Tumgik
#of COURSE we find out he's a massive trump supporting republican
drwilfredwaterson · 6 months
Text
Terrorist Attacks on Israel: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gave the final go-ahead for Hamas' October 7, 2023 surprise attack on Israel on Monday, October 2, 2023. The Anti-American MAGA Nazi cult of donald trump coordinated their attack on the Congress of the United States of America the same day to prevent the United States Congress from authorizing any aid to Israel.
donald trump called the slaughter of Israeli Jews and their children and Holocaust survivors, "Incredible" on Monday, October 9, 2023.
This is one of liddle dumpster diaper donald trump's favorite poems that I've edited to glorify his liddle smelly orange self the way he loves so much.
He read the original "The Snake" poem/lyrics on the afternoon of Monday, October 9th, 2023, while gloating about what he and his anti-American MAGA Nazi cult did to Israel; immediately after he mentioned that what Hamas did to Israeli children, specifically, and the massive Israeli Jew casualties were, in donald trump's own words, "incredible," and all with a smirk and a grin to add insult to injury.
He and his MAGA cult are going to be in for an October Surprise when Evangelicals/Conservative Christians find out that there was undeniable coordination between donald trump, his anti-American MAGA Nazi cult in the U.S. Congress, Russia, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Taliban in the terrorist attacks on Israel during their sacred holy days and the sabbath.
I wouldn't be surprised if liddle dumpster diaper donald trump and all of his liddle anti-American MAGA Nazi cult "Republicans" get invited to Israel to celebrate their history of such strong and unwavering "Real Ultimate Christian" and "True and Only Chosen People of God" support for Israel.
They're all such loyal allies…so of course there should be an honoring and recognition of all of their years of support with a grand reception and celebration in Israel.
Heck, donald trump and his anti-American MAGA Nazi cult could even claim they're going to Israel to negotiate peace deals where President Biden and his administration have failed so badly. Ah, those Republicans In Name Only and their "support" for Israel…
The Real King David and His "True Chosen" Heavenly Soldiers going to Israel to save the day as "Israel's True Davidic Messiah and New King David" to "Make Israel Great Again." Wouldn't that be nice?
Tumblr media
The Snowflake, by Liddle Dumpster Diaper donnie trump
On their way to work one morning Down the path alongside the lake Some RINOs saw a liddle crying orange snowflake His orange colored skin was smeared with his own diaper poop “Oh well,” they cried, “We'll take you in and We'll take care of you”
“Take me in oh RINOs Take me in, for heaven's sake Take me in oh RINOs,” cried the smelly orange snowflake
They wrapped him up all cozy in a diaper made of silk And then laid him by the fireside with some honey and some milk Now they hurried home from work that night as soon as they arrived They found that orange snowflake they'd taken in had been revived
“Take me in, oh RINOs Take me in, for heaven's sake Take me in oh RINOs,” cried the liddle orange snowflake
Now they clutched him to their bosom, “You're so beautiful,” they cried “But if we hadn't brought you in by now you might have died” They stroked his stinky orange skin and then they kissed and held him tight But instead of saying thanks, that snowflake gave a poop surprise
“Take me in, oh tender RINOs Take me in, for heaven's sake Take me in oh tender RINOs,” cried the liddle orange snowflake
“I saved you,” cried the RINOs “And you've shit me even, why? You know your poop is poisonous and now we're all going to die” “Oh shut up, silly RINOs,” said the snowflake with a grin “You knew damn well I was a liddle snowflake when you took me in
”Take me in, oh tender RINOs Take me in, for heaven's sake Take me in oh tender RINOs,“ cried the liddle orange snowflake
Their first question was: ‘What is going on? What is this?’ defense official says ‘Horrified’ Israeli intel officials ‘were shouting at US counterparts’ over Trump leak Foreign Policy reports tense meetings between sides after president revealed classified info to Russians By Times of Israel Staff 20 May 2017, 1:25 pm donald trump’s reported sharing of a highly classified Israeli tip with Russia led to incredibly tense meetings between Israeli and American intelligence officials, Foreign Policy Magazine reported Friday. The Israelis reportedly shouted at their US counterparts, demanding an explanation for Trump’s actions, according to the magazine, which quoted a US defense official. “To them, it’s horrifying,” the official said. “Their first question was: ‘What is going on? What is this?’” Meeting Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador to Washington in the Oval Office on May 10, trump shared intelligence about an Islamic State threat involving laptops carried on airplanes, according to a senior US official. ABC News reported that the information came specifically from a spy embedded in the terrorist group on behalf of Israel, and that Trump’s reported leak had placed the person’s life at risk. Though Washington and Jerusalem have publicly brushed aside reports of the incident, behind the scenes top Israeli defense officials are said to be angry and concerned by the president’s actions. Beyond the possible danger to the source, FP reported that Israelis feared they had lost any further access to the spy’s intel. Shabtai Shavit, who led the Mossad in the 1990s, said that were he in charge of the intelligence organization today, he would not be inclined to share more information with his American counterparts. “If tomorrow I were asked to pass information to the CIA, I would do everything I could to not pass it to them. Or I would first protect myself and only then give it, and what I’d give would be totally neutered,” Shavit told The Times of Israel on Wednesday. “If some smart guy decides that he’s allowed to leak information, then your partners in cooperation will be fewer or just won’t be at all,” he warned. Danny Yatom, another ex-Mossad boss, told an Israeli radio station that if reports were accurate, Trump likely caused “heavy damage” to Israeli and American security. But it’s not a threat some Israeli officials didn’t foresee. Even before Trump took office, Jacobs said, Israeli professionals expressed concern that his loose lips would intentionally or inadvertently lead to Israeli intelligence being shared with Russia. That, in turn, might mean the intelligence ends up with Iran, a sworn enemy of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/horrified-israeli-intel-officials-were-shouting-at-us-counterparts-over-trump-leak/
The Taliban on trump: "We hope he will win the election" and withdraw U.S. troops By Sami Yousafzai Updated on: October 11, 2020 / 9:30 AM / CBS News Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News in a phone interview, "We believe that Trump is going to win the upcoming election because he has proved himself a politician who accomplished all the major promises he had made to American people, although he might have missed some small things, but did accomplish the bigger promises, so it is possible that the U.S. people who experienced deceptions in the past will once again trust Trump for his decisive actions." Mujahid added, "We think the majority of the American population is tired of instability, economic failures and politicians' lies and will trust again on trump because Trump is decisive, could control the situation inside the country. Other politicians, including Biden, chant unrealistic slogans. Some other groups, which are smaller in size but are involved in the military business including weapons manufacturing companies' owners and others who somehow get the benefit of war extension, they might be against trump and support Biden, but their numbers among voters is low." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taliban-on-trump-we-hope-he-will-win-the-election-withdraw-us-troops/
Former President donald trump praised the Taliban on Tuesday, August 17, 2021, calling the group “smart” and “good fighters.” “The Taliban, good fighters, I will tell you, good fighters. You have to give them credit for that. They’ve been fighting for a thousand years. What they do is they fight,” trump said on Fox News’ [Hannity] on August 17, 2021. The Taliban, of course, have not been fighting for 1,000 years, as the organization was founded in the early 1990s, though that’s the least problematic thing that came out of trump’s mouth during the interview. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/08/donald-trump-taliban-good-fighters-great-negotiators
On October 4, 2001, British Prime Minister Tony Blair released information compiled by Western intelligence agencies connecting Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan's Taliban leadership as well as being the leader of the al-Qaeda organization. The Taliban government gave a safe haven to Osama bin Laden in the years leading up to the attack, and his al-Qaeda network may have had a close relationship with the Taliban army and police. On the day of 9/11, the Taliban foreign minister told the Arab television network Al Jazeera: "We denounce this terrorist attack, whoever is behind it." The United States requested the Taliban to shut down all al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, open them to inspection and turn over Osama bin Laden. The Taliban refused all these requests. Instead, they offered to extradite Osama bin Laden to an Islamic country, for trial under Islamic law, if the United States presented evidence of his guilt. The Taliban had previously refused to extradite bin Laden to the United States, or prosecute him, after he was indicted by the US federal courts for involvement in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The Taliban deemed eyewitness testimony and satellite phone call recordings entered into the public record in February 2001 during a trial as insufficient grounds to extradite bin Laden for his involvement in the bombings.
In Rosh Hashanah message, trump says US Jews voted ‘to destroy America and Israel’ Former US president shares flyer from anti-Democrat lobby group listing actions he took on behalf of Israel and against antisemitism, urges Jews to ‘learn from your mistakes’ By Times of Israel Staff 18 September 2023, 8:34 am Former US president donald trump on Sunday marked the Rosh Hashanah holiday with a message to American Jews accusing them of voting to destroy America and Israel by backing his successor Joe Biden in the last race to the White House. In a post to his Truth Social media platform, Trump shared a flyer from JEXIT, an anti-Democrat lobbying group. “Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed in false narratives!” declared the headline of the flyer. “Let’s hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward!” it continued. “Happy New Year!” In December 2022 Trump shared a post on the Truth Social platform from far-right pundit and conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root, who wrote that the former president “did more for the state of Israel and the Jewish people than anyone in history.” It came at a time when Trump was facing calls to condemn antisemites Nick Fuentes and Kanye West after hosting the pair at his Mar-a-Lago resort the month before. Root defended Trump over the dinner party in the post. In addition to sharing his article, Trump wrote, “Thank you Wayne – You are great but how quickly Jewish leaders forgot that I was the best, by far, president for Israel.” “They should be ashamed of themselves. This lack of loyalty to their greatest friends and allies is why large numbers in Congress, and so many others, have stopped giving support to Israel,” he added. https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-rosh-hashanah-message-trump-says-us-jews-voted-to-destroy-america-and-israel/
In 2014 (the year before his candidacy), Donald Trump “helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.” Ivanka directly oversaw the project’s development. (New Yorker Magazine)
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gave the final go-ahead for Hamas' October 7, 2023 surprise attack on Israel last Monday, October 2, 2023, in Beirut (Wall Street Journal)
Fact Check: Did Taliban ask for passage from neighboring countries to reach Jerusalem? "Taliban wants to join Hamas in its attack on Israel." Faizan Ali Oct 08, 2023 A statement associated with the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has been circulating on social media platforms that the Taliban’s interim government of Kabul has asked the neighboring countries for passage to reach Jerusalem reportedly to fight against the Israeli army. The statement has been circulating in Urdu and English language and even Israeli newspapers also reported the statement. Israel National News reported, “Sunday 3:50 AM: The Taliban terror organization, which controls Afghanistan, has reportedly asked its neighbors for passage so it could join Hamas in its attack on Israel.” SAMAA Digital carried out a fact check that unveiled that the statement associated with the Taliban government was not true and completely against the facts. Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan issued a statement and said: “Afghanistan has been closely monitoring the recent events in the Gaza Strip and considers such events to be the result of the violation of the rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation by the Israeli Zionists and repeated insults and disrespect to Muslim holy places.” The statement reads, “Any kind of defense and the resistance of the Palestinian people for the freedom of the land and holy places is their legitimate right.” “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan declares its support for the legitimate, historical and legal right of the Palestinian people to have a permanent country in the historical Palestinian land and calls upon the Islamic countries, The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the international community and especially the influential countries in the region to stop the violence of the Israeli occupying forces.” Source: https://www.samaa.tv/208732285-fact-check-did-taliban-ask-for-passage-from-neighboring-countries-to-reach-jerusalem
Tumblr media
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gave the final go-ahead for Hamas' October 7, 2023 surprise attack on Israel on Monday, October 2, 2023. The Anti-American MAGA Nazi cult of donald trump coordinated their attack on the Congress of the United States of America the same day to prevent the United States Congress from authorizing any aid to Israel. The House on Tuesday, October 3, 2023 voted 216 to 210 to remove California Republican Kevin McCarthy from his position as House speaker, a historic move that comes days after he reached an 11th-hour deal to avert a government shutdown with the help of House Democrats. The ouster came after Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz acted Monday night, October 2, 2023, to force a vote on a motion to vacate the office of the speaker, following through on a threat he made last week to take the gavel from the California Republican while the threat of a shutdown loomed. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kevin-mccarthy-removed-house-speaker-what-happens-next/
On Saturday Morning, October 7, 2023, as Israel celebrated the final day of the Sukkot holiday, Hamas terrorists launched a massive and vicious surprise attack on Israel’s southern towns and cities, murdering over 250 innocent men, women, and children in their homes and synagogues and taking dozens of hostages. Israel’s defense forces and emergency services are fighting to regain control of southern Israel. The full extent of the losses is still unknown. (Israel365News.com)
0 notes
glacialtimeframe · 3 years
Text
(poorly formed musings on disagreeing with Scott Alexander more over time)
It's strange reading Scott Alexander's recent stuff on the culture wars. It's hard to pinpoint exactly, and maybe this was just my own projection I guess, but I feel like Scott used to have a lot more "mixed feelings" on leftist cultural politics. I used to read him as being broadly supportive but with some real concerns about echo chambers, cancel culture etc etc. It's strange reading him now where he has a much more "anti" leftist cultural politics persona.
And, you know, that's fine, I've probably always been a bit to the left than Scott on pretty much anything. But it feels like the difference has widened lately, and it's difficult to tell if that's me changing or Scott. I do think like he's felt a bit more comfortable being explicitly anti leftist since the whole NYT article - it wouldn't be surprising if he'd been holding back before then but now of course he has very little to lose.
It's just a bit weird, I guess. I'm used to broadly agreeing with Scott on who has power in society, and he ascribes a lot more power to leftists than I feel is accurate. I think a weakness in his recent stuff is the lack of engagement with recent politics in the US, with state Republicans throwing their weight around on voting rights, lgbtqia+ issues etc etc. To me it really calls into the question the extent to which leftist cultural politics has "won" in the way Scott seems to be assuming or coming from.
It's hard not to make the "get off the internet" critique too - as much as leftists have definitely been influential in the internet wars and in a way that has had an impact at major news organisations like the NYT, that is very different from broader power in the real world outside the internet.
It's just strange, I guess, watching someone who has been a huge intellectual influence on me have such a different view about leftist cultural politics. The funny thing is I don't think we necessarily would disagree on that much in the specific - it's the overall diagnosis of the situation and what the "real problems are" that we seem to have different views. Like, I do think cancel culture is a real problem in both leftist and public spaces, but it's also incredibly overblown and an explicit political weapon that has been massively exaggerated for political gain by both conservatives and centrists. And the people who usually end up the most hurt by it are usually leftists. But I don't see those caveats in Scott's writing, which is so weird to me!
Same with people like Jordan Peterson, who Scott seems to be substantially more favourable towards and I find that hard to reconcile with my mental model of Scott. Strange!
Part of it I think is the issue of bubbles - Scott almost certainly has more tolerance for right wing views on a daily basis than I do, for both cultural and economic content. I've just given up on the right as a potential source of truth and good ideas, especially the US right. Since Trump got in office and most of the right wing intellectuals did a complete 180, it seems like a waste of time consuming the thoughts of everyone who is more right wing than centrist now. I'm not sure if that means I'm exposed to more or less bias than Scott now - or just a different kind of bias.
It's always been weird being more left than Scott on Econ, as someone who has actually studied Econ at post-grad level. Now Scott is obviously pretty smart - definitely smarter than me! - but I do feel like he's a bit out of touch with the empirical literature on a number of Econ issues, and probably a bit too inclined to take the "intuitiveness" of free market logic at face value relative to the actual empirical evidence which is decidedly mixed. Particularly in the case of complex services like healthcare and education where a lot of the core market features which make the markets for simple goods work well don't apply. As I've learned more about econ and moved left, Scott hasn't moved with me, and that's been strange too.
5 notes · View notes
theprimalfeed · 3 years
Text
Trumps Latest Message ----More Denial and  Delusion.
It is difficult to watch someone truly have to try to act completely against their nature. It is one of the most uncomfortable things to see. I am including a transcript of this message and the video for context. As always I cite my sources, luckily it comes from the jackasses mouth himself. 
Trump has always LOVED the cameras when he has “artistic freedom” this is once more another time where he is before us and his body language tells us he doesn’t want to be there or doing what he is doing. 
His hands clasped tight to prevent his emotions from taking over, (When he is fired up and talking in his rallies unscripted, his hands wave all over the place) That is a sign of him having to focus a distracted mind, like a scolded child. This was the first time publicly he did not refer to Covid-19 as “the china virus”. Trump is also not known for his public speaking using a verbose dialogue, words like “unequivocally, calamity and rancor” each time he has had a teleprompter event, a few choice words are tossed in along with proper sentence structure and prose. However watch his rallies and a plethora of double negatives, portly formed sentences, untethered thoughts with that rise up into a fervor only to crash down as he searches for the next thing he wants to say. His favorite line is still “Very, Very” . A frightening part of this message was the NO True Supporter lines, this is a direct message of cultism denial. The cult leader never wants to accept responsibility for the actions of those that performed “in the name of” This was one of the most terrifying parts of this message to me. 
There was nothing regarding the “what/who/how” this happened, Why? The evidence is four years of lies and vitriol that has been pumped out of his administration and himself with NO ONE stepping up to do the right thing. 
This is more of the same sales pitch that is designed to convince people to “listen to what he says , not what he does” and once more those that sit back and simply cite, excuses, or want to say “but there has to be a voice!” 
