The General 'Murican Politics Thread

[KHCast]

In case it wasn't clear how shit Trump is

 

 

"He's an American hero!"

[PaddyFancy]

I don't know how much more I can take of this.

[Tani Coyote]

I'm guessing Senator Flake wouldn't have come out against the pardon if he didn't think it would be deeply unpopular in Arizona. Senator Heller of Arizona also came out against it.

Trump may have scored points among hardline conservatives, but he may have dealt the GOP a blow in what's due to be a key state in 2018 and 2020. Arizona's been gradually shifting blue, helped in no small part by a growing Hispanic population. A population that was regularly wronged by Arpaio and who are likely to be mobilized by this.

Maybe it won't be just Arizona. Maybe we'll see a similar development in Texas and New Mexico.

Trump may have won adoration from the middle of America for this decision, but it's the southern border states and their neighbors that have a huge hand in upcoming races. Arizona's becoming more swingy, Nevada's a swing state that's leaning blue, and even Texas is starting to see the erosion of GOP dominance.

While minority communities have always had to deal with being wronged by law enforcement, they've also had the federal government as a reliable force to limit the damage. Federal courts found that Rodney King was a victim of brutality. They found that the Ferguson Police Department was still rife with corruption even if the officer in the Michael Brown case was telling the truth. Federal law enforcement likewise worked hard to get a charge against Arpaio, and Trump just swept it aside.

Yes, racism has always been a part of American culture. But increasingly we're finding it harder to pretend it doesn't exist with someone like Trump at the helm. The most visible racists feel empowered by Trump's term, and that's likely to serve as a rallying point for resistance.

Fortunately for us, Trump keeps being an idiot and making the rally points be in battlegrounds. Virginia. Arizona. All he needs now is to cause a storm in the Rust Belt states that flipped to him, and he's giving Democrats decent odds of making serious headway in future races.

Antifa gets a lot of the press because they sometimes make use of violence, but that's just a small portion of the left wing resistance. You have record numbers of people running for office, numbers that haven't been seen for many elections. Many of those people have either never held office or are women. Minority politicians of every background are growing in number. As bad as things are, it looks like Trump caused stratification tensions to boil over, and minority groups are starting to take a stand in a way not seen since the Civil Rights era.

The politics of stratification work both through oppression and adaptation. An oppressive system not only suppresses votes, but also encourages people to think it doesn't make a difference to vote. The way Trump is going far beyond what most GOP politicians would do is sounding alarm bells, and I think greatly reducing complacency with the status quo.

It figures that by doing everything wrong, he would end up doing something right.

[KHCast]

Here's hoping your hopes and hypothesis's bear fruit, cause if we constantly end up loosing and being wrong about certain outcomes, and need to recalibrate our hopes and go "well okay while this stinks and is bad,", I'm not sure if I can keep seeing the bright side of loosing the big fish and catching a few minnows if it doesn't lead anywhere realistically outside more hopes and guesses.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Well, for starters, compare to how racists were able to get away with mistreating minorities in broad daylight and all sorts of bigotted shit decades ago to today where standards an technology have advanced to the point saying the n-word and being in a Neo-Nazi rally can get you fired.

Social Media, for all its ups and downs, has been one tool in fighting back this tide. Certainly made it easier to keep track and root these elements out.

[8ther]

Is it possible the Harvey could be Trump's Katrina?

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks just brought up an interesting and horrifying point about Trump's pardoning of Arpaio

 

[Tani Coyote]

Something Julian Castro said in response to Trump's pardoning of Arpaio.

That word is often translated as "dumbass" from Spanish.

Julian and his twin brother Joaquin are both seen as likely 2020 candidates for President. Julian was Obama's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2014 and the mayor of San Antonio (2009-2014) before that, while Joaquin is a US Representative.

Joaquin polls as more popular than Ted Cruz in deep red Texas, so he has promise as a nominee. Who knows, maybe he'd be the first Democrat since 1996 to take states like Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, etc. Yeah, it's hard to remember with all the "red state, blue state" rhetoric, but it was only a few elections ago when Democrats were still fairly competitive in the South outside Virginia and Florida.

