US Politics, June 2018: This is a total goat rodeo.

sessions is one of many people advocating this. john kelly, the chief of staff, is a strong advocate for this policy. and there are many more people who support the policy by not giving a shit about it and continually voting for the cowards who won't lift a finger against our petulant child-president. my parents are these people. every morning i read the news and it fills me with rage and shame that i'm related to people who defend them. i can't believe that i read through Eichmann in Jerusalem back in lol college without realizing that my parents were Eichmann, or at least they would be if given the chance. the banality of evil is real. i wish i could rearrange my dna and become a plant.

sessions won't be crucified for anything, and if he is, he'll be the last to know about it. he'll be shielded inside a maze of lies until he leaves this wretched earth. they are all living in an alternate state of reality which they've constructed together. they have so much money that the consequences of their actions hardly matter. even purely evil people like scott pruitt are jealous, because he doesn't have the money to fully protect himself within their maze - he's too close to the common people for comfort, it's agonizing for him. trump's rage against those who attack him is based less on the substance of their complaints and more that someone dares to threaten their alternate world. meanwhile the rest of us can only hope that some mechanical claw of the law, or what's left of it, can hover over their bullshit island and pull him out by the neck so we can all have a momentary glimpse of something real, no matter how ugly it gets.

also fuck the hives

https://i.imgur.com/ZQmJ1wF.png

In "lol nothing matters" news, let's contemplate the way the administration says all of the following things:

- It's a horrible thing that is Democrats' fault
- It's an entirely defensible deterrent, and perfectly normal law enforcement
- That's not actually happening, you're wrong because Fake News
- But if it WERE happening, it would be okay because if THEY didn't break the law it wouldn't be happening
- But it's still Obama's and Hillary's fault because reasons

...without needing to address (or even pretend there is a need to address) the contradictions and hypocrisy.

If it were not being used in the service of unmitigated evil I might say the brazen DGAFness had a sort of majesty.

not to mention the whole "they're not cages"/"well they're sort of cages, but we don't treat them like animals"/"it really hurts our feelings when you call them cages" thing

xpost yeah, this whole administration is quintessential domestic abuser "Look what you made me do."

The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2018

he's really close to just tweeting out the 14 words isn't he

xpost in an earlier rehearsal for this episode:

- global warming is not real
- in fact, global cooling might be the real problem
- if global warming is real, humans aren't the driver of it
- there is no consensus on global warming
- this is consensus on global warming, but it’s a conspiratorial consensus. scientists across the world are part of a conspiracy. the entire world except for the republican party is in on this conspiracy.
- global warming is actually a good thing, for agriculture
- if global warming is real and humans are the driver of it and it's a bad thing, there's nothing we can do about it at this point

at some point in the near future i expect they'll add "liberals caused global warming" to the list

Yerac OTM. I'm not saying these guys are smart - merely that the playbook has the brutal effectiveness of "Stop hitting yourself! Why are you hitting yourself?" going for it.

It's like "the news is fake but the leaks are real." The brazenness and sloppiness are features, not bugs.

Say enough vague, confusing, but nevertheless rousing shit and you can address all your key audiences simultaneously, while not saying anything specific enough to fix your position in time or space.

At the same time, be sure to undermine the legitimacy of anyone who questions the content or the conduct of your anticommunicative communications strategy.

kirstjen neilsen is john kelly in a wig, right?

Ye Mad Puffin OTM. I tuned in to CSPAN for the first time in ages this morning, and I heard Republican-line callers argue all five of those things in some form or another. So I guess the contradictory statements the administration is issuing are "successful," in that their base have no problem internalizing and regurgitating all of them.

Okay if you're still on team "but what can I do?"* Here's plugs for:

Legal Aid Justice Center https://www.justice4all.org/

Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services https://actionnetwork.org/campaigns/endfamilyseparation

* = not that I think a lot of people ITT are on the fence, just sayin

saw a quick poll on the child concentration camp issue - something like 46% of republicans support, 14% dems support, 24% independents support

y'know I always wondered "how could so many people have just rolled with genocide like that" during the Third Reich but I never thought I'd get the answer in my early 30s

So Steve Bannon is President after all.

White children being murdered in US schools is acceptable. Of course brown children in cages will be acceptable.

One sees a lot of "end this horrible practice" without a lot of "do this instead" so far. I hope we can get to a good solid "do this instead" that doesn't sound too much like "lol what even is a boarder, why have them?" (which feeds a useful right-wing caricature of the left).

What are the countervailing lines? 1. Seeking asylum is not illegal, and even if you're skeptical about an individual asylum claim this is the wrong thing to do in response. 2. Even the illegal things about border crossings are misdemeanors, for which jail and resulting family separation are vanishingly rare. 3. All migrants are entitled to legal representation and due process in determining their status. 4. ?

