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I want to reiterate in succinct form a point several people have made. Democrats are refusing to play ball and vote for an immigration bill that does a lot of things they don't like because it fixes this one immediate crisis. We saw this with the Dreamers, too.
The reason they are doing this is because if Trump can do something really terrible to innocent people (deporting kids, putting kids in cages) to coerce Democrats into voting for something he wants and they don't want (funding for his wall, a far right immigration policy), and it works, he will keep doing it. In fact, he will probably find ways to use the same group of people as hostages multiple times to keep coercing votes out of Democrats.
Congressional Democrats are in a situation where they can stop one horrible thing that is happening in the present at the cost of bringing on more horrible things in the future. Trump is doing this specifically to target a Hispanics and immigrants, who he has conflated to his base, for misery. No Congressional action short of impeaching him and removing him from office will actually stop him from finding ways to achieve that goal. He is never going to sign legislation that will get in his way. He will say he might, and then set a bar for "acceptable" that means the legislation would have to do more harm to immigrants than the harm it alleviates to be "acceptable." As Wulfey_LA just pointed out, he called Ted Cruz's proposal crazy, and refused it on entirely specious grounds that the new judges could be corrupt.
If Congress somehow passes a law with a large enough majority to get around his veto, he will find an alternative way to increase the suffering of some subset of the targeted demographic, because to some extent, their misery is the point.
Again, in summary:
Trump and his administration have created a situation of gross human misery in the Hispanic/immigrant demographic. Republicans in Congress are generally claiming that if only Democrats would make some unknown number of concessions that would lead to more suffering in the future, they could stop the suffering now.
Depending on Trump whether Trump would actually sign anything, Democrats either- Cannot actually do anything. In this case, the Republican talking points are purely to try to change how the situation looks.
- Can teach Trump and Republicans that literally taking human beings as hostages to exchange for their cooperation is an effective strategy. In this case, the hostage taking will continue.
In either case, the Trump administration is likely going to continue to escalate in doing terrible things to generally innocent people, because his base likes it and Republicans aren't willing to stand up to him strongly enough to stop him.
EDIT: I want to repeat this, because it bears repeating. The Trump administration is literally putting innocent children in prisons and then trying to force Democrats to negotiate freedom for the children.
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On June 20 2018 14:26 zobz wrote:
So at least perhaps the Democrats could cooperate with a bill that was relatively simple and didn't include any compromises on the border wall or anything like that, and put it to Trump and just let him not sign it. You could argue that that would be pointless, sure, but if the Republicans are going to put it together the Democrats may as well sign it.
Yes, I'm not really understanding the democratic tactic. It's strange to refer back to a president who is clearly incompetent and cruel to fix this situation if they have the power to do so themselves. I understand that it is the presidents responsibility but he's not going tot take any responsibility for anything ever. So putting the ball in his court is a tactic that is not going to yield any results for the children.
If the republicans 'poison pill' it by putting the wall in it or some other bullshit just call them out on it but surely a matter like this should be able to bring everyone on the same footing and make a simple bill. Show that congress isn't entirely useless. If Trump refuses to sign it, use it as a fighting point to reduce presidential powers, because you can always refer back to Trump not doing what is right while children were suffering.
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@Kyadytim - i don't think the children card will get you places; it has been played to many times so even when true, people are desensitized to it.
plus, deep down inside, people don't mind collateral damage because the outcome(hoped or actual) justify the means.
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On June 20 2018 15:17 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2018 14:26 zobz wrote:
So at least perhaps the Democrats could cooperate with a bill that was relatively simple and didn't include any compromises on the border wall or anything like that, and put it to Trump and just let him not sign it. You could argue that that would be pointless, sure, but if the Republicans are going to put it together the Democrats may as well sign it. Yes, I'm not really understanding the democratic tactic. It's strange to refer back to a president who is clearly incompetent and cruel to fix this situation if they have the power to do so themselves. I understand that it is the presidents responsibility but he's not going tot take any responsibility for anything ever. So putting the ball in his court is a tactic that is not going to yield any results for the children. If the republicans 'poison pill' it by putting the wall in it or some other bullshit just call them out on it but surely a matter like this should be able to bring everyone on the same footing and make a simple bill. Show that congress isn't entirely useless. If Trump refuses to sign it, use it as a fighting point to reduce presidential powers, because you can always refer back to Trump not doing what is right while children were suffering.