On 8/27/2017 at 0:17 AM, KHCast said:

Here's hoping your hopes and hypothesis's bear fruit, cause if we constantly end up loosing and being wrong about certain outcomes, and need to recalibrate our hopes and go "well okay while this stinks and is bad,", I'm not sure if I can keep seeing the bright side of loosing the big fish and catching a few minnows if it doesn't lead anywhere realistically outside more hopes and guesses.

This year's Virginia races are the real litmus test. While it is gerrymandered towards the GOP, it is a swing state and will give us an idea where other swingy states are.

The Democrats could suffer a catastrophic defeat, in which case we're in trouble. Or perhaps narrowly lose the Governorship but not lose ground in the Virginia House. Or, best case scenario, the Democrats crush it, keeping the Governorship and striking gold by flipping the state House (not a remote possibility given the historic number of candidates who are facing opposition for once). While Virginia's become reliably blue Presidentially, the GOP losing power at the state level does not bode well for the midterms, where state power is the real prize.

November in general will give us an idea how good or bad the Democrats' position will be, given it's one year from the midterms and midterm campaigning will really pick up afterward. Winning the New Jersey governorship is basically a shoo in, but Virginia's Governorship, Washington's state Senate, and Maine's Medicaid initiative are all tests of how far Democrats can be carried in swingy areas and on purple issues.

16 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Well, for starters, compare to how racists were able to get away with mistreating minorities in broad daylight and all sorts of bigotted shit decades ago to today where standards an technology have advanced to the point saying the n-word and being in a Neo-Nazi rally can get you fired.

Social Media, for all its ups and downs, has been one tool in fighting back this tide. Certainly made it easier to keep track and root these elements out.

Basically yes.

Between the social media and the not even hidden racism of GOP leaders like Trump, I think minority complacency has taken a huge dive. When you have GOP state boards openly celebrating a huge decline in black turnout, there's room for concern. Of course, they code it as "failed coalition building," but that ignores that Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia all had higher black turnout than 2012. Yes, a failed attempt to rebuild the Obama coalition is a factor in Clinton's defeat, but the state GOP is using that to handwave a massive decline in black turnout that few states have seen. Of course, people in the know can easily say NC's sudden decline in turnout is no coincidence given many nominally colorblind issues were used to eliminate key avenues the state's African American population use to vote, like Sunday voting (black churches lead their flock to the polls on Sundays in many places).

15 hours ago, CD Sanic said:

Is it possible the Harvey could be Trump's Katrina?

Very possibly. His blunt "good luck" statement before he boarded a helicopter to go on vacation for the weekend is already starting to hurt him.

Quote

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks just brought up an interesting and horrifying point about Trump's pardoning of Arpaio

 

Yep, he's planning to abuse the pardon liberally for all his buddies.

Of course the GOP won't do anything because they can trust their loyal constituents to just keep voting them back in.

What's funny is that the people who are most quick to defend the pardon are the ones decrying left wing violence.

The problem is, violence starts to gain in appeal when the rule of law breaks down.

[AlphaRuby]

With all the North Korean missile news and the recent news of a missle flying over northern Japan, I'm really worried what'll happen if a missile actually hits something and starts a war.

[8ther]

I'm more concern with the idiot in chief doing something stupid in response

[Tani Coyote]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/28/politics/donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon/index.html

Speaking of Trump and stupid.

He's revealed why he did the Arpaio pardon during the Hurricane: he did it entirely intentionally because he assumed the ratings would be far higher now that people are watching the storm. So no, it wasn't just poor timing, this was apparently planned.

Basically, he wanted to piggyback off the suffering of millions of Texan people so his political gesture reached more people.

Hey Texas? This would be a good time to tell him to piss off and vote Democrat next election. Seriously. It would be a great surprise.

Also, he says that Arpaio is popular in Arizona. Not only did the county that Arpaio actually oversaw vote him out by a decent margin, but 50% of Arizonans opposed the pardon before it was finalized and 29% were unsure. Only a whopping 21% were all for a pardon.

