US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8620

On September 01 2017 21:20 Acrofales wrote:

Wtf? Where in Spain are Franco statues still tolerated? And especially one portraying him as some kind of saviour?!

I mean, they tried to put a Franco statue in Barcelona fairly recently, and within a few days it looked like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
And rightfully so. Fuck that guy.

On September 01 2017 21:29 ChristianS wrote:

I like when I can tell what podcast p6 has been listening to before posting:

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/notes-imagined-plaque/

“They held a parade at the unveiling of the new statue(of Nathan Bedford Forrest) and made speeches to honor the northward facing general. They said nothing of slavery. They said much about heritage and honor and chivalry. They said nothing … of the terror it had wrought, nothing of the assassinations or the lynchings.”

WASHINGTON — In swamping large swaths of Texas and Louisiana, Hurricane Harvey also forged a new reality for President Trump and the Republicans governing Washington.

Gone are the confrontational talk of a government shutdown and the brinkmanship over the debt limit. Instead, both Mr. Trump and his putative allies in Congress — many of them professed fiscal hawks — are promising an outpouring of federal aid to begin a recovery and rebuilding effort that will last for years and require tens of billions of dollars, if not substantially more, from Washington.

The storm has utterly transformed the federal fiscal picture.

“This is going to change the whole dynamic for September and, quite frankly, for the Republican establishment for the remainder of the 115th Congress,” said G. William Hoagland, a longtime chief budget adviser to Senate Republicans who is now a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “The truth of the matter is, they don’t need money to build a wall in Texas, but to rebuild the shoreline in Texas.”

Facing a difficult September, deeply divided over spending and what to do about the debt limit, Mr. Trump and congressional leaders may find that a devastating storm has provided them the common cause that has proved so elusive after their failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Trump is eager to be seen as a competent manager in his first big test in a natural disaster, and a shutdown could shatter that image. Lawmakers want to deliver for the Texas and Louisiana communities pounded by Harvey, a region that is not only a driver of the national economy but a center of Republican strength.

At the same time, a huge relief program tacked on to the federal deficit could undermine the claim by the president and his party that they are stewards of a leaner, more efficient federal bureaucracy.

The magnitude of the storm threatens to overwhelm that agenda as well as relegate to the background Mr. Trump’s demands for a border wall. Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, has already said that members of his group will not insist, for now, on funding it.

And it may make it more difficult for Mr. Trump to follow through on his promises of a broad crackdown on illegal immigration.

The altered landscape is going to force conservative lawmakers who have balked at tabs for past storm relief to swallow hard and rally behind a long-term recovery program. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, two Texas Republicans who opposed a spending package after Hurricane Sandy pummeled the Northeast in 2012, now find that the boot is on the other foot, leaving them responsible for delivering dollars to their state.

“This is going to be costly,” Mr. Hoagland said, “and the Cruzes of the world are going to have to belly up to the bar in a way they are not familiar with.”

Republicans who had been bracing for a September showdown over how to fund the government are rapidly changing course. While they await potentially staggering damage assessments, they are pledging to do whatever it takes to help those flooded out along the Gulf Coast.

As Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a senior Republican member of the House Appropriations Committee, put it, “There will be members who will have to eat a little crow, but the bottom line is the votes are there” because “Congress wants to look functional.”

Part of looking functional, he said, is ending discussion of shuttering the government in a dispute over whether to provide money for a wall border on the southern border.

“You certainly can’t have the government shut down in the middle of a national crisis,” Mr. Cole said.

The storm’s ramifications for the conservative agenda beyond fiscal issues have yet to play out.

Under pressure from the right to end a special Obama-era residency program for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, Mr. Trump has for months appeared torn over what to do. Eliminating the program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, could seem especially punitive now because Texas is home to one of the largest populations of so-called dreamers, though the president could move forward on that as early as Friday.

The debate over migrant labor could also be influenced because repairing or replacing huge numbers of homes and restoring damaged infrastructure will require thousands of construction workers, who were already in short supply around the country. Immigrant labor, both documented and undocumented, proved critical in the rebuilding effort that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The storm-driven congressional budget reassessment is already underway. Before Hurricane Harvey, House Republicans were planning to vote next week on a spending bill that would have shifted nearly $876 million away from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That plan is now out the window, and lawmakers are instead focused on funneling more money toward FEMA.

“Budgetary circumstances have changed significantly since the bill was drafted earlier this summer,” said Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the Appropriations Committee. “Given the current situation, the committee is reassessing the issue and is actively involved in communication with the administration on the needs and the timing of those needs.”

