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On June 21 2018 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 11:45 Plansix wrote:
Catch and release was fine. Let people apply, pay the fine and send them on their way with the ankle tracker. It works from all reports.
Immigration reform is a pipe dream with this administration. I mean you know there were plenty of horrific stories from how it was before right? I don't understand how someone could think what we had before was any version of the word "fine". Was this really just about increased separations and detaining asylum seekers (specifically among immigrants from our south) for you guys? I was under the mistaken impression this was about the humanity of the people being abused, not the specific abuse we'll approve.
Do you just come here to pick fights with people you consider to be liberals? I answer your questions sometimes just to see if you care or just want to follow it up with some new slightly more patronizing questions. But you don’t really care, it’s just a vector to pick your next argument.
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On June 21 2018 11:55 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 11:45 Plansix wrote:
Catch and release was fine. Let people apply, pay the fine and send them on their way with the ankle tracker. It works from all reports.
Immigration reform is a pipe dream with this administration. I mean you know there were plenty of horrific stories from how it was before right? I don't understand how someone could think what we had before was any version of the word "fine". Was this really just about increased separations and detaining asylum seekers (specifically among immigrants from our south) for you guys? I was under the mistaken impression this was about the humanity of the people being abused, not the specific abuse we'll approve. Do you just come here to pick fights with people you consider to be liberals? I answer your questions sometimes just to see if you care or just want to follow it up with some new slightly more patronizing questions. But you don’t really care, it’s just a vector to pick your next argument.
Not to pick fights, just to make clear the difference between the left and liberals. The left doesn't think the horrific treatment people were enduring under Obama's immigration policy was fine. Liberals/Democrats do. This is the slow march to the right I've been warning about.
EDIT: A well timed example posted by Danglars.
Some examples of what wasn't "fine":
Examples of the documented abuses include allegations that CBP officials:
-Punched a child’s head three times
-Kicked a child in the ribs
-Used a stun gun on a boy, causing him to fall to the ground, shaking, with his eyes rolling back in his head
-Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him several times
-Verbally abused detained children, calling them dogs and “other ugly things”
-Denied detained children permission to stand or move freely for days and threatened children who stood up with transfer to solitary confinement in a small, freezing room
-Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth
-Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed”
-Left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice
-Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.
-The report also shows evidence of CBP holding migrant children in excess of the 72-hour maximum period permitted by law, as well as officials’ efforts to deport children without due process and via coercion.
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On June 21 2018 11:40 BigFan wrote:
Did you look at the tweet you linked Danglars? If I'm not mistaken, those shelters were for unaccompanied children, not ones that had a family but were separated from them. The tweet has "residential services for unaccompanied children" written on it. That doesn't mean it's a good thing but they are presumably trying to find a relative to take them in while they are housed there seeing as they crossed the border on their own. Totally different issue to what is being discussed here.
This really speaks to whether or not keeping children in "makeshift cages," or previously called "camps that are well within the definition of concentration' " are horrid for their conditions, as had been brought up by the poster I responded to.
10k of the 11k children currently in detention centers arrived alone. The pictures of these children in cages are mostly unaccompanied minor children. If we're talking about the 9% of children there that are the result of separated families, then you have to admit that a percentage, maybe comparable, are going to spend quite a long time there looking for families/not having families as well. Obama dealt with 68,500 unaccompanied children.
Also compare to:
I can't find the statistics on how many migrant children were forced to stay in those cold pens for longer period of times, but we should at least admit that they didn't suddenly become uncomfortably inhospitable in 2018 and not 2011-2016.
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Now that you like the ACLU, how about you read some current stuff Danglars. The Trump administration intentionally made things worse by bringing back private prisons, ending the programs keeping families together, and intentionally separating children from parents as a matter of policy.
In June 2017, the administration ended the Family Case Management Program, which allowed families to be placed into a program, together, that connected them with a case manager and legal orientation that ensured they understood how to apply for asylum and attend immigration court proceedings.
The program had a 99.6 percent appearance rate at immigration court hearings for those enrolled in the program. It’s not only a more humane alternative to family prisons; it’s far less costly for taxpayers.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rights-and-detention/fact-checking-family-separation
At some point you need to come to terms with the fact that you voted for evil, and spin for evil on a daily basis. DJT made things worse and you are bending over backwards to find a way to make it not his (and your) fault.
No, Obama didn't have a child separation policy. Yes, DJT initiated one and the MAGA crew clapped. No, the unaccompanied minor program is not equivalent to the family separation policy of DJT.
"Obama generally refrained from prosecution in cases involving adults who crossed the border with their kids," said Peter Margulies, an immigration law and national security law professor at Roger Williams University School of Law. "In contrast, the current administration has chosen to prosecute adult border-crossers, even when they have kids. That's a choice — one fundamentally different from the choice made by both Obama and previous presidents of both parties."
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/19/matt-schlapp/no-donald-trumps-separation-immigrant-families-was/
Keep reading at the ACLU. THey will englighten you as to your Dear Leader's policy of bringing back private detention centers (the kind that inflict more abuse than public ones). Yes, DJT made things worse. Yes, you spin for him like a good like keyboardtruppen.
The Trump administration wants to expand its network of immigrant jails. In recent months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has called for five new detention facilities to be built and operated by private prison corporations across the country. Critics are alarmed at the rising fortunes of an industry that had fallen out of favor with the previous administration.
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/21/565318778/big-money-as-private-immigrant-jails-boom
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On June 21 2018 11:57 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 11:55 Plansix wrote:On June 21 2018 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 11:45 Plansix wrote:
Catch and release was fine. Let people apply, pay the fine and send them on their way with the ankle tracker. It works from all reports.