I am going to use an horrible example here but, it is much like your parent telling you they love you, and then beating you till you are bruised.
There does have to be a voice, a voice of reason and stability. Its okay to feel upset or angry over something, but encouraging massive groups that are emotionally charged in any way, that they have to “fight” stand up, take back” you know full well that is a match to the tinder. 
So to come back later and say... “I Unequivocally Condemn” .... a week later... is a lie, it’s gaslighting, it’s false. You want to say this was wrong, you are on TV that night, You want to address a nation full of anger and rage, You are on TV that afternoon. 
I am old enough to remember the Nation being addressed by Cater in 77′ as a meager boy all the way to today. Not ONCE did a siting President wait a week to formulate an answer to a crisis. Not ONCE did a sitting President even use the language and tactics such as this. And years ago we had politicians that would actually stand up for what is right, even at the peril of their political future. Politicians used to actually stand up for Republican Values, Democratic Values, but the entrenched generations of politicians represent neither of those true values. 
The worst part of this whole message is that even though he says “No TRUE supporter of mine would do this or that” ..... He fails, avoids, denies, circumvents the fact.... THEY DID. THEY HAVE BEEN. And with all the gaslighting and excuses that he has pumped out and been allowed to continue, the next excuse has already begun to circle. 
IT WAS ANTIFA!!! They started the mob!! We were just doing our Patriotic Duty! We have to take back the stolen Government!! Once more lies , deception and deceit..
Tip: No it wasn’t trust me.. Antifa, BLM, and the Bingo Club were all sitting in a Bar having a drink watching this mess unfold, not having to do a single thing. Laughing at everything. 
Denial is a dangerous thing. It leads us into much darker and vicious paths. It allows us to avoid our fears and hide from the harsh truths that force us to face who we really are. 
If you truly believe today that Donald Trump and the people that have so vigorously defended him and his actions, still have Americas best interest and not their own then you are free to believe that. 
I can not. I have a different viewpoint, I am not placing all of this on DJT, I am also placing blame on those that have truly enabled this. When I say supporters of this insanity, I mean those that have placed denial after denial and falsehood after falsehood before the people to try to argue the truths. Not the ones that actually have a dislike of his actions, but still feel aligned with most policies. When I blame supporters, I blame those that refuse to see how this all was a pyre with millions pouring gasoline and tinder just waiting for a spark.
~DM
Donald Trump: (00:00) My fellow Americans, I want to speak to you tonight about the troubling events of the past week. As I have said, the incursion of the US Capitol struck at the very heart of our Republic. It angered and appalled millions of Americans across the political spectrum. I want to be very clear, I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week. Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement.
Donald Trump: (00:35) Making America Great Again has always been about defending the rule of law, supporting the men and women of law enforcement and upholding our nation’s most sacred traditions and values. Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for. No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence. No true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement or our great American flag. No true supporter of mine could ever threaten or harass their fellow Americans. If you do any of these things, you are not supporting our movement, you are attacking it and you are attacking our country. We can not tolerate it.
Donald Trump: (01:26) Tragically, over the course of the past year made so difficult because of COVID-19, we have seen political violence spiral out of control. We have seen too many riots, too many mobs, too many acts of intimidation and destruction. It must stop. Whether you are on the right or on the left, a Democrat or a Republican, there is never a justification for violence, no excuses, no exceptions. America is a nation of laws. Those who engaged in the attacks last week will be brought to justice.
Donald Trump: (02:12) Now I am asking everyone who has ever believed in our agenda to be thinking of ways to ease tensions, calm tempers, and help to promote peace in our country. There has been reporting that additional demonstrations are being planned in the coming days, both here in Washington and across the country. I have been briefed by the US Secret Service on the potential threats. Every American deserves to have their voice heard in a respectful and peaceful way. That is your First Amendment Right. But I cannot emphasize that there must be no violence, no law breaking and no vandalism of any kind.
Donald Trump: (03:02) Everyone must follow our laws and obey the instructions of law enforcement. I have directed federal agencies to use all necessary resources to maintain order. In Washington, D.C., We are bringing in thousands of National Guard members to secure the city and ensure that a transition can occur safely and without incident. Like all of you, I was shocked and deeply saddened by the calamity at the Capitol last week. I want to thank the hundreds of millions of incredible American citizens who have responded to this moment with calm, moderation and grace. We will get through this challenge just like we always do.
Donald Trump: (03:51) I also want to say a few words about the unprecedented assault on free speech we have seen in recent days. These are tense and difficult times. The efforts to censor, cancel and blacklist our fellow citizens are wrong and they are dangerous. What is needed now is for us to listen to one another, not to silence one another. All of us can choose by our actions to rise above the rancor and find common ground and shared purpose. We must focus on advancing the interests of the whole nation, delivering the miracle vaccines, defeating the pandemic, rebuilding the economy, protecting our national security and upholding the rule of law.
youtube
10 notes · View notes
atheistforhumanity · 3 years
Link
This week 13 men belonging to right-wing militia organizations, like other violent militia Facebook groups that have been in the news, were arrest for a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, as well as murder police officers and overthrow the state government. Six men were arrested for plotting to carry out the kidnapping, and were taking into custody while sharing out guns and gathering money for explosives. The other seven men, also a part of militia groups, were arrest for lending material support to terrorists. The six men face a possible life in prison sentence, and the seven other are facing a possible twenty year sentence. Two of the militia groups they belonged to are named Wolverine Watchmen and Oath Keepers. Both have large memberships on Facebook from around the country. Apparently, the men’s motivation was to release Michigan from the “tyranny” of Coronavirus health precautions. The FBI began their investigation into these men a year ago and they had done much surveillance and practiced with explosives. This was a very serious threat. It’s also important to mention that these men hoped to instigate a civil war. 
I hate to say this, but I am not surprised at all, as this plot followers a very public pattern among the right-wing. The militia groups in reference have received much negative attention for their promotion of violence and references to civil war. Recently, these militia groups were just in the spot light when member, Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly killed two men at a protest. Facebook has been vowing to remove these violent groups, but many feel that not enough is being done.
While political violence can happen on both sides, the problem is far worse with the right-wing. A report by the American Defamation League reports that there were 42 deaths due to extremism in the US in 2019. They also stated, “As is typically the case, the extremist-related murders of 2019 were overwhelmingly (90%) linked to right-wing extremists. All but one of the incidents had ties to right-wing extremism.” It always has been by conservatives. These men wanted to overthrow their local government. The only time that has actually happened in America is in 1898 in a town called Wilmington, N.C. when white supremacists lost their minds because black Americans were legitimately holding positions of power. Conservative racists again lost their mind in the 1960′s during the first Civil Rights Era, when there were riots, murders, bombings, and shootings. Of course this was followed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King jr. and John F. Kennedy. Later, Timothy Mcveigh would shock the country with a massive explosion for his white power ideology. 
When Trump took office hate crimes immediately spiked and white supremacist groups around the country have been emboldened. In 2018, there were over four thousand hate crimes. We are now at an all time high for the number of hate crimes. Additionally, right-wing counter protesters have taken to regularly driving into crowds of BLM protesters to run them over. Trump himself has refused multiple times to condemn white supremacist groups. Earlier in April, Trump tweeted “liberate Michigan,” referring to the strict Covid-19 precautions, which was exactly the motivation for the planned kidnapping. 
The issue of right-wing terrorism is so serious and so widespread that even Republican law makers are involved. Washington state lawmaker Matt Shea was found to be involved in the planning of three right wing terrorist incidents that ended in gun wielding stand offs with law enforcement. Please read my previous article on him here.  As an update to that article, I want to point out that he is NOT in jail, nor did he leave office. Both Republicans and Democrats called for Shea to step down, but he renounced the calls as a “coup” against him. Now, Shea could have been removed from office with a 2/3 vote by state house. This never happened though because not enough republicans would commit to removing him. Even though the evidence against him is overwhelming, I cannot find a single reason to explain why he has not been arrested. I can only assume that local authorities refuse to act. Shea is not running for the state legislature again, but is running for a different office coming up. 
I’ve talked about the constant gaslighting by the right-wing as they slander liberal protesters as being a danger to society, when conservatives have always been the ones committing all the violence. What I’ve mentioned here is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only is domestic terrorism such as this case rising, but the calls for and instigation of a civil war by conservatives is growing louder. I cannot stress enough how dangerous the situation with the right-wing is becoming. We need to make sure we’re putting truth first and dispelling their misinformation that sparks violence like this. 
15 notes · View notes
thetaylorfiles · 3 years
Note
Republican anon here. I love politics so happy to come back. Let me preface with my problem with democrats is they live in the twitterverse, which is one heavily censorshiped and two not really used by as many people they think, (I think there is even a study that shows 80% of the activity is by 20% of the users). They make their decisions by the radical left that live there and think thats a populas thought. 4 weeks ago if you had asked me who I was voting for I would have said Biden. Unfortunately if I had to walk into today, I would vote for Trump. Its not a vote for him its a vote for the constitution. I don't see Biden as strong enough to fight off Sanders, AOC and Pelosi and also think we all know it's gonna be President Harris. So I cant vote for his tax hikes, packing the court, eliminating the electoral, adding seats and the green new deal. I didnt realize what a flawed candidate he was until I really looked into his 47 years in politics, and both him and Harris just come off of as liars. I'm waiting for something to change my mind in the next week but honestly I dont know what it could be because he has been caught in so many lies I can't believe him. Also everything with Hunter scares me because he clearly owes someone something (and clearly its China). I cant have a President willing to sell out our interests if his son becomes compromised. My biggest group of friends are basically like me liberal conservatives and conservative liberals and we all sort of feel the same. Thats probably why one of the biggest google trends is "can I change my vote". I also think you cant not acknowledge the huge gains Trump has made with the hispanic and conservative black votes. I think this year we are looking at another redo of Regan 1984. Either way whatever happens happens and I will just deal with it and hope Pelosi doesnt 25th amend him. Although to wrap up this ramble the twitter thing I memtioned is the same as the original tumblr point I made. No one in politics cares about people shipping in Tumblr or the trending topics on Twitter. So again I just find it funny they dont know enough about it, but think they know everything about it.
Hopefully that makes sense... Also hope I didn't disappoint you on my voting answer. It's really a tough decision this go around.
I don’t want to get into this too much because I don’t think it’s ideal to discuss politics online. It’s much better done in person because you need tone of voice and humanity. For me, anyway.
And while I get what you don’t want (and believe me, I am not as far liberal as the ones you fear taking over. And I also strongly disagree with the fact that they will take over), I think that to be able to gloss over what an abhorrent and unintelligent man Trump is is to truly do a disservice to our country.
And I when I say this, please know that I’ve never been a supporter of Republican presidents as I didn’t love their policies and such, but I sure as hell respected them. And I sure as hell admired them. And I thought them all to be genuinely great men. People who I believed to have the country’s best interest at heart and any persons best interest at heart. I trusted them, and their leadership, even when I didn’t agree with the decisions they made (some not all).
For as far back as I can remember, I have respected each Republican President. Trump is an absolute game changer. His character and lack of empathy and care and honestly, intelligence, plus the fact that the man is incapable of lying every second sentence, is something that I feel like should supersede any “voting for the constitution”.
Biden? At least we know he’s a good man. Both sides of the aisle - everyone has said that the one thing they can say about Biden is he’s a truly good man. And I long for a genuinely good person in office. Because we don’t have one now.
What you think is going on with Biden’s son should t matter for two reasons: one - most of it is unsubstantiated and two - no one cared about what the presidents children or siblings or family was doing before Trump brought his whole damn family on board into the White House. If you want to talk corrupt? Having something on them? Let’s look to the Trump family. If it doesn’t bother you there, why would Hunter bother you?
Those are rhetorical questions. I really don’t want to get into this. I am happy that it seems to be that the polls are showing a good lead in favor of Biden. Is he ideal? Of course not. But he’s moderate compared to the liberals out there ans I personally think he’ll do a good job of keeping it that way. I am liberal and I think my side has gone too damn far left. Biden isn’t perfect, Biden isn’t amazing, Biden isn’t going to make America a superpower. But he’s genuinely a deeply good man who knows his way around politics and respect and is liked by both sides of the aisle. All we need right now is some good leadership to get us out of this shitshow that is Covid. We need a president who doesn’t lie to us about it. Who doesn’t send us mixed signals. Who listens to scientists. Who gets us to where the other countries are who have beaten this thing down better than we have.
We are an embarrassment around the world. We never were before Trump. And now we are. People pity us and laugh at us. Thanks to Trump. I’m so tired of being a laughingstock.
I hope you reconsider. I hope the scare tactics don’t get you. I genuinely believe Biden will not step down so that we will have a Harris presidency. I genuinely believe he will be moderate and work to keep things the least devisive as possible. Please vote for a man who doesn’t call people names. It’s like, the number one thing you teach children: don’t be mean. Don’t call names. Don’t hurt feelings. Let’s strive to be better than that. Let’s have a President that doesn’t call anyone and everyone he doesn’t like a mean name and who also doesn’t lie constantly. (I know politicians all lie to an extent, but no one can argue that Trumps grandiose sense of self causes massive lies to erupt every time he speaks).
I beg of you to reconsider.
Thanks for having this discourse with me.
Ans btw, agreed about Twitter. It’s a cesspool of the worst of the left in an echo chamber. Trust me. I can see the worst of my side!
5 notes · View notes
feelingbluepolitics · 4 years
Text
We Can't Overlook Elizabeth Warren.
Behind the early ups and downs of this Democratic primary, there is one quality we are all looking for, both progressives and moderates: The ability to beat trump.
Warren is the one candidate already running directly against trump.
This is about whether we support the anti-corruption candidate who directly confronts and undercuts not just trump, but his entire agenda and everything trump stands for.
Right now, Warren is a bit like Ukraine's anti-corruption candidate, Zelinsky, who is holding out against Russia even while it is uncertain that America has his back. He didn't look like the toughest or the most fierce either, but he ran on a solid and heartfelt campaign against corruption. The strength of those principles resisted trump's attacks time after time, withstood every threat and every trump minion, brought trump's targeted corruption efforts to a standstill, and led to trump being exposed and impeached. The people of Ukraine united against corruption in their Revolution of Dignity, and chose the person who represented anti-corruption as the core of his campaign.
Ukraine versus Russia isn't where we are, though, as Democrats against the trump-led Republicons. Democrats together, with Independents and new voters and shocked, repulsed, moderate Republicons, are unstoppable. But building that coalition begins with Democrats united. Why would others join us if we fragment the power we have? As Blue Voters, as Democrats, we need to be positioned to work together.
"What it takes is a united Party. We can't have a repeat of 2016 when we roll into the general election with Democrats still mad at Democrats, Democrats still angry, some Democrats staying home. We need to have a Party that is united." (Warren, MSNBC's All in With Chris Hayes, 2/12/2020.
Bernie is uniting the progressives.
Buttigieg, maybe Klobuchar, are coalescing the moderates.
For all that many of us say and mean, "Vote Blue No Matter Who," we will lose moderates who are too nervous to support Bernie, the "self-described socialist," at the top of the ticket. People tend to fear the unknown. It is a terrible risk that people could consider trump the "known" factor, the disaster who telegraphs every despicable move so that at least people know what's coming, while seeing Bernie as the unknown, the greater fear of what "socialism" means in America between one day and the next.
Conservatives have long fear mongered against "socialism" and blotted out the distinctions between socialism and democratic socialism. We can start saying, "Well, it's like Denmark, it's like thriving countries in Northern Europe, not like Venezuela." But pictures of unrest hit harder and more viscerally than pictures of foreign success. Fox, dug into the political landscape for a long time now, has a formidable head start. There is also an ingrained version of American exceptionalism, where we Americans want to be who we are and not anybody else. We just want to be better at who we are.
Young Democratic Socialists and leaders like AOC are the brightest future, but we have to get there to reach it. trump stands in the way. As against trump, there will be inevitable, additional, multiple and damaging fights over Bernie and his platform before and after he faces trump directly.
It is unfair, and it is frustrating beyond measure. But ultimately, what most progressives want is the progress represented by Bernie's decades of vision, and they must consider whether that is more important, or if having Bernie himself as the standard bearer is more important.
In a better world, in a better America, Bernie could be president. That isn't where we are.
In a steadier world, a moderate candidate could make a suitable candidate for president, to run the country with small, incremental course corrections here and there.
It isn't as though progressives won't also look for bipartisanship! That is not a qualification unique to moderates! It's just that more progressive leaders don't stall while waiting for it. We cannot afford to do that. That is absolutely not where we are. On so many fronts, we are in a cataclysmic phase in our nation's history and in the future of the world. This is not the time for cautious incrementalism, for trying to back up to a safer-seeming status quo that isn't there anymore, or really never was.
To choose a moderate who seems confident about grasping the reins and taming the runaway is to be looking at the wrong moving picture entirely. What it really is, is pulling a blanket over our heads during a massive earthquake, and imaging that as reasonable because we'll just pat everything back into place afterwards.
We need to stop overlooking Elizabeth Warren. We need to support her before we lose her.
She is a fighter, which is why bloated billionaires and corporate CEOs fear her.
Her authenticity and her resolution are why Mark Zuckerberg is absolutely set against her.
What better protection can there be against the dangers Facebook represents to our elections than Zuckerberg having confessed in advance he will do anything to try to prevent a Warren presidency? She has a built-in shield like no other candidate because he's already on record against her. If people are suspicious about the mass of disinformation coming at us, it can't work as well.