I'd say its a pretty standard implementation of "we don't negotiate with terrorists" policy. The current administration has kidnapped a bunch of kids and put them in concentration/internment camps and then wants to force their opposition to agree to their policies.
It's a choice between a rock and a hard(er) place because on one hand you will allow children to suffer, on the other hand you will enable a morally corrupt administration.
Trump is of course not a terrorist by the current definition of the word, he's a part of the government and not fighting against it. He is willfully performing acts of terror on people who are criminals by way of a first-time misdemeanor though. Per Chris Hayes twitter who is referencing government records, 91% of the people who has had their children separated from them is charged with first-time illegal border crossing.
Re: Misdemeanors, is speeding also a misdemeanor? Would it be fair to detain all speeders until they get their day in court and put their children in camps while doing so?
EDIT: I use concentration/internment camps as that's what the centers literally are. They are not death camps though, of course.
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Remember this from yesterday?
They purposefully created this crisis to draw out concessions in exchange for stopping it. This is 100% a case of 'we don't negotiate with terrorists' only it has gotten so insane that the 'terrorists' are the POTUS and his AG.
If Democrats cave on this Trump will simply create another crisis for more concessions, and another and another.
He did it with the Dreamers by setting them up for deportation and saying "make me a bill I like" and he is doing it here now.
Democrats have no interest in accepting another Republican drafted bill to fix a situation after they have been fucked over again and again. If Republicans want bipartisan support then write a bipartisan bill. Its not rocket science, Congress managed it for centuries before this bunch of assholes came along.
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On June 20 2018 12:36 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2018 10:06 kollin wrote:On June 20 2018 09:58 Introvert wrote:On June 20 2018 09:53 Plansix wrote:On June 20 2018 09:48 Introvert wrote:On June 20 2018 09:17 kollin wrote:On June 20 2018 09:08 Introvert wrote:On June 20 2018 07:56 Plansix wrote:On June 20 2018 07:29 Introvert wrote:"We want to keep the focus on Trump" is precisely the Dem strategy, nice to see them say it. He just rejects everything out of hand, amazing. Schumer rejects GOP proposal to address border crisis
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) on Tuesday dismissed a legislative proposal backed by Republican leaders to keep immigrant families together at the border, arguing that President Trump could fix the problem more easily with a flick of his pen.
"There are so many obstacles to legislation and when the president can do it with his own pen, it makes no sense," Schumer told reporters. "Legislation is not the way to go here when it's so easy for the president to sign it."
Asked if that meant Democrats would not support a bill backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to keep immigrant families together while seeking asylum on the U.S. border, Schumer said they want to keep the focus on Trump.
"Again, the president can change it with his pen," he said, warning that Republicans would likely try to add poison-pill provisions to any immigration bill that came to the floor. rest here (in a hurry) http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/393069-schumer-rejects-gop-proposal-to-address-border-crisis I feel like this article is blaming the democrats for have a strategy to deal with a crisis they had no hand in making and warned against. The Republicans has in congress want the focus on democrats, and the democrats are not interested in cleaning up after Trump. The democrats had put forth a bill they all supported to stop this. Mitch decided to ignore that bill and have the republicans draft their own. And from what I hear, the democrats didn’t get a say on the language in the bill. If we literally have concentration camps on the border, then isn't the overriding concern the children? Is this not the entirely of the Democrat talking points? Ask for the GOP to stand up to Trump, some might actually do so, Senate Democrats say "nah, Trump should handle this." And finally, we have the fact that a week or so ago the Democrats proposed their own bill on this topic, like you. Now it was a bad one, rushed out for PR. But every Senate dem signed on to it. Now they're like "We're out." They've dismissed anything else without even seeing it. This reeks. Republicans supported Trump, despite it being evidently clear that he was fascistic. Democrats should not appease them in any way - the whole party deserves to burn for this (not that the Democrats should have a remotely clean conscience either but that's beside the point). On June 20 2018 09:17 Plansix wrote:On June 20 2018 09:08 Introvert wrote:On June 20 2018 07:56 Plansix wrote:On June 20 2018 07:29 Introvert wrote:"We want to keep the focus on Trump" is precisely the Dem strategy, nice to see them say it. He just rejects everything out of hand, amazing. Schumer rejects GOP proposal to address border crisis
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) on Tuesday dismissed a legislative proposal backed by Republican leaders to keep immigrant families together at the border, arguing that President Trump could fix the problem more easily with a flick of his pen.