What I'd love for this to be a double whammy that causes the GOP to lose both Texas and Arizona. He's more interested in sending messages than if it's appropriate or if anyone wants the message.

[Rusty Spy]

32 minutes ago, Lord Basil (Ogilvie) said:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/28/politics/donald-trump-joe-arpaio-pardon/index.html

Speaking of Trump and stupid.

He's revealed why he did the Arpaio pardon during the Hurricane: he did it entirely intentionally because he assumed the ratings would be far higher now that people are watching the storm. So no, it wasn't just poor timing, this was apparently planned.

When I heard about him plugging his friends' book during the storm I actually considered that he did that specifically for ratings. I thought that out of cynical contempt, but to find out that my assumption was actually correct just makes me sick to my fucking stomach. Like, Holy Shit, I didn't think I couldn't give this kid the benefit of the doubt on something as vile as this, but there really is no such thing as too low for him.

And if that's the case, let me also say that I now, with more genuine belief, think that the backlash from his response to Charlottesville actually made Trump snap, and him doubling down on his initial statement on the issue was him deciding to completely give up on trying to not appear racist. I bet at that moment he had come to the conclusion that he's already lost all support from the left and the media, and condemning the white-supremacists and the neo-nazis wasn't going to make people like him more, so might as well wear his bigotry on his sleeve and appease his alt-right base, everyone else be damned. Makes sense with his moves since then, threatening govt shutdown over the wall, going through with the trans military ban, to pardoning Arpaio all in rapid succession.

The only potential silver lining to this is, if true, it's a clear sign that Trump is blatantly aware of how small his support is, if he's THAT afraid of losing what few supporters he has, even if they're white-supremacist crowd. That he'd burn bridges with so many people as a result, he's effectively huddled himself into a small corner while the rest of the floor collapses around him.

[Tani Coyote]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/28/politics/police-military-gear-ban-lifted/index.html

Trump is going to end Obama's ban on military gear being provided to police departments. Trump and Sessions are rambling about how police need grenade launchers, camo uniforms, and the like to effectively do their jobs.

I presume it's only a matter of time before he reverses Obama's regulation that called for body cameras as part of federal funding.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/28/politics/transgender-service-members-military-ban/index.html

Transgender service members have been joined by groups like the ACLU and have filed suit against the transgender service ban. Given Trump's lovely friendship with the judicial branch, I don't think this will go in his favor.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/28/politics/jennifer-detlefsen-ryan-zinke-transgender-military-trump/index.html

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's daughter went on an expletive-filled rant against the President, calling him out as someone who has never served and calling for his impeachment.

Trump being Trump, I ponder if Zinke will be punished for this. I hope so. The more GOP incumbents turned into Cabinet members who are promptly dismissed after a short period, the better. It's for the best the GOP has its pool of incumbents reduced for 2018.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/28/politics/trump-wall-shutdown/index.html

Meanwhile, Trump continues to float the possibility of a government shutdown if the border wall doesn't get funding from Congress, but he's dialed it back to a "possibility" as opposed to a for-sure thing.

[Tani Coyote]

It could just be a case of the man and the speaker being different people, but it appears Trump has gotten over healthcare for now and is going to push for tax reform after a speech today in Missouri. Grab your popcorn.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/29/trump-tax-overhaul-populism-242134

So far, policy points look to be:

-Lowering the corporate tax rate to make businesses more competitive

-Getting rid of deductions for higher income taxpayers

-Cutting taxes on middle incomes

Above all else, though, the GOP is selling its reform ideas as "unrigging the economy." Yeah you read that right, they're literally making words up in 1984 style.

Noteworthy: while there are stated policy goals, there's no actual bill yet. For example, what could be a popular tax raise on the wealthy via elimination of deductions falls flat because what deductions will disappear has not been specified.

There's so much disagreement going into tax reform that it's expected it will force more bipartisanship than healthcare. While Republicans and Democrats largely had a lot of their proposals figured out when the Obamacare repeal came up, every member of Congress has their own different pet deductions and goals that's going to make working across the aisle look more appealing.

I expect the red state Democratic Senators in particular to be looked at on this subject, as while they could take a stand against the Obamacare repeal easily, they won't be able to do so with possible tax cuts.

Some humor, though: word is many GOP leaders actually don't want Trump's help on tax reform. Why? Because he's prone to getting off-topic and start talking about "fake news" or voter fraud or whatever's on his mind rather than trying to sell his policies to swing voters. He's such a divisive personality that he runs the risk of sinking any proposal he gets on board with.

[Tani Coyote]

Our vacation's over, as Congress comes back on the 5th. The fiscal year ends on the last day of September, so that means - if I'm not mistaken - the Senate will be free to use all three of its reconciliation options again going into 2018.

That said, legislative action is likely to grind to a halt after a few more months, as House Reps focus on re-election. In theory the GOP would have an advantage given far more Democratic Senators are running for re-election than Republicans (this gives the GOP gigantic majorities with absentee votes), but obviously Dems will turn up for key votes and the GOP-dominated House will also be busy campaigning.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fight-over-confederate-statues-may-lose-him-the-virginia-governors-race

Confederate monuments may just be what costs the GOP Virginia this November.

After almost losing the GOP nomination to a neo-Confederate candidate, Republican Ed Gillespie is in a difficult position. On one hand, he needs the votes of conservatives staunchly defending Confederate monuments. On the other, he needs to appeal to an increasingly more powerful moderate base that dislikes Trump and leans towards removing the monuments.

He's hired Trump campaign aides and has regularly changed his opinion on the monuments to fit the audience. For the general public, he advocates against removal while saying statues would be placed in a historic context, while in e-mails to his supporters, he rails against "needless" government spending and emphasizes funding for schools and roads. Bear in mind this is a man who is opposed to taking free federal money for the Medicaid expansion, a sharp contrast to his Democratic opponent, who has made Medicaid expansion a top priority.

http://wvmetronews.com/2017/09/01/why-governor-justices-approval-numbers-are-dropping/

The opportunistic Governor Justice of West Virginia is appropriately being dealt justice. His approval among Democrats has plummeted, and while his approval among Republicans has increased, many Republicans still have a heavy disapproval or mistrust of him. Basically, he's getting the Benedict Arnold treatment: sure, he's the GOP's guy now, but given he ran as a Democrat just months ago and betrayed the trust of voters by switching so quickly, why would anyone want to trust him?

Justice won the 2016 election with 49% of the vote, but now his approval is a mere 34%.

Serves him right.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/politics/sheriff-david-clarke-resignation/index.html

Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke, who is basically the most infamous sheriff in America apart from Joe Arpaio, has resigned his post.

Speculation abounds on his future, though he's generally considered a possible Trump appointee due to Trump's personal liking of Clarke. Clarke has said that the DHS has considered him, but that has never materialized.

Let's hope it never does.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/30/politics/mueller-new-york-attorney-general-manafort/index.html

Special counsel Mueller will be cooperating with the New York Attorney General in investigating Paul Manafort's finances.

The key point here? The President can't pardon state crimes. Trump's pardon is worthless if New York State decides to go against any of his associates, and given New York Governor Cuomo's likely 2020 run, it's extremely likely Cuomo will be pushing his state's Attorney General to go after whoever they can.

[Tani Coyote]

Good news for the Dreamers and the DACA.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/1/16243944/daca-tennessee-dream-act

Tennessee, one of the 10 states (led by Texas) that threatened to sue the federal government if it didn't end the DACA, has changed its legal position on the matter. The state's Attorney General has said that while he considers the DACA to be an unconstitutional extension of the President's powers, there is a human element to this that would make a blanket end to the program unacceptable. He has implored Tennessee's Senators and Representatives to support the DREAM Act in Congress, which would basically replace DACA with the exact same program, just by statute as opposed to Executive Order.

This is the same argument Paul Ryan made not too long ago.

Because many of the Dreamers are indistinguishable from citizens born in the United States (to a point many of them had no idea they were undocumented until they got ready for college), they have a huge margin of public support: two-thirds of Americans oppose ending DACA.