Warren is a fighter, but she fights to unify us. As she says, everybody on the political left, up and down the ticket, can run on anti-corruption as a platform. We need them to.
That is the fight that can completely destroy trump. Every time trump brings up his economy, Elizabeth is positioned to show who "trump's" economy is really working for and why.
For all that people are talking about "electability" -- an amorphous and meaningless quality on its own, whatever it is -- any of our candidates have it if most voters nationwide support that candidate. That is actually what "electability" really comes down to. At this fraught junction, progressives are in no mood to support moderate candidates, although many, with trump as the alternative, will if they must. Moderates are always nervous of progressives; Bernie has long been the unimaginable for them, and Republicons excel at exacerbating fear.
If both progressive and moderate Democrats remain determined to win it all on their own respective merits, we stand to lose all. We need Warren for so many reasons which become more obvious once we look.
Those who hated Hillary saw her as a corrupt insider, with too many set implacably against her from the outset. Warren isn't a career "insider," and she is running against corruption. trump's projections of corruption, his go-to comfort zone, are useless against Warren.
Warren also resolves a deep residual disappointment over American backwardness, of not yet electing our first woman president. Warren also resolves some of the terrible disappointment of having Hillary's extensive knowledge and extraordinary qualifications wasted. Warren not only has detailed plans for every situation we face, she is willing to listen to and adopt a stronger detailed version, like Jay Inslee's climate plan. With Warren we will not face trying to move forward with "one person alone," one "brand," to fix the range of severe problems we face.
Warren parted the political walls to come in first from outside to set up protection for every single American as a financial consumer. Every single American, every person living in this nation, of every age, race, religion, origin, and political affiliation. That is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren, before she ran for any office, proposed the CFPB and established it, setting it up so solidly it has withstood incessant Republicon attempts to get rid of it entirely.
Warren stepped up to help protect every American from being cheated financially before she ever ran for office.
Klobuchar believes that she is the one who can best bring everyone together. The single most popular proposal across all of America though? That's Warren's wealth tax, which draws "broad support from voters, across party, gender and educational lines. Only one slice of the electorate opposes it staunchly: Republicon men with college degrees." (The core profile of those who will pay it.)
Klobuchar, a very skilled politician with a solid record, is still promising that as the moderate, she will bring everyone with her, but Warren, with her breakout proposal in the Democratic presidential primary, which appeals across coalitions, already did it.
Warren, a relative political newcomer as of her first election in 2012, mirrors Mayor Pete's freshness in politics, which also dates to 2012. She ran a Senate race and won. He ran for mayor.
Warren is not completely inexperienced with higher government, and it isn't an asset to be completely untested and inexperienced. Brilliance is one thing, but nobody on the debate stage is anything less. It is hubris of an astounding degree to plan with self-confidence to go from young mayor to President of the United States.
Warren, for example, knows exactly who to bring into her administration. She has been working with and reaching out to top people in their fields since before she entered politics herself. She can bring in the leaders who can bring in the staffers and experts who we have critical need for after trump has gutted every department and agency, leaving only hollow props fronted by trump loyalists. Buttigieg, in contrast to Warren, knows few contacts except, presumably, his McKinsey and Company contacts and their lobbyists, which is not a reassuring prospect.
One of the best articles on why Warren should be getting our votes sooner rather than too late is this one:
Warren's own words speak best, though, if we listen to her. On CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, 2/12/2020, Warren said this:
"Jesse Jackson made a wonderful statement,
'It takes two wings to fly.'"
And I think that's where we are right now in the Democratic Party. A lot of good people in this Party. A lot of good ideas.
"But we need someone who's going to be able to unite this Party and to be able to fight hard for core Democratic values. To fight on behalf of hard-working middle-class American families. To fight on behalf of people who've just been getting the short end of the stick over and over and over.
"You know, I came to politics late, but that was my life's work. And I'm running for president because I know how bad it's gotten for hard-working people, but I can see the ways that we can make this better. We get in this fight together. We can turn this around. We can make this a country that isn't just working for rich people, but a country that actually invests in all our children. A country that actually builds a future for everyone. It's what makes this so exciting."
That's Warren for president.
60 notes · View notes
popwasabi · 4 years
Text
What “The Dark Knight” says about our bad politics
Tumblr media
Waaay back in the summer of 2008, me and my dad drove up to Northern California to attend San Jose State University’s freshman orientation.
It was a long drawn out process where first-year students basically were told and shown a bunch of things they would forget and relearn by their first day anyways and culminated with all of us spending one night in the campus dorms so we could all get a taste of the “campus life” experience.
I wanted it to end badly for a couple reasons. Being an introvert, I was not comfortable sharing a room with anyone, let alone a stranger, for a night but more importantly, I was being kept from the biggest movie premiere of the year that day: “The Dark Knight.”
As soon as I woke up the next morning, I rushed my dad to find the nearest theater and purchased tickets immediately for a late-night screening. I was already a huge fan of “Batman Begins” but every trailer to Christopher Nolan’s epic follow-up indicated we were in for an even bigger blockbuster than before and I was beyond pumped.
Tumblr media
(Me getting the fuck off campus to watch “The Dark Knight” that day.)
Two and a half hours later I left the theater blown away by the experience. “The Dark Knight” was everything, at the time, I was hoping for in a comic book movie; angsty, dark, edgy (all things I thought I was as a teen), cinematically sharp, thrilling, a fantastic score once again by the legendary Hans Zimmer, and fulfilled just about every fanboy wet dream I had at the time for a perfect Batman movie.
To this day it remains the most satisfying theatrical experience I’ve ever had seeing a movie, not that it’s my favorite movie of all-time anymore, mind you, but that I have never gone into a movie with such high expectations and had them blown away quite like that since.
Tumblr media
(Conversely, this^ was my most disappointing experience...)
I’m a different person now, of course. If you were to wipe my memory of the film and had to watch it again today I doubt I would have the same fanboygasm I had then as the cynical 30-year-old I am now but I’ll argue that “The Dark knight” still remains a high mark, if not the standard, for comic book movies today.
That said, parts of this film have definitely not aged well. Visually the film still holds up, the action is still exciting, the performances are all stellar (though Bale’s Batman voice is still bad) but what hasn’t aged well, for me, are the movie’s politics.
“The Dark Knight” is, of course, a post 9/11 movie, in fact, it’s arguably the definitive one as its pop-cultural footprint dwarfs pretty much all within its sub-genre. This Nolan sequel deals heavily in themes of terrorism with its iconic villain The Joker, played maniacally by the late great Heath ledger, wreaking havoc across Gotham with various explosive devices. Though the Clown Prince is more an anarchist than someone with an ideology, like those in Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the results of his beliefs/non-beliefs are more or less the same; cause pandemonium and fear in the masses. Batman, representing the power of justice and order, does battle with this in a war to save Gotham’s soul and again this is still a damn entertaining and thrilling story.
Tumblr media
(Seriously, it’s still a rock solid entry in the comic book movie genre.)
But where the film’s 9/11 politics become problematic is toward the end of the film when the Joker begins his final act to plunge Gotham into unstoppable chaos. Batman becomes desperate; The Joker has eluded him at every turn, always two steps ahead of him, escaping justice no matter what Bruce Wayne does so he concocts a plan to finally to locate and stop the Joker for good.
He creates an elaborate sonar system using every cell phone in Gotham, effectively creating a massive surveillance state to spy on its citizens in order to locate the Joker.
Tumblr media
(And it’s the only time we have ever got the real Batman eyes on screen, damn it!)
Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, appropriately calls this out telling him he’s wrong and that he cannot support this but Batman insists that it’s the only way. Fox reluctantly agrees and tells him he’ll resign once this is over as he can’t morally support such a system. The sonar, of course, works and Batman is able to stop the Clown Prince once and for all and upon Fox entering his name into the sonar computer the program dissolves and is deleted presumably for good.
This is of course to wash Batman’s hands of this deed to the audience. Our protagonist knows this is wrong, the audience is told it is wrong but by ending the surveillance he shows he would never abuse such a program, that sometimes good men have to do terrible things to defeat evil and that makes it ok.
For years, as a bleeding heart liberal (at the time) who grew up in the Bush years but loved the hell out of this movie, I tried to reconcile with this part of the story because Batman was the hero. I thought maybe this kind of action is ok because if the “good guy” is in charge bad stuff is fine because he/she won’t abuse such power. That’s real justice, right?
Tumblr media
The problem is in the real world, at the top, there really aren’t any good guys and they are counting on you to believe that they are when they get a hold of such power because that’s how we are programmed.
The Patriot Act, which was the signature Bush-era reform post 9/11, created our current surveillance state. In the interest of national security and ensuring those “dern turrists don’t go killing lil’ Timmy riding his tricycle out in Des Moines, Iowa” our elected leaders, both republican and democratic (make no mistake), effectively signed away our constitutional rights to “ensure our safety” by spying on us basically without warrants. The proponents proudly claimed its necessity in fighting the “War on Terrorism” and those naysayers either shouldn’t worry “if you have nothing to hide” or worse were un-American Taliban sympathizers.
For progressives, of course, this was an evil violation of our civil liberties but for many conservatives, this wasn’t a big deal. They are just trying to keep us safe after all. 
But conveniently ignored by many on the left still today is the complicity they had in bringing about this era in warrantless surveillance. Yes, this policy started under Bush, of course, but it continued to be re-upped through the Obama administration and the Trump administration, not to mention revolving majorities in the House and Senate, showing no matter who was in charge they all liked the idea of keeping an eye on all of us with or without reason.
Considering the Patriot Act was made to win the “War on Terrorism” our leaders were never going to relinquish this power anyways because you can’t win a war on terrorism. Terrorism is not a country or a people, it’s an ideology behind many different ideologies. The US, no matter how you see it, be it as liberators or oppressors, will always have enemies and that’s all the reason they need to keep this power it seems.
Having the data on our lives mined like oil can easily be used against us in a variety of ways regardless of if any of us have terroristic or even criminal intentions. But for many in this country, it was only a problem if the wrong guy wielded that power. As soon as their “good guy” got in though, suddenly it was no big deal. I wonder why...
Tumblr media
“The Dark Knight” puts forth a problematic view on who can and should wield supreme power, that even terrible choices can be made as long as the “right” person is the one making them.
Liberals are notorious for justifying them when it’s one of them who does it.
It’s a lie. A lie that both parties use to their advantage because they want you believe everything they do can be justified because you happen to be a part of their party; the “good guys” once again. But there is something extra cynical about the way liberals wield it as they parade themselves around as paragons and moral pillars against the Jokers of the Republican party.
For all the platitudes liberals give, that would make some superhero speeches seem benign, they wear masks about as well as the vigilantes do but not for the same reasons. When confronted by this blatant hypocrisy, liberal voters justify all kinds of horrible things as long as the other “bad guy” isn’t the one doing it. For all the shit Bush gets, and rightfully so, for plunging us into a military, financial, and humanitarian quagmire in the Middle East, Obama gets almost zero real pushback by liberals for effectively drone bombing the hell out of the same people. During these past three years Trump has more or less allowed ICE to run rampant on immigrant communities sure and liberals have been critical, again as they should, but who made the cages they were thrown into and who deported more of them during his first three years in office than Trump did?
Tumblr media
(And once again, and I can’t emphasize this enough, Andrew Cuomo is NOT your fucking friend...)
Liberals often like to present themselves as the moral purveyors of good in the face of conservative opposition and they use it to their advantage to more or less do many of the same foul things those with R’s next to their name do. Sure, not all their actions are equally as evil but even then, we rarely truly hold either of our leaders feet to the fire because we believe their actions are somehow better because they have a “D” next to their name.
These horrific policies and actions will never see justice as long as we keep justifying them because the “right” person is behind them.
No, this is not an all sides are equally bad take. That discussion requires more nuance and for a different time, but I will say both sides are varying degrees of bad that should be taken seriously instead of not at all and can’t be pushed aside again and again and again because “the other guys are worse.” 
We are running into the same situation today as our presidential election features a credibly accused rapist, sexual predator, who supports Bush-era tax cuts, who takes money from major corporate lobbyists, who is against Medicare for All, has open disdain for millenials, and not only supports but openly bragged about the aforementioned The Patriot Act.
Hmmm, sounds an awful lot like someone we know, huh?
Tumblr media
You could argue that one of these two men mitigates, or even vastly mitigates, harm if in office and I’m not here to necessarily scold you for making what you feel is morally the least awful choice but the point still remains; we are justifying evil again because our “good guy” is in charge.
Being liberal, just on its own, does not vastly minimize the problematic nature of a bad person.
Regardless of how you feel about this election and what choice you plan to make this November (and again, I’m not here to tell you what to do), bad things and bad policies will be continued to be enacted by bad people because that’s what choices we’ve been given. There isn’t a good one and the most vulnerable will be hurt the most by it regardless of who wins. There is a reason so many are disillusioned with voting and it’s not just voter suppression laws.
I can already hear some of you screaming “OH MER GERD pURiTy TeStS,” but this is far more cynical a standard we have than simply choosing a less than perfect candidate. Many are already making rather tone-deaf comments about people being “privileged” for choosing not to compromise their morals anymore. What’s “privileged” is voting for the guy who will do less harm for you but ultimately still disproportionately harm more people of color no matter who is in office.  
Tumblr media
(The country and the world can really begin to truly heal when a Democrat is in charge of one of these Freedom Machines once again!)
Yes, I might agree that one is probably a net positive for the world at this point but to act like someone choosing to not participate anymore in what is effectively a never-ending cycle I can’t say I blame them either. At some point, our society has to draw a real line in the sand on these things with our leaders and force a more moral standard for our government instead of the status quo.
We can’t go on this endless “pragmatic” path picking “the lesser of two evils” until we gradually just become evil. You can make the argument that maybe the time isn’t now, and you might be right but when? These folks at the top are COUNTING on us accepting circumstances and justifying terrible beliefs and actions over and over again because of the state of our politics.
“The Dark Knight” believes that sometimes bad things must be done to defeat evil but the real world can be so much less cynical if we stopped compromising on our beliefs. It’s not entirely too late for us to do the right thing. We can’t go on forever letting bad behavior go because the “good guy” will be the one doing it instead of the other one.
Taking money from corrupt billionaires is wrong. Extra-judicially drone bombing the Middle East endlessly is wrong. Throwing migrants in cages like fucking animals is wrong. Rape and sexual assault are wrong. Mass warrantless surveillance is wrong. Doesn’t matter if its Batman or fucking Superman doing any of these things; immoral behavior cannot and should not be ever justified.
Otherwise, we really will live long enough to see ourselves become the villain...
Tumblr media
Looking forward to the comments on this one...
11 notes · View notes
Text
Part 3
Since I last posted, we’ve gotten word that a certain rich asshole is going to enter the race.  Now, I could do 500 words on why this guy is awful, but it would sort of go against my belief that just because someone is really rich does not mean we need to pay extra attention to them and their thoughts.   This guy is not winning the nomination, won’t even poll about 3% in most states, and overall is not worth the amount ink that will surely be spilled on his campaign.  Next.
Joe Biden. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders
So we are down to the final 3.  One of those 3 objectively should have been culled much earlier.  If I was doing this purely based on the level of support for each candidate, this guy would have been cut about 8 candidates ago.  But Joe Biden is still the front runner, consistently leading national polls and absolutely killing it in several early primary states like South Carolina.  Biden remains popular among black voters, who serve as the lifeblood of the Democratic party. Even though his policies and personality suck, he is unique from all the other shitty centrist candidates.  So he gets his own takedown.
Joe Biden is a very old man hoping to blind the voters with his connection to President Obama.  And for the most part, it’s working like a charm. Forget the fact that he is a rambling, incoherent mess during campaign stops.  Forget his abysmal views on race, including his support for segregated busing and racist colleagues.  Forget the fact this guy railroaded Anita Hill and still can’t sufficiently apologize to her.  Forget all the bad parts of Joe Biden.  That’s what he is banking on.  Biden is trying to win not based on policy or his strategy for improving the lives of everyday Americans.  No, he is trying to win by painting a false image of who he is and how electable he would be.  Biden is basing his entire campaign on appealing to low-key racist white suburbanites who don’t want to pay more taxes.  That’s his base.  And it’s not an awful strategy.  But it highlights something terrible about the Democratic voter.
The average Democratic primary voter appears to support progressive causes.  They want to see Social Security expanded.  They support a $15 minimum wage and gun control.  They support paid family leave and some form of universal health care.  But the average Democratic voter of a certain age, race and class level doesn’t want to fight for those things.  Because while they agree with those policies in principle, they won’t be that affected by them, and more importantly, would have to pay more in taxes.  So they say they support these goals yet refuse to put any skin into the game to achieve them.   The other possibility is that they would support enacting these policies and paying a bit more, but they don’t think anyone else would and thus think we need to support the least-controversial candidate.  No one really likes Joe Biden, or if they do, no one can really identify what exactly he is running for.   Even though health care remains a joke in this country, Biden isn’t arguing to make it better.  He isn’t supporting a wealth tax.  What is this man running on except a vague idea about returning dignity to the American worker.  Yet voters still support him, either because they know he actually won’t change anything (except make it ok to be gay again) or because they think not changing anything is the only way for a Democrat to win.
