US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2582

On December 02 2015 01:34 QuanticHawk wrote:


Trump's a piece of shit, agree with you on that, but until he straight up announces himself as a fascist, any references to hitler, any godwinning attempts, etc is just shitty tactics by people not debating or whatever in good faith.

i also would not put any stock into who endorses him. It's the same stupid tactic the Republicans used when that racist pastor was supportive of Obama. going along those lines, I also think it would also be foolish to blame the moderate whites in your hypothetical, in the same way it was kind of shitty and stupid to blame the black community for Prop 8 not passing a while back.

On December 02 2015 01:00 oneofthem wrote:
the republican strategy of targeting hispanic voters fails to recognize and exploit the division within that demographic. lots stand to gain by tightened immigration because they alerady have status and so on. i expect trump to tune down the racial rhetoric and focus on the bare our jerbs aspect if he somehow makes it past the primary. trump is strong on this point and will surprise come general election time. all he has to say is 'i hire hispanics but only with status' or something like that.

On December 02 2015 01:34 QuanticHawk wrote:


Trump's a piece of shit, agree with you on that, but until he straight up announces himself as a fascist, any references to hitler, any godwinning attempts, etc is just shitty tactics by people not debating or whatever in good faith. you can be racist and bigoted (which he is, or is at least pretending to be to play to certain crowds) without being a genocidal mania like hitler.

i also would not put any stock into who endorses him. It's the same stupid tactic the Republicans used when that racist pastor was supportive of Obama. going along those lines, I also think it would also be foolish to blame the moderate whites in your hypothetical, in the same way it was kind of shitty and stupid to blame the black community for Prop 8 not passing a while back.

On December 02 2015 01:58 aksfjh wrote:


I don't think it's as big of a division as you think. There are a lot of families that have relatives that have been here for 10+ years illegally. When you see them as work competition as well, sure, that division is there, but it's not as strong when the community is more diverse.

On December 02 2015 01:58 aksfjh wrote:


I don't think it's as big of a division as you think. There are a lot of families that have relatives that have been here for 10+ years illegally. When you see them as work competition as well, sure, that division is there, but it's not as strong when the community is more diverse.

On December 02 2015 02:05 oneofthem wrote:

well yea it's not enough to get a hispanic majority but they can probably get something like 37-40%, which would be pretty huge.

On December 02 2015 02:00 Plansix wrote:

QuanticHawk I am with you up to a point, but I have several Muslim friends who are just terrified of Trump and the people voting for him. For them, his rise and popularity is reflective of something a lot deeper and scarier. It gives a face to the number of people who think it would be a great idea to have a Muslim registry and that those people can gain a lot more support in the US that they and I previously though. They talk more and more how they might have to leave and they have lived here for like 30 years. And I live in MA, a super progressive state and even here they deal with a lot of shit.

For me and my family, Trump is this joke that gets played on the Daily Show. But for them it is something else.

On December 02 2015 02:18 farvacola wrote:
It bears worth mentioning that a significant portion of illegal border crossers come from countries south of Mexico, namely Guatemala and Honduras. But yeah, it doesn't make sense to look at the issue of illegal immigration as that of purely Mexican origin.

On December 02 2015 02:16 aksfjh wrote:


They already get that during midterm elections. Given age demographics, I don't think Trump would swing 7 percentage points by saying he only hires "documented immigrants." Taking a tough stance on illegal immigrants will likely just push marginal voters to go vote. Also, it wouldn't be huge yet. Hispanics are the fastest growing racial demographic by far, so a victory with them is seen as a forward investment. The party that will win their vote will quite literally have to placate that demographic, which can't be done if you're trying to placate white people fears of hispanics.