"There are so many obstacles to legislation and when the president can do it with his own pen, it makes no sense," Schumer told reporters. "Legislation is not the way to go here when it's so easy for the president to sign it."
Asked if that meant Democrats would not support a bill backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to keep immigrant families together while seeking asylum on the U.S. border, Schumer said they want to keep the focus on Trump.
"Again, the president can change it with his pen," he said, warning that Republicans would likely try to add poison-pill provisions to any immigration bill that came to the floor. rest here (in a hurry) http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/393069-schumer-rejects-gop-proposal-to-address-border-crisis I feel like this article is blaming the democrats for have a strategy to deal with a crisis they had no hand in making and warned against. The Republicans has in congress want the focus on democrats, and the democrats are not interested in cleaning up after Trump. The democrats had put forth a bill they all supported to stop this. Mitch decided to ignore that bill and have the republicans draft their own. And from what I hear, the democrats didn’t get a say on the language in the bill. If we literally have concentration camps on the border, then isn't the overriding concern the children? Is this not the entirely of the Democrat talking points? Ask for the GOP to stand up to Trump, some might actually do so, Senate Democrats say "nah, Trump should handle this." And finally, we have the fact that a week or so ago the Democrats proposed their own bill on this topic, like you. Now it was a bad one, rushed out for PR. But every Senate dem signed on to it. Now they're like "We're out." They've dismissed anything else without even seeing it. This reeks. Who built the concentration camps? Is he in office? Can he veto whatever bill the Republicans are putting right now? This is Trumps problem to fix. Congress can do it, but the democrats are willing to be the problem solvers here. After weeks of calling Congress cowards (on things like tariffs) we have an issue where a large part of Congress might actually get involved and now it's "you guys should own it." Might I suggest that if this is your position, you don't actually think Trump is a fascistic dictator-in-waiting. It also calls into question the sincerity of the concern for those suffering in "concentration camps." "Trump is a lawless fascist." also "Congress should do nothing, Republicans made this mess they should clean it up." This is one of the more raw and open displays of partisanship recently, and that's saying a lot. Maybe if Mitch let them write the bill or have some sort of input, he might get someplace. But that isn’t what is happening. The bill is going to be tailored to meet Republican concerns and then given to democrats to make up the remaining votes. Senators don’t often vote for legislation they can’t help write. And again, there is a much quicker solution available. Schumer dismissed it out of hand. He said they want to "keep the focus" on Trump. Doesn't think they should have to have legislation, after introducing their own. “There are so many obstacles to legislation and when the president can do it with his own pen, it makes no sense,” Schumer told reporters. “Legislation is not the way to go here when it’s so easy for the president to sign it.” And be sure to see my edit about their plan. On June 20 2018 09:53 kollin wrote:On June 20 2018 09:48 Introvert wrote:On June 20 2018 09:17 kollin wrote:On June 20 2018 09:08 Introvert wrote:On June 20 2018 07:56 Plansix wrote:On June 20 2018 07:29 Introvert wrote:"We want to keep the focus on Trump" is precisely the Dem strategy, nice to see them say it. He just rejects everything out of hand, amazing. Schumer rejects GOP proposal to address border crisis
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) on Tuesday dismissed a legislative proposal backed by Republican leaders to keep immigrant families together at the border, arguing that President Trump could fix the problem more easily with a flick of his pen.
"There are so many obstacles to legislation and when the president can do it with his own pen, it makes no sense," Schumer told reporters. "Legislation is not the way to go here when it's so easy for the president to sign it."
Asked if that meant Democrats would not support a bill backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to keep immigrant families together while seeking asylum on the U.S. border, Schumer said they want to keep the focus on Trump.