Immigration reform is a pipe dream with this administration. I mean you know there were plenty of horrific stories from how it was before right? I don't understand how someone could think what we had before was any version of the word "fine". Was this really just about increased separations and detaining asylum seekers (specifically among immigrants from our south) for you guys? I was under the mistaken impression this was about the humanity of the people being abused, not the specific abuse we'll approve. Do you just come here to pick fights with people you consider to be liberals? I answer your questions sometimes just to see if you care or just want to follow it up with some new slightly more patronizing questions. But you don’t really care, it’s just a vector to pick your next argument. Not to pick fights, just to make clear the difference between the left and liberals. The left doesn't think the horrific treatment people were enduring under Obama's immigration policy was fine. Liberals/Democrats do. This is the slow march to the right I've been warning about. EDIT: A well timed example posted by Danglars. Some examples of what wasn't "fine": Show nested quote +Examples of the documented abuses include allegations that CBP officials:
-Punched a child’s head three times
-Kicked a child in the ribs
-Used a stun gun on a boy, causing him to fall to the ground, shaking, with his eyes rolling back in his head
-Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him several times
-Verbally abused detained children, calling them dogs and “other ugly things”
-Denied detained children permission to stand or move freely for days and threatened children who stood up with transfer to solitary confinement in a small, freezing room
-Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth
-Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed”
-Left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice
-Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.
-The report also shows evidence of CBP holding migrant children in excess of the 72-hour maximum period permitted by law, as well as officials’ efforts to deport children without due process and via coercion.
Why didn’t you talk about it then?
See, the difference between fighting for a just cause and being the whataboutist useful idiot that, at the end, helps atrocities to happen really seems to elude you. Again.
You are so blinded by your hatred of liberals that you parrot fox news rethoric. It might very well be that the unaccompanied migant children program has been a mess for years. But do you even realize you are using that fact to justify Trump separating families and caging children?
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On June 21 2018 14:09 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 11:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 11:55 Plansix wrote:On June 21 2018 11:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 11:45 Plansix wrote:
Catch and release was fine. Let people apply, pay the fine and send them on their way with the ankle tracker. It works from all reports.
Immigration reform is a pipe dream with this administration. I mean you know there were plenty of horrific stories from how it was before right? I don't understand how someone could think what we had before was any version of the word "fine". Was this really just about increased separations and detaining asylum seekers (specifically among immigrants from our south) for you guys? I was under the mistaken impression this was about the humanity of the people being abused, not the specific abuse we'll approve. Do you just come here to pick fights with people you consider to be liberals? I answer your questions sometimes just to see if you care or just want to follow it up with some new slightly more patronizing questions. But you don’t really care, it’s just a vector to pick your next argument. Not to pick fights, just to make clear the difference between the left and liberals. The left doesn't think the horrific treatment people were enduring under Obama's immigration policy was fine. Liberals/Democrats do. This is the slow march to the right I've been warning about. EDIT: A well timed example posted by Danglars. Some examples of what wasn't "fine": Examples of the documented abuses include allegations that CBP officials:
-Punched a child’s head three times
-Kicked a child in the ribs
-Used a stun gun on a boy, causing him to fall to the ground, shaking, with his eyes rolling back in his head
-Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him several times
-Verbally abused detained children, calling them dogs and “other ugly things”
-Denied detained children permission to stand or move freely for days and threatened children who stood up with transfer to solitary confinement in a small, freezing room
-Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth
-Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed”
-Left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice
-Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.
-The report also shows evidence of CBP holding migrant children in excess of the 72-hour maximum period permitted by law, as well as officials’ efforts to deport children without due process and via coercion. Why didn’t you talk about it then? See, the difference between fighting for a just cause and being the whataboutist useful idiot that, at the end, helps atrocities to happen really seems to elude you. Again. You are so blinded by your hatred of liberals that you parrot fox news rethoric. It might very well be that the unaccompanied migant children program has been a mess for years. But do you even realize you are using that fact to justify Trump separating families and caging children?
But I did though?
Imagining for the moment I didn't, the way to do it is to admit one was blinded by partisanship and media manipulation and recognize now that it wasn't 'fine' and that it was horrific and by no measure an acceptable place to return.
If you're going to use the talking point attempting to dismiss the atrociousness of Obama's immigration policy at least use it right. It looks foolish when you try to use it against an argument like mine because it demonstrates you don't understand one or both of them.
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I think we should direct less energy arguing about stupid shit like when this stuff started and whatever administration did it worse. Perhaps now that it is in the national spot light and people are actually aware of it we should focus on how best to resolve the issue and prevent it from lapsing back into that state when people forget about it 6 months from now?
Dems/Republicans slinging shit at each other while GH calls everyone bad is kind of useless and is a conversation saved for once the problem has actually been properly addressed.
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On June 21 2018 14:52 Slaughter wrote:
I think we should direct less energy arguing about stupid shit like when this stuff started and whatever administration did it worse. Perhaps now that it is in the national spot light and people are actually aware of it we should focus on how best to resolve the issue and prevent it from lapsing back into that state when people forget about it 6 months from now?
Dems/Republicans slinging shit at each other while GH calls everyone bad is kind of useless and is a conversation saved for once the problem has actually been properly addressed.
I think we should call this argument out for the bad argument it is.
Thinking you can fix this without understanding how it started is patently absurd.
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On the politics of this, which to be fair has been my main focus, I found this interesting. While the policy remains unpopular (other people were posting polls here earlier):
+ Show Spoiler +
That second option, which, like clockwork, all the Capitol Hill Democrats said today was also inhumane, is at 49% among Democrats. It looks like most people know what catch and release would be like. 64% want at least whole family units detained. Link to poll in tweet.
Edit: caveat that I've never supported government by poll and am strongly concerned by the difference between the way things poll vs. the reality of implementation (see: left-wing ideas with majority/plurality support that go no where, like "national background checks").
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On June 21 2018 14:56 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 14:52 Slaughter wrote:
I think we should direct less energy arguing about stupid shit like when this stuff started and whatever administration did it worse. Perhaps now that it is in the national spot light and people are actually aware of it we should focus on how best to resolve the issue and prevent it from lapsing back into that state when people forget about it 6 months from now?
Dems/Republicans slinging shit at each other while GH calls everyone bad is kind of useless and is a conversation saved for once the problem has actually been properly addressed. I think we should call this argument out for the bad argument it is. Thinking you can fix this without understanding how it started is patently absurd.
I don't think it matters what administration started it. Who cares is this stuff happened under Obama or if Trump exacerbated/created it?