The specifics of how the spending package will come together have yet to be determined. Hurricane relief will be part of a messy confluence of issues that include the debt-limit hike, a still-emerging tax-cut proposal that could also add to the deficit and a Republican push for more Pentagon spending.

At a minimum, Republican leaders seem ready to act quickly to make sure sufficient money is available to respond to Harvey while passing a stopgap measure to keep the government open past the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Under that framework, the toughest spending decisions would be pushed off until as late as December.

While supporting the storm aid, some House conservatives are warning that they will not look kindly on any effort to link the debt-limit hike to hurricane relief. And conservative advocacy groups, warily eying hurricane spending, are worried it could quickly get out of hand.

Mr. Cornyn sought to provide reassurance that Congress was not going to go overboard on disaster spending, saying that “this is not just money that’s doled out for any purpose.”

“This has to be targeted for disaster relief and recovery from Hurricane Harvey,” he said.

But it is clear that Republicans — already struggling, despite their control of the White House and both houses of Congress — are entering a changed political and fiscal environment.

On September 01 2017 21:08 Aquanim wrote:

I don't personally especially object to the number that currently exist either. Possibly I'd feel differently if I had some personal tie to the cultures for which "Europeans discovering America" was not and is not all jam, and if anybody with such a tie does have feelings like that I can respect those feelings. I explicitly disagree with the argument being raised against taking down the statues that it is "erasing history" or similar.

On September 01 2017 21:44 m4ini wrote:
So wait.

You guys wanna remove statues of columbus now, did i get that correct? Based on what reasoning, because he was a bit of a tyrant for 7 years, in a time where that was perfectly normal?

On September 01 2017 21:35 Plansix wrote:
It was like the thread knew 99% invisible just did an entire episode about statues, history and what plaques say about historical figures. Plus, as a history guy, 99% invisible my jam. But people should debate who put up the statue and why they did it, not the merits of the person who had the statue made of them. Keep the statue, change the plaque.

SALT LAKE CITY — Alex Wubbels said she couldn't believe what was happening.

"This is crazy. This is crazy. Why is he so angry?" she is heard on body camera video, nearly in tears, as she is being arrested by Salt Lake police detective Jeff Payne.

Wubbels was working her shift as a charge nurse, or a liaison between patients and doctors and hospital managers, at University Hospital's Burn Unit when she was handcuffed in the middle of her work area, pulled outside and put into a police patrol car for about 20 minutes.

She was arrested after refusing to give Payne vials of blood that he needed for an investigation because she said he did not have a warrant or meet any of the mandatory criteria needed for taking blood.
Wubbels was later released and no charges were ever filed against her. But now, Wubbels and her attorney, Karra Porter, want the public to hear her story and see the disturbing body camera video.

On Thursday, Wubbels held a press conference to show the video and called for better training of police officers so that "harassment," as she calls it, of hospital doctors and nurses stops.

"I just feel betrayed, I feel angry. I feel a lot of things. And I am still confused. I’m a health care worker. The only job I have is to keep my patients safe. A blood draw, it just gets thrown around there like it’s some simple thing. But blood is your blood. That’s your property. And when a patient comes in in a critical state, that blood is extremely important and I don’t take it lightly,” she said.

The July 26 incident was caught on the body cameras of Payne and another officer.

Stop! I’ve done nothing wrong," Wubbels cries out in the video as she's being handcuffed. "This is unnecessary."

The incident began when a truck driver was severely burned in a head-on crash with a vehicle that was fleeing from police in Cache County and crossed into on-coming traffic. The driver of the fleeing vehicle was killed.

The truck driver was sedated and in a comatose state when he arrived at the hospital.

Payne, a veteran Salt Lake police officer, was sent to the hospital by another police agency to get vials of blood for the investigation. But because the patient was not a suspect in the crash nor faced potential criminal charges, because he was unconscious and unable to give consent, and because the officer did not have a warrant, Wubbels — one of the supervisors that night — did not allow him to draw blood.

"If they needed blood, then they needed to go through to proper channels to take it,” she said.

In the body camera video, Wubbels is seen on her phone with numerous supervisors advising them of what was happening and getting confirmation about the policy. Payne sounds impatient in the video and continues to threaten to arrest her.

Wubbels, who is surrounded by other hospital staffers, explains in the video that she is doing what her bosses told her to do. She eventually prints out a copy of the policy for blood draws — one that Salt Lake police agreed to more than a year ago, according to Porter — and shows it to the officer.