Is the suggested alternative, at this point, treating every asylum claim as valid on its face? Or is it simply giving every entrant a legal avenue in which to argue for asylum (while denying many/most asylum claims in probably arbitrary ways)?

Crime in Germany is way up.

It's at its lowest since 1992. Cage this Nazi prick.

Thx for links YMP

Nihilism is not helpful, the rest of you

…(xxp) and, further, foregoing detention altogether (allowing asylum-seekers to remain with friends or family while seeking resolution of their asylum claim)? Or allowing family units to be detained together (gah, that's only slightly less evil than family separation)?

While it does not excuse separating kids from their parents, which is purely punitive, I did learn, assuming this is correct, that these are not legit (as in legally) asylum-seekers, per say. In order to seek asylum you can't pass through multiple countries to a destination of your choice, I think it legally only applies to the bordering country. So if you go from Honduras through Mexico to America and then claim asylum, that doesn't fly legally. Similarly, you supposedly need to demonstrate the threat of personal harm or persecution, you can't leave a place just because it is run poorly or is poor or has a high murder rate or is otherwise unsafe or chaotic. The (phony?) argument I encountered this morning brought up the disparity between, for example, the murder rate in America and Germany. Just because the murder rate is 8 times higher here than in Germany, it doesn't mean we have a right to seek asylum in Germany. Nor would they humor it. Though obviously they have their own refugee issue.

Anyway, this is all moot, because if the government gave a shit they can change all this pretty quickly. Though yeah, what they would change it to is a different story.

The bottom line I guess is that these are not all or even mostly asylum-seekers, these are largely refugees, and correct me if I'm wrong there's really no standard way to deal with refugees. How many do you let in? How far away can they come from? I don't think there's an answer, but the key is to at least treat them humanely until they figure it out.

That is incorrect. You don’t have to apply in the first safe country.

I thought I wwas hearing that the Trump regime had overturned a process by which you could apply for asylum from the country of origin that had been established during Obama's incumbency. This in turn lead to people having to come to the US border to apply for asylum they could have done more remotely previously.

I don't pretend to have a solution in mind; I just think the #Resistance ought to settle on a recommended alternative policy even if only as a strategic move.

Also, improving the conditions of detention (walls instead of chain-link; Nintendo vs. foosball) doesn't help much from a moral point of view. It's still a fucking jail.

That is incorrect. You don’t have to apply in the first safe country.

So asylum is a free for all? That is, you can pick where you want to claim asylum? I mean, obviously you can try for asylum anywhere at any time, but I don't know what the legal standard is.

The (phony?) argument I encountered this morning brought up the disparity between, for example, the murder rate in America and Germany. Just because the murder rate is 8 times higher here than in Germany, it doesn't mean we have a right to seek asylum in Germany.

There goes my plan to fly to Sweden and say "take me in, I'm afraid of getting shot at Wendy's, or of dying because my health insurance runs out."

I wish!

"Take me in, Sweden, my country is aggressively stupid stupid and needlessly violent and definitely emotionally distressing! Can I bring my Xbox?"

So asylum is a free for all? That is, you can pick where you want to claim asylum? I mean, obviously you can try for asylum anywhere at any time, but I don't know what the legal standard is.

It’s complicated and subject to change depending on policy and local conventions. There is nothing in the 1951 UN convention that say you have to claim refugee status in the first country you get to. It’s a broadly-applied principle that you should, though, France, for example, has an agreement that a refugee who enters Europe via Greece can be deported to Greece. The US could agree with Mexico that any Hondurans applying could be deported back to Mexico - but this would be subject to challenge as Mexico is notorious for not reviewing cases properly. An agreement is, however, in place with Canada to do this, iirc.

The other question is whether Central Americans are able to claim asylum status in the first place if they’re not being persecuted by the government, and the answer is probably, generally no, but that’s a complicated thing itself.

I know it goes up and down but trump is currently at his highest approval since inauguration (45%) =|

OTOH . . .

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Df_Rfb4W4AYUP1Y.jpg:large

According to Josh's presumed standard, refugees must always flee from their home country by land routes, or if they fly away by airline, then they must simulate fleeing on land by flying only into a neighboring country? Those who find themselves in a distant country with non-contiguous borders to their home country when, let's say, a military coup occurs at home, must find their way back to a neighboring country before seeking asylum? This makes no sense at all to me.

just realized i now officially belong to an age cohort that will almost always be noticeably more wrong about things than the 18-34 demographic

ice agent with probable white supremacist ink, what's on yr ipod

Learn more about HERO Child-Rescue Corps, a program for wounded, injured & ill Special Ops Forces to receive training in high-tech computer forensics & law enforcement skills, to assist federal agents in the fight against online child sexual exploitation https://t.co/g0DpFeb3fE pic.twitter.com/b7qTIbnuRR

— ICE (@ICEgov) May 25, 2018

Rich Lowry says y'all are being too strident.