On December 02 2015 02:27 oneofthem wrote:

the way i envision things would involve more attention to the issue by the trump campaign in a way that drives home the message of, better enforcement of immigration law = better wage for legal immigrants.
this sort of message can have wide appeal if given focus. it is a future looking, platform defining move. question would be whether trump's image is already ossified to be the guy pushing this line.

midterm demographics is quite different from presidential turnout. the kind of marginal voter in a general election would have more room to be influenced by a divisive message described above. midterm voters probably already think along those lines.

hispanic voters care about the exonomy, jobs and wage above other issues. there is a lot of exploitable space there for a populist platform unencumbered by identity politics.

the tea party portion that is fearful of hispanics exercise influence far above their value, a big detriment that i see trump dropping once he is out of the primaries. then again he just may not be very good so this is more like my own fantastic version of super trump

Put American Workers First

Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class. Today, nearly 40% of black teenagers are unemployed. Nearly 30% of Hispanic teenagers are unemployed. For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70% were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40% in 2000. Across the economy, the percentage of adults in the labor force has collapsed to a level not experienced in generations. As CBS news wrote in a piece entitled “America’s incredible shrinking middle class”: “If the middle-class is the economic backbone of America, then the country is developing osteoporosis.”

The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans – including immigrants themselves and their children – to earn a middle class wage. Nearly half of all immigrants and their US-born children currently live in or near poverty, including more than 60 percent of Hispanic immigrants. Every year, we voluntarily admit another 2 million new immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing all-time historic record population of 42 million immigrants. We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream.

Additionally, we need to stop giving legal immigrant visas to people bent on causing us harm. From the 9/11 hijackers, to the Boston Bombers, and many others, our immigration system is being used to attack us. The President of the immigration caseworkers union declared in a statement on ISIS: “We've become the visa clearinghouse for the world.”

Here are some additional specific policy proposals for long-term reform:

Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs. We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.

Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.

End welfare abuse. Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.

Jobs program for inner city youth. The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program.

Refugee program for American children. Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses. Use the monies saved on expensive refugee programs to help place American children without parents in safer homes and communities, and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.

Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women's plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages.

Barack Obama declared on Tuesday that some components to a global climate change agreement must carry legal force, easing one obstacle to a successful outcome at negotiations in Paris.

In an apparent compromise, Obama said the US would push for certain aspects of a climate change agreement to be legally binding – going some distance to meeting a key demand of the European Union and some developing countries.

However, Obama offered no change in the US position on the overall nature of the agreement sought at Paris.

The US has been clear from the outset that it will not sign on to a fully fledged climate change treaty because it would have virtually no chance of passage through a Republican-controlled Congress.

The US has also insisted that countries come up with their own targets for cutting emissions – and that these remain entirely voluntary.

On Tuesday, however, Obama said the US wanted one major component of the deal – the periodic review of emissions reductions targets – to be legally binding.

Such reviews are deemed necessary if countries are to achieve their agreed goal of limiting warming to 2C.

The pledges so far would at best hold warming to 2.7C – which would still unleash catastrophic climate impacts on low-lying islands and poor countries.

On December 02 2015 02:07 Mohdoo wrote:


It is worth noting that Hispanic is more than Mexican. People from other countries, such as Peru, are not exactly what I would call sympathetic to illegal Mexican immigrants.

On December 02 2015 04:26 oneofthem wrote:
on a sour note i gotta say legacy mode obama's focus on climate change is kind of delusional.

where's the criminal justice system reform at

On December 02 2015 04:31 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:



Stuck in Congress.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump threatened Monday that he may not attend CNN's next debate unless the network forks over $5 million, which the real estate mogul said would go to charity.

Trump pulled the stunt once before, demanding that CNN donate the proceeds from its September Republican presidential debate to a charity. The network didn't publicly comment on the request and Trump ultimately participated in the debate.

Trump again floated the idea of the network donating money to charity in exchange for his participation during a campaign rally in Georgia.

“How about I tell CNN that I’m not gonna do the next debate?” Trump said to his audience, as quoted by USA Today. “I won’t do the debate unless they pay me $5 million, all of which money goes to the Wounded Warriors or to vets."

CNN's next Republican presidential debate is scheduled for Dec. 15 in Las Vegas. A spokeswoman for CNN declined to comment to TPM.