Wubbels said close to 10 supervisors were consulted either directly by herself or by the supervisors checking with their own superiors.

But Payne insists he, too, is following orders.

"I'm doing what I’m being told by my boss, and I'm going to do what my boss says," Payne says sternly at one point in the recording.

Wubbels can be seen trying to tell Payne to calm down while telling her boss on the phone that Payne was threatening to arrest her, and that a University of Utah police officer who was present wasn't going to stop him.

"She’s going to jail," Payne says in the video.

"Why?" a hospital staff member asks.

"Interfering with a criminal investigation," Payne replies.

At one point, Wubbels is heard telling her supervisor that she does not feel safe, before telling Payne, "I don’t know why you're being threatening."

"Sir, you’re making a huge mistake right now," a supervisor is heard telling Payne right before he places Wubbels in handcuffs.

"I’m leaving now, with her," Payne declares after being told again he can't have the blood without a warrant. She was taken out of the hospital and put in a police car.

Porter said Payne argued that he was allowed to take the blood through a process known as "implied consent." But she said that law was changed years ago.

"The law is well-established. And it’s not what we were hearing in the video,” Porter said. "I don’t know what was driving this situation."

After handcuffs are later taken off of Wubbels, several hospital staff members are seen hugging her in the video outside the police car. She said she has seen the video four or five times, and still gets emotional each time she watches it, as she did on Thursday.

Salt Lake Police Sgt. Brandon Shearer said Thursday that Chief Mike Brown has seen the video and called it "very alarming." Payne is still on active duty with the department, but Shearer said he has been suspended from the blood draw program and an active internal investigation is underway.

Shearer also admitted that the department's blood-draw policy "hadn't been updated for a little bit" when the incident occurred. But since then, the policy has been changed and training is scheduled to make sure all officers are up to date on the policy, he said.

When asked what she thinks should happen to Payne, Wubbels was reserved in her comments, only stating, "I think he needs some serious training."

Porter said what is just as disturbing are comments caught on Payne's body camera video while he was talking to another officer. Payne can be heard talking about his other job as an ambulance driver, and how Wubbels' arrest might affect that.

"I’ll bring 'em all the transients and take the good patients elsewhere," he is heard saying about the hospital.

"Even if he’s joking, this is not funny," Porter said. "I mean, there are so many things wrong with that statement I can’t even begin.”

Wubbels has not filed any civil action against the police agencies involved.

"I think right now, I believe in the goodness of society. I want to see people do the right thing first and I want to see this be a civil discourse. And if that’s not something that’s going to happen and there is refusal to acknowledge the need for growth and the need for re-education, then we will likely be forced to take that type of step. But people need to know that this is out there,” she said.

Porter complimented Salt Lake City for listening to her client's concerns and stepping up to the plate. But Porter could not say the same for the University of Utah police, whose officer condoned what was happening by not stepping in, she said.

"We don’t have confidence that changes will be made at University of Utah police … unless we went forward in this way,” Porter said Thursday.

On September 01 2017 21:49 Plansix wrote:

People would like to have a debate on how he is publicly remembered. Part of that debate is removing the statue. When people these build statues, they want to celebrate the person and gloss over the nasty parts of their history. And no one wants to add context to these statues with a plaque or other form of information saying “yo, Columbus was a bit of as asshole too”

Also this debate has been going for my entire life. We have always a debate about celebrating Columbus.

On September 01 2017 21:50 Uldridge wrote:

Seems kind of ironic you post this, Plansix, since, if I remember, you're one of the biggest debaters against considering intent.
Hehehehe, just busting some balls by the way , not trying to derail the thread with semantics.

Wubbels has not filed any civil action against the police agencies involved.

On September 01 2017 21:44 m4ini wrote:
So wait.

You guys wanna remove statues of columbus now, did i get that correct? Based on what reasoning, because he was a bit of a tyrant for 7 years, in a time where that was perfectly normal?

On September 01 2017 22:06 brian wrote:
good for that nurse, i hope he gets his due. takes some real courage to get arrested just because some cop is trying to flex the rules. i don't know if i'd have the same level of dedication, i'd probably offer to show up at trial to discredit the evidence instead.

"I think if we continue to create jobs at levels that I'm creating jobs, I think that's going to have a tremendously positive impact on race relations.

On September 01 2017 22:07 m4ini wrote:
Considering that so far he barely created jobs, that's an interesting statement.

On September 01 2017 22:13 Uldridge wrote:

Get everyone on welfare, that'll even the playing field.