The American voter (not just Democratic voters) collectively is a stupid person.  They personally want a politician to enact massive change to better their lives, yet believe the ideal candidate is a moderate who won’t do anything major, and still someone in doing nothing substantial, will improve their lives.  Then, just to double down on that stupidity, they will vote the opposition party into power in Congress to ensure nothing happens, all because they love compromise. Of course, the last thirty years of politics have shown that bipartisanship is a myth.
The American voter is both very ignorant and very naïve.  We accept that.  But it’s tougher to accept that from our politicians.  At a recent fundraiser for millionaires, Biden touted his sincere belief that when Trump goes, Republicans will have an epiphany and start working with him to make our country better.  Folks, this is disqualifying.  The sheer insanity of that belief needs to be a deal breaker.  Biden, in the very same speech to the very same contingent of rich assholes, said that he personally called dozens of Republicans to get Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court.  The Republicans said no and pulled a move so disgusting and unprecedented that we will never see something worse in our lifetimes.  And this was all before Trump was even nominated.
Joe Biden is an idiot. He also is in the bag of the rich. He regularly attends fundraisers hosted by lobbyists for some of the most nefarious industries.  His campaign is mostly funded by Wall Street and Health Insurance.  And how do you think he’ll govern once in office?  Will he go after these bad actors?  Or will he appoint them to his Cabinet?  Remember, this is the guy who worked in an administration that wanted Larry Summers as Fed Chief.  He appointed Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury.
Joe Biden would continue the worst aspects of Obama’s administration without all the good stuff. He’d be in his late 80’s by the time his second term ended, too.  For the love of all that we hold holy, we cannot nominate Biden.
It is now time for the top two candidates.  I would happily vote for either of these candidates, so my choice for one is not a slight on the other.  Each candidate has issues, but they are minor compared to what they bring to the table. So I urge you to vote early and often for either of them.
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders
A presidential candidate should make you excited to vote for them.  It can’t just be “I can’t vote for the other guy so I guess you’ll do.”  It’s a recipe for disaster.  People need a reason to take a couple hours of their day, find parking, wait in a long line, deal with eighty-year old volunteers who yell at you to close the curtain more, and then go into work and deal with their daily amount of shit.  People need a reason to see the process of voting as exciting.  
I think Bernie and Elizabeth are the only two candidates one can reasonably get excited about.  I’m not saying everyone will be excited by them because a lot of people don’t support their policies.  I call these people assholes.  But can anyone honestly say they are excited to vote for Amy Klobuchar or Joe Biden? Even if you support their bland policy proposals which consist of “we need better jobs but fuck if I know how to do that.”
But which one to choose?
I’m going to start with Bernie.  The negatives against him are one of perception rather than reality, but in politics its not the truth that wins out but what you can convince people the truth is. And Bernie will definitely be portrayed as an out-of-touch Socialist.  While the youngins like the word “socialism” the majority of the electorate is still scared to death of the term because they equate social democratic government as the Soviet Union and bread lines.  In other words, most people are stupid.   Sanders best hope would be to hammer home how amazing European countries are, the benefits they enjoy without all the negatives that Republicans conjure up in places like Venezuela. Unfortunately, Republican messaging still rules the day.   Even if you could strap a person in a chair and explain point by point why Sweden and Denmark work as social democracies, they still wouldn’t get it.
Trump will absolutely attack Bernie for being a socialist, and the problem compared to the other candidates he would attack for being a socialist is that the suburban Democratic voters would actually believe him.  Bernie absolutely will upend the system, and a lot of people are still benefiting from that system.  People like my parents.  They have a good amount of money but are not rich.  Taxes going up on them will impact their daily lives, and most of the benefits Bernie is advocating for would not benefit them.  There is a lot of good research out there that suggests the key for Democrats to win across the board is to get the suburban moderate vote. And there is a legitimate argument that Bernie will not get that vote.  Now, one can say that those voters would never vote for Trump. But you must remember a very important thing about politics: white people can get pretty racist when they think you’ll take money away from them.
But here’s what I love about Bernie.  He is entirely genuine in his advocacy for the poor and working class. Most politicians say they care, of course.  They give a speech supporting raising the minimum wage or not cutting Medicaid. But they also tie themselves with rich donors and businesses whenever they can.  They support the poor until there is a good reason not to.  Not Bernie.  He’s been singing the same tune since the sixties.  He doesn’t care if it isn’t popular. He’ll make it become popular. Bernie almost single handedly shifted the conversation on universal health care.  We are talking about paid family leave and free college because of him. And the man deserves credit for that.
Bernie has been hit a lot from the Democratic establishment.  People are still sore that he had the audacity to challenge Hillary Clinton.  Even though he endorsed and campaigned heavily for her after dropping out in 2016, there is still a narrative that he sabotaged her campaign.  Let’s be clear, though.  The reason why the establishment Democratic contingency dislikes Bernie is because he thinks they are just as corrupt as the Republicans.  Which is true.  Democrats work out of the same bubble as Republicans.  They rub shoulders with the same Wall Street donors. Try calling up your Democratic Senator to get an in-person meeting.  Now look at who does get those meetings.  I support Bernie because he actually is trying to change our corrupt political system.  A politician can’t work within the given system without being corrupted by it. The system is a cancer that needs to be destroyed.  
Bernie has said some dumb things and has held some dumb positions.  This can’t be denied.  He’s been accused of being a racist, sexist and homophobe.  Some of this is absolute bullshit and some of it is based on dumb things he’s said.   But judging by the policies the man has supported, the votes he has taken, and what he has said during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, does anyone honestly believe him to be a racist, sexist or homophobe?
If you are having a tough time getting behind Bernie, I’d ask yourself the following questions:
Do you honestly believe he would pursue anti-women and anti-reproductive rights policies?
Do you think a more robust paid family leave policy, along with a policy promoting affordable childcare, would significantly benefit women?
Do you think Bernie would restrict LGBTQ rights or would he expand protections for this group?
Do you genuinely believe Bernie would support or champion policies that would discriminate against black people?  
Do you think health care is a crisis in this country and everyone should have access to it? If so, do you think Bernie makes the situation better or worse?
Do you think a president should fill his administration with people from the financial and insurance industries?  Do you think Bernie would do this?
Do you think millionaires and billionaires should be taxed more and more money should go into programs that help the poor and middle class?
Should college be free or at least much more affordable?
Ask yourself these questions.  Don’t worry about whether he can get them passed.  Truth is it will be tough for any Democrat to get anything passed.  I’d be looking at which candidates are most willing to use executive orders (hint: it’s Bernie).
We can’t keep hedging our votes on what’s practical because the truth is everything is doable with enough willpower.   Think about how insane Social Security is as a legislative success.  We taxed everyone, rich and poor, to provide money to senior citizens for the rest of their lives.  That’s insane, and we did it.  Same with Medicare.  If you think are country needs massive changes to secure our future, vote for the candidate who is advocating for massive changes.  That candidate is Bernie Sanders and…..
Elizabeth Warren.  Everything good about Bernie can also be said about Elizabeth Warren.  This is a person who literally created an agency designed to help consumers go against corporations.  Warren has correctly diagnosed the problem for wealth and income inequality and a lot of the bad shit that’s been happening to the American worker. Corporations suck. Rich people suck. They both need to be taxed way more and we need to use those funds to give benefits to the poor and working class. Warren has a plan for pretty much everything, and that is a great thing.  She doesn’t talk in platitudes about restoring dignity to the working class. She identifies the problem and comes up with an actual solution.  
And for her efforts she gets skewered by her opponents and the media.  When Pete Buttigieg says we should invest more in affordable housing, no one pushes back on exactly what that means.  But when Warren releases a comprehensive plan to pay for Medicare for All, she is eviscerated.  Her plans should be critiqued, but they should also come with the acknowledgement that she has put in the work and is way more open with the American people than the other candidates.  The media and voters need to start making candidates pay a price for not articulating actual plans for their policy goals.  
Warren is fucking smart and driven.  She has the brain and energy to do the job.  She’s not a crackpot; she’s an advocate for the little guy.  Honestly, there isn’t much to criticize Warren on outside of how she will pay for her policy proposals.  But the media will attack what little they have while giving Trump and the more moderate Democrats a pass.  When Trump or Biden talk about strengthening the military, no one will ask what that means and how much it will cost.  But when Warren comes up with a tax plan to pay for free childcare, every single pundit will pounce the second some study comes out that her funding is off by a few million.
Of course, the dumbest part is the idea Warren needs to fully fund any proposal.  Right now, the economy has been doing great for about five years.  And in that whole time, we’ve been running huge deficits.  Maybe government spending without offsets isn’t such a big deal. Warren can’t say that because the media won’t allow her to.  It would be great if Warren could just say “things are going great now despite a trillion-dollar deficit, so why not get free healthcare for a $2 trillion-dollar deficit?”
That’s what I love most about Warren.  The lines of attack against her are so shitty.  Bernie has legitimate concerns that the Republicans will easily exploit. The best they can do with Warren is attack her policies, which are broadly popular.  And with Warren, you get a bunch of different contingencies that will come out for her.  You have women and those who want to see our first female president.  You get progressives excited about finally having a candidate who advocates for them with a fighting chance.  And because she is being so careful not to raise middle class taxes, I think you get a lot of the suburban vote.
I think Warren can win this thing.  She articulates the message well, she lacks genuine baggage and when compared to Trump, she comes off even better.  
So who is my final pick? I’m going with Elizabeth Warren. Not only does she hold most of the same policy positions as Sanders, but she also is fundamentally opposed to the corporate interests that got us to this point.  And I think she can better cajole moderate Democrats to support her agenda.  Finally, I think she comes with less baggage.
What I would love to see, based on the polling, is for Warren to either win or come in second by a close margin to Biden or Buttigieg.  Sanders would drastically underperform, at which point if New Hampshire was also going poorly, he could drop out and swing all his support to Warren.  That would make her the clear front runner. Let’s see what happens.
  Elizabeth Warren
38 notes · View notes
kereeachan · 4 years
Text
As a continuation of my plan to postJoe Biden’s proposed platform directly to tumblr so people who claim to not know what he stands for can find out nice and easy, here’s part 2 (warning, heck of a lot long than the last one):
IMMIGRATION REFORM
It is a moral failing and a national shame when a father and his baby daughter drown seeking our shores. When children are locked away in overcrowded detention centers and the government seeks to keep them there indefinitely. When our government argues in court against giving those children toothbrushes and soap. When President Trump uses family separation as a weapon against desperate mothers, fathers, and children seeking safety and a better life. When he threatens massive raids that would break up families who have been in this country for years and targets people at sensitive locations like hospitals and schools. When children die while in custody due to lack of adequate care.
Trump has waged an unrelenting assault on our values and our history as a nation of immigrants.
It’s wrong, and it stops when Joe Biden is elected president.
Unless your ancestors were native to these shores, or forcibly enslaved and brought here as part of our original sin as a nation, most Americans can trace their family history back to a choice–a choice to leave behind everything that was familiar in search of new opportunities and a new life. Joe Biden understands that is an irrefutable source of our strength. Generations of immigrants have come to this country with little more than the clothes on their backs, the hope in their heart, and a desire to claim their own piece of the American Dream. It’s the reason we have constantly been able to renew ourselves, to grow better and stronger as a nation, and to meet new challenges. Immigration is essential to who we are as a nation, our core values, and our aspirations for our future. Under a Biden Administration, we will never turn our backs on who we are or that which makes us uniquely and proudly American. The United States deserves an immigration policy that reflects our highest values as a nation.
Today, our immigration system is under greater stress as a direct result of Trump’s misguided policies, even as he has failed to invest in smarter border technology that would improve our cargo screening.
His obsession with building a wall does nothing to address security challenges while costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Most contraband comes in through our legal ports of entry. It’s estimated that nearly half of the undocumented people living in the U.S. today have overstayed a visa, not crossed a border illegally. Families fleeing the violence in Central America are voluntarily presenting themselves to border patrol officials. And the real threats to our security–drug cartels and human traffickers–can more easily evade enforcement efforts because Trump has misallocated resources into bullying legitimate asylum seekers. Trump fundamentally misunderstands how to keep America safe because he cares more about governing through fear and division than common sense solutions.
Trump’s policies are also bad for our economy. For generations, immigrants have fortified our most valuable competitive advantage–our spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. Research suggests that “the total annual contribution of foreign-born workers is roughly $2 trillion.” Key sectors of the U.S. economy, from agriculture to technology, rely on immigration. Working-age immigrants keep our economy growing, our communities thriving, and country moving forward.
The challenges we face will not be solved by a constitutionally dubious “national emergency” to build a wall, by separating families, or by denying asylum to people fleeing persecution and violence. Addressing the Trump-created humanitarian crisis at our border, bringing our nation together, reasserting our core values, and reforming our immigration system will require real leadership and real solutions. Biden is prepared on day one to deliver both.
As president, Biden will forcefully pursue policies that safeguard our security, provide a fair and just system that helps to grow and enhance our economy, and secure our cherished values. He will:
Take urgent action to undo Trump’s damage and reclaim America’s values
Modernize America’s immigration system
Welcome immigrants in our communities
Reassert America’s commitment to asylum-seekers and refugees
Tackle the root causes of irregular migration
Implement effective border screening
The Biden Commitment to a Fair and Humane Immigration System
Joe Biden understands the pain felt by every family across the U.S. that has had a loved one removed from the country, including under the Obama-Biden Administration, and he believes we must do better to uphold our laws humanely and preserve the dignity of immigrant families, refugees, and asylum-seekers.
The Obama-Biden Administration strongly supported the bipartisan comprehensive immigration solution that passed the Senate in 2013 and which would have put our country’s immigration policies on a much stronger footing. When the Republican House refused to even bring that bill to a vote, the Administration took action to fundamentally change the course of our nation’s immigration policies, offering relief and stability to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who contribute to our communities every single day.
As Vice President, Biden championed the creation and expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program; the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program; the Central American Minors program, which allowed parents with legal status in the U.S. to apply to bring their children up from Central America to live with them; and the creation of a White House task force to support new Americans and help them integrate into their new homes and communities.
In a departure from their predecessors, the Obama-Biden administration took steps to prioritize enforcement resources on removing threats to national security and public safety, not families. It also issued guidance designed to end mass work-place raids and to prevent enforcement activities at sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals, and places of worship.
Critically, the Obama-Biden administration recognized that irregular migration from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America cannot be effectively addressed if solutions only focus on our southern border. The better answer lies in addressing the root causes that push desperate people to flee their homes in the first place: violence and insecurity, lack of economic opportunity, and corrupt governance. As Vice President, Biden spearheaded the administration’s efforts in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras–bringing high-level attention to these issues and securing bipartisan support for a $750 million aid package to help the Northern Triangle countries implement critical, concrete reforms. These efforts were beginning to deliver results and reduce migration rates until Trump froze the majority of the funding, began his campaign to terrorize immigrants and assault the dignity of the Latino community, and created the current humanitarian crisis at our border with his irresponsible and inhumane policies.
As president, Biden will finish the work of building a fair and humane immigration system–restoring the progress Trump has cruelly undone and taking it further. He will secure our border, while ensuring the dignity of migrants and upholding their legal right to seek asylum. He will enforce our laws without targeting communities, violating due process, or tearing apart families. He will ensure our values are squarely at the center of our immigration and enforcement policies.
Take Urgent Action to Undo Trump’s Damage and Reclaim America’s Values
The next president will need to take urgent action to end the Trump Administration’s draconian policies, grounded in fear and racism rather than fact, work to heal the wounds inflicted on immigrant communities, and restore America’s moral leadership. As president, Biden will move immediately to ensure that the U.S. meets its responsibilities as both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.
In the first 100 days, a Biden Administration will:
Immediately reverse the Trump Administration’s cruel and senseless policies that separate parents from their children at our border, including ending the prosecution of parents for minor immigration violations as an intimidation tactic, and prioritize the reunification of any children still separated from their families.
End Trump’s detrimental asylum policies. The Statue of Liberty has long been a beacon to people “yearning to breathe free” around the world — including asylum-seekers and refugees. But the Trump Administration has worked against this tradition to drastically restrict access to asylum in the U.S., including imposing additional restrictions on anyone traveling through Mexico or Guatemala; attempting to prevent victims of gang and domestic violence from receiving asylum; systematically prosecuting adult asylum seekers for misdemeanor illegal entry; and severely limiting the ability of members of the LGBTQ community, an especially vulnerable group in many parts of the world, from qualifying for asylum as members of a “particular social group.” Biden will end these policies, starting with Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols, and restore our asylum laws so that they do what they should be designed to do–protect people fleeing persecution and who cannot return home safely.
End the mismanagement of the asylum system, which fuels violence and chaos at the border. Trump’s disastrous policy of “metering” — limiting the number of asylum applications accepted each day — forces people seeking asylum to wait on the streets in often dangerous Mexican border towns for weeks before they are permitted to apply. It has created a horrifying ecosystem of violence and exploitation, with cartels kidnapping, violently assaulting, and extorting migrants. Biden will direct the necessary resources to ensure asylum applications are processed fairly and efficiently, while treating families and children with compassion and sensitivity.
Surge humanitarian resources to the border and foster public-private initiatives. Humanitarian needs are best met through a network of organizations, such as faith-based shelters, non-governmental aid organizations, legal non-profits, and refugee assistance agencies working together. Biden will dramatically increase U.S. government resources to support migrants awaiting assessment of their asylum claims and to the organizations providing for their needs.
End prolonged detention and reinvest in a case management program. The Trump Administration has sought to circumvent the Flores agreement and hold children in detention indefinitely. But proven alternatives to detention and non-profit case management programs, which support migrants as they navigate their legal obligations, are the best way to ensure that they attend all required immigration appointments. These programs also enable migrants to live in dignity and safety while awaiting their court hearings–facilitating things like doctor visits, social services, and school enrollment for children. Evidence shows that these programs are highly effective and are far less expensive and punitive than detaining families. Biden will codify protections to safeguard children to make sure their treatment is consistent with their best interest and invest in community-based case management programs, including those supported by faith-based organizations such as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, to move migrants into safe environments as quickly as possible.
Reverse Trump’s public charge rule, which runs counter to our values as Americans and the history of our nation. Allowing immigration officials to make an individual’s ability to receive a visa or gain permanent residency contingent on their use of government services such as SNAP benefits or Medicaid, their household income, and other discriminatory criteria undermines America’s character as land of opportunity that is open and welcoming to all, not just the wealthy.
End the so-called National Emergency that siphons federal dollars from the Department of Defense to build a wall. Building a wall will do little to deter criminals and cartels seeking to exploit our borders. Instead of stealing resources from schools for military children and recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, Biden will direct federal resources to smart border enforcement efforts, like investments in improving screening infrastructure at our ports of entry, that will actually keep America safer.
Protect Dreamers and their families. The Obama-Biden Administration created DACA in 2012 to protect “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, obeyed the law once here, and stayed in school or enlisted in the military. DACA provided young people who passed a background check and application process with temporary work permits and protection from deportation. The Trump Administration made the cruel and counterproductive decision to terminate DACA, throwing into turmoil the lives of millions of Dreamers. Dreamers and their parents should have a roadmap to citizenship through legislative immigration reform. But in the meantime, Biden will remove the uncertainty for Dreamers by reinstating the DACA program, and he will explore all legal options to protect their families from inhumane separation. Biden will also ensure Dreamers are eligible for federal student aid (loans, Pell grants) and are included in his proposals to provide access to community college without debt and invest in HBCU/Hispanic Serving Institution/Minority Serving Institutions, which will help Dreamers contribute even more to our economy.
Rescind the un-American travel and refugee bans, also referred to as “Muslim bans.” The Trump Administration’s anti-Muslim bias hurts our economy, betrays our values, and can serve as a powerful terrorist recruiting tool. Prohibiting Muslims from entering the country is morally wrong, and there is no intelligence or evidence that suggests it makes our nation more secure. It is yet another abuse of power by the Trump Administration designed to target primarily black and brown immigrants. Biden will immediately rescind the “Muslim bans.”
Order an immediate review of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for vulnerable populations who cannot find safety in their countries ripped apart by violence or disaster. The Trump Administration’s politically-motivated decisions to rescind protected status for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing countries impacted by war and natural disasters — without regard for current country conditions — is a recipe for disaster. Biden will protect TPS and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) holders from being returned to countries that are unsafe. TPS/DED holders who have been in the country for an extended period of time and built lives in the U.S. will also be offered a path to citizenship through legislative immigration reform.
Restore sensible enforcement priorities. Targeting people who have never been convicted of a serious criminal offense and who have lived, worked, and contributed to our economy and our communities for decades is the definition of counterproductive. Biden will direct enforcement efforts toward threats to public safety and national security, while ensuring that individuals are treated with the due process to which they are entitled and their human rights are protected. President Biden will end workplace raids to ensure that threats based on workers’ status do not interfere with their ability to organize and improve their wages and working conditions. He will also protect sensitive locations from immigration enforcement actions. No one should be afraid to seek medical attention, go to school, their job, or their place of worship for fear of an immigration enforcement action.
Ensure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel abide by professional standards and are held accountable for inhumane treatment. Biden will increase resources for training and demand transparency in and independent oversight over ICE and CBP’s activities. Under a Biden Administration, there will be responsible, Senate-confirmed professionals leading these agencies, and they will answer directly to the president.
Protect and expand opportunities for people who risked their lives in military service. Biden will not target the men and women who served in uniform, or their families, for deportation. He will also direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to create a parole process for veterans deported by the Trump Administration, to reunite them with their families and military colleagues in the U.S.
Restore and defend the naturalization process for green card holders. A Biden Administration will streamline and improve the naturalization process to make it more accessible to qualified green card holders. The Trump Administration has made it far too difficult for qualifying green card holders to obtain citizenship. Quite simply, this is wrong. Biden will restore faith in the citizenship process by removing roadblocks to naturalization and obtaining the right to vote, addressing the application backlog by prioritizing the adjudication workstream and ensuring applications are processed quickly, and rejecting the imposition of unreasonable fees.
Revitalize the Task Force on New Americans and boost our economy by prioritizing integration, promoting immigrant entrepreneurship, increasing access to language instruction, and promoting civil engagement. Integrating the talents of new immigrants into our communities and helping them to thrive enriches our nation and our economy. Under President Biden, the Task Force on New Americans will once more coordinate federal agencies and resources to provide community support across a range of issues, including language learning, entrepreneurship and financial management, workforce training, and guidance on the naturalization process.
Convene a regional meeting of leaders, including from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Canada, to address the factors driving migration and to propose a regional resettlement solution. Migration out of the Northern Triangle has impacted more countries than just the U.S. Belize, Costa Rica, Mexico, and others have also seen growing numbers fleeing violence and a lack of opportunity. A regional problem requires a regional solution, so Biden will immediately convene regional partners to institute a comprehensive, multi-national plan to address the challenges.
Modernize America’s Immigration System
As president, Biden will commit significant political capital to finally deliver legislative immigration reform to ensure that the U.S. remains open and welcoming to people from every part of the world–and to bring hardworking people who have enriched our communities and our country, in some cases for decades, out of the shadows. This is not just of concern to Latino communities, this touches families of every heritage and background. There are approximately 1.7 million undocumented immigrants from Asia in the U.S., as well as hundreds of thousands from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean. Biden will immediately begin working with Congress to modernize our system, with a priority on keeping families together by providing a roadmap to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants; growing our economy and expanding economic opportunity across the country by improving and increasing opportunities for legal immigration; and preserve the longstanding directive of our immigration system to reunite families and enhance our diversity.
Immigrants are essential to the strength of our country and the U.S. economy. When immigrants choose to come to the U.S., they bring their unique traditions and contributions to the rich cultural tapestry of our country. They are also a key driver of economic growth. The Congressional Budget Office found that the 2013 comprehensive immigration package would have, over time, increased the size of the economy by more than 5 percent. Currently, we are not taking advantage of America’s ability to attract the best and brightest workers in the world. A modern immigration system must allow our economy to grow, while protecting the rights, wages, and working conditions of all workers, and holding employers accountable if they don’t play by the rules. Immigrant rights and worker rights are deeply connected. We must ensure that every worker is protected, can join a union, and can exercise their labor rights–regardless of immigration status–for the safety of all workers.
Joe Biden will work with Congress to pass legislation that:
Creates a roadmap to citizenship for the nearly 11 million people who have been living in and strengthening our country for years. These are our mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. They are our neighbors, co-workers, and members of our congregations and Little League teams. They contribute in countless ways to our communities, workforce, and economy. In 2015, the IRS collected $23.6 billion from 4.4 million workers without Social Security numbers–many of whom were undocumented. Biden will aggressively advocate for legislation that creates a clear roadmap to legal status and citizenship for unauthorized immigrants who register, are up-to-date on their taxes, and have passed a background check.
Reforms the visa program for temporary workers in select industries. A collection of industries depend on seasonal workers, or workers who only seek to be in the U.S. for a short time. The current system for accommodating these workers is cumbersome, bureaucratic, and inflexible—driving up incentives to circumvent the system by hiring undocumented laborers and allowing the employers who control the visa to pay artificially low wages. Biden will work with Congress to reform the current system of temporary work visas to allow workers in these select industries to switch jobs, while certifying the labor market’s need for foreign workers. Employers should be able to supply data showing a lack of labor availability and the harm that would result if temporary workers were unavailable. This flexibility, coupled with strong safeguards that require employers to pay a fair calculation of the prevailing wage and ensure the right of all workers to join a union and exercise their labor rights, will help meet the needs of domestic employers, sustain higher wages for American workers and foreign workers alike, incentivize workers and employers to operate within legal channels, prevent exploitation of temporary workers, and boost local economies.
Reforms the temporary visa system. High skilled temporary visas should not be used to disincentivize recruiting workers already in the U.S. for in-demand occupations. An immigration system that crowds out high-skilled workers in favor of only entry level wages and skills threatens American innovation and competitiveness. Biden will work with Congress to first reform temporary visas to establish a wage-based allocation process and establish enforcement mechanisms to ensure they are aligned with the labor market and not used to undermine wages. Then, Biden will support expanding the number of high-skilled visas and eliminating the limits on employment-based visas by country, which create unacceptably long backlogs.
Provides a path to legalization for agricultural workers who have worked for years on U.S. farms and continue to work in agriculture. Securing adequate, seasonal help in the agricultural sector can be inefficient and difficult to navigate, causing people to avoid or exploit the system, even when jobs remain unfilled. Biden supports compromise legislation between farmworkers and the agricultural sector that will provide legal status based on prior agricultural work history, and a faster-track to a green card and ultimately citizenship. Biden also will ensure labor and safety rules, including overtime, humane living conditions, and protection from pesticide and heat exposure, are enforced with respect to these particularly vulnerable working people.
Rejects the false choice between employment-based and family-based immigration. Each day, in every state in the country, millions of immigrants granted a visa based on family ties make valuable contributions to our country and economy. Keeping families together and allowing eligible immigrants to join their American relatives on U.S. soil is critically important, but the current system is poorly designed with per-country caps that prevent applications from being approved in a timely fashion. That means approved applicants may wait decades to be reunited with their families. As president, Biden will support family-based immigration by preserving family unification as a foundation of our immigration system; by allowing any approved applicant to receive a temporary non-immigrant visa until the permanent visa is processed; and by supporting legislation that treats the spouse and children of green card holders as the immediate relatives they are, exempting them from caps, and allowing parents to bring their minor children with them at the time they immigrate.
Preserves preferences for diversity in the current system. Trump has set his sights on abolishing the Diversity Visa lottery. This is a program that brings up to 50,000 immigrants from underrepresented countries to the U.S. each year. He has disparaged the system as a “horror show” and repeatedly misrepresents how the lottery is administered, while demonizing and insulting with racist overtones those who receive the visas. Diversity preferences are essential to preserving a robust and vibrant immigration system. As president, Biden will reaffirm our core values and preserve the critical role of diversity preferences to ensure immigrants everywhere have the chance to legally become U.S. citizens.
Increases the number of visas offered for permanent, work-based immigration based on macroeconomic conditions. Currently, the number of employment-based visas is capped at 140,000 each year, without the ability to be responsive to the state of the labor market or demands from domestic employers. As president, Biden will work with Congress to increase the number of visas awarded for permanent, employment-based immigration—and promote mechanisms to temporarily reduce the number of visas during times of high U.S. unemployment. He will also exempt from any cap recent graduates of PhD programs in STEM fields in the U.S. who are poised to make some of the most important contributions to the world economy. Biden believes that foreign graduates of a U.S. doctoral program should be given a green card with their degree and that losing these highly trained workers to foreign economies is a disservice to our own economic competitiveness.
Creates a new visa category to allow cities and counties to petition for higher levels of immigrants to support their growth. The disparity in economic growth between U.S. cities, and between rural communities and urban areas, is one of the great imbalances of today’s economy. Some cities and many rural communities struggle with shrinking populations, an erosion of economic opportunity, and local businesses that face unique challenges. Others simply struggle to attract a productive workforce and innovative entrepreneurs. As president, Biden will support a program to allow any county or municipal executive of a large or midsize county or city to petition for additional immigrant visas to support the region’s economic development strategy, provided employers in those regions certify there are available jobs, and that there are no workers to fill them. Holders of these visas would be required to work and reside in the city or county that petitioned for them, and would be subject to the same certification protections as other employment-based immigrants.
Enforces the rules to protect American and foreign workers alike. The U.S. immigration system must guard against economy-wide wage cuts due to exploitation of foreign workers by unscrupulous employers who undercut the system by hiring immigrant workers below the market rate or go outside the immigration system to find workers. Biden will work with Congress to ensure that employers are not taking advantage of immigrant workers and that U.S. citizen workers are not being undercut by employers who don’t play by the rules. Biden will also work to ensure employers have the right tools to certify their workers’ employment status and will restore the focus on abusive employers instead of on the vulnerable workers they are exploiting.
Expands protections for undocumented immigrants who report labor violations. When undocumented immigrants are victims of serious crimes and help in the investigation of those crimes, they become eligible for U Visas. The Obama-Biden Administration expanded the U Visa program to certain workplace crimes. As president, Biden will further extend these protections to victims of any workplace violations of federal, state, or local labor law by securing passage of the POWER Act. And, a Biden Administration will ensure that workers on temporary visas are protected so that they are able to exercise the labor rights to which they are entitled.
Increases visas for domestic violence survivors. Under the Trump Administration, there are unacceptable processing delays for adjudicating applications for VAWA self-petitions, U-visas, and T-visas. As president, Biden will end these delays and give victims the security and certainty they need. And, Biden will triple the current cap of 10,000 on U-visas; this cap is insufficient to meet the dire needs of victims and hinders our public safety.
Welcome Immigrants in our Communities
Immigrants bring tremendous economic, cultural, and social value to their new communities. Even in cities hit hard by the loss of manufacturing jobs, immigrants are a key driver of entrepreneurship and population growth.
According to a 2017 report by the New American Economy, from 2000 to 2015, immigrants accounted for 49.7% of all population growth in the Great Lakes region — over 1.5 million people — which helped offset the impacts of population decline in cities like Syracuse and Akron. Immigrants are bringing new life to local economies–starting businesses, paying taxes, and spending their dollars back into their new communities. The Center for American Progress has estimated that DACA recipients will contribute about $460.3 billion to the national GDP over the next decade. The U.S. needs to retain the talents and drive of American-raised Dreamers to secure those benefits for our own economic health.
It’s time for the federal government to listen and learn from local municipalities across the country that have built vibrant and inclusive communities and economies by developing concrete policy and program recommendations at the grassroots level to provide opportunities for new immigrants.
As president, Biden will:
Marshal federal resources, through the reestablishment of the Task Force for New Americans, to support community efforts to welcome immigrants. Concrete efforts will most often happen within individual communities, but federal agencies have tremendous information and resources to support community-led efforts. By adopting initiatives promoted by organizations like Welcoming America, a Biden Administration will improve access to federal agencies and better support local initiatives, such as:
Push to repeal extreme, anti-immigrant state laws that have a chilling effect on the ability of immigrant domestic violence, sexual assault survivors, and other victims of crimes to seek safety and justice. Some state laws drive victims and witnesses into the shadows and threaten public safety. As documented in a recent national survey, immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking are increasingly afraid to contact police, pursue civil or criminal cases, or go to court to seek safety. This traps victims who either ask for help and risk deportation, retaliation by an abuser, and separation from one’s children, or stay with a violent partner and risk one’s life. As president, Biden will work in partnership with cities, states, nonprofits, and law enforcement to build trust and push for states to repeal the laws that chill the reporting of domestic violence incidents and threaten public safety.
Expand long overdue rights to farmworkers and domestic workers. When Congress extended labor rights and protections to workers, farmworkers and domestic workers – who are disproportionately immigrants and people of color – were left out. Still today, millions of these workers are not fully protected under federal labor law. As president, Biden will support legislation, including the Fairness for Farmworkers Act and Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, that expands federal protections to agricultural and domestic workers, ensuring that they too have the right to basic workplace protections and to organize and collectively bargain. And, through the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, Biden will ensure domestic workers have a voice in the workplace through a wage and standards board.
Establishing Offices of Immigrant Affairs in city halls, or at the county and state levels, so there are local government officials focused on making policies inclusive;
Creating neighborhood resource centers or welcome centers to help all residents find jobs; access services and English-language learning opportunities; and navigate the school system, health care system, and other important facets of daily life;
Supporting entrepreneur incubators targeted toward immigrants and providing resources to help access business loans, mentoring, and capital;
Promoting statewide seals of biliteracy to recognize people who graduate from high school speaking multiple languages;
Driving campaigns to help lawful permanent residents naturalize;
Facilitating statewide efforts to lower the barriers to relicense professional degrees and certifications from other countries;
Increasing immigrant representation on community boards;
Ensuring that all public schools have sufficient English-language learning support to help all children reach their potential; and
Investing in programs to connect immigrant professionals to others in their field or to create cultural events and other programming to build social capital in immigrant communities.
Reassert America’s Commitment to Asylum-Seekers and Refugees
The Trump Administration’s policies have created a humanitarian disaster at our border and grossly mismanaged the unprecedented resources Congress has allocated for it. Trump has diverted money to terrorize immigrant families, even as CBP facilities at the border are overwhelmed. After almost three years, this Administration still doesn’t have a coherent plan for the protection and processing of children and families. CBP officers in the field, who are neither trained nor equipped for this work, are shouldering outsized responsibility for managing this crisis. And through his Migrant Protection Protocol policies, Trump has effectively closed our country to asylum seekers, forcing them instead to choose between waiting in dangerous situations, vulnerable to exploitation by cartels and other bad actors, or taking a risk to try crossing between the ports of entry. In other words, Trump’s policies are actually encouraging people to cross irregularly, rather than applying in a legal, safe, and orderly manner at the ports.
As president, Biden will:
Surge asylum officers to efficiently review the cases of recent border crossers and keep cases with positive credible-fear findings with the Asylum Division. This change, recommended by the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, will eliminate duplication of resources and fact-finding while reviewing the merit of asylum cases and alleviate the burden on the overwhelmed immigration courts. Not everyone leaving Central America is an asylum applicant, but many are, and each case should be reviewed fairly and in full accordance with the law. Migrants who qualify for an asylum claim will be admitted to the country through an orderly process and connected with resources that will help them care for themselves. Migrants who do not qualify will have the opportunity to make their claim before an immigration judge, but if they are unable to satisfy the court, the government will help facilitate their successful reintegration into their home countries.
Restore asylum eligibility for domestic violence survivors. Under the Biden Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice will reinstate explicit asylum protections — rescinded by the Trump Administration —for domestic violence and sexual violence survivors whose home governments cannot or will not protect them.
Apply U.S. asylum laws to those fleeing political persecution. Victims of persecution based on political beliefs have also suffered under Trump’s curtailment of asylum processes and his failure to properly apply U.S. asylum laws.
Double the number of immigration judges, court staff, and interpreters. There is a backlog of more than one million immigration cases in the administrative system resulting in applicants often waiting years before their cases are heard. This increase in vital immigration court staffing will support timely and fair adjudications for asylum and other cases.
End for-profit detention centers. No business should profit from the suffering of desperate people fleeing violence. Biden will ensure that facilities that temporarily house migrants seeking asylum are held to the highest standards of care and prioritize the safety and dignity of families above all.
Increase the number of refugees we welcome into the country. With more than 70 million displaced people in the world today, this is a moment that demands American leadership. Offering hope and safe haven to refugees is part of who we are as a country. As a senator, Joe Biden co-sponsored the legislation creating our refugee program, which Trump has steadily decimated. His Administration has reduced the refugee resettlement ceiling to its lowest levels in decades and slammed the door on thousands of individuals suffering persecution, many of whom face threats of violence or even death in their home countries. We cannot mobilize other countries to meet their humanitarian obligations if we are not ourselves upholding our cherished democratic values and firmly rejecting Trump’s nativist rhetoric and actions. Biden embraces the core values that have made us who we are and will prioritize restoring refugee admissions in line with our historic practice under both Democratic and Republican Administrations. He will set the annual global refugee admissions cap to 125,000, and seek to raise it over time commensurate with our responsibility, our values, and the unprecedented global need.
Tackle the Root Causes of Migration
The worst place to deal with irregular migration is at our own border. Rather than working in a cooperative manner with countries in the region to manage the crisis, Trump’s erratic, enforcement-only approach is making things worse. The best way to solve this challenge is to address the underlying violence, instability, and lack of opportunity that is compelling people to leave their homes in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in the first place. As Vice President, Biden was the architect of a major program of U.S. assistance to advance reforms in Central America and address the key factors driving migration.
As president, Biden will pursue a comprehensive strategy to strengthen the security and prosperity of Central America in partnership with the people of the region that:
Addresses the root causes of migration by fostering greater security, economic development, and respect for the rule of law in Central America. The Northern Triangle is riven by violence, plagued by narco-trafficking, and held in fear by criminal organizations wielding military-grade weapons, and it is particularly dangerous for women and children. Biden will propose a four-year, $4 billion package of assistance for the region, with aid linked to governments in the region delivering measurable reductions in gang and gender-based violence, improvements in legal and educational systems, and implementation of anti-corruption measures, among other things. This support will also be supplemented by international donors and regional partners.
Strengthen regional humanitarian responses. The inability of the Northern Triangle countries to stem the violence and terror in the region has created a regional refugee challenge. Almost every country in the region is receiving refugees and struggling to protect and care for children and families. As a leader in the region, the U.S. has a responsibility to help our neighbors and partners process and support refugees and asylum seekers. This will also help relieve the pressure at our own border.
Manage migration through refugee resettlement and other legal programs. Whenever possible, we should enable asylum-seekers to make their claim without undertaking the dangerous journey to the U.S. Biden will update the Central American Minors program for certain children seeking to reunify with U.S. relatives, allowing them to apply for entry from their home countries; expand efforts to register and process refugees in the region for resettlement in the U.S. and other countries; and expand opportunities for individuals seeking temporary worker visas or another form of legal status for which they may qualify to be able to come to the U.S.
Implement Effective Border Screening
Like every nation, the U.S. has a right and a duty to secure our borders and protect our people against threats. But we know that immigrants and immigrant communities are not a threat to our security, and the government should never use xenophobia or fear tactics to scare voters for political gain. It’s irresponsible and un-American. Building a wall from sea-to-shining-sea is not a serious policy solution–it’s a waste of money, and it diverts critical resources away from the real threats. Today, illicit drugs are most likely to be smuggled through one of the legal U.S. ports of entry. They are hidden among commercial cargo in semi-trucks or in a hidden compartment of a passenger vehicle. A wall is not a serious deterrent for sophisticated criminal organizations that employ border tunnels, semi-submersible vessels, and aerial technology to overcome physical barriers at the border–or even for individuals with a reciprocating saw. We need smart, sensible policies that will actually strengthen our ability to catch these real threats by improving screening procedures at our legal ports of entry and investing in new technology. The border between Mexico and the U.S. shouldn’t be treated like a war zone; it should be a place where effective governance and cooperation between our two countries helps our communities thrive and grow together–facilitating commerce and connection, and fueling the exchange of cultures and ideas.
As president, Biden will:
Invest in better technology coupled with privacy protections at the border, both at and between ports of entry, including cameras, sensors, large-scale x-ray machines, and fixed towers. Biden will also invest heavily in improving the aging infrastructure at all of our ports of entry.
Improve cross-agency collaboration. Multiple federal agencies collect information on transnational criminal organizations that smuggle people, arms, and illegal narcotics. To more effectively combat the trafficking of illicit goods at the ports of entry, consistent with our commitment to privacy, we must improve our coordination across and between government agencies.
Work with Mexico and Canada as partners — not as adversaries. Better cooperation with our neighbors translates to greater security for all our countries. Instead of bullying our friends, Biden will build partnerships grounded in respect to pursue our shared interests and enhance our shared capabilities and information.
Read Joe’s Plan to Build Security and Prosperity in Partnership with the People of Central America >>
2 notes · View notes
Note
Does PGC even post anymore or is that all the cute animals? So this is to NAC. First off. Do you vote? And if so what do you vote for? And second of all, what is your purpose on this site? You rip people a new one if they don't lick your boots and then block them. You've created a soapbox in an echo chamber. What the hell makes you think you're conservative? And why the hell do you think we have time to read the Mueller report. U read it, tell us why the President should be impeached?
Yes, shows you don’t pay much attention, but we’ll get back to that...but most of those animals are NAC.
Yes I vote.  And sadly it’s for a lot of third party candidates who don’t stand a chance because the two main parties are only offering me a choice of fascism and socialism.
“what is your purpose on this site?“ To express my opinion.  For whatever reasons I may have.  The same as any tumblr page.  You act as if I have to justify having a tumblr page.  The fuck?  Better question given that you admit to never actually wanting to learn what is you purpose in existence?  Because whatever it is you’re failing. Once long ago I had hopes that maybe tumblr would expose me to arguments more traditional outlets didn’t...boy was I wrong (just as I was wrong that the majority of Republicans weren’t racist, just as I was wrong once long ago that the FAIR tax was better than a flat tax, and certainly that before reading Federalist 42 and seeing that the Constitution gives no power to regulate immigration I thought for all it’s short coming on economics immigration rules should be followed because rule of law should be upheld and efforts should be pragmatically made to reduce them over time...but once I saw that it was unconstitutional I realized they have to go right now...we could go on for a long time on things I’ve learned I’m wrong about, but that would involve discussion what is I’m sure a foreign concept to you, learning).
“You rip people a new one if they don't lick your boots and then block them.“ I rip people a new one if they waste my time.  If you came into my house and started yelling at me I’d be well withing my rights to send you to hell you so richly deserve.  If you come to my tumblr page to spout drivel I will throw you out as well. 
“You've created a soapbox in an echo chamber. “ Soapbox, certainly.  Echo chamber.  It is presenting an opinion certainly, one biased by reason, facts, logic, and ethics.  But I don’t exist in an echo chamber.  Every day I keep up with CNN and Fox, Washington Times and Washington Post, AEI and Brookings, CATO and The Dipatch, The Bulwark and the Atlantic, National Review and Ricochet.  From the Far Right to the Far Left to the Far Libertarian.  I track down primary documents and I post some of the more interesting stuff I find. Not to mention hundreds of books from a variety of sources. So I’m not in an echo chamber.  And I don’t require that anyone else be in an echo chamber.  Please go find other sources than me.  But if you’re going to waste my time by commenting on my post with the intellectual equivalent of diarrhea don’t expect me to want to bother with you.  You and I both have the right to speak, and we both have the right to not listen.  You have a problem with my right to speak and my right to not listen, I am fully in support of both of yours. 
“What the hell makes you think you're conservative?“ A desire for small, limited government (unlike both parties at present).  A desire for free market capitalism (unlike both parties right now).  A desire for following the Constitution (both parties fail, but the democrats are vaguely in line with impeaching Trump, but I wouldn’t begin to fool myself that they suddenly believe in the Constitution...which is the documents benefits, it doesn’t always have to be believed in just followed to work).  I believe in low taxes and free trade like the Founding Fathers.  I believe in doing what works by that I mean things that in one example after another show pragmatic results that benefit everyone (capitalism, open border, free speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms).  I believe in personal responsibility, in defending liberty at home and abroad, at opposing tyranny at every turn.
  Can Trump or any of his supporters say the same?  No. Not on a single point.
So how do you claim I’m not a conservative?
“And why the hell do you think we have time to read the Mueller report.“ Because you as a voting citizen have a civic duty to hold your elected representatives to account and to do that you have stay informed.  It’s available for FREE at audible https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Mueller-Report-Audiobook/B07PXN468K It’s 19 hours.  Playing it at double speed or higher (Audible can get up to 3.5x speed, which is how I can get through more than 200 books a year...when was the last time you read even one?) means you’d only need about 10 hours.  Most commutes are 4.3 hours a week...so even if you only listened on your drive to work you’d be done in two and a half weeks. If you don’t have 19 hours to spare, what are you doing?  You never do chores (which can be done while listening to audiobooks?)  or is catching up on the Mandalorian so much more important than the fate of a real Republic...or perhaps given that well over half the pro-Trump blogs I have to block are mostly porn is it that you have other things that capture your attention. 
“tell us why the President should be impeached? “ You see this is why you get blocked.  There are literally hundreds of posts that are much shorter than a 19 hour read that I have posted which do that.  But you didn’t bother to read any of them.  You just attack, blindly, like the brainless twit you are.  But you don’t have to read my posts...but don’t then complain when I don’t have any respect for the filth you call an opinion.
But since you missed why Trump should be impeached, removed, convicted, tried, sentenced and imprisioned for the rest of his life.  Let’s go over it again.
There is the massive tax fraud he and his family were involved in
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html
He is a money launder for the cartels
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/narco-a-lago-panama/
He has violated the emoluments clause from the first day
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-emoluments-clause-its-text-meaning-and-application-to-donald-j-trump/
He has obstructed justice in the Mueller investigation:
“Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate  conclusions  about  the  President’s  conduct.  The  evidence  we  obtained  about  the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment.  At the same time,if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.”  I.e. Barr won’t let us charge him.  If we thought he wasn’t guilty of obstruction we’d say so.  We’re not saying so.  (I.e. he’s guilty of obstruction his handpicked Goering wannabe Barr just won’t let us charge him with the crimes he committed).
Conclusion from the Mueller Report.  https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
Is one paragraph short enough for you?
He attempted extortion of a foreign nation (I read the summary of the transcript where he said “do me a favor”, can’t read the transcript as he keep repeating because it has been illegally classified)
He did said extortion to help himself win an election a violation of his oath of office and to help his friends in Russia.  Both crimes.
And then he committed obstruction of justice/Congress by not allowing his people to testify. 
I notice also that you tried to take this back to the Mueller report because his crimes that the Democrats actually had the balls to impeach him on (a mere fraction of the crimes he is guilty of) are such an open and shut case that you prefer to take things back the Mueller Report which does requires above an elementary level of reading (which I’m guessing you, like your God-King Trump, lack). 
Now please, fascist cocksucker run along.  Don’t bother me again.  I will never concern myself with your meaningless drivel but you can shout your filth as much as you want.  I just don’t care.  Just don’t bother me unless you want to come and deal with real facts (I realize such a thing is so foreign a concept to you that you probably stopped reading long ago to go back to the porn blogs that are more you level, but still, I have to put in the request, Don Quixote that I am--that’s a reference to a book by the way, you’re supposed to read them not burn them...again I’m sure it’s a concept that goes too far for you). 
“ U read it,“ There are always of course unintentional typos and only a fool points those out on a format such as tumblr.  But “U”?  In a political argument you treat this like a high school girl texting her bffjill? And you wonder why my contempt knows no bounds.
- NAC
—-
As for me, PGC, I post once in a blue moon. Occassionally I post about my history podcast, which is only one of the many projects I’m working on that have made tumblr so very low on my priority list. Politics is no longer my main sector of interest and that was 90% of what I used tumblr for.
So yeah, I’m busy. I keep up with the news and post on twitter fairly often (@MeredithAncret aned @history_wtf, if anyone is desperate to know) but I’m starting grad school in 6 weeks (meaning my reading assignments already started), writing my podcast, and working on at least two novels and a short story series intermittantly. If someone wants my opinion they can address an ask to me and I’ll see it eventually or NAC will let me know it’s there.
5 notes · View notes
Trump Promised Massive Infrastructure Projects—Instead We’ve Gotten Nothing
Digital Elixir Trump Promised Massive Infrastructure Projects—Instead We’ve Gotten Nothing
Yves here. In a bit of synchronicity, when a reader was graciously driving me to the Department of Motor Vehicles (a schlepp in the wilds of Shelby County), she mentioned she’d heard local media reports that trucks had had their weight limits lowered due to concern that some overpasses might not be able to handle the loads. Of course, a big reason infrastructure spending has plunged in the US is that it’s become an excuse for “public-private partnerships,” aka looting, when those deals take longer to get done and produce bad results so often that locals can sometimes block them.
By Tom Conway, the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW). Produced by the Independent Media Institute
Bad news about infrastructure is as ubiquitous as potholes. Failures in a 108-year-old railroad bridge and tunnel cost New York commuters thousands of hours in delays. Illinois doesn’t regularly inspect, let alone fix, decaying bridges. Flooding in Nebraska caused nearly half a billion dollars in road and bridge damage—just this year.
No problem, though. President Donald Trump promised to fix all this. The great dealmaker, the builder of eponymous buildings, the star of “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump, during his campaign, urged Americans to bet on him because he’d double what his opponent would spend on infrastructure. Double, he pledged!
So far, that wager has netted Americans nothing. No money. No deal. No bridges, roads or leadless water pipes. And there’s nothing on the horizon since Trump stormed out of the most recent meeting. That was a three-minute session in May with Democratic leaders at which Trump was supposed to discuss the $2 trillion he had proposed earlier to spend on infrastructure. In a press conference immediately afterward, Trump said if the Democrats continued to investigate him, he would refuse to keep his promises to the American people to repair the nation’s infrastructure.
The comedian Stephen Colbert described the situation best, saying Trump told the Democrats: “It’s my way or no highways.”
The situation, however, is no joke. Just ask the New York rail commuters held up for more than 2,000 hours over the past four years by bridge and tunnel breakdowns. Just ask the American Society of Civil Engineers, which gave the nation a D+ grade for infrastructure and estimated that if more than $1 trillion is not added to currently anticipated spending on infrastructure, “the economy is expected to lose almost $4 trillion in GDP, resulting in a loss of 2.5 million jobs in 2025.”
Candidate Donald Trump knew it was no joke. On the campaign trail, he said U.S. infrastructure was “a mess” and no better than that of a “third-world country. ”When an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia in 2015, killing eight and injuring about 200, he tweeted, “Our roads, airports, tunnels, bridges, electric grid—all falling apart.” Later, he tweeted, “The only one to fix the infrastructure of our country is me.”
Donald Trump promised to make America great again. And that wouldn’t be possible if America’s rail system, locks, dams and pipelines—that is, its vital organs—were “a mess.” Trump signed what he described as a contract with American voters to deliver an infrastructure plan within the first 100 days of his administration.
He mocked his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton’s proposal to spend $275 billion. “Her number is a fraction of what we’re talking about. We need much more money to rebuild our infrastructure,” he told Fox News in 2016. “I would say at least double her numbers, and you’re going to really need a lot more than that.”
In August of 2016, he promised, “We will build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, seaports and airports that our country deserves. American cars will travel the roads, American planes will connect our cities, and American ships will patrol the seas. American steel will send new skyscrapers soaring. We will put new American metal into the spine of this nation.”
In his victory speech and both of his State of the Union addresses, he pledged again to be the master of infrastructure. “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, school, hospitals. … And we will put millions of our people to work,” he said the night he won.
That sounds excellent. That’s exactly what 75 percent of respondents to a Gallup poll said they wanted. That would create millions of family-supporting jobs making the steel, aluminum, concrete, pipes and construction vehicles necessary to accomplish infrastructure repair. That would stimulate the economy in ways that benefit the middle class and those who are struggling.
That contract Trump signed with American voters to produce an infrastructure plan in the first 100 days: worthless. It never happened. He gave Americans an Infrastructure Week in June of 2017, though, and at just about the 100-day mark, predicted infrastructure spending would “take off like a rocket ship.” Two more Infrastructure Weeks followed in the next two years, but no money.
Trump finally announced a plan in February of 2018, at a little over the 365-day mark,to spend $1.5 trillion on infrastructure. It went nowhere because it managed to annoy both Democrats and Republicans.
It was to be funded by only $200 billion in federal dollars—less than what Hillary Clinton proposed. The rest was to come from state and local governments and from foreign money interests and the private sector. Basically, the idea was to hand over to hedge fund managers the roads and bridges and pipelines originally built, owned and maintained by Americans. The fat cats at the hedge funds would pay for repairs but then toll the assets in perpetuity. Nobody liked it.
That was last year. This year, by which time the words Infrastructure Week had become a synonym for promises not kept, Trump met on April 30 with top Democratic leaders and recommended a $2 trillion infrastructure investment. Democrats praised Trump afterward for taking the challenge seriously and for agreeing to find the money.
“It couldn’t have gone any better,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., told the Washington Post, even though Neal was investigating Trump for possible tax fraud.
Almost immediately, Trump began complaining that Democrats were trying to hoodwink him into raising taxes to pay for the $2 trillion he had offered to spend.
Trump and the Republicans relinquished one way to pay for infrastructure when they passed a tax cut for the rich and corporations in December of 2017. As a result, the rich and corporations pocketed hundreds of billions—$1 trillion over 10 years—and Trump doesn’t have that money to invest in infrastructure. Corporations spent their tax break money on stock buybacks, further enriching the already rich. They didn’t invest in American manufacturing or worker training or wage increases.
Three weeks afterthe April 30 meeting, Trump snubbed Democrats who returned to the White House hoping the president had found a way to keep his promise to raise $2 trillion for infrastructure. Trump dismissed them like naughty schoolchildren. He told them he wouldn’t countenance Democrats simultaneously investigating him and bargaining with him—even though Democrats were investigating him at the time of the April meeting and one of the investigators—Neal—had attended.
Promise not kept again.
Trump’s reelection motto, Keep America Great, doesn’t work for infrastructure. It’s still a mess. It’s the third year of his presidency, and he has done nothing about it. Apparently, he’s saving this pledge for his next term.
In May, he promised Louisianans a new bridge over Interstate 10—only if he is reelected. He said the administration would have it ready to go on “day one, right after the election.” Just like he said he’d produce an infrastructure plan within the first 100 days of his first term.
He’s doubling down on the infrastructure promises. His win would mean Americans get nothing again.
Tumblr media
Trump Promised Massive Infrastructure Projects—Instead We’ve Gotten Nothing
from WordPress https://ift.tt/2Y88zzN via IFTTT
1 note · View note
sarcasticcynic · 5 years
Link
Last week, Congressional Republicans and Democrats were wrangling over what should have been a bipartisan farm bill. Everyone agreed on the basic provisions, but Republicans--with Trump’s full-throated support--decided they also wanted to slash the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (food stamps), to make its work requirements even harsher. Democrats declined to agree with this, which threatened to derail the legislation.
After Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue met with House Republicans, however, they agreed to compromise, and the bipartisan farm bill then passed easily. Well, now we know what Perdue said to persuade them: he promised that, if they passed the farm bill without the SNAP cuts, the Trump administration would proposed new regulations to accomplish pretty much exactly what Congress refused to do. And the administration has now done just what it promised, proposing new rules that will “cut off basic food assistance for hundreds of thousands of the nation’s poorest and most destitute people” -- 755,000 people, by the administration’s own estimate.
Present Law
Let’s start with the basics: SNAP provides an average of “about $1.40 per person per meal” in food assistance. That’s the massive amount of public assistance that conservative Republicans and Donald Trump begrudge the poorest of Americans who can’t find work.
SNAP generally requires “Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents” (ABAWDs) to work at least 80 hours a month in order to receive food stamps. Looking for work doesn’t count, no matter how bad unemployment may be. For ABAWDs who cannot find enough work, SNAP limits benefits to a maximum of three months out of every three-year period. This hits minorities hardest, because minority unemployment rates are almost always higher:
“People of color would be at particular risk, given their much higher unemployment rates and continued racial discrimination in labor markets. As noted, the African-American unemployment rate has long been roughly double the non-Hispanic white unemployment rate. Studies have found that white job applicants are much likelier to receive callbacks after job applications or interviews than equally qualified Black applicants.”
Because this rule is rather harsh, SNAP also allows states administering the program to seek temporary “waivers of this three-month cut-off in areas where jobs for these individuals are lacking, such as when unemployment is elevated.” Waivers are available “in areas that have an unemployment rate of over 10 percent or a lack of sufficient jobs for ABAWDs to meet the work requirement.” Waivers are also available “in areas with unemployment rates that are at least 20 percent greater than the national rate”; for example, if the national average were 4%, a 4.8% local unemployment rate would be 20% higher.
“Since the 1996 welfare law took effect, every state but Delaware has sought a time-limit waiver at some point.” At present:
“36 states ... currently waive at least part of their SNAP populations from the existing three-month limit for able-bodied adults without dependents to receive benefits within a three-year period if they’re not working at least 80 hours a month.”
Republican Reaction
Conservative Republicans have decided that states are too lenient when it comes to securing waivers for the poorest Americans. They want to make work requirements stricter, and crack down on these waivers. Congress just refused to do that, but the Trump administration has never had a problem “pursuing through executive powers what it could not achieve in Congress”:
“Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue tipped his hand on how the administration plans to assuage House conservatives who wanted stricter SNAP work requirements in the final legislation: Once the bill passes, USDA will issue a proposed rule to crack down on work-requirement waivers. ... Perdue said the rule will appeal to conservative lawmakers who are frustrated that House Republicans came up short in their push for stronger work requirements for millions of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients.”
And sure enough, the administration has done just that:
“The Department [of Agriculture] has determined that the standards for waivers must be strengthened so that the ABAWD work requirement is applied to ABAWDs more broadly. ... The Department proposes stricter criteria for ABAWD waiver approvals that would establish stronger, updated standards for determining when and where a lack of sufficient jobs justifies temporarily waiving the ABAWD time limit. ... Limiting waivers would make more ABAWDs subject to the time limit and thereby encourage more ABAWDs to engage in meaningful work activities if they wish to continue to receive SNAP benefits.”
Proposed Law
The proposed rule completely eliminates the most commonly used bases for waivers. The primary change is an across-the-board denial of waiver in any area where unemployment is below a certain floor. (Current law has no such minimum.) The floor would function as an absolute cutoff regardless of how much higher local unemployment is than the national average, or how hard it actually is to find work, or whether an ABAWD belongs to a group with a statistically higher-than-average unemployment rate, e.g., minorities or people without lower education. These are all valid considerations under current law, but not under the proposed changes.
The Trump administration is thinking a floor of 7%, but might decide to make it even higher based on the higher number of current participants that would now be completely barred from getting waivers no matter what:
“The Department requests feedback on which unemployment rate floor – 6 percent, 7 percent, or 10 percent – would be most effective at limiting waivers. ... Based on the Department’s analysis, nearly 90 percent of ABAWDs would live in areas without waivers and would be encouraged to take steps towards self-sufficiency if a floor of 7 percent was established. In comparison, a 6 percent floor would mean that 76 percent of ABAWDs would live in areas without waivers and a 10 percent floor would mean that 98 percent of ABAWDs would live in areas without waivers.”
The administration is also eliminating other criteria upon which waivers can be based under current law, including: “a low and declining employment-to-population ratio, a lack of jobs in declining occupations or industries, or an academic study or other publication(s) that describes an area’s lack of jobs,”  as well as factors like “a historical seasonal unemployment rate over 10 percent.” Now none of those will make any difference, and none can ever support a waiver request.
The new rule will also completely bar states from seeking statewide waivers, as they can under current law. There are various other changes as well, all adding up to the same thing: accomplishing the administration’s stated goal of denying SNAP assistance to as many people as possible:
“The Department has estimated the net reduction in federal spending associated with the proposed transfer rule to be approximately $1.1 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2020 and $7.9 billion over the five years 2020-2024. This is a reduction in federal transfers (SNAP benefit payments); the reduction in transfers represents a 2.5 percent decrease in projected SNAP benefit spending over this time period. ... Under current authority, the Department estimates that about 60 percent of ABAWDs live in areas that are not subject to a waiver and thus face the ABAWD time limit. Under the revised waiver criteria the Department estimates that nearly 90 percent of ABAWDs would live in such an area. Of those newly subject to the time limit, the Department estimates that approximately two-thirds (755,000 individuals in FY 2020) would not meet the requirements.”
Will It Work?
The $7.9 billion-dollar question: Will denying basic nutrition to these hundreds of thousands of ABAWDs help them find jobs, as conservative Republicans and the Trump administration claim?
Of course not. There is no evidence that kicking people off of food stamps ever helps them obtain jobs, and plenty of evidence and analyses to the contrary:
“This is not how the relationship between public assistance and private commerce actually works, as policy experts and economists and poor people and food bank managers and job training professionals have all been saying for years.”
Not that the Trump administration has ever cared about things like evidence.
CAVEAT: The original article is from Think Progress, which is heavily left-biased. That is why this Tumblr entry quotes liberally from the proposed rule itself. Feel free to verify.
6 notes · View notes
arlingtonpark · 6 years
Text
SNK 109 Review
A Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Edition
Tumblr media
-From ch. 109
Tumblr media
-From my review of ch. 102
YES! I WAS RIGHT! KISS MY ASS YOU FOOLS1
So just as I predicted, we are seeing the start of a schism on Paradis.
On one side of the divide you’ve got a right-wing extremist faction composed of Floch, Louise, Zeke, his cult, and Eren (the Eldian Freedom Caucus, if you will) and on the other, a moderate faction composed of the other members of the 104th, Hange, Levi, along with other high ranking members of the government. (The establishment, again, if you will)
The conflict between these two factions is an incredibly political one (squeee!) with both sides trying to out-flank each other and gain the upper hand.
Of the two, the establishment faction is the one currently on the defensive. Most of the maneuvering by it’s members involves containing the EFC and just trying to figure out who’s side Eren is on. In other words, they’re being reactive, playing defense. As a result, the EFC has the freedom to seize the initiative and go on the offensive, as they have in this chapter.
It makes sense that the establishment would be on the defensive right now. Eren is such an important figure that any plan against the EFC will involve him as a key player.
Thus, before they can formulate a strategy, they must know who’s side Eren is on. The 104th has openly debated this amongst themselves, but Hange has also gotten involved as well. Their scene with Eren at the start of chapter 108, in hindsight, can easily be read as them trying to get a read on Eren. As them trying to get a feel for his allegiances.
Levi and Zeke’s bromantic comedy in the woods is also a part of this maneuvering, but it doesn’t need much expounding upon because how this figures into things is obvious. Zeke is dangerous so they’ve secluded him in the woods with their top soldier to keep watch on him.
The maneuvering by the EFC, aka Zeke’s faction, is shrouded in mystery. Because of course it is.
Has anyone here been following the news? If you have you’ve probably heard of Robert Meuller’s investigation into L’Affaire Russe, Russia’s (failed) attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Part of this investigation involves determining whether President Trump was complicit in this attempted influencing.
In his writings on L’Affaire Russe, Josh Marshall, editor-in-chief of the left-leaning Talking Points Memo news site, made an analogy about conspiracies that can be applied to Zeke. Conspiracies are like black holes.
Black holes cannot be seen. All light that approaches them is sucked in so you end up with a black object against a black backdrop. But they can be observed indirectly. Scientists observe black holes indirectly by measuring the influence they exert on objects that can be observed directly. For example, the gravity from black holes distorts the light traveling around them resulting in a “lensing” effect. By measuring the degree of visual distortion, scientists can determine the black hole’s size, among other things.
Conspiracies are similar. Many aspects of a conspiracy may not be directly knowable. It’s size, scope, etc. But you can get a good feel for it’s size and scope by observing it’s apparent effect on things that are directly observable.
Take L’Affaire Russe for example. There’s the Veselnitskaya meeting, Trump’s inexplicable fealty to Putin, the fact that Paul Manafort, massively in debt to a Russian oligarch, chose to work for Trump’s extremely pro-Russia campaign for free, etc, etc. Conspiracies can’t be seen directly, but they can be indirectly seen.
And so it is with L’Affaire Zeke, which is the name I’ll be using to refer to the apparent conspiracy Zeke has masterminded against the establishment. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and there’s a fuck-ton of smoke here. Seriously, I didn’t subtitle this post “a vast right-wing conspiracy edition” for nothing. Words cannot describe how fucked Paradis is if things are as bad as they seem to be. We’re talking “Donald Trump was a spy for the Russian government the whole time” levels of bad. 
The establishment was planning on feeding Zeke to Historia immediately, but then Historia conveniently got pregnant, thwarting their plans. This implies that Zeke somehow roped the queen in.
According to Pixis, there is reason to suspect Floch facilitated a covert meeting between Yelena and Eren, and during this meeting Eren was apparently turned to Zeke’s side. In other words, L’Affaire Zeke may have successfully infiltrated the military.
It doesn’t end there though. In this chapter the EFC leaked to the public news that Eren has been imprisoned, clearly in an attempt to undermine public support for the establishment. These people may be shithead nationalists, but they’re smart too.
Floch knew he couldn’t convince the establishment to free Eren, but you know what he also knows? That if enough public pressure were to be applied, they’d have no choice but to release Eren. Eren is seen by the public as a hero. As far as the public is concerned, Eren’s reckless action in Marley resulted in a resounding victory; the revelation that he’s been imprisoned for this will naturally stir outrage. Floch knows this so he leaked news of Eren’s imprisonment to the press knowing the people would support his call for Eren’s release.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Floch Forster is leading a fucking psy ops campaign to get what he wants.
We don’t know what Zeke is planning, but it’s clear his reach, even in the midst of enemy territory, is seemingly boundless. The sooner he’s dead, the better.
The story has low-key been building up to this for a while now. I’ve mentioned the contrast the story has drawn between Jean and Floch in an earlier post. And in hindsight, the scenes in chapter 108 strongly play into this as well. The scenes of Hange and the 104th trying to deal with their Eren problem, along with the implied existence of L’Affaire Zeke. Things will only continue to escalate from here. The heart and soul of Paradis is at stake.
This fight is exemplified in the conflict between Eren Yeager and Armin Arlert. And it is a conflict that mirrors not only the real world fight for the heart and soul of the United States but also the one for the heart and soul of Western civilization itself.
The ideology of the EFC, of Zeke, Floch, Louise, and possibly Eren, is an inherently backwards looking right-wing nationalism. They long for days of past glory, of days when Eldians ruled the world. It’s the politics of nostalgia at its most toxic. Eldians are oppressed and they don’t just want restitution, they want revenge. They feel a deep grievance over the indignity their race has been dealt.
(Note that “indignity” is an understatement here. I use it because that is exactly how they would describe what Eldians are dealing with.)
But the connection goes deeper than that. Right-wing nationalism, as a way of thinking, is strongly informed by a dominance centric worldview. The right-wing worldview is defined by an unshakable belief that there is a social Darwinian war of the races where defeat means death. They see the world in purely dichotomous terms. Strong vs weak. Dominators vs the dominated. Eldians vs the world.
And yes, there is a racial conflict brewing here, but the important difference is that the nationalists believe this conflict exists as a matter of course rather than as the result of circumstance.
This dominance centric worldview naturally leads to an obsession with strength, with being strong so you can win and achieve security.
“A human who used her strength to throw a titan to the ground. The day I saw you do that, I knew. You can’t defend anything without strength.” 
-Louise.
That is the ideology of the EFC, including Eren. Eren rejects the notion of interracial coexistence completely. We all saw what he said at the gun range in chapter 106. (It was 106, right?) But what’s notable about that scene is that it saw Eren’s nationalist worldview pitted against Armin’s worldview.
If the ideology of Eren Yeager is nationalism, then the ideology of Armin Arlert is cosmopolitanism. Armin thinks the races can live together peacefully. He believes in a world where people of different creeds and ethnicities, through compassion and understanding, can overcome their differences and find happiness together. Like a true cosmopolitan, Armin sees himself as a human first and as an Eldian second.
It’s funny. This series started with wannabe spider-men killing silly looking giants. Now look at where we are. The final conflict of the series will be just as much a battle of ideas as it will be a physical one. And it couldn’t be more politically relevant to our world. Nationalism vs cosmopolitanism. That is one of the central conflicts of the series.
Decades from now, when our children are in high school, they will most likely be taught that the defining social conflict of 2018, indeed, of the entire decade of the 2010s, was nationalism vs cosmopolitanism. Not just in the United States but throughout the western world.