"Again, the president can change it with his pen," he said, warning that Republicans would likely try to add poison-pill provisions to any immigration bill that came to the floor. rest here (in a hurry) http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/393069-schumer-rejects-gop-proposal-to-address-border-crisis I feel like this article is blaming the democrats for have a strategy to deal with a crisis they had no hand in making and warned against. The Republicans has in congress want the focus on democrats, and the democrats are not interested in cleaning up after Trump. The democrats had put forth a bill they all supported to stop this. Mitch decided to ignore that bill and have the republicans draft their own. And from what I hear, the democrats didn’t get a say on the language in the bill. If we literally have concentration camps on the border, then isn't the overriding concern the children? Is this not the entirely of the Democrat talking points? Ask for the GOP to stand up to Trump, some might actually do so, Senate Democrats say "nah, Trump should handle this." And finally, we have the fact that a week or so ago the Democrats proposed their own bill on this topic, like you. Now it was a bad one, rushed out for PR. But every Senate dem signed on to it. Now they're like "We're out." They've dismissed anything else without even seeing it. This reeks. Republicans supported Trump, despite it being evidently clear that he was fascistic. Democrats should not appease them in any way - the whole party deserves to burn for this (not that the Democrats should have a remotely clean conscience either but that's beside the point). On June 20 2018 09:17 Plansix wrote:On June 20 2018 09:08 Introvert wrote:On June 20 2018 07:56 Plansix wrote:On June 20 2018 07:29 Introvert wrote:"We want to keep the focus on Trump" is precisely the Dem strategy, nice to see them say it. He just rejects everything out of hand, amazing. Schumer rejects GOP proposal to address border crisis
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) on Tuesday dismissed a legislative proposal backed by Republican leaders to keep immigrant families together at the border, arguing that President Trump could fix the problem more easily with a flick of his pen.
"There are so many obstacles to legislation and when the president can do it with his own pen, it makes no sense," Schumer told reporters. "Legislation is not the way to go here when it's so easy for the president to sign it."
Asked if that meant Democrats would not support a bill backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to keep immigrant families together while seeking asylum on the U.S. border, Schumer said they want to keep the focus on Trump.
"Again, the president can change it with his pen," he said, warning that Republicans would likely try to add poison-pill provisions to any immigration bill that came to the floor. rest here (in a hurry) http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/393069-schumer-rejects-gop-proposal-to-address-border-crisis I feel like this article is blaming the democrats for have a strategy to deal with a crisis they had no hand in making and warned against. The Republicans has in congress want the focus on democrats, and the democrats are not interested in cleaning up after Trump. The democrats had put forth a bill they all supported to stop this. Mitch decided to ignore that bill and have the republicans draft their own. And from what I hear, the democrats didn’t get a say on the language in the bill. If we literally have concentration camps on the border, then isn't the overriding concern the children? Is this not the entirely of the Democrat talking points? Ask for the GOP to stand up to Trump, some might actually do so, Senate Democrats say "nah, Trump should handle this." And finally, we have the fact that a week or so ago the Democrats proposed their own bill on this topic, like you. Now it was a bad one, rushed out for PR. But every Senate dem signed on to it. Now they're like "We're out." They've dismissed anything else without even seeing it. This reeks. Who built the concentration camps? Is he in office? Can he veto whatever bill the Republicans are putting right now? This is Trumps problem to fix. Congress can do it, but the democrats are willing to be the problem solvers here. After weeks of calling Congress cowards (on things like tariffs) we have an issue where a large part of Congress might actually get involved and now it's "you guys should own it." Might I suggest that if this is your position, you don't actually think Trump is a fascistic dictator-in-waiting. It also calls into question the sincerity of the concern for those suffering in "concentration camps." "Trump is a lawless fascist." also "Congress should do nothing, Republicans made this mess they should clean it up." This is one of the more raw and open displays of partisanship recently, and that's saying a lot. I'm partisan in the sense I think both Republicans and Democrats are awful, but the former are actively supporting a man that is a fascist. I don't think he's competent enough to be a dictator in waiting, but if you look at the way his administration treats the dispossessed he is undoubtedly a fascist. The kids being kept in cages is heart breaking, but co operating with Ted Cruz on legislation only solves a specific short term problem while engendering a lot of good will for a Republican Party that is semi-uncomfortable with being fascistic right now, and thus wants to return back to good old facist-enabling conservatism. This is a pretty remarkable statement. Anyone else care to endorse this position? (Stop me if I sound anymore like GH). Kids in cages is a terrifying symptom of American regression - Trump is the ugly figurehead and Thomas Homan the Himmler - but a piece of legislation will do literally nothing to solve the underlying illness. The Democrats should absolutely and entirely resist any temptation to attempt compromise out of nostalgic longing for a bygone era of bipartisan friendliness, or out of electoral calculation. I really struggle to see how you can judge the reaction to this as hysteria, unless you are ultimately one of the level-headed, moderate centrist classically liberal Americans who will insist that the boat's unsinkable even though the iceberg has been hit. Right, "this doesn't solve everything so let the kids rot in cages for the greater good of us winning in 2018." This was you yesterday: Show nested quote +On June 18 2018 17:20 kollin wrote:On June 18 2018 10:43 IgnE wrote:On June 18 2018 10:37 Plansix wrote:On June 18 2018 10:33 KwarK wrote:
