US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1715

On July 26 2019 09:56 GreenHorizons wrote:


Depends on whether you believe the Pentagon when they tell you the conditions at Guantanamo are/were compliant with the Geneva Convention or not?

On July 26 2019 10:03 Mohdoo wrote:


Right, so I'd love to see the official rules of Guantanamo and how they compare to an athlete (soccer of all sports) losing 23 pounds.

On July 26 2019 08:36 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
26 pounds in three weeks is starvation level of weight loss if he was anywhere near a normal sized person.The numbers have to be wrong (not everyone weighs themselves often so he maybe misjudged?)...if they are a not,then a lot of the people working there should be in jail.

On July 26 2019 10:57 Vindicare605 wrote:


Oh but we're so past that now with Republicans.

Every comment thread or twitter feed I see about these camps I see the same comment liked and upvoted. "If they are really that bad they should just go back where they came from."

It's sickening. We're already past the point where the propoganda has got people seeing Brown people as less than human and not deserving of any kind of compassion. We're way past that point.

On July 26 2019 10:57 Vindicare605 wrote:


Oh but we're so past that now with Republicans.

Every comment thread or twitter feed I see about these camps I see the same comment liked and upvoted. "If they are really that bad they should just go back where they came from."

It's sickening. We're already past the point where the propoganda has got people seeing Brown people as less than human and not deserving of any kind of compassion. We're way past that point.

Schumer said that it would be more “fair and a lot easier” to allow people to apply for asylum in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. He acknowledged the need for more immigration judges and ways to deal with gang violence, but said addressing asylum issues is “much better of a solution than what we saw here.”

On July 26 2019 13:13 Falling wrote:
I personally like Lyndsey Graham's solution, although it looks like Democrats are blocking the ability to vote on it for now.

The main thing I like is that you need to apply from Mexico or a home country, not the US. The big problem it seems is that the facilities are simply not adequate to the volume of people trying to get through. This breaks the system because they simply cannot process in time, which forces officials to release families after 20 days. In a perverse way, this creates the unintended consequences of simply getting to the border with a child, any child and try to force the system to release you, plus it creates a giant market for bad actors in the human smuggling business.

So requiring to apply from outside the US, you immediately get rid of the ticking time bomb of the terrible holding conditions and you don't need to waste money expanding holding facilities. And then you cut out the market for human smugglers that might just abandon their 'cargo' to suffocate or die of dehydration because they can't pay enough.

As a result, Graham wants to add 500 new immigration judges which would expedite the waiting lines and then he's willing to negotiate on sending aid to South American countries as a bone for Democrats/ maybe helping with some of the economics push factors that generates the desire to emigrate out.

Seems like a good idea to me.

On July 26 2019 13:13 Falling wrote:
I personally like Lyndsey Graham's solution, although it looks like Democrats are blocking the ability to vote on it for now.

The main thing I like is that you need to apply from Mexico or a home country, not the US. The big problem it seems is that the facilities are simply not adequate to the volume of people trying to get through. This breaks the system because they simply cannot process in time, which forces officials to release families after 20 days. In a perverse way, this creates the unintended consequences of simply getting to the border with a child, any child and try to force the system to release you, plus it creates a giant market for bad actors in the human smuggling business.

So requiring to apply from outside the US, you immediately get rid of the ticking time bomb of the terrible holding conditions and you don't need to waste money expanding holding facilities. And then you cut out the market for human smugglers that might just abandon their 'cargo' to suffocate or die of dehydration because they can't pay enough.

As a result, Graham wants to add 500 new immigration judges which would expedite the waiting lines and then he's willing to negotiate on sending aid to South American countries as a bone for Democrats/ maybe helping with some of the economics push factors that generates the desire to emigrate out.

Seems like a good idea to me.

On July 26 2019 13:17 GreenHorizons wrote:


Except for the part about asylum seekers fleeing those countries because both terrible economic conditions and rampant violence that threatens them or the children they brought.

