J.D. Roberts" the veejay from Muchmusic days?) when queried about "fixing" Crimea at the Helsinki summit with Putin, Trump replied: "If I knew, I wouldn't tell you because that would put us at a disadvantage ... "

The man is like a boxer with his feints, jabs and rope-a-dope .... perhaps a bit too much dope though ...

No no no, you have it wrong. "Decent swing" is fake news. Trump has the greatest golf swing ever. And while I don't remember J D Roberts, I am sure that Trump was the greatest guest he ever had. And Trump is an absolutely terrific boxer. And a man with incredible tact.

[Al_U_Card]

kenberg, on 2018-July-15, 06:34, said:

No no no, you have it wrong. "Decent swing" is fake news. Trump has the greatest golf swing ever. And while I don't remember J D Roberts, I am sure that Trump was the greatest guest he ever had. And Trump is an absolutely terrific boxer. And a man with incredible tact.

I was pretty hard on "W" back in the day. He was just a doofus, frat-boy doing what he was told. Obama was an impressive intellect and polished presenter, doing what he was told etc. etc.. Past presidents are a pretty rough bunch except for Jimmy Carter who seemed decent enough. Trump, at least, doesn't hide his obnoxious or noxious side so there is that...

[johnu]

kenberg, on 2018-July-15, 06:34, said:

No no no, you have it wrong. "Decent swing" is fake news. Trump has the greatest golf swing ever.

Something is terribly wrong with the Dennison spin machine. The greatest golfer in history was former N Korea leader Kim Jong Il scored a 38 under par round of 34 which included 5 holes in one in 18 holes.

My link

This was reported by North Korea state media so I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the story. There is no truth to the rumor that reason for the missing million people from Dennison's inauguration is that they were at home watching Youtube video of Kim Jong Il's historic round.