Any scholar of ancient history would happily remind Krugman that for much of Europe Roman conquest meant genocide. Gaul wasn't Romanized by Caesar, it was simply depopulated and then settled, much like the American west. It is an extremely effective way to have a unified culture. You just need to not ascribe to the theory that all human life has value and then you are off to the races. Or, you could subscribe to the theory that future human life has near infinite value, by virtue of its very very lengthy potential duration and scope, and that we should do everything to maximize future life as quickly possible, even if that means clearing the way for a great civilization like that of the Romans. This sort of utilitarian reasoning is flawed from the offset exactly because it subsumes 'smaller' wrongs such as genocide into the umbrella of the greater good. A utilitarian could easily make the argument that Hitler was a good man because look how good things are now! but that is, I hope, clearly inherently ridiculous. And here you are now somehow trying to explain to Introvert that your position is somehow consistent. I also assume you support Trump's tariffs on China, based on this new position? Even if I were to concede America has significant facist elements, facism (at least by your definition) is certainly much stronger in China, no? Do you support America ending all trade with China? How about your own country? I'm not arguing this last point (the first point was evident hypocrisy) as whataboutism, but as an argument against absolutism in any ethical sense. Absolutism and ethics simply cannot be combined--judgment, tradeoffs, paradoxes, and contradictions come with the territory. Which, while I'm on the topic, I'll call out Trump as committing the largest moral violation here and Democrats as a large violator of their own. --------------------- EDIT: I'm picking on you here but this hypocrisy easily applies to most of the thread.
The tariffs is different because really there is no such thing as ethics under capitalism, so a utilitarian approach might as well be adopted there. But a refusal to compromise with Republicans is the exact OPPOSITE of a utilitarian approach to this problem - utilitarianism isn't absolute, and entails a race to the bottom in an effort to prevent harm. My earlier criticism was that, if it is in favour of the greater good, then utilitarianism doesn't even recognise a morally wrong action - compromising with fascists - as wrong. I'm not an absolutist generally, but at this point I think the Republicans should be opposed absolutely because they're directly enabling fascists.
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The Trump administration is deliberately holding a metaphorical gun to the heads of thousands of children and saying "give us what we want or else" even while having their party control every level of government, and somehow this is the democrats fault for not buying into the tactic? Screw that. What is their fault is that at this point they aren't pushing for the vacation of this administration, because if this shit isn't impeachable, you are lost as a nation.
At this point, there's only one out: Trump, Miller, Sessions (to name a few) all removed from office and put on trial for crimes against humanity. The US is going to be looked at as fondly as Germany was in the late 40s if this keeps up without justice served. The American people cannot in good conscience still have that man in power: he is unambiguously evil and cruelly, intentionally, as part of government policy, destroying the lives of thousands of children. There's no room for compromise now, y'all fucked up and the world is watching closer than ever.
Here is SA we messed up big time post-apartheid, not nearly enough real justice to the architects and enforcers of apartheid systems was seen, and actual reparations have taken a lot of time to even begin. Don't make those kinds of mistakes, it takes lifetimes to come back from them.
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On June 20 2018 14:43 Kyadytim wrote:I want to reiterate in succinct form a point several people have made. Democrats are refusing to play ball and vote for an immigration bill that does a lot of things they don't like because it fixes this one immediate crisis. We saw this with the Dreamers, too. The reason they are doing this is because if Trump can do something really terrible to innocent people (deporting kids, putting kids in cages) to coerce Democrats into voting for something he wants and they don't want (funding for his wall, a far right immigration policy), and it works, he will keep doing it. In fact, he will probably find ways to use the same group of people as hostages multiple times to keep coercing votes out of Democrats. Congressional Democrats are in a situation where they can stop one horrible thing that is happening in the present at the cost of bringing on more horrible things in the future. Trump is doing this specifically to target a Hispanics and immigrants, who he has conflated to his base, for misery. No Congressional action short of impeaching him and removing him from office will actually stop him from finding ways to achieve that goal. He is never going to sign legislation that will get in his way. He will say he might, and then set a bar for "acceptable" that means the legislation would have to do more harm to immigrants than the harm it alleviates to be "acceptable." As Wulfey_LA just pointed out, he called Ted Cruz's proposal crazy, and refused it on entirely specious grounds that the new judges could be corrupt.If Congress somehow passes a law with a large enough majority to get around his veto, he will find an alternative way to increase the suffering of some subset of the targeted demographic, because to some extent, their misery is the point. Again, in summary: Trump and his administration have created a situation of gross human misery in the Hispanic/immigrant demographic. Republicans in Congress are generally claiming that if only Democrats would make some unknown number of concessions that would lead to more suffering in the future, they could stop the suffering now. Depending on Trump whether Trump would actually sign anything, Democrats either - Cannot actually do anything. In this case, the Republican talking points are purely to try to change how the situation looks.