Assigning blame is done for political or retrospective purposes but it doesn't help the actual problem. It gets in the way of solving it. Before Trumps EO congress was trying to play this game and was probably not going to do anything because of it. There was an immediate need to address and pages and pages of this thread going back and forth trying to point fingers is pointless at this stage and is indicative of the bickering that distracts. The EO from Trump isn't even the solution, there needs to be greater thought put into it in a more comprehensive reform package but that will never happen because as has happened for years, both sides are just using mud slinging and finger pointing to score political points.
So no it is not absurd. We know the basic origins of the problem already, its this same fucking thing I just told you about. No one cares to actual examine the problem closely because it has been finger pointing and buck passing instead of solving it.
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On June 21 2018 15:07 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 14:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 14:52 Slaughter wrote:
I think we should direct less energy arguing about stupid shit like when this stuff started and whatever administration did it worse. Perhaps now that it is in the national spot light and people are actually aware of it we should focus on how best to resolve the issue and prevent it from lapsing back into that state when people forget about it 6 months from now?
Dems/Republicans slinging shit at each other while GH calls everyone bad is kind of useless and is a conversation saved for once the problem has actually been properly addressed. I think we should call this argument out for the bad argument it is. Thinking you can fix this without understanding how it started is patently absurd. I don't think it matters what administration started it. Who cares is this stuff happened under Obama or if Trump exacerbated/created it? Assigning blame is done for political or retrospective purposes but it doesn't help the actual problem. It gets in the way of solving it. Before Trumps EO congress was trying to play this game and was probably not going to do anything because of it. There was an immediate need to address and pages and pages of this thread going back and forth trying to point fingers is pointless at this stage and is indicative of the bickering that distracts. The EO from Trump isn't even the solution, there needs to be greater thought put into it in a more comprehensive reform package but that will never happen because as has happened for years, both sides are just using mud slinging and finger pointing to score political points. So no it is not absurd. We know the basic origins of the problem already, its this same fucking thing I just told you about. No one cares to actual examine the problem closely because it has been finger pointing and buck passing instead of solving it.
I'm all for looking at the problem, but I specifically established that liberals/democrats think what we had was acceptable. It wasn't.
Liberals/Democrats want to claim the moral high ground and invoke the images of caged children but don't want to engage with the fact that the caged children predate Trump. That's "in the past". No, it's the horrific violence that Democrats turned a blind eye to for long enough for Trump to take over and take it past their comfort zone.
So if we want to get at the issue it means not focusing on Trump as much and focusing on the root issues that led to the atrocious behavior under more administrations than just the last two.
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On June 21 2018 15:13 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 15:07 Slaughter wrote:On June 21 2018 14:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 14:52 Slaughter wrote:
I think we should direct less energy arguing about stupid shit like when this stuff started and whatever administration did it worse. Perhaps now that it is in the national spot light and people are actually aware of it we should focus on how best to resolve the issue and prevent it from lapsing back into that state when people forget about it 6 months from now?
Dems/Republicans slinging shit at each other while GH calls everyone bad is kind of useless and is a conversation saved for once the problem has actually been properly addressed. I think we should call this argument out for the bad argument it is. Thinking you can fix this without understanding how it started is patently absurd. I don't think it matters what administration started it. Who cares is this stuff happened under Obama or if Trump exacerbated/created it? Assigning blame is done for political or retrospective purposes but it doesn't help the actual problem. It gets in the way of solving it. Before Trumps EO congress was trying to play this game and was probably not going to do anything because of it. There was an immediate need to address and pages and pages of this thread going back and forth trying to point fingers is pointless at this stage and is indicative of the bickering that distracts. The EO from Trump isn't even the solution, there needs to be greater thought put into it in a more comprehensive reform package but that will never happen because as has happened for years, both sides are just using mud slinging and finger pointing to score political points. So no it is not absurd. We know the basic origins of the problem already, its this same fucking thing I just told you about. No one cares to actual examine the problem closely because it has been finger pointing and buck passing instead of solving it. I'm all for looking at the problem, but I specifically established that liberals/democrats think what we had was acceptable. It wasn't. Liberals/Democrats want to claim the moral high ground and invoke the images of caged children but don't want to engage with the fact that the caged children predate Trump. That's "in the past". No, it's the horrific violence that Democrats turned a blind eye to for long enough for Trump to take over and take it past their comfort zone. So if we want to get at the issue it means not focusing on Trump as much and focusing on the root issues that led to the atrocious behavior under more administrations than just the last two.
Which is why I tried to establish that this very type of thing is a big part of what caused it in the first place. It has been a game of hot potato finger pointing for years with very few people even aware of what was actually happening because they were sucked into the political fights. It has always been a big issue but it is one that everyone engaged with on a very shallow level. They just had a vague idea in their head of how they think their side would handle the issue and just assign all blame to the opposite side and didn't stop to think about what was happening on the ground.
The issue has been a mess for long time, anyone arguing for going back to how we did it before Trump would be silly because it everyone considered it a shitshow before anyway, which is why it always is a huge issue in politics the last 20 years. The "origins of the problem" arguments of the last few pages have culminated in little better then "but Obama...but Trump....". Have they really amounted to anything of substance? Besides the initial providing of information that our government has been bad on for longer then most people thought, all discussion has mostly degenerated into attack, defense, and whataboutisms.
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On June 21 2018 11:07 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 10:10 ChristianS wrote:On June 21 2018 09:32 Danglars wrote:On June 21 2018 09:05 ChristianS wrote:On June 21 2018 08:42 Danglars wrote:On June 21 2018 08:28 ChristianS wrote:
So if I understand correctly, Trump's executive order requires that children be detained with their parents, but does nothing to address the court decision forbidding the government from imprisoning children for more than 20 days, meaning that after 20 days, we're back to separating all these kids from their parents. Presumably it's just an attempt to buy some time/be able to blame the courts when kids start getting separated again.