There's a serious expectation Trump will end the program on Tuesday, September 5th, but the pressure from Paul Ryan, public opinion, and now Tennessee makes it look increasingly like a bad policy decision.

Another policy note: John Kelly, as Secretary of Homeland Security, was opposed to ending DACA without replacement (he felt the program was good for making sure deportation was focused on undocumented people with criminal records and/or no attachment to American society) but felt it was Jeff Sessions' decision. Now that he's the Chief of Staff and seems to have a serious amount of influence in the Trump Administration, it's possible he'll at least be able to convince Trump to include a window to allow Congress to act before mass deportations take place.

[Patticus]

Lately, Trump has only really been doing things that his base wants, regardless of the optics to the rest of America. I want to believe that he'll be so desperate to be loved that he'll flip on DACA and support its continuation (or support the DREAM Act as a replacement). However, he has long promised his base that he'd end DACA, and was an early hard-line anti-immigrant voice in the last election's primaries.

He's not going to go against his base unless he has some other big, meaty bone to throw them.

[8ther]

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/09/01/experts-warn-2018-election-peril-russia-attack.html

The midterms are in peril, election security experts warn, because little has been done to assess the impact, if any, on voting in at least 21 states targeted by Russian hackers, “according to interviews with nearly two dozen national security and state officials and election technology specialists,” The New York Times reported on Friday.

If you thought the government was looking into the Russian hacking of our election, think again.

On June 5th, a top secret NSA document obtained by The Intercept revealed that Russian hacking into the U.S. 2016 election “may have penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than was previously understood.”

While assurances were given that the Russians didn’t alter vote tallies, there are many other ways to hack an election. One way would be to suppress the vote in Democratic pockets and cities. Hacking into voter rolls and e-poll books would allow the hackers to keep people from voting by making it impossible to verify them. This would also create long lines, which further discourages turnout.

Many counties reported issues with e-poll books. The Times detailed e-poll book problems in large cities in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and some in Arizona, which were all attributed to software glitches.

The Times noted that while the hacking of the electoral systems was “more extensive than previously disclosed,” the “assaults on the vast back-end election apparatus — voter-registration operations, state and local election databases, e-poll books and other equipment — have received far less attention than other aspects of the Russian interference…”

“Apart from the Russian influence campaign intended to undermine Mrs. Clinton and other Democratic officials, the impact of the quieter Russian hacking efforts at the state and county level has not been widely studied. Federal officials have been so tight-lipped that not even many election officials in the 21 states the hackers assaulted know whether their systems were compromised, in part because they have not been granted security clearances to examine the classified evidence,” Nicole Perlroth, Michael Wines and Matthew Rosenberg reported.

There are plenty of reasons the government might want to tamp down concerns about election accuracy; after all, if the Russians hacked our election, it means our election was not legitimate and that means our democracy is in peril. Hysteria could easily ensue if people understood how deeply threatened the nation is.

But perhaps this lack of hysteria is actually more damaging. Why was the media obsessed with Clinton’s emails and the DNC emails, but not with the fact that voter rolls were hacked and e-poll books and other equipment were possibly interfered with.

“It felt like tampering, or some kind of cyberattack,” nonpartisan election monitoring group troubleshooter Susan Greenhalgh told The New York Times about the voting troubles in Durham.

This is not a conspiracy. “Beyond VR Systems, hackers breached at least two other providers of critical election services well ahead of the 2016 voting, said current and former intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information is classified. The officials would not disclose the names of the companies.”

Noting that Intelligence officials told the public in January that the bottom line vote tallies had not been altered, The Times report continues, “Government officials said that they intentionally did not address the security of the back-end election systems, whose disruption could prevent voters from even casting ballots.”

This isn’t being addressed now, either, so the midterms are in peril. The Times observed that the states, which control elections, have fewer resources and don’t like the feds to interfere in their process and intelligence agencies are limited when it comes to domestic issues, so the forensic examination needed is simply not happening.

Also, “Current congressional inquiries and the special counsel’s Russia investigation have not focused on the matter.”

But that probably doesn’t surprise you, as Republicans control Congress and they benefited from the Russian interference in the 2016 election. If at times you are wondering why Republicans don’t seem concerned with their President’s plunging poll numbers or the deep disapproval of their health care plan, you might be on to something.

Election security experts are concerned about the midterms, warning of “what could come, perhaps as soon as next year’s midterm elections, if the existing mix of outdated voting equipment, haphazard election-verification procedures and array of outside vendors is not improved to build an effective defense against Russian or other hackers.”

This wide-open, glaring vulnerability striking dead center at the core of one of the major freedoms the United States stands for – the idea of accessible, democratic elections – is not being addressed.

They don’t want you to be hysterical, but you might have good reason to be.

Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, argued for more scrutiny of suspicious incidents. “We must harden our cyber defenses, and thoroughly educate the American public about the danger posed” by attacks,” he said in an email. “In other words: we are not making our elections any safer by withholding information about the scope and scale of the threat.”

Ms. Greenhalgh will be watching closely. “What people focus on is, ‘Did someone mess with the vote totals?’” she said. “What they don’t realize is that messing with the e-poll books to keep people from voting is just as effective.’”

 

The calls started flooding in from hundreds of irate North Carolina voters just after 7 a.m. on Election Day last November.

Dozens were told they were ineligible to vote and were turned away at the polls, even when they displayed current registration cards. Others were sent from one polling place to another, only to be rejected. Scores of voters were incorrectly told they had cast ballots days earlier. In one precinct, voting halted for two hours.

Susan Greenhalgh, a troubleshooter at a nonpartisan election monitoring group, was alarmed. Most of the complaints came from Durham, a blue-leaning county in a swing state. The problems involved electronic poll books — tablets and laptops, loaded with check-in software, that have increasingly replaced the thick binders of paper used to verify voters’ identities and registration status. She knew that the company that provided Durham’s software, VR Systems, had been penetrated by Russian hackers months before.

“It felt like tampering, or some kind of cyberattack,” Susan Greenhalgh, a troubleshooter at a nonpartisan election monitoring groupsaid about the voting troubles in Durham.

There are plenty of other reasons for such breakdowns — local officials blamed human error and software malfunctions — and no clear-cut evidence of digital sabotage has emerged, much less a Russian role in it. Despite the disruptions, a record number of votes were cast in Durham, following a pattern there of overwhelming support for Democratic presidential candidates, this time Hillary Clinton.

[Tani Coyote]

Room for optimism is Congress did slap Russia with sanctions over Trump's protest.

I think in light of growing tensions, the message for Russia is clear: don't mess with our elections.

Trump's not as useful a pawn as Putin hoped he'd be, I think.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/03/trump-dreamers-immigration-daca-immigrants-242301

Trump will be ending the DACA program, but it will be delayed by 6 months, thus giving Congress the opportunity to replace it with similar provisions via the DREAM Act.

You'd be pessimistic, but the DREAM Act already has 3 Republican sponsors. There's also no Obama in the White House to encourage hardline GOP opposition. It's entirely possible that much like Obamacare, the benefits of DACA are so entrenched that the GOP will be in an uncomfortable position to scrap it entirely.

Senate President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch, meanwhile, has expressed opposition to ending DACA, and could possibly be a vote for the DREAM Act; he actually was one of the two Senators who introduced the original DREAM Act of 2001. If he is, the Democrats might be able to get the 19 GOP votes necessary to have a veto-proof majority in the Senate.

The House is another issue, but Paul Ryan has likewise expressed opposition to an immediate end to DACA and passage of a DREAM Act.

It's possible DACA and the DREAM Act could be another piece of Obama's legacy: through his executive order, he put into practice what couldn't pass during the Bush years, and now that the benefits have been felt, it's uncomfortable to just get rid of it.

[KHCast]

God damn it. Like exactly how is this helpful or something to be happy about? It seems like a needless removal or attempt at it.

[Dizcrybe]

27 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Like exactly how is this helpful or something to be happy about?

Remember who we're talking about here.

[KHCast]

I know. If it's made by Obama, burn it in Trumps mind. Oh but he's totes not racist or has racial bias. 

Seriously, how against Obama do you gotta be to even tank decent ideas for no reason?

[Dizcrybe]

5 hours ago, KHCast said:

Seriously, how against Obama do you gotta be to even tank decent ideas for no reason?

You have to be Donald Trump (or any number of his supporters).

[Tani Coyote]

13 hours ago, KHCast said:

God damn it. Like exactly how is this helpful or something to be happy about? It seems like a needless removal or attempt at it.

It's the usual "it's the law, so we have to enforce it!!" nonsense. Doesn't matter if it's drugs that reduce a person's pain or children who were taken here at a young age and now have massive cultural dysphoria, being legally non-American but feeling 100% American.

Strange, because a lot of political theory asks the question "is it worth enforcing laws that are stupid, unjust, etc." Or, for a more focused critique, "should we enforce laws when they miss the point of why they were enacted?"

Of course many of those backing this probably would insist on enforcing poll taxes (which, ironically, got a lot of their bite from not being enforced), so that lets us know who we're dealing with.

Given the number of Republicans who are saying the program had the right ends if not the right means, though, there's room for optimism. These aren't adults who illegally enter in search of work, they're people who were generally brought here as little kids and most likely always thought of themselves as Americans until adulthood. There's just something fundamentally wrong about ending this program, because we're punishing people for something they didn't choose, and they are de facto Americans if not de jure.

[TailsTellsTales]

Apparently Bernie Sanders is still doing big rallies and getting ready to introduce single payer healthcare. It will not pass but it will definitely give us an idea of where things stand and if healthcare could be a right of everybody in the future.

I am concerned about Sanders running for president again and not because of potential age discrimination but on how he should run. Not sure if he should run as independent or as democrat again. If he runs as democrat and there are a lot of other people running, then he could get the Trump effect as in the pro establishment voters will have their votes split. But he might not even run which would leave the antiestablishment vote up for grabs and so far I see nobody who meets that criteria.

[Tani Coyote]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/politics/daca-trump-congress/index.html

DACA has been formally ended, as confirmed by Jeff Sessions.

We now have details of Trump's plan: while no new applications will be accepted, people whose permits expire in the next 6 months are allowed to make one more application. This will allow them to stay in the country for a while, though they'd lose their permit permanently when it expires a second time.

This move allows Congress to make changes to existing immigration laws if it sees fit, and with many Republicans behind the idea, it's not entirely impossible. It's just a question of if they can get to the two-thirds threshold in both Houses to stave off a Trump veto.

14 hours ago, TailsTellsTales said:

Apparently Bernie Sanders is still doing big rallies and getting ready to introduce single payer healthcare. It will not pass but it will definitely give us an idea of where things stand and if healthcare could be a right of everybody in the future.

The real test will be this year's elections in November. If Maine passes the Medicaid expansion and the Democrats (who are running on Medicaid expansion) swamp the polls in Virginia, there's a strong case going forward for further expansion of healthcare, even if not full on single payer.

One possible Democratic plan could be expanding Medicaid or Medicare over several years, while also authorizing both programs to sell plans to people. It would avoid the uncomfortable rapid increase in taxation and spending that an immediate shift to single payer would bring, while also setting us down the road to it.

14 hours ago, TailsTellsTales said:

But he might not even run which would leave the antiestablishment vote up for grabs and so far I see nobody who meets that criteria.

Honestly, what's the "establishment?" Any sort of political record?

Because you basically have no possible Democrats who fit that bill other than Mark Zuckerberg or the Rock, and "GOD NO" on both counts.

Sanders' "anti-establishment" credentials aren't as strong as Trump's by this metric, because while he is an independent, he caucuses with Democrats and has been in office for a while.

If you mean shaking things up, a lot of Democrats are slowly coming around to single payer. Kamala Harris of California recently announced her plan to co-sponsor Bernie's healthcare plan in the Senate. She'll be the first Democrat to officially co-sponsor the proposal, ahead of those who have informally supported single payer like Elizabeth Warren.