If the US can't handle them, it's pretty ridiculous to expect much poorer countries to do it instead imo. Adding judges is a good idea, though I doubt 500 is nearly adequate.

On July 26 2019 13:31 Falling wrote:

500 more is substantially better than the current state. I doubt wherever they are coming from, they are in packed to the gills holding facilities, so that seems better to me. But the big thing is cutting out the human trafficker middle man/ getting rid of the incentive to just hoof it across the border and die in some farmers field because they've been operating without water. Disincentivizing a very hazardous journey also seems a win in my book. Volume creates a cascading problem that incentivizes greater volume to stress out the system due to a crisis of overcrowding, which means there just is never enough time to process. Keeping the process at arm's length prevents a crisis within the US and allows more resources to go to processing rather than holding so that those needing asylum can get through quickly. Win-win.

But that presupposes every one of those trying to cross actually qualify for asylum, rather than their country is not very great and they'd prefer a better life in America. Great. Get in line. But you actually need time to sort that out otherwise it just incentivizes absolutely anyone to claim asylum and beat the system. It need not be from their home country- Mexico is allowed as well. So if they fled to Mexico, they would presumably not be in the immediate danger from whichever home country they originated.

What you're basically saying is that the US should push a burden they can't manage onto a poorer country with even less potential to handle it.

On July 26 2019 13:51 Falling wrote:

Not really the motivation, but sure. The US cannot save the world. Life sucks in the world and then you die. Life sucks less in the US- I think the best they can do is not create a crisis within their own borders and focus all their energy on speeding up the asylum processing. I think as it currently stands, increasing holding facilities does not end gangs trafficking humans which causes even more suffering/ deaths.

On July 26 2019 13:59 Falling wrote:
I don't see how it is an inhumane and unethical position. Are we gods? We cannot end human suffering, the best we can do is alleviate some without generating much of our own.

On July 26 2019 13:13 Falling wrote:
I personally like Lindsey Graham's solution, although it looks like Democrats are blocking the ability to vote on it for now.

The main thing I like is that you need to apply from Mexico or a home country, not the US. The big problem it seems is that the facilities are simply not adequate to the volume of people trying to get through. This breaks the system because they simply cannot process in time, which forces officials to release families after 20 days. In a perverse way, this creates the unintended consequences of simply getting to the border with a child, any child and try to force the system to release you, plus it creates a giant market for bad actors in the human smuggling business.

So requiring to apply from outside the US, you immediately get rid of the ticking time bomb of the terrible holding conditions and you don't need to waste money expanding holding facilities. And then you cut out the market for human smugglers that might just abandon their 'cargo' to suffocate or die of dehydration because they can't pay enough.

As a result, Graham wants to add 500 new immigration judges which would expedite the waiting lines and then he's willing to negotiate on sending aid to South American countries as a bone for Democrats/ maybe helping with some of the economics push factors that generates the desire to emigrate out.

Seems like a good idea to me.

On July 26 2019 14:02 Mohdoo wrote:


It shouldn't just be our local continents helping. If we have a humanitarian refugee crisis, we should be asking other big countries to help. Maybe I'm missing something, but once you transport an immigrant somewhere, isn't it the same as being in the US? If we sent like 5k people to each of like 30 countries, it would help a lot. Totally worth the price of transportation.

My preference is the US handles it because we have available wealth. But if we're not, it's not like it's required to be physically connected.

On July 26 2019 02:20 ShambhalaWar wrote:
Again, in light of the restatement of the election attacks and the republicans blocking security measures to secure our elections...

I'm curious to hear from danglers and daunt.

What's the inspiration level for you guys right now, how inspired do you feel by your leader who refuses to secure our election systems?

Relative to the inspiration you felt from the 4th of july event (I remember how inspired you were then), how inspired do you feel now? Did you elect him to not secure our elections from attacks?

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/25/politics/republican-senators-block-election-security-legislation/index.html