Is this gonna work? Are people really gonna just shrug and say "oh, I guess Trump fixed it"? How exactly is Trump supposed to address the court decision, again? If the court says to separate families or let lawbreakers go free, and Trump's not willing to do the second, he has very little ability to change the first until a superior court renders a different decision. Obama wanted to jail the families with their children until somebody won a lawsuit, after all. Then he had to content himself with catch and release and caging unaccompanied children. Example of photo from 2014 showing children in cages. I mean, the obvious answer is "not imprison non-violent asylum seekers with kids"? You keep using terminology like "letting lawbreakers free" or "catch and release," but these aren't convicted violent criminals being set loose on the streets, they're immigrants exercising their legal right to apply for asylum. The administration wants to deport people and doesn't want to have to wait for a court to say they can, so they're hoping to scare people out of excercising their right to apply for asylum by putting them in prison and telling them they won't see their kids for a while (maybe ever) unless they don't apply for asylum and agree to be deported. That was and continues to be fucked up, thus the public outcry, thus the administration feeling the need to issue an EO "addressing" the issue. The only justification I've heard for imprisoning them is "otherwise they'll just run off and clip their ankle bracelet." First of all, please provide evidence that this is the normal occurence, because the data I've seen says the vast majority of asylum seekers do, in fact, show up to their court date. But second of all, keeping track of people with ankle bracelets is law enforcement's job. If they're fucking that up, they should figure out how to do their job right, not take these people away from their kids because they couldn't figure it out. Trump is free to mobilize more resources to keep closer tabs on asylum seekers. Check up on them weekly if you want, and set off an alarm if they try to cross state lines. Treat it like parole, and imprison the ones that you catch trying to disappear. But the so-called "zero-tolerance policy" as applied by the administration was morally bankrupt, and it looks like the new EO does nothing to change that. Their “legal right to apply for asylum” is an interesting dodge. We have points of entry for legal right to apply for asylum. Zero separations. They haven’t committed a crime, after all! It’s clear that the previous administration and this administration intended it as a deterrent. That part is true. However, you’re wrong to contrast “The administration wants to deport.” They want to detain until an judge rules on the asylum claim. They want to deport people with no legal claim to be in the country. I see nothing but your ill will presumption to support your claim. Talking about "points of entry" is the dodge - the question is how to handle undocumented immigrants who claim asylum, and their right to apply for asylum is central to the issue. That legal right is why the administration can't just deport them immediately. If they apply for asylum an immigration court has to rule on the case before they can be deported. I'm gonna skip asking wtf you're getting at with "the previous administration" business because it's not relevant, but what is relevant is that immigrant families have been told unless they agree to deportation (and, by extension, waive their right to stay in the country and apply for asylum), they'll be imprisoned and taken away from their kids. If you honestly believe the administration implemented the policy that forced parents into that choice and didn't explicitly intend for that threat to discourage them from trying for asylum, I have a bridge to sell you. The only other justification I've seen put forward by the administration besides "it's a deterrent" is "it's just applying the law equally to everyone." And don't get me wrong, there's a rule of law argument that selective enforcement is a bad thing and prone to tyrannical abuses. Problem is, just last week we established this administration doesn't give a shit about rule of law and you were all for it. And as selective enforcement goes, prosecutorial discretion is WAAAAAY less questionable than refusing to defend a democratically enacted law in court from spurious lawsuits to try to repeal it without the votes. Look, separating thousands of children from their parents and keeping them indefinitely in detention centers, makeshift cages in warehouses, etc. is a really big evil. Your political loyalties are such that you've been put in the unenviable situation of having to try to justify that policy. So far you've come up with (and I'm paraphrasing, of course, so feel free to correct my paraphrases where you think my wording doesn't accurately represent you): "Well if you don't imprison the parents, sometimes they run away and clip their ankle bracelets and don't make their court dates. So we have to imprison them all." and "There's a law on the books that says this is illegal, so Rule of law says we have to prosecute them." The problem with the first, as I see it, is that you're committing a large, guaranteed evil (splitting up families, traumatizing kids, putting them in conditions that would be considered child abuse if a parent did them) to prevent a percent chance of another evil which I would argue is much smaller than the guaranteed one. The problem with the second is that prosecutorial discretion is exercised in lots of areas where the alternative isn't large-scale child abuse and the administration hasn't made any fuss about those other cases. So what am I missing here? Do those paraphrases miss some key nuance of your argument? And while we're here, can you clarify whether you actually support this new policy or not? Here again you claim privilege to have the only means of classification. You want it to be seen as only "how to handle undocumented immigrants who claim asylum." Well, these are lawbreaking immigrants, or illegal immigrants. We also have points of entry where undocumented persons may submit their claims for asylum. That's the law. If these people are being turned away at the points of entry, that's the administration breaking the law. But you're basically eliding the core issue with your choice of terms. You're also flawed in your thinking, and maybe we'll have to leave your own presumptions at just what they are. I made my case and you're unswayed, so whatever. I'm not in it to break some assumptions people make of the Trump administration's motivation. Your political motivations are such that the previous administration cannot do no wrong. If you don't like "makeshift cages in warehouses" you're essentially saying "I disapprove of the Obama administration's detention centers for minor children." And the second people can recognize that Trump didn't make these, and Trump wasn't the first person to put hundreds/thousands of children in them, then we might move onto what parts of this issue are meaningful now. I sense a great deal of political gamesmanship that suits the speaker to ignore past history and focus on Trump as the beginning of every possible evil present. I'm not playing those games with anybody. Court decisions and these facilities are years past now, not an invention of the last two weeks. I will not be funneled into these stupid rhetorical games where heads you win, tails I lose. Either you respect the context and see how a 100% enforcement reflects or departs from the context, or you're just another political partisan here rooting on your side and not talking children. Like Introvert, I'm running out of patience on this score. The solution is legislative fixes and more spending on judges and detention centers. It isn't the false dichotomy of court-mandated separation after detention or prosecutorial catch-and-release. Schumer's perfidy in this matter is quite expressive: He could support a legislative fix that unites families awaiting the processing of their asylum claim. Instead, it's political maneuvering against the Trump administration. Trump's probably right to check an appeal of the court decision in the meantime, but this absolutely needs a legislative fix now. So put some heat on your elected representatives for the love of God.