I think a lot about this study, a finding of which was that the most popular/consensus opinion on immigration by some margin was the most far-right opinion offered: "the immediate roundup and deportation of all undocumented immigrants and an outright moratorium on all immigration until the border is proven secure"

http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/published%20paper%20PDFs/broockman%20approaches%20to%20studying%20representation.pdf

(and by "I think a lot" I mean "it terrifies me")

Let's stick the NRO goons in a cage for a week or two. Sustenance optional.

‘proven secure’ is a frighteningly vague concept

We elected a grifter reality TV star president. Nothing about this country is ever gonna be "secure."

We elected a grifter reality TV star president. Nothing about this country is ever gonna be "secure."

This quote from New York magazine's interview with Ben Rhodes is very, very apt:

What I’ve heard from a number of foreign governments since Trump came to office, including pretty senior people is that, you don’t understand. It’s not just that Trump’s president, it’s that your country elected Trump. And essentially that’s why Trump’s presidency, I think, is more destructive than any one event that will take place under Trump. I think for a lot of Americans, we like to separate ourselves from Trump and say, “This is an aberration.” I think the rest of the world is thinking, “How did this person get elected?” Just him losing the election in 2020 won’t fully correct that something that is broken. America was a country where that wasn’t supposed to happen. To have basically an authoritarian demagogue get elected president.

So I don’t think it’s fully recoverable. The policies are recoverable, right? We can care about climate change again. We can work with our allies again. We can advocate for human rights again, and you can go down the list. But the second troubling thing I’ve heard is that, like, Trump is totally recognizable because yeah, we’ve all had a corrupt leader — and I’ve heard this in Southeast Asia and Latin America — the rich liar with the son-in-law is usually who runs the country.

...

But that makes America just like everybody else. And that’s what China’s argument is, right? I think the biggest shift is going to be be toward America just being another big, powerful country. Maybe even the most powerful country — but something will have been lost. I also think that four years is survivable, and eight years is not, in that the change that you can make take root in eight years is exponentially greater than four. So I think it’s hard to overstate the importance of the next midterm and presidential-election cycles to how the story ends.

No surprise here: Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross didn't divest from his firm. He's in business with companies co-owned by the Chinese government, linked to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, and a Cyprus bank caught up in the Robert Mueller investigation." https://t.co/HAgO5RB3Eg

— Lily Herman (@lkherman) June 18, 2018

since it's bring brought up...what do y'all think we should do with people entering illegally?

According to Josh's presumed standard, refugees must always flee from their home country by land routes, or if they fly away by airline, then they must simulate fleeing on land by flying only into a neighboring country?

No, I just though it had to be relatively direct. That is, you could fly from Syria or Russia or China direct to the US to claim asylum, but you couldn't fly from Syria to, say, Canada and then cross over to try and claim asylum in the US. Right? But it's all pretty complicated and inconsistent, afaict.

xpost I think it's a tougher question than many angry people think!

since it's bring brought up...what do y'all think we should do with people entering illegally?

Forcibly relocate them...to one of the shitty, empty white-homeland states like Idaho or Nebraska. New York and L.A. and Chicago have enough people already. Let's make Wyoming's population a little more dense. Make 'em earn their two senators.

... Or just let them in, in the vast majority of cases.

In theory I'm cool with that, but ... How many? What benefits will they get? Any requirements? Do they become citizens immediately? Etc.

since it's bring brought up...what do y'all think we should do with people entering illegally?

― frogbs, 18. juni 2018 20:38 (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think it's a tougher question than many angry people think!

― Josh in Chicago, 18. juni 2018 20:44 (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know I'm a foreigner so of course don't understand anything about the US, but why is it more difficult for you than for the rest of the world? They are asylum seekers, build refugee camps, have the families live there, send them home when their claim is rejected.

Do they become citizens immediately? Etc.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, June 18, 2018 2:52 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah I would go for that so when ppls come back to try and take their citizenship away they have standing in US courts

we like to separate ourselves from Trump and say, “This is an aberration.” I think the rest of the world is thinking, “How did this person get elected?”

It is not possible to draw a straight line from any prior point in US history directly to the election of Donald J. Trump. We got here by the crookedest of paths. He's what we vomited up after ingesting several decades worth of political poison and economic corruption. Let us hope he was a sufficiently emetic dose to cleanse the system, if not back to 'health', at least back to a semblance of functionality.