- Can teach Trump and Republicans that literally taking human beings as hostages to exchange for their cooperation is an effective strategy. In this case, the hostage taking will continue.
In either case, the Trump administration is likely going to continue to escalate in doing terrible things to generally innocent people, because his base likes it and Republicans aren't willing to stand up to him strongly enough to stop him. EDIT: I want to repeat this, because it bears repeating. The Trump administration is literally putting innocent children in prisons and then trying to force Democrats to negotiate freedom for the children.
tl;dr
Congress is in gridlock because the Democrats cannot agree with the Republicans on enough things in order to pass a simple spending bill. I think that sounds like politics as usual!
As far as the specific policy point goes, illegal emigrants are problems. That said, what is there to do? People come & go as they please, and there is a sort of humanitarian crisis going on in south america where there are thousands of people who want in and probably some of them will be able to get in despite the best efforts of the government. Is it such a big deal? There is a lot of countryside in the US and there's plenty of land to settle into. They want to be in the US because of the free or heavily subsidized healthcare & education that citizens get, as well as support & help in their work endeavors. That's a good thing but they can only allow in a certain number. In-laws & sibling are in town for a wedding.
Essentially the point I'm getting here is that Trump will not sign, or doesn't sign that often. That's probably not such a big deal - not every bill that goes through Congress & the House of Representatives to the white house will get passed every time. They (by they I mean Congress) may have to make some token changes to the bill & try again. Government work is slow, takes forever, only changes little by little, and tends to be boring & serious stuff. That's just how it goes. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. The president could maybe sign more often. Those bills should be passed, I think!
Trump is pragmatic - not especially pious or ideological by nature but he doesn't care if ppl in special interest groups are more observant than he is. The president's duty is to represent the country in matters of state & often a lot of the specific details of the relevant policy points are "carried over" from previous administrations or only minor modifications are made. It is not necessary for the prez to do a whole lot in terms of putting his "stamp" or "imprint" on the office, if he's not interested in that. Trump is much like president Howard Taft, as well as the proponent of the hoover dam, Herbert Hoover. It seems pretty clear that the news cycle, the mainstream media & celebrities fascinate him - that's normal for that kind of a guy, & yes, those things are interesting & fun & compelling to think about.
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On June 20 2018 19:23 A3th3r wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2018 14:43 Kyadytim wrote:I want to reiterate in succinct form a point several people have made. Democrats are refusing to play ball and vote for an immigration bill that does a lot of things they don't like because it fixes this one immediate crisis. We saw this with the Dreamers, too. The reason they are doing this is because if Trump can do something really terrible to innocent people (deporting kids, putting kids in cages) to coerce Democrats into voting for something he wants and they don't want (funding for his wall, a far right immigration policy), and it works, he will keep doing it. In fact, he will probably find ways to use the same group of people as hostages multiple times to keep coercing votes out of Democrats. Congressional Democrats are in a situation where they can stop one horrible thing that is happening in the present at the cost of bringing on more horrible things in the future. Trump is doing this specifically to target a Hispanics and immigrants, who he has conflated to his base, for misery. No Congressional action short of impeaching him and removing him from office will actually stop him from finding ways to achieve that goal. He is never going to sign legislation that will get in his way. He will say he might, and then set a bar for "acceptable" that means the legislation would have to do more harm to immigrants than the harm it alleviates to be "acceptable." As Wulfey_LA just pointed out, he called Ted Cruz's proposal crazy, and refused it on entirely specious grounds that the new judges could be corrupt.If Congress somehow passes a law with a large enough majority to get around his veto, he will find an alternative way to increase the suffering of some subset of the targeted demographic, because to some extent, their misery is the point. Again, in summary: Trump and his administration have created a situation of gross human misery in the Hispanic/immigrant demographic. Republicans in Congress are generally claiming that if only Democrats would make some unknown number of concessions that would lead to more suffering in the future, they could stop the suffering now. Depending on Trump whether Trump would actually sign anything, Democrats either - Cannot actually do anything. In this case, the Republican talking points are purely to try to change how the situation looks.