Asylum is like getting medical treatment. If possible you should really go through the proper channels, make appointments, wait your turn, etc. But the nature of the thing is sometimes it's an emergency and you don't have time to wait. I don't care that much about terminology (a rose by any other name and all that) so we can call them illegal immigrants if you want, but if someone is in a very dangerous situation so they cross the border, turn themselves in to border patrol, and apply for asylum, which is then granted, calling that person a "criminal" is just being dense. I jaywalked last week but if someone made a fuss of calling me a criminal for the rest of my life, they're just being an asshole.
It's a bit rich being accused of using biased terminology to control the conversation considering the boatload of buzzwords immigration hawks insist on importing. "Catch and release." "Chain migration." "Sanctuary cities." They're all pithy, memorable phrases designed to give a very slightly false impression about what they describe. "Catch and release" alludes to fishing, except in fishing you don't give the fish an ankle monitor and require it to show up to a later court date on threat of being deported from the lake. "Chain migration" is just a scary-sounding name for legal immigrants wanting to be able to bring their family to live with them. "Sanctuary cities" sounds like local governments are specifically preventing ICE from touching people in their jurisdiction, but most of the time it's just used to describe jurisdictions that don't specifically use their local resources to help ICE do their jobs. So excuse me if I roll my eyes a bit at you complaining about biased terminology.
I don't mind saying the Obama administration was crueler to immigrants than they had to be in some cases. I've been pretty open about not knowing that much about the particulars (I'm young, and only started following politics pretty recently), but frankly, immigration is a really hard issue. I talked the other day about Radiolab's series on how our border security policy has led to tens of thousands of people dying horrific deaths in desert and mountain crossings, only for the environment to rapidly consume their corpse so we don't have to feel as bad. We didn't kill them ourselves, but we put them in a desperate enough situation that they'd be at risk, while we quietly calculated how likely their torturous death would be to deter the next desparate person from even trying. That started with a Clinton-era policy.
But none of that changes the fact that Trump's new policy is openly, intentionally, and unnecessarily cruel to an extremely vulnerable class of human beings. Obama sued to try to keep children with their mothers, and when he lost he ultimately stopped imprisoning the mothers. Meanwhile Trump has treated this cruelty as leverage, either to discourage applying for asylum, or to discourage future immigrants, or to bring Democrats to the table on passing his policy goals. Everything he's said and done is consistent with someone whose issue is not with illegal immigration, but with foreign-born residents in general. They're increasing crime, he insists absent any evidence. They're an "infestation." Through a combination of logistical incompetence and total indifference to the immigrants' wellbeing, he's created a totally unforced humanitarian crisis.
So stop trying to blame Obama for doing something on a much smaller scale that looks maybe kinda similar if you squint. Stop blaming Chuck Schumer for not making policy concessions just to stop the child abuse. Stop insisting this was necessary because all those parents would have skipped their court date and gone underground (or else provide some evidence). Trump implemented a totally unforced policy change that resulted in thousands of children being torn from their parents (in less than a month, if I'm not mistaken), a humanitarian crisis so intense that even famed counterpuncher Donald Trump, who never ever apologizes or backs down, felt the need to at least pretend to reverse the policy. He should stop abusing the kids, put in the logistical work to find their parents and reunite them, and then negotiate with the Democrats without holding a gun to any hostages. If Republicans demand any less, it just proves how totally they've abandoned their moral compass.
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On June 21 2018 15:33 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 15:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 15:07 Slaughter wrote:On June 21 2018 14:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 14:52 Slaughter wrote:
I think we should direct less energy arguing about stupid shit like when this stuff started and whatever administration did it worse. Perhaps now that it is in the national spot light and people are actually aware of it we should focus on how best to resolve the issue and prevent it from lapsing back into that state when people forget about it 6 months from now?
Dems/Republicans slinging shit at each other while GH calls everyone bad is kind of useless and is a conversation saved for once the problem has actually been properly addressed. I think we should call this argument out for the bad argument it is. Thinking you can fix this without understanding how it started is patently absurd. I don't think it matters what administration started it. Who cares is this stuff happened under Obama or if Trump exacerbated/created it? Assigning blame is done for political or retrospective purposes but it doesn't help the actual problem. It gets in the way of solving it. Before Trumps EO congress was trying to play this game and was probably not going to do anything because of it. There was an immediate need to address and pages and pages of this thread going back and forth trying to point fingers is pointless at this stage and is indicative of the bickering that distracts. The EO from Trump isn't even the solution, there needs to be greater thought put into it in a more comprehensive reform package but that will never happen because as has happened for years, both sides are just using mud slinging and finger pointing to score political points. So no it is not absurd. We know the basic origins of the problem already, its this same fucking thing I just told you about. No one cares to actual examine the problem closely because it has been finger pointing and buck passing instead of solving it. I'm all for looking at the problem, but I specifically established that liberals/democrats think what we had was acceptable. It wasn't. Liberals/Democrats want to claim the moral high ground and invoke the images of caged children but don't want to engage with the fact that the caged children predate Trump. That's "in the past". No, it's the horrific violence that Democrats turned a blind eye to for long enough for Trump to take over and take it past their comfort zone. So if we want to get at the issue it means not focusing on Trump as much and focusing on the root issues that led to the atrocious behavior under more administrations than just the last two. Which is why I tried to establish that this very type of thing is a big part of what caused it in the first place. It has been a game of hot potato finger pointing for years with very few people even aware of what was actually happening because they were sucked into the political fights. It has always been a big issue but it is one that everyone engaged with on a very shallow level. They just had a vague idea in their head of how they think their side would handle the issue and just assign all blame to the opposite side and didn't stop to think about what was happening on the ground. The issue has been a mess for long time, anyone arguing for going back to how we did it before Trump would be silly because it everyone considered it a shitshow before anyway, which is why it always is a huge issue in politics the last 20 years. The "origins of the problem" arguments of the last few pages have culminated in little better then "but Obama...but Trump....". Have they really amounted to anything of substance? Besides the initial providing of information that our government has been bad on for longer then most people thought, all discussion has mostly degenerated into attack, defense, and whataboutisms.
We seem to be mostly in agreement and you just mistakenly lumped me in with the wrong crowd.
