US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5098

On September 23 2016 03:04 TheDwf wrote:

Was there some national debate because of the prisoners strike?

On September 23 2016 03:27 zlefin wrote:
Recently, the fed gov't (via some executive analysis or some such) decided to stop using for-profit prisons and are phasing them out.
It just doesn't feel like there's much to say on the issues; and policy discussion are so often boring, I've even tried to start them sometimes, but they peter out very quickly.

On September 23 2016 03:38 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
Is this a hate crime?

https://twitter.com/LibertarianQn/status/778845840496594944

On September 23 2016 03:43 Sermokala wrote:

The problem is that for profit prisons are paid by the inmate and not the product that they deliver to the community. I don't think it's racist to say criminals should be looked at as a raw resource and rehabilitated citizens prepared to restart their life as the ideal finished product.

Even public prisons only use their slave labor to lower costs for the taxpayer on the slaves room and board.

On September 23 2016 02:40 TheYango wrote:

Trump's success this election is due in no small part to his ability to manipulate the media. Even when they think they are delivering negative coverage, they are actually just unwittingly playing into his hands.

On September 23 2016 03:27 zlefin wrote:
Recently, the fed gov't (via some executive analysis or some such) decided to stop using for-profit prisons and are phasing them out.
It just doesn't feel like there's much to say on the issues; and policy discussion are so often boring, I've even tried to start them sometimes, but they peter out very quickly.

On September 23 2016 03:53 biology]major wrote:
If the races were reversed in that clip, just imagine the national outrage.

On September 23 2016 03:48 zlefin wrote:

your comments are noted; is there something you want me to respond to? you quoted me, but i'm not sure if that was just to keep track of what topic you were discussing, or whether there was some more specific intent.

On September 23 2016 04:14 Sermokala wrote:

I just quoted you beacuse it was talking about for profit prisons being phased out and I was saying they had a place if the program was looked at to be improved instead of just removed and how the strikes we've been talking about having nothing to do with for profit prisions.

I'm saying for profit prisons can work you just got to make them focus on what you want instead of them just adding more capacity.

Despite the refunds, Clinton campaign continues to benefit handsomely from the fundraising assistance of some closely connected to the private prison business. In another report filed Sunday night, the campaign disclosed that Richard Sullivan of Capitol Counsel—until recently, a Raleigh, N.C.-based federally registered lobbyist for the for-profit prison operator GEO Group—bundled $69,363 in donations for Clinton in the fourth quarter, bringing his total for the year to a whopping $274,891.

That makes Sullivan the second-most prolific lobbyist-bundler for the Clinton campaign, beaten out only by D.C. lobbyist Heather Podesta, who's tallied up $348,581 so far.

Donald Trump and his children have for years promoted themselves and their real estate opportunities in Russia and other former Soviet states, and ethics experts say if he is elected President the get-tough U.S. sanctions against Russia could be in direct conflict with his business interests.

Trump has said he will not participate in decisions about his business if he is elected to the White House and that those decisions will be left to his children in what they have called a “blind trust.”

“I don’t see how you have a blind trust when you know what’s in the blind trust,” [Richard Painter, former ethics advisor to GWB] told ABC News. “The appearance is that a foreign government or other foreign organization has influence over the president of the United States through financial dealings with his family and that would be unacceptable.”

[...]

“The level of business amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars -- what he received as a result of interaction with Russian businessmen,” said Sergei Millian, who heads a U.S.-Russia business group and who says he once helped market Trump’s U.S. condos in Russia and the former Soviet states. “They were happy to invest with him, and they were happy to work with Donald Trump. And they were happy to associate—[and] be associated with Donald Trump.”

[...]

Trump Organization General Counsel Alan Garten told ABC News the firm does not track the nationality of buyers, but he does not believe Russians spent any more money on Trump ventures than those from other regions.

“This whole fascination with this connection is overblown and misleading,” Garten said.

Garten said the Trump Organization played no part in determining which market to pursue – the strategy used to attract buyers was entirely the purview of the developer.

“In a license deal we’re not selling the unit,” Garten added. “That is a contact between the developer of that project and the buyer. We’re not selling anyone anything.”

In the case of the Trump towers along Florida’s coast, they were sold by two separate builders with Trump licensing his name to the projects. But the licensing agreements required Trump to participate in the marketing of the condos, and Trump received royalties for each unit sold, according to Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Development, which built six Trump buildings in Sunny Isles.

"[Trump] obviously benefits from each apartment sold,” Dezer said. “There was a licensing percentage there.”

[...]

During the marketing of the Trump SoHo project, in which Trump licensed his name to a group that included Russian investors, the Trump family met with a group of Russian journalists at their New York offices to help boost interest in the project, according to Russian media reports. During the meeting, Trump was quoted telling the gathering of Russian journalists: “I really like Vladimir Putin. I respect him. He does his work well. Much better than our Bush.”

Eric Trump and Donald Jr. were also present, and were quoted praising the importance of Russian condo buyers, many of whom have purchased units in Trump buildings in seven-figure, cash-only deals.

[...]

Daniel Pansky, a Florida broker who specializes in Russian buyers, said the Trump branded was uniquely suited to Russian buyers, who equated his name with luxury. As sales piled up, “Sunny Isles developed into a Little Moscow,” he said. “A lot of local dry cleaners, restaurants, stores having menus and signs in Russian.”

“The Trump brand basically started the branding game here in south Florida,” said Pansky. “The majority of clientele were from New York and Russian origin.”

But Pansky and Shtainer told ABC News that purchases from Russian buyers in New York and Miami began to drop precipitously in 2014, when the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Russia in response to the Russian military incursion into Crimea.

[...]

Millian said he hopes Trump continues to pursue closer ties between the U.S. and Russia. He recently posted a Trump donation card on his Instagram feed.

“He knows that a lot of Russians love his properties,” Millian said. “They buy his luxury residences. So it was a good, very good business for him.”

On September 23 2016 04:31 GreenHorizons wrote:
These last few pages have been a reminder that this forum is full of not black people.

Private prisons are horrific, another reason I'm not voting for the person who fundraised off them until she got called out for how despicable it was. Then she just used their bundlers to put a degree of separation between her and the private prisons.



Source

The top U.S. military officer told Congress on Thursday that he believes Russia bombed a humanitarian aid convoy in Syria earlier this week, killing 20 civilians in an "unacceptable atrocity," as the bitter feud between the two nations over the five-year Syrian civil war escalated further.

The statement from U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, marked the first time a senior U.S. official has publicly pointed the finger at Moscow for the incident. Russia's defense ministry quickly disputed Dunford's comments.

The testimony from Dunford and Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who also appeared before the panel, underscored the Pentagon's mistrust of Moscow and highlighted the hurdles of forging a lasting truce in Syria, where the war has killed nearly 500,000 people and allowed the Islamic State group to develop into a global threat.

On September 23 2016 04:31 GreenHorizons wrote:
These last few pages have been a reminder that this forum is full of not black people.

Private prisons are horrific, another reason I'm not voting for the person who fundraised off them until she got called out for how despicable it was. Then she just used their bundlers to put a degree of separation between her and the private prisons.



Source

"Hillary believes we should move away from contracting out this core responsibility of the federal government to private corporations, and from creating private industry incentives that may contribute—or have the appearance of contributing—to over-incarceration. The campaign does not accept contributions from federally registered lobbyists or PACs for private prison companies, and has donated any such direct contributions to charity," said the spokesman, who asked not to be named.