- Can teach Trump and Republicans that literally taking human beings as hostages to exchange for their cooperation is an effective strategy. In this case, the hostage taking will continue.
In either case, the Trump administration is likely going to continue to escalate in doing terrible things to generally innocent people, because his base likes it and Republicans aren't willing to stand up to him strongly enough to stop him. EDIT: I want to repeat this, because it bears repeating. The Trump administration is literally putting innocent children in prisons and then trying to force Democrats to negotiate freedom for the children. tl;dr Congress is in gridlock because the Democrats cannot agree with the Republicans on enough things in order to pass a simple spending bill. Sounds like politics as usual! As far as the specific policy point goes, illegal immigration is problem & I think everyone knows that by now. Or maybe they know, maybe not, but anyways, yes, it is problematic. That said, what is there to do? People come & go as they please, and there is a sort of humanitarian crisis going on in south america where there are thousands of people who want in and probably some of them will be able to get in despite the best efforts of the government. Is it such a big deal? There is a lot of countryside in the US and there's plenty of land to settle into. Essentially the point I'm getting here is that Trump will not sign, or doesn't sign that often. That's probably not such a big deal - not every bill that goes through the white house will get passed every time. They (by they I mean Congress) may have to make some token changes to the bill & try again. Government work is slow, takes forever, only changes little by little, and tends to be boring & serious stuff. That's just how it goes. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it
I read this in Trump's voice, that's how off the mark and nonsensical it is. Democrats are to blame because they cannot agree with the Republicans even tho Republicans are literally on the majority and can do whatever they wants? "Politics as usual" somehow..
illegal immigration is a problem because legal immigration is a problem.. the entire system is bananas broken. There is about a million things you could do to fix either. And yes, it's a big deal. Maybe not for you in your comfy sofa, but for those who's entire lives depend on it: It's a big fucking deal.
And at the end you take a bleak look at politics and shrugs off all blame with "it's boring and slow". That's not acceptable when human rights are being violated.
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Trump says Canadians are smuggling things across the border because the tariffs are so high. I don't know if that is currently happening. "back in the day" the people i hung out with piled into 2 or 3 cars. We all had on our oldest, raggiest clothing and our worst pair of shoes. We'd go clothes shopping and come back to Canada with 2 layers of clothes on and a great pair of shoes. We'd chuck out old clothes before crossing the border. This was a pretty common way to buy high end clothes.
We went to states with little or no sales tax. We were paying 15% sales tax at the time which was 8% provincial and 7% GST.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if teenagers are doing the exact same thing today.
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On June 20 2018 20:26 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Trump says Canadians are smuggling things across the border because the tariffs are so high. I don't know if that is currently happening. "back in the day" the people i hung out with piled into 2 or 3 cars. We all had on our oldest, raggiest clothing and our worst pair of shoes. We'd go clothes shopping and come back to Canada with 2 layers of clothes on and a great pair of shoes. We'd chuck out old clothes before crossing the border. This was a pretty common way to buy high end clothes.
We went to states with little or no sales tax. We were paying 15% sales tax at the time which was 8% provincial and 7% GST.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if teenagers are doing the exact same thing today.
Specifically shoes. Canadians are smuggling shoes to be exact.
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On June 20 2018 20:39 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2018 20:26 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Trump says Canadians are smuggling things across the border because the tariffs are so high. I don't know if that is currently happening. "back in the day" the people i hung out with piled into 2 or 3 cars. We all had on our oldest, raggiest clothing and our worst pair of shoes. We'd go clothes shopping and come back to Canada with 2 layers of clothes on and a great pair of shoes. We'd chuck out old clothes before crossing the border. This was a pretty common way to buy high end clothes.
We went to states with little or no sales tax. We were paying 15% sales tax at the time which was 8% provincial and 7% GST.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if teenagers are doing the exact same thing today. Specifically shoes. Canadians are smuggling shoes to be exact.
i just heard Trump's speech... he said "they scuff them up.. make them look old".
LOLOLOL that is EXACTLY what many of my friends used to do... that's hilarious. i didn't want to scuff up my shoes... so i never did.
he also mentioned "common items".. again that is exactly what we smuggled. We chose to use my 2000 Toyota Echo because it had so many little compartments and hiding spots. Trump should be happy we are smuggling this stuff... its helping the US economy.
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Yeah I'm not seeing the problem here. Is Trump angling this as being bad for the US? This is pretty common across all borders in the entire world. Over here it's bacon and booze from Sweden, who in turn buy their stuff in Denmark, who in turn buys their stuff in Germany.
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to add to Excludos point
i heard from a former Toronto electronics retailer that the Atari 2600 and Intellivision were big items to smuggle in the 80s ... if that's the case .. and i can't see why he is making this up... its been going on forever.
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On June 20 2018 15:17 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2018 14:26 zobz wrote:
So at least perhaps the Democrats could cooperate with a bill that was relatively simple and didn't include any compromises on the border wall or anything like that, and put it to Trump and just let him not sign it. You could argue that that would be pointless, sure, but if the Republicans are going to put it together the Democrats may as well sign it. Yes, I'm not really understanding the democratic tactic. It's strange to refer back to a president who is clearly incompetent and cruel to fix this situation if they have the power to do so themselves. I understand that it is the presidents responsibility but he's not going tot take any responsibility for anything ever. So putting the ball in his court is a tactic that is not going to yield any results for the children. If the republicans 'poison pill' it by putting the wall in it or some other bullshit just call them out on it but surely a matter like this should be able to bring everyone on the same footing and make a simple bill. Show that congress isn't entirely useless. If Trump refuses to sign it, use it as a fighting point to reduce presidential powers, because you can always refer back to Trump not doing what is right while children were suffering.
it is not surely the case that a matter like this would produce a clean simple bill. The republicans have too extensive a history of bad faith and poison pilling. and they don't have full control over their own caucuses to ensure such a thing.
and if the republicans wanted a clean, simple bill, they could do so by letting dems be involved with the drafting of it.
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On June 20 2018 21:14 Excludos wrote:
Yeah I'm not seeing the problem here. Is Trump angling this as being bad for the US? This is pretty common across all borders in the entire world. Over here it's bacon and booze from Sweden, who in turn buy their stuff in Denmark, who in turn buys their stuff in Germany.
Alot of people do come down to the US to shop and yes there is smuggling (Oregon to BC a common path, heck some people to save time will even shop in Washington State which has some of the highest GST rates in the US) but its not even worth a level in the larger scheme to call it shoplifting similar to Europe actually. But in my experience the Europeans are significantly stricter on the movement of non EU goods and deplore pilfering on duties and taxes when there is such movement from outsize the FTA's
Most CBSA agents are the polar opposites of their CBP counterparts both in their demeanor and the sensible execution of their work(Quebec being somewhat of an exception).
They don't care if you bring in some amount of purchases in excess of the duty/GST free amounts and don't declare them. Unless it's regulated stuff. Its just not worth their time to constantly probe.
His anecdote is the equivalent of a case where Trudeau started claiming that many people are boycotting American goods and cancelling US travel plans in retaliation to the US's recent behavior. Because that's what my coworkers and friends are doing. Its a nothing burger talking point that should have zero impact on policy. Just another case of how low the bar is for economic discourse aswell now.
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Yeah the thought of shopping in Washington State to save on taxes is crazy to me, but then again, I'm used to low sales/VAT here in Ohio and Michigan. I kept my purchases while I lived in WA to a minimum because of the sticker shock.
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Per BBC the EU is about to throw their retaliatory tarrifs up on Friday. Coupled with Chinas and Canadas, and Trumps pledge to up tarrifs on anyone who retaliates against his original tarrifs, things are about to get interesting.
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On June 20 2018 21:51 On_Slaught wrote:
Per BBC the EU is about to throw their retaliatory tarrifs up on Friday. Coupled with Chinas and Canadas, and Trumps pledge to up tarrifs on anyone who retaliates against his original tarrifs, things are about to get interesting.
I work in customs brokerage automation. I have been trying direction from both the CBSA and the Finance Policy areas so we can be ready for all the Countervailing. Literally needling them every other day for information to the point where my contact was like "bro, give it a rest, we dont know anything."
The Canadians really dont want to employ the tariffs and are waiting to the last moment. Trade wars hurt. They will probably pull the trigger like the weekend before July 1st and have business scrambling to adjust their sourcing at the last minute.
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I don't envy your job right now, to say the least.
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EPT