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On June 21 2018 15:36 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 15:33 Slaughter wrote:On June 21 2018 15:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 15:07 Slaughter wrote:On June 21 2018 14:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 14:52 Slaughter wrote:
I think we should direct less energy arguing about stupid shit like when this stuff started and whatever administration did it worse. Perhaps now that it is in the national spot light and people are actually aware of it we should focus on how best to resolve the issue and prevent it from lapsing back into that state when people forget about it 6 months from now?
Dems/Republicans slinging shit at each other while GH calls everyone bad is kind of useless and is a conversation saved for once the problem has actually been properly addressed. I think we should call this argument out for the bad argument it is. Thinking you can fix this without understanding how it started is patently absurd. I don't think it matters what administration started it. Who cares is this stuff happened under Obama or if Trump exacerbated/created it? Assigning blame is done for political or retrospective purposes but it doesn't help the actual problem. It gets in the way of solving it. Before Trumps EO congress was trying to play this game and was probably not going to do anything because of it. There was an immediate need to address and pages and pages of this thread going back and forth trying to point fingers is pointless at this stage and is indicative of the bickering that distracts. The EO from Trump isn't even the solution, there needs to be greater thought put into it in a more comprehensive reform package but that will never happen because as has happened for years, both sides are just using mud slinging and finger pointing to score political points. So no it is not absurd. We know the basic origins of the problem already, its this same fucking thing I just told you about. No one cares to actual examine the problem closely because it has been finger pointing and buck passing instead of solving it. I'm all for looking at the problem, but I specifically established that liberals/democrats think what we had was acceptable. It wasn't. Liberals/Democrats want to claim the moral high ground and invoke the images of caged children but don't want to engage with the fact that the caged children predate Trump. That's "in the past". No, it's the horrific violence that Democrats turned a blind eye to for long enough for Trump to take over and take it past their comfort zone. So if we want to get at the issue it means not focusing on Trump as much and focusing on the root issues that led to the atrocious behavior under more administrations than just the last two. Which is why I tried to establish that this very type of thing is a big part of what caused it in the first place. It has been a game of hot potato finger pointing for years with very few people even aware of what was actually happening because they were sucked into the political fights. It has always been a big issue but it is one that everyone engaged with on a very shallow level. They just had a vague idea in their head of how they think their side would handle the issue and just assign all blame to the opposite side and didn't stop to think about what was happening on the ground. The issue has been a mess for long time, anyone arguing for going back to how we did it before Trump would be silly because it everyone considered it a shitshow before anyway, which is why it always is a huge issue in politics the last 20 years. The "origins of the problem" arguments of the last few pages have culminated in little better then "but Obama...but Trump....". Have they really amounted to anything of substance? Besides the initial providing of information that our government has been bad on for longer then most people thought, all discussion has mostly degenerated into attack, defense, and whataboutisms. We seem to be mostly in agreement and you just mistakenly lumped me in with the wrong crowd.
Possibly, been busy lately so I only skim the thread past few weeks since it moves quickly. Wouldn't be the first time we go back and forth and realize we mostly agree. Forgive me if this was the case.
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On June 21 2018 15:38 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 15:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 15:33 Slaughter wrote:On June 21 2018 15:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 15:07 Slaughter wrote:On June 21 2018 14:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 21 2018 14:52 Slaughter wrote:
I think we should direct less energy arguing about stupid shit like when this stuff started and whatever administration did it worse. Perhaps now that it is in the national spot light and people are actually aware of it we should focus on how best to resolve the issue and prevent it from lapsing back into that state when people forget about it 6 months from now?
Dems/Republicans slinging shit at each other while GH calls everyone bad is kind of useless and is a conversation saved for once the problem has actually been properly addressed. I think we should call this argument out for the bad argument it is. Thinking you can fix this without understanding how it started is patently absurd. I don't think it matters what administration started it. Who cares is this stuff happened under Obama or if Trump exacerbated/created it? Assigning blame is done for political or retrospective purposes but it doesn't help the actual problem. It gets in the way of solving it. Before Trumps EO congress was trying to play this game and was probably not going to do anything because of it. There was an immediate need to address and pages and pages of this thread going back and forth trying to point fingers is pointless at this stage and is indicative of the bickering that distracts. The EO from Trump isn't even the solution, there needs to be greater thought put into it in a more comprehensive reform package but that will never happen because as has happened for years, both sides are just using mud slinging and finger pointing to score political points. So no it is not absurd. We know the basic origins of the problem already, its this same fucking thing I just told you about. No one cares to actual examine the problem closely because it has been finger pointing and buck passing instead of solving it. I'm all for looking at the problem, but I specifically established that liberals/democrats think what we had was acceptable. It wasn't. Liberals/Democrats want to claim the moral high ground and invoke the images of caged children but don't want to engage with the fact that the caged children predate Trump. That's "in the past". No, it's the horrific violence that Democrats turned a blind eye to for long enough for Trump to take over and take it past their comfort zone. So if we want to get at the issue it means not focusing on Trump as much and focusing on the root issues that led to the atrocious behavior under more administrations than just the last two. Which is why I tried to establish that this very type of thing is a big part of what caused it in the first place. It has been a game of hot potato finger pointing for years with very few people even aware of what was actually happening because they were sucked into the political fights. It has always been a big issue but it is one that everyone engaged with on a very shallow level. They just had a vague idea in their head of how they think their side would handle the issue and just assign all blame to the opposite side and didn't stop to think about what was happening on the ground. The issue has been a mess for long time, anyone arguing for going back to how we did it before Trump would be silly because it everyone considered it a shitshow before anyway, which is why it always is a huge issue in politics the last 20 years. The "origins of the problem" arguments of the last few pages have culminated in little better then "but Obama...but Trump....". Have they really amounted to anything of substance? Besides the initial providing of information that our government has been bad on for longer then most people thought, all discussion has mostly degenerated into attack, defense, and whataboutisms. We seem to be mostly in agreement and you just mistakenly lumped me in with the wrong crowd. Possibly, been busy lately so I only skim the thread past few weeks since it moves quickly. Wouldn't be the first time we go back and forth and realize we mostly agree. Forgive me if this was the case.
No problem, happens. I tried before to make the connection between ICE/BP and the police before but it went mostly unnoticed. That ACLU report details many instances that we also know to be pretty common occurrences at domestically aimed detention facilities for adults and minors.
Looking closer at the areas of overlap and unique circumstances of the various groups could be quite informative as to how we address not only the horrible things happening as a result of the new more hostile policy but also the inhuman treatment of those that have been abused for decades (necessarily including the more recent additions).
For instance, we don't need ICE at all. It's something created recently (Bush Admin with Dem support) and it could disappear just as quickly. So abolishing the agency altogether (especially considering the heinous crimes they've done nothing to remedy) is even more reasonable than abolishing the police.
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On June 21 2018 07:27 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 07:22 iamthedave wrote:On June 21 2018 07:16 Jockmcplop wrote:On June 21 2018 07:13 Danglars wrote:On June 21 2018 06:56 Jockmcplop wrote:
A bit of a random question:
Everyone has talked alot about the rise of populism and far left/right groups, but I was wondering how important the Snowden leaks were if you look at the timings and context.
It seems to me like this event was a tipping point for many Western countries, and really drove home the realization that the current neoliberal establishment is our enemy, not our friend.
Ever since Snowden, things seem to have escalated extremely quickly with Brexit, Trump, Italy, eastern Europe etc.
In my opinion, the Snowden leaks will go down as one of the defining moments of the current political age. For defining moments, Trump Brexit and the european migrant crisis (if you have to put a moment, then Merkel's original decision to open the border) all supersede Snowden. It's still of moderate to high importance. My point is that Trump and Brexit are a result of Snowden. The leaks made it clear that our governments (at the time) are against us, not representatives of us, and that they view their people as a threat. Immediately after this, people started working on dismantling long held political assumptions. Brexit has nothing to do with Snowden. Literally nothing. We've always had issues with being in the EU, and the Conservative Party especially didn't like being in the EU. Nigel Farage + Daily Mail blitz on the issue gradually ramped up the pressure on already existing divisions, until the vote became inevitable under a Conservative government, because the issue was on the verge of tearing the party in half. Brexit is an anti-establishment movement, far more thank a racist one (I assume that is what you are getting at). You could look at it in a very simple way, and just say that Brexit is a result of Farage, but if we analysed everything without looking at the deeper causes we would never get anywhere. Nuclear weapons weren't a result of Hitler, but Oppenheimer, right? The rise in anti-establishment movements all across the West happened at exactly the same time. Are you saying that it was all Farage, or just refusing to look at the context and simply seeing Trump, Brexit and all the other simultaneous populist movements as coincidental individual occurrences with no deeper cause at all?
I wasn't getting at that, no.
The Conservative Party represents the very old school British way of thinking that we don't really need anyone else to get along, irrespective of immigration, that's how they think. The EU fundamentally goes against core Conservative thought in Britain. Here's a brief summary:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/07/british-euroscepticism-a-brief-history
By all means dig deeper, but the root of our skepticism goes back to... like... the afternoon after we joined. Thatcher - because Thatcher still rules British politics from beyond the grave - has more influence on it than Snowden did. You'll note originally the Tories put us in and Labour were skeptical, but things went through a paradigm shift after She Who Must Not Be Named got involved, further demonstrating how important Thatcher was to the modern political sphere.
On June 21 2018 07:45 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 07:40 Kyadytim wrote:On June 21 2018 07:27 Jockmcplop wrote:On June 21 2018 07:22 iamthedave wrote:On June 21 2018 07:16 Jockmcplop wrote:On June 21 2018 07:13 Danglars wrote:On June 21 2018 06:56 Jockmcplop wrote:
A bit of a random question:
Everyone has talked alot about the rise of populism and far left/right groups, but I was wondering how important the Snowden leaks were if you look at the timings and context.
It seems to me like this event was a tipping point for many Western countries, and really drove home the realization that the current neoliberal establishment is our enemy, not our friend.
Ever since Snowden, things seem to have escalated extremely quickly with Brexit, Trump, Italy, eastern Europe etc.
In my opinion, the Snowden leaks will go down as one of the defining moments of the current political age. For defining moments, Trump Brexit and the european migrant crisis (if you have to put a moment, then Merkel's original decision to open the border) all supersede Snowden. It's still of moderate to high importance. My point is that Trump and Brexit are a result of Snowden. The leaks made it clear that our governments (at the time) are against us, not representatives of us, and that they view their people as a threat. Immediately after this, people started working on dismantling long held political assumptions. Brexit has nothing to do with Snowden. Literally nothing. We've always had issues with being in the EU, and the Conservative Party especially didn't like being in the EU. Nigel Farage + Daily Mail blitz on the issue gradually ramped up the pressure on already existing divisions, until the vote became inevitable under a Conservative government, because the issue was on the verge of tearing the party in half. Brexit is an anti-establishment movement, far more thank a racist one (I assume that is what you are getting at). You could look at it in a very simple way, and just say that Brexit is a result of Farage, but if we analysed everything without looking at the deeper causes we would never get anywhere. Nuclear weapons weren't a result of Hitler, but Oppenheimer, right? The rise in anti-establishment movements all across the West happened at exactly the same time. Are you saying that it was all Farage, or just refusing to look at the context and simply seeing Trump, Brexit and all the other simultaneous populist movements as coincidental individual occurrences with no deeper cause at all? Maybe consider how the increased numbers of refugees and migrants from the middle east helped anti-immigrant sentiment grow, which empowered nationalist movement across Europe. Because the common thread has been "We need to stop the immigrants," a lot more than "the government is the enemy." The movement isn't populism, it's nativism. And it had very little to do with Snowden and a whole lot more to do with the way the US fucked up a bunch of Muslim majority nations and set the stage for ISIS and the simultaneous and possibly connected push back against autocracies usually referred to collectively as the Arab Spring. The two combined led to a large swell of migrants and refugees from Muslim majority nations at the same time as Europe and the US was dealing with intermittent terrorism connected to ISIS. Nativists jumped all over connecting the migrants and refugees to terrorist attacks, which is why the big gains for "populist" movements has been among nativist far-right parties. The big gains haven't just been for nativist movements though. Corbyn in the UK and Sanders in the US are anything but nativist, and they were popular enough to cause real worries for the neolibs. I'll agree that nativist movements are also on the rise. I don't think you can separate the causes of Trump and Sanders that easily though. Many of the things that Trump supporters hate about Clinton are also things that Sanders supporters hate about Clinton. The far left and far right are both making huge gains, at the expense of the centrist political establishment. I'm just trying to think of the causes of this, and yeah, the migration crisis is a part of it, but I think the fallout from the 2008 crash and revelations of the scale of governments treating their own populations as hostile are huge factors.
Corbyn's gains can be put squarely at the foot of Labour's identity crisis after the fall of Gordon Brown. The Blair years seem to have given people a memory wipe over Labour's actual roots, because Blair's entire strategy was to slide a bit to the right and become more like the Tories to steal their voters, then push Labourish policies while in power.
Since he fell, the Labour Party's electorate is suddenly realising that the party - lacking the leader with the vision, regardless of whether you agree with the vision or not - is suddenly no longer representing them. Corbyn benefited immensely from being perceived as a strict, principled leftie, and specifically from being one of the Labour backbenchers who rejected the Iraq War, when almost the entire party backed it. That incident tarnished the whole party over time, destroyed Blair, and gave Corbyn a lionised status as the One Principled Man.
You're trying to draw parallels between US and UK politics, but you're planing away the different forces at play. The Iraq War is probably a much bigger deal in terms of consequences to UK politics than Edward Snowden, and David Cameron pulling a Blair and sliding left to steal some of Brown's thunder also made a big dent. Cameron will always be reviled as the man who brought us Brexit (somewhat unfairly, as his hands were tied), but he played an enormous role in making the Tories relevant again, as well as dragging them kicking and screaming towards the left.
I'm far more Labour than Tory, but I'll always be thankful for Davie C, because I think he genuinely did forestall, if not necessarily prevent, us turning into the same polarised blithering shitshow that is politics in the United States.
On June 21 2018 11:02 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2018 10:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:We have a child in control of the nuclear arsenal... whose temper tantrums now involves throwing things. President Donald Trump reportedly tossed candy at German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the recent G7 summit.
According to CBS News correspondent Ian Bremmer, Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pressed Trump to sign a communique to commit to a rules-based international order.
“Trump was sitting there with his arms crossed, clearly not liking the fact that he felt like they were ganging up on him,” Bremmer reported. “Eventually he agreed. He said, okay I’ll sign it.”
“At that point, he stood up, he put his hand in his suit jacket pocket and he took two Starburst candies out, threw them on the table and said to Merkel, ‘Here, Angela, don’t say I never gave you anything,'” Bremmer explained.
The correspondent said that the exchanged showed Trump’s “emotional state.”
Trump eventually removed his name from the communique.
“His personal relationship with Merkel is deeply broken,” Bremmer added. “The leaders obviously do not respect each other.” Source Nothing bad can come of throwing candy at the most powerful leader of the most powerful bloc on earth, I’m sure. Fortunately the Germans have a notoriously good sense of humour, female politicians aren’t worried about being treated with respect, and nothing bad ever happens when you annoy Germany.
And that Angela Merkel, what a joker. Why, I believe she's known to have smiled at least once, and isn't at all renowned for being solid, straightforward, highly intelligent, and extremely suspicious of leaders who don't show some or all of those qualities.
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On June 21 2018 14:52 Slaughter wrote:
I think we should direct less energy arguing about stupid shit like when this stuff started and whatever administration did it worse. Perhaps now that it is in the national spot light and people are actually aware of it we should focus on how best to resolve the issue and prevent it from lapsing back into that state when people forget about it 6 months from now?
Dems/Republicans slinging shit at each other while GH calls everyone bad is kind of useless and is a conversation saved for once the problem has actually been properly addressed.
The best way to solve this issue would be to create cohesive legislation for legal immigration, and remove all power from ICE and allow more humane organizations like *shudder* the police take over their tasks. Simultaneously pardon dreamers and illegal immigrants who have been productive members of society for > 10 years. But that would require Congress to do something not-shitty, and in an election year no less. So all that is going to happen is that this is going to blow around the headlines for a bit until some other crisis is shinier and newer and the outrage machine can start over.
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@GH
Could Obama have done more through executive orders or would it have required legislation from Congress?
If its the latter then there you have your answer. Regardless of if they wanted to or not the Democrats were in no position to pass any form of Immigration reform with a completely hostile Republican party in control of Congress that would, and still won't, ever accept to any policy you would consider adequate.
Yes the current system might not be good. Is it better then what Trump is doing? Hell yes. Is there any possibility of making it better then it is now? Not without a Democratic super majority in the House, Senate and control of the Presidency.
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On June 21 2018 17:54 Gorsameth wrote:
@GH
Could Obama have done more through executive orders or would it have required legislation from Congress?
If its the latter then there you have your answer. Regardless of if they wanted to or not the Democrats were in no position to pass any form of Immigration reform with a completely hostile Republican party in control of Congress that would, and still won't, ever accept to any policy you would consider adequate.
Yes the current system might not be good. Is it better then what Trump is doing? Hell yes. Is there any possibility of making it better then it is now? Not without a Democratic super majority in the House, Senate and control of the Presidency.
I think by now it should be clear that GH is a bit zero sum on these matters. There's no degrees involved, either something is acceptable or not. As far as I can tell he hates Obama, and he hates Trump, and I'm pretty confident he's not fond of Dubya either. I don't recall him in the past giving Obama any passes for having congress against him (which I know a lot of Democrats do).
GH hates the entire system and everything in it.
I'm pointing this out because I see a lot of comments directed his way which seem to be trying to get a degree of compromise out of him, and he's not going to bite. To him, you're saying 'Is this other thing that wasn't ever acceptable more acceptable than this thing now which is even more unacceptable?'
To him there's no degree there. There's acceptable and unacceptable. Returning from one state of unacceptability to another unacceptable state is no actual change at all.
I'm sure he'll correct me if I've mischaracterised, but it's what I draw from his various comments on the topic to date.
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EPT
