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silveradeptAs a reminder, the "political links" tag can be excluded from your reading list, if you have no interest in this, or you need to not have it near you or in your feeds.
Greetings - let's start with a little of important differences between liberals and progressives, for someone who needs the fine-grained-ness of the differences for accuracy.
One of the architects of the Brexit disaster is planning on enjoying his life in France as a member of the EU. Because there's nothing like being in favor of something that you personally won't have to experience the full ramifications of. Not to mention that there's a possibility that a lot of the financing for Brexit came from the Russian Federation, and that there were several very priminent Leave.EU entities having talks with Russian Federation officials.
Depressive episodes may be a function of believing an untrue class narrative - or having everyone around you insist that narrative is true when nothing could be further from the truth.
The Current Administration's Plan to reorganize the federal government, conveniently removing things that help anyone other than the super-rich and the most conservative of conservatives. Under the idea of making it more business-like, as well as fulfilling the wish lists of more than a few very rich people who have wanted the opportunity to drown government in a bathtub.
The current Justice Department, under the direction of Jeff Sessions, withdrew from the defense of the Affordable Care Act from a suit by the states, imperiling the requirements that insurers insure all people, including those with already-existing conditions. This is despite repeated promises that pre-existing conditions would not be touched if there were any reforms brought forth to the Affordable Care Act.
FEMA is requiring that a person whose house was destroyed show the proof of their deed before they can get any aid in reconstructing it, a significant problem in places where dwellings have sprung up to meet need, rather than having deeds.
The Supreme Court said that a corporations right to insist on individual arbitration for any disputes that arise overrides a laborer's right to act collectively with other laborers, giving corporations the green light to insist that all their workers submit to arbitration rather than the courts if they have complaints, at their own costs, of course. And with the potential threat of retaliation for speaking up about problems. With that decision, you'd need a new piece of legislation from Congress explicitly refuting the decision just made and telling it ot go suck eggs, which is unlikely in the current environment.
Of course, if those folks were able to agree to have a union represent them collectively for bargaining, that might be a different story entirely, but we all know that many of the likely worst offenders have already figured out and used all the ways that they can to prevent a union from representing workers, up to and including the closure of places that successfully voted to collectively bargain. Congratulations - the rich get richer, and the working person has to sign away their rights as a condition of employment. Or purchase. Or any other transaction they do with a business.
A Trump family member posting a picture of themselves and their daughter clashed terribly with the Administration's position on separating children and parents when those parents try to immigrate into the country without documents. This deliberate policy decision enacted by the administration makes things much worse for children, and the administration should not be permitted to insinuate that the opposition are the responsible people for this and that they have nothing to do with it. Considering that at least one speech from a teacher of the year candidate went unsaid before an audience because it talked about immigrant children and queer children, you can probably guess which party doesn't want to hear about the plight of children of immigrants. That party, however, is very quick to demand apology when Samantha Bee used the words "feckless cunt" to describe Ivanka Trump in relation to her unwillingness to help stop the policy of separating children and their parents. (There are more than a few pepole interested in reclaiming the word, and who have written entire books on the matter.) Given that Melania Trump wore a jacket declaring how much she didn't care right before going to visit children who had been separated, it became very easy for the fans of that kind of statement to assume it was a shout-out to the base.
To make it work, of course, that means you have people who have no training or knowledge of what to do being put in charge of children, people separating children from their parents while their immigration hearings are going on, continual fear that families will be permanently separated from each other, depending on how their claims go.
They also clearly didn't account for the logistics of having to handle so many children. To the point where they're scrambling to find places for all of them without really thinking that hard about whether those places are appropriate or humane for children. And the courts are not addressing the separation, but being told only to focus on the potential crime.
And while this went on, of course, there would be no reason to actually support a bill that would fix things. Not when what you can do instead is insist that people who are fleeing violence in their home countries are ineligible for asylum, because they aren't fleeing state-sponsored violence. This is the tip of changes that Mr. Sessions would like to enact regarding asylum and immigration, but his opinion has already had the effects of making women fear for their lives and reversing a fairly well-held precedent that would allow women to escape deadly domestic violence situations. Given that Mr. Sessions seems to be very much a person who believes in women having as little ability to live their lives as possible, the additional trauma of taking children away seems designed to make people feel as powerless as possible. Especially young girls in detention.
Members of Congress joined their constituents in trying to block and impede separation of families. They criticized the policies being created and enforced that caused these separations. They tried to get in and see the conditions for themselves, but at least some were denied. (Some referenced photos in articles might be incorrectly attributed, but the ones that are correct show very similar conditions.) It is terrible behavior on a mass scale, and that's before you start getting reports of who's being housed and the tight control the government is trying to keep on images from inside that area. Or audio. And video. So that you don't hear what kind of terribile mental trauma is being inflicted on the children in addition to physical trauma and the use of psychoactive medication on children. (Including the very youngest.)
First, the Administration tried to blame the opposition party for the state of things - which was completely untrue. Then, the Administration decided not to defend the DACA program from a court challenge from states, leaving others to attempt to fill the void, if they can be granted necessary standing. And they also lied to the best of their abilities about their own policies.
You can guess that there are consequences to these policies - teenagers that died after deportation, and successful self-harm and suicide.
In theory, the policy that was enacted has been rescinded, at least on paper.What it actually does seems to be ordering that families be detained together, rather than relenting on anything. But even with new spin on their "intent" (which means nothing), it turns out there's a lot more than would have to be done so as nto to run afoul of other binding matters about housing children. (Which they have asked for.) For now, though, a knock-on effect seems to be that Border Patrol agents aren't going to send asylum seekers to the courthouses.
We're still not sure that things will change. There are still children in limbo. Some of which are expected to represent themselves without a lawyer present. At eight.
But the beat goes on nativism and continues to find as many justifications as it thinks we'll believe. The truth is that the government doesn't care enough to reunite what they've torn apart. And so thousands have no plan for reunification, and thousands more have already been lost, some of which will not have any hope of reunification.
It is torture.
It's also strongly opposed. Attorneys general of several states oppose it. Prominent politicians and religious leaders are against it. Airlines want no part of participating in it. It's pretty reviled. Except by the base that supports the Administration, which is why they feel like they can get away with it.
We can help reunite families. In whichever ways make the most sense to us. And to prevent it from happening again, considering they think of it as a useful negotiation technique. But there's a lot of money being put into reunification, bonds, and lawyers, which is excellent, given that the government program that normally helps them got told not to take on new cases. Some are refusing to do that work any more. We protest. We let our public figures know our opposition to their policies when they are in public. And in their workplaces.
Some people are writing contact information on the clothing of their children when they are separated, in hope that they might make it back together. Some are suing the administration for not knowing where their children are. Some states are suing to stop the practice and demand reunification. (At least 10 of them.) Sometimes having a phone number fully memorized is your best help. Sometimes you get to avoid detention by having someone actually believe your asylum request.
The Democrats have a bill, which I'm inclined to believe actually works, and the Republicans have a bill, which I suspect will not. The Administration threatens to cut aid to countries that he thinks are sending terrible people to the borders. As if foreign governments were conspiring to get rid of their worst by foisting them off on the United States. (And says that his opposition would welcome those worst people with open arms.) He also wants to try and make other countries that disagree with him out to be inferior, even if that means lying.
Because there's still a lot of money involved in housing the influx. It costs more money to run temporary sheltering than to find more permanent placement, so that can't be good for those people who believe there's already too much waste. And going to places that have bad records and histories that suggest they are not suitable for the task.
It is also still legal to apply for asylum in the United States So long as it is done at a point of entry or after you have entered the country legally on an issued travel or other entry visa.
This degree and the lack of tolerance is new, even if there were stepped-up deportations and other immigration crackdowns in previous administrations.
What's also new is that the adult film star suing the administrator is headed to help at the border while her lawyer now claims to be representing people who are blowing the whistle at ICE.
This is not normal. Not any of it.
The Administrator believes that his power to pardon people for crimes extends to himself, even though he denies that he would need to do so. Or that an Administrator could be indicted for criminal behavior while in office at all. We might note that both the party of the Administrator and the opposition party agree that attempting to pardon himself would be a terrible idea, and not just for the legal shockwaves it would send and the case law that would then have to be settled.
An opposition party would be able to vote plenty of people out of office...if, that is, they weren't so busy trying to push out anyone who isn't at best a centrist. They could start with the need for an administrator that understands science concepts like the difference between Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Human Papilloma Virus. And so from there to needing an administrator that will not return a salute from the military of a country they are not on good terms with. Or appointing persons who can say with confidence that a sixty year-old court decision desegregating the public school system was correctly decided. Or even one that understands that Presidential records have to be archived, and so doesn't go tearing up their documents after they are done with them.
Or that understands the deputy administrator is as vile, if not more so, than the administrator, because, at least in some conservative circles, they can say the administrator just isn't able to do things. The deputy, on the other hand, has no such hiding space.
One that realizes if you're going to use your Twitter feed to make policy and be official, that means you can't block anyone who wants to respond to you. And that won't flout a judge telling him that he has to unblock people on his Twitter. Normally, you could say that we don't want an administrator that talks big, crosses the line twice, but doesn't have the knowledge to back up or make good decisions past the bluster, but that's the baseline for this administration. At least, at the highest levels. The people in charge of the SEC, on the other hand, are more than happy to threaten banks that have taken a stand against gun manufacturers with the SEC making their lives miserable unless they become Republican-class gun nuts.
But, more than a few people buy into the idea that the people who support conservatism through and through are somehow more genuine than those who don't. If that's the case, then "genuine" tends to mean people who are interested in democarcy whaen it can be used by a White authoritarian to make it impossible for anyone not White to gain any power or wealth. Which was itself played upon by other entities in the previous election - taking a wander through the Facebook ads bought by foreign, interfering powers, notes a strong focus on inflaming racial tensions in the United States. In an attempt to make interference harder, Facebook is now requiring Social Security number digits and picture identifications to purchase advertisements that it deems political.
The problem remains that the poorest in the country and getting poorer, and so is everyone who isn't the one percent, or more like two separate spheres that rarely interact with each other.
Attacks trying to influence voting systems used a spearfish that was trying to take advantage of a distracted or stressed poll worker. Because humans are still points of failure on security apparatuses. And may not pay attention to poor grammar and sentence construction in an influence operation. (Because sometimes humans don't use it, either accidentally or intentionally.) Which means the one that was actually trying to sound American might be even more difficult to detect.
(There is still sometimes humor present, as in comparing a photograph to a style of early Baroque painting along with other manipulations and commentary on a picture that looked like much of the EU confronting the current administrator.)
There will be a lot of pieces to pick up when things are done. But that requires things to stop being terrible now.
Greetings - let's start with a little of important differences between liberals and progressives, for someone who needs the fine-grained-ness of the differences for accuracy.
One of the architects of the Brexit disaster is planning on enjoying his life in France as a member of the EU. Because there's nothing like being in favor of something that you personally won't have to experience the full ramifications of. Not to mention that there's a possibility that a lot of the financing for Brexit came from the Russian Federation, and that there were several very priminent Leave.EU entities having talks with Russian Federation officials.
Depressive episodes may be a function of believing an untrue class narrative - or having everyone around you insist that narrative is true when nothing could be further from the truth.
The Current Administration's Plan to reorganize the federal government, conveniently removing things that help anyone other than the super-rich and the most conservative of conservatives. Under the idea of making it more business-like, as well as fulfilling the wish lists of more than a few very rich people who have wanted the opportunity to drown government in a bathtub.
The current Justice Department, under the direction of Jeff Sessions, withdrew from the defense of the Affordable Care Act from a suit by the states, imperiling the requirements that insurers insure all people, including those with already-existing conditions. This is despite repeated promises that pre-existing conditions would not be touched if there were any reforms brought forth to the Affordable Care Act.
FEMA is requiring that a person whose house was destroyed show the proof of their deed before they can get any aid in reconstructing it, a significant problem in places where dwellings have sprung up to meet need, rather than having deeds.
The Supreme Court said that a corporations right to insist on individual arbitration for any disputes that arise overrides a laborer's right to act collectively with other laborers, giving corporations the green light to insist that all their workers submit to arbitration rather than the courts if they have complaints, at their own costs, of course. And with the potential threat of retaliation for speaking up about problems. With that decision, you'd need a new piece of legislation from Congress explicitly refuting the decision just made and telling it ot go suck eggs, which is unlikely in the current environment.
Of course, if those folks were able to agree to have a union represent them collectively for bargaining, that might be a different story entirely, but we all know that many of the likely worst offenders have already figured out and used all the ways that they can to prevent a union from representing workers, up to and including the closure of places that successfully voted to collectively bargain. Congratulations - the rich get richer, and the working person has to sign away their rights as a condition of employment. Or purchase. Or any other transaction they do with a business.
A Trump family member posting a picture of themselves and their daughter clashed terribly with the Administration's position on separating children and parents when those parents try to immigrate into the country without documents. This deliberate policy decision enacted by the administration makes things much worse for children, and the administration should not be permitted to insinuate that the opposition are the responsible people for this and that they have nothing to do with it. Considering that at least one speech from a teacher of the year candidate went unsaid before an audience because it talked about immigrant children and queer children, you can probably guess which party doesn't want to hear about the plight of children of immigrants. That party, however, is very quick to demand apology when Samantha Bee used the words "feckless cunt" to describe Ivanka Trump in relation to her unwillingness to help stop the policy of separating children and their parents. (There are more than a few pepole interested in reclaiming the word, and who have written entire books on the matter.) Given that Melania Trump wore a jacket declaring how much she didn't care right before going to visit children who had been separated, it became very easy for the fans of that kind of statement to assume it was a shout-out to the base.
To make it work, of course, that means you have people who have no training or knowledge of what to do being put in charge of children, people separating children from their parents while their immigration hearings are going on, continual fear that families will be permanently separated from each other, depending on how their claims go.
They also clearly didn't account for the logistics of having to handle so many children. To the point where they're scrambling to find places for all of them without really thinking that hard about whether those places are appropriate or humane for children. And the courts are not addressing the separation, but being told only to focus on the potential crime.
And while this went on, of course, there would be no reason to actually support a bill that would fix things. Not when what you can do instead is insist that people who are fleeing violence in their home countries are ineligible for asylum, because they aren't fleeing state-sponsored violence. This is the tip of changes that Mr. Sessions would like to enact regarding asylum and immigration, but his opinion has already had the effects of making women fear for their lives and reversing a fairly well-held precedent that would allow women to escape deadly domestic violence situations. Given that Mr. Sessions seems to be very much a person who believes in women having as little ability to live their lives as possible, the additional trauma of taking children away seems designed to make people feel as powerless as possible. Especially young girls in detention.
Members of Congress joined their constituents in trying to block and impede separation of families. They criticized the policies being created and enforced that caused these separations. They tried to get in and see the conditions for themselves, but at least some were denied. (Some referenced photos in articles might be incorrectly attributed, but the ones that are correct show very similar conditions.) It is terrible behavior on a mass scale, and that's before you start getting reports of who's being housed and the tight control the government is trying to keep on images from inside that area. Or audio. And video. So that you don't hear what kind of terribile mental trauma is being inflicted on the children in addition to physical trauma and the use of psychoactive medication on children. (Including the very youngest.)
First, the Administration tried to blame the opposition party for the state of things - which was completely untrue. Then, the Administration decided not to defend the DACA program from a court challenge from states, leaving others to attempt to fill the void, if they can be granted necessary standing. And they also lied to the best of their abilities about their own policies.
You can guess that there are consequences to these policies - teenagers that died after deportation, and successful self-harm and suicide.
In theory, the policy that was enacted has been rescinded, at least on paper.What it actually does seems to be ordering that families be detained together, rather than relenting on anything. But even with new spin on their "intent" (which means nothing), it turns out there's a lot more than would have to be done so as nto to run afoul of other binding matters about housing children. (Which they have asked for.) For now, though, a knock-on effect seems to be that Border Patrol agents aren't going to send asylum seekers to the courthouses.
We're still not sure that things will change. There are still children in limbo. Some of which are expected to represent themselves without a lawyer present. At eight.
But the beat goes on nativism and continues to find as many justifications as it thinks we'll believe. The truth is that the government doesn't care enough to reunite what they've torn apart. And so thousands have no plan for reunification, and thousands more have already been lost, some of which will not have any hope of reunification.
It is torture.
It's also strongly opposed. Attorneys general of several states oppose it. Prominent politicians and religious leaders are against it. Airlines want no part of participating in it. It's pretty reviled. Except by the base that supports the Administration, which is why they feel like they can get away with it.
We can help reunite families. In whichever ways make the most sense to us. And to prevent it from happening again, considering they think of it as a useful negotiation technique. But there's a lot of money being put into reunification, bonds, and lawyers, which is excellent, given that the government program that normally helps them got told not to take on new cases. Some are refusing to do that work any more. We protest. We let our public figures know our opposition to their policies when they are in public. And in their workplaces.
Some people are writing contact information on the clothing of their children when they are separated, in hope that they might make it back together. Some are suing the administration for not knowing where their children are. Some states are suing to stop the practice and demand reunification. (At least 10 of them.) Sometimes having a phone number fully memorized is your best help. Sometimes you get to avoid detention by having someone actually believe your asylum request.
The Democrats have a bill, which I'm inclined to believe actually works, and the Republicans have a bill, which I suspect will not. The Administration threatens to cut aid to countries that he thinks are sending terrible people to the borders. As if foreign governments were conspiring to get rid of their worst by foisting them off on the United States. (And says that his opposition would welcome those worst people with open arms.) He also wants to try and make other countries that disagree with him out to be inferior, even if that means lying.
Because there's still a lot of money involved in housing the influx. It costs more money to run temporary sheltering than to find more permanent placement, so that can't be good for those people who believe there's already too much waste. And going to places that have bad records and histories that suggest they are not suitable for the task.
It is also still legal to apply for asylum in the United States So long as it is done at a point of entry or after you have entered the country legally on an issued travel or other entry visa.
This degree and the lack of tolerance is new, even if there were stepped-up deportations and other immigration crackdowns in previous administrations.
What's also new is that the adult film star suing the administrator is headed to help at the border while her lawyer now claims to be representing people who are blowing the whistle at ICE.
This is not normal. Not any of it.
The Administrator believes that his power to pardon people for crimes extends to himself, even though he denies that he would need to do so. Or that an Administrator could be indicted for criminal behavior while in office at all. We might note that both the party of the Administrator and the opposition party agree that attempting to pardon himself would be a terrible idea, and not just for the legal shockwaves it would send and the case law that would then have to be settled.
An opposition party would be able to vote plenty of people out of office...if, that is, they weren't so busy trying to push out anyone who isn't at best a centrist. They could start with the need for an administrator that understands science concepts like the difference between Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Human Papilloma Virus. And so from there to needing an administrator that will not return a salute from the military of a country they are not on good terms with. Or appointing persons who can say with confidence that a sixty year-old court decision desegregating the public school system was correctly decided. Or even one that understands that Presidential records have to be archived, and so doesn't go tearing up their documents after they are done with them.
Or that understands the deputy administrator is as vile, if not more so, than the administrator, because, at least in some conservative circles, they can say the administrator just isn't able to do things. The deputy, on the other hand, has no such hiding space.
One that realizes if you're going to use your Twitter feed to make policy and be official, that means you can't block anyone who wants to respond to you. And that won't flout a judge telling him that he has to unblock people on his Twitter. Normally, you could say that we don't want an administrator that talks big, crosses the line twice, but doesn't have the knowledge to back up or make good decisions past the bluster, but that's the baseline for this administration. At least, at the highest levels. The people in charge of the SEC, on the other hand, are more than happy to threaten banks that have taken a stand against gun manufacturers with the SEC making their lives miserable unless they become Republican-class gun nuts.
But, more than a few people buy into the idea that the people who support conservatism through and through are somehow more genuine than those who don't. If that's the case, then "genuine" tends to mean people who are interested in democarcy whaen it can be used by a White authoritarian to make it impossible for anyone not White to gain any power or wealth. Which was itself played upon by other entities in the previous election - taking a wander through the Facebook ads bought by foreign, interfering powers, notes a strong focus on inflaming racial tensions in the United States. In an attempt to make interference harder, Facebook is now requiring Social Security number digits and picture identifications to purchase advertisements that it deems political.
The problem remains that the poorest in the country and getting poorer, and so is everyone who isn't the one percent, or more like two separate spheres that rarely interact with each other.
Attacks trying to influence voting systems used a spearfish that was trying to take advantage of a distracted or stressed poll worker. Because humans are still points of failure on security apparatuses. And may not pay attention to poor grammar and sentence construction in an influence operation. (Because sometimes humans don't use it, either accidentally or intentionally.) Which means the one that was actually trying to sound American might be even more difficult to detect.
(There is still sometimes humor present, as in comparing a photograph to a style of early Baroque painting along with other manipulations and commentary on a picture that looked like much of the EU confronting the current administrator.)
There will be a lot of pieces to pick up when things are done. But that requires things to stop being terrible now.