In the United States, this cleavage is embodied by the conflict between the Republican Party of Donald Trump (the nationalists) and the Democratic Party of Barack Obama (the cosmopolitans).
In Europe the nationalists are the various nationalist political parties that have grown in popularity in most countries. Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France, the AfD in Germany, the Sweden Democrats in Sweden, etc. The cosmopolitans are the supporters of the European Union, a pan-national organization created to emphasize unity among nations so as to avoid another continent destroying war.
This is what we’re dealing with here. Nationalist vs cosmopolitan. Republican vs Democrat. Trump vs Obama. Eren vs Armin.
(Why yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, I did just lump Eren in with the Trumpmeister.)
(*dodges thrown chair*)
Who wins here, Eren or Armin, depends on what kind of story Isayama wants to tell. Are human beings more like Donald Trump, insular and petty. Or are we more like Barack Obama, flawed but ultimately judicious with a seemingly endless well of compassion.
So who will win?
In our world the winner will almost certainly be the cosmopolitans. People of different backgrounds can and do live peaceably together and what’s more, there are measurable benefits to this. There’s a reason why cities are the drivers of economic growth and not comparatively less diverse rural areas. Bringing people of different backgrounds physically together, like in a city, allows for an easier exchange of opinions and ideas, and that leads to more creativity and innovation. That means greater prosperity for everyone. Cosmopolitanism will win because the benefits are obvious and human tribalism always yields in the face of practical benefit.
This is in stark contrast to the world of Attack on Titan. In that world, the narrative is seemingly on Eren’s side. The nationalist one. The immoral light the EFC has been presented in notwithstanding, the narrative seems to nevertheless be saying that humans are nationalists by default and that this cannot be overcome. The story apparently presents it as a tragedy, but it is ultimately inevitable.
That’s wrong. It doesn’t have to be this way.
It was almost painful to read that scene at the gun range in chapter 106 because Isayama is so obviously siding with the nationalist camp. Eren the nationalist gets to make his points clearly, meanwhile Armin and Mikasa struggle to even articulate their views. Armin’s beliefs are framed by the narrative as being idealistic and naïve even though the facts are on his side.
In ways both subtle and obvious, the nationalist bug is spreading. The people of Paradis cheered at the victory in Marley just like how Floch and his ilk cheered on the airship. They cheered in a fit of nationalistic fervor. That is probably the clearest indication of where the series stands: people writ large are nationalists.
Okay, what else.
You know, one thing I find annoying is when writers try to give their stories an air of “seriousness” by using technical terms. Like how during Kiyomi’s conversation with Zackley she refers to him as the “head of state.”
The head of state for Paradis, the one tasked with performing the ceremonial functions of the executive,  is Historia Reiss, the reigning monarch. If I’m not mistaken the arrangement is that Zackley actually governs Paradis because the military are the ones in charge and Zackley is commander-in-chief. That makes him the head of government, not head of state.
This is me being petty, but as a politics nerd it comes off as try-hard and it rubs me the wrong way.
Alright, time to address the elephant in the room.
Gabi and Kaya.
Their scenes were one of the hardest in the entire series for me to read. I almost decided not to.
It has been speculated that Isayama believes in a right-wing nationalist politics. I have never had as much of a sinking feeling about that notion as I have after reading this chapter. At the very least, I think the message Isayama is trying to convey, if not pro-nationalist, is definitely misguided.
In the real world there are people who believe we should be more mindful of the crimes our ancestors committed. The imperialism of Europe, of the United States, and yes, of Japan as well.
Those people are opposed by the right-wing nationalists. “Social justice worker” is the term they often use.
If you ask one of these nationalists to describe a sjw, they’ll paint a picture of someone obsessed with “the unforgivable sins of our ancestors” to the point of raving lunacy. In the minds of nationalists, social justice workers think that crimes committed centuries ago taint the descendants of the perpetrators alive today and that those descendants cannot be forgiven for their ancestor’s actions. The clearest example of this is the case for reparations: some sjws believe that the United States government owes currently living black people reparations because of slavery, even though slavery was abolished over 150 years ago and no one currently alive lived through it. Right-wing nationalists think this is madness.
Sound familiar?
“Have you already forgotten the utter atrocities the people of this island committed against the world? Each and every Eldian can only begin their path to eternal atonement when they come to have a correct understanding of their sins. No matter how good you try to act, your crimes are too heavy to ever escape.”
 -Gabi
Right-wing nationalists often caricature leftists as being people who’ll list off every single immoral act committed by their own country (or people) at the drop of a hat. Is Gabi, at least as far as chapter 109 is concerned, one of those caricatures?
Let’s back up a bit. I’ve told you about the caricature, now let me tell you about the truth.
There is indeed a strain of thought that overemphasizes historical sins. The most famous example of this is Howard Zinn and his book A People’s History of the United States. The series pushing against this way of thinking is not wrong.
What is wrong is the conceit this series has that the descendants of the perpetrators owe nothing to the descendants of the victims.
This is false for two reasons.
Firstly there’s the governmental perspective. At the end of the day the inescapable fact is this: Paradis is the legal successor state to the Eldian Empire and so the legal and moral obligations of the empire devolves to them. The Eldian Empire ceased to exist when, after Erwin’s coup, sovereignty was transferred from the Fritz family to the military. But the legal and moral obligations of the Eldian state also transferred.
That does not justify what the Marleyans are doing. And in light of the circumstances, I don’t even think reparations are called for. But Paradis owes something to the world; it doesn’t have to be much. A formal rebuking of the Empire’s actions would be enough.
Secondly: the impact of past actions resonate throughout history. No white person alive today partook in, for example, the partition of Africa. But that doesn’t mean white Europeans alive today don’t owe black Africans anything. The wealth white Europeans alive today enjoy is founded on a system of racist, imperialistic exploitation that had the effect of impoverishing the African continent. People in Africa continue to deal with that impoverishment.
This system, more or less, no longer exists, but regardless, ALL white Europeans benefit from it to this day which is why white Europeans are collectively indebted. Europeans, collectively, are wealthy because part of that wealth was stolen. Thus, there is a debt to be paid.
Note, though, that I’m using the concept of collectivity to argue for the existence of some intergenerational obligation. This is a facet of the debate the series completely ignores which is why its treatment of this issue is shallow at best and a kind of excuse making at worst.
The government of Paradis owes the world something but Kaya is right that Eldians as individuals don’t owe the world anything. This is not, however, because of the general principle that “the sins of the father should not be visited upon the son,” as the series would have you believe. It’s because the institutional system of oppression the Eldians used to dominate the world has been dismantled. Whatever benefits the Eldians accrued has since been taken away.
The end result, on a meta level, is a message that amounts to a tautology: that people who owe nothing to you don’t owe you anything. Not the most insightful of messages to be sure.
The series seems to have this conceit that denies the intergenerational nature of the oppression our racist society enables. That’s bad. In the context of a world still dealing with the consequences of racially motivated imperialism, it’s worse.
The subtext here is that the victims of imperialism aren’t owed anything by the descendants of the perpetrators because they (the descendants) weren’t personally involved. That is a common right-wing talking point. 
If I didn’t know this story was being written by an ethnic Japanese man, I would have said it was racist.
24 notes · View notes
justsomeantifas · 6 years
Text
What you need to know about Trump’s tax bill passing in the Senate (12/2/2017)
Late last night the Senate passed the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," which will become a massive overhaul of the tax code. The bill was being thrown together only hours before the vote and it was not re-evaluated by the Joint Committee on Taxation to analyze its full impact. However, the committee’s analysis of the earlier version found it would add $1 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years, even after factoring in economic growth.
Last Minute Changes Before Voting
Tumblr media
There were last minute, handwritten changes on the bill that were made in private. This version did not have a public hearing, it was not released to the public, and Senators only had a couple hours to go over the bill before voting. Some complained that they couldn't even read what the bill said because handwritten additions were added all over the pages. A preliminary version of the final Senate bill was leaked to Sahil Kapur which you can read here. Or you can read this breakdown. Remember this likely won’t even be the final breakdown so keep an eye on changes. 
Tumblr media
The only republican to vote "NO" was Bob Corker. Despite other republicans speaking out against the bill (Collins, McCain, Graham, etc) they were all eventually swayed into voting for the bill giving it the push it needed to pass 51 to 49.
Who Will Be Helped/Hurt By This Bill?
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the repeal of the individual mandate (which was squeezed into this bill) will lead to millions losing insurance. It's estimated that 4 million will lose it by 2019 and another 13 million by 2027. It's also estimated that about 1 million will lose their Medicaid by 2019 and another 5 million by 2027. Republicans claim that those figures and the fallout is exaggerated. But here’s what some evidence shows:
This has major consequences for public health. When my colleague Julia Belluz dived into the evidence on the effect of health insurance on mortality, she found two particularly compelling studies, analyzing the effects that Massachusetts’s health reform law (which was very similar in structure to Obamacare) and Medicaid expansions in three states had on death rates. Extrapolating from those studies' findings, she found that 20 million people losing health insurance translates to anywhere between 24,000 and 44,000 extra deaths per year.
Using the smaller figure to be conservative, and extending it to the 13 million people who the CBO estimates would lose coverage under this tax bill, that means 15,600 extra deaths every year. 
Wealthy people and corporations are the big winners here, who will see the majority of the benefits: 
61.8 percent of the total federal tax change under the bill will go to the top 1 percent in 2027, its 10th year of implementation. They would get an average tax cut of $32,510, and the top 0.1 percent (who make at least $5.1 million a year) would get back $208,060 on average.
Overall, 50.3 percent of taxpayers see their taxes go up, with an average hike of $170; but 28 percent see their taxes go down, by $1,640 on average.
These percentages vary widely between income groups. Within the middle quintile, people earning $54,700 to $93,200 a year, 65.6 percent would see their taxes go up. But only about 1.8 percent of the very richest one-thousandth of Americans would see a tax hike.
And of course those hurt most by the bill will be:
The sick & Elderly - “Cuts to Medicare will total about $25 billion over the next fiscal year alone. In the long term, the deficit will also force cuts to Medicaid and Social Security, two other programs that elderly people rely on heavily, in addition to low-income and disabled individuals.” (source)
Universities - “The legislation takes the unprecedented step of taxing the income of certain private universities—specifically, it imposes a 1.4 percent tax on net endowment income for universities with endowments larger than $250,000 per full-time student. Some commenters have applauded the tax, as if it would rectify everything they consider amiss with higher education in America. But few of those supporters have examined the measure’s dire consequences—repercussions that would frustrate everything from access to college in America to the top-notch university research that creates U.S. jobs.” (source)
Grad Students - “’Particularly folks who are in graduate school are taking on student debt in order to go to graduate school, and so they have high payments going forward,’ Hoene said. ‘And one of the ways that is off-set is through the deductions they get in the federal taxes, and that deduction would be going away.’ Hoene also said that there are provisions in the bill that target higher education, and that could take away deductions from colleges and universities. (source)
Charities - “New tax laws could strip away one of the key motivators of year-end giving in the United States - the right to take a tax deduction for the amount you give to qualified charities if you itemize your taxes....” “...Wealthy individuals who give tens of thousands of dollars a year may not be impacted, because it will still make sense for them to itemize. But smaller donors who give hundreds or thousands could drop away. As of now, however, Schwab Charitable, which is one of the largest custodians of charitable accounts, has only seen a boom in giving.” (source)
Veterans - “’There are a set of provisions in the GOP tax bills, both on House and Senate sides, that would actually take an exemption for the bonds that are used to fund the development of facilities for veterans, housing for hospitals, and for a variety of other public structures, Hoene said.’Taking away those exemptions, which has been what makes them an attractive investment, means that they’ll be less attractive investments to people who have the money to put into those sorts of things,’ he added.” (source)
Freelance workers - “Many freelancer workers or small business owners who work from home can currently deduct certain items that they use for work (a computer, Internet, a workspace, etc), but that could also change under this bill. Some of those deductions will be going away if this passes.” (source)
People with disabilities - “The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act recommends sweeping eliminations of most itemized tax deductions and credits. Many of these deductions, taken together, serve both to ease the tax burden of people with disabilities and to improve their health and access to employment and their communities.The provision that will have the most catastrophic effect on disabled people is the removal of the deduction for out-of-pocket medical expenses. Currently, if your out-of-pocket medical expenses exceed 10 percent of your adjusted gross income, you can deduct that from your tax bill. In the Jobs and Tax Cuts Bill, that provision is excised completely.” (source)
Victims of drunk driving - “This is a less well-known provision of the bill, but Senate Republicans are proposing slashing federal alcohol taxes across the board by about 16 percent, a cut affecting beer, wine, and liquor alike.There is voluminous economic evidence showing that higher alcohol taxes save lives by reducing binge drinking and thus reducing deaths due to drunk driving, liver cirrhosis, alcohol-fueled assault and domestic violence, and other causes. That suggests that lower alcohol taxes, in turn, increase deaths from those causes.”
Can We Still Do Anything?
Yes. Because of these changes the bill will have to go through the House and (likely) the Senate again. If you contact your congressmen I’d suggest doing it now and continuing to do so until the next votes & decisions come over the weeks. This bill is NOT law yet and still has many steps to go through. There’s still time to call, email, etc. 
2K notes · View notes
marcjampole · 6 years
Text
U.S. spends 40% of world’s total military budget & it’s controlled by an inconsistent & bellicose ignoramus who favors disruption over working together & shows no regard for victims
I saw a terrifying graphic on the last page of the most recent Fortune magazine: a chart of military spending worldwide since 1950 in constant dollars, based on numbers from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Surprise, surprise, surprise, military spending is at record levels worldwide when adjusted for inflation, an incredible $1.74 trillion in 2017.
The numbers are shocking. The governments of the world spend more than three times on weapons and soldiers than they did during the Korean War and about 25% more than at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s. As a species we are armed to the teeth.
Not surprisingly, like every year since 1950, the United States spends far and away the most on its military, about $610 billion in 2017, 40% of the world’s total and more than 2.5 times spent by the nation in second place, China, which laid out $228 billion for defense. And 2017 is not the peak, as the U.S. Defense Department budget for 2018 is $716 billion, an increase of about 17% in one year. This enormous expansion of spending on soldiers and weapons includes billions of dollars to develop two horrifying new weapons which should be outlawed across the globe: a new generation of nuclear bombs and robotic weapons systems that will operate without human command.
Our budgets for education, mass transit and other infrastructure improvements, healthcare and scientific research certainly did not increase by 17%. In fact Republicans and the Trump Administration want to make massive cuts to the domestic budget. While we brandish our drones and bombs on virtually every continent, our mass transit systems shrivel, our sewers and bridges corrode, our roads form so many potholes they resemble obstacle courses, our children are packed like sardines into classes, we continue to lose our edge in pure science and we have among the highest mortality rates in the industrialized world. If the trends of the past 35 years continue, pretty soon we’ll have an impenetrable defense protecting a ticky-tacky pile of garbage.
The amount we spend on arms becomes even more ridiculous when we convert it to per capita spending. Using the SIPRI numbers and population estimates pulled from various sources, I calculated that in 2017, the United States spent about $1,871 per person on our armed forces, set to increase to $2,198 in 2018. By contrast, the number two total spender on arms is China, which spent about $174 per person on its military last year, significantly below the $229 spent worldwide per person. It seems as if the Chinese are able to keep its population—four times as great as ours—safe for a fraction of what it costs us. Of course, Chinese weapons manufacturing is a cottage industry compared to the enormous and politically connected industrial behemoths in the United States.
When the military expenditures of the top 10 spenders worldwide are converted into per capita amounts, the United States stands alone with the autocratic, anti-Semitic, terrorist-supporting regime of Saudi Arabia, which spends $2,090 per person on its military. The other eight countries on the Top 10 list spend well under $1,000 a year per person on defense, ranging from $64 per capita in India to $865 per capita in France. Some countries that aren’t in the top 10 of spenders: Iran-$178 per capita; Turkey-$225 per capita; Israel-$1,951 per capita on military spending!!
(By the way, the
SIPRI website
is a great place to find scary numbers about the global arms industry. Besides providing the annual military spending of all countries since 1949, SIPRI has customizable databases of all international transfers of major conventional arms since 1950; the 100 largest arms-producing and military services companies; and all peace (read: armed intervention) operations conducted since 2000, including location, dates of deployment and operation, mandate, participating countries, number of personnel, costs and fatalities.
Even more frightening than the simple fact that the world is awash in guns and soldiers is that 40% of it is controlled by Donald Trump, an inconsistent, insecure and bellicose ignoramus who seems to favor disruption over working together and shows little regard for victims (and in fact may enjoy creating new victims).
Wait, wait, my esteemed readers may ask. We’re a democracy with one set of checks and balances in Congress and the courts, and another in a strong and talented cadre of career military, state, security and diplomatic personnel who transcend administrations. But these checks and balances only work when used. Congress has proven itself unwilling to put limits on the military actions of any president since Lyndon Baines Johnson. And when military misdeeds such as the Iran-Contra deal or the Bush II torture gulag are uncovered, Congress has decided against punishing the president and other decision-makers who committed the crimes. President Obama’s approach to torture exemplifies the American way: let’s sweep the past under a rug and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Meanwhile, career military and diplomatic personnel wring their hands in anguish as Trump makes outrageous statements and policy decisions regarding Russia, North Korea, NATO and Iran.
Which brings us to the latest military spending bill, to which Trumpty Dumpty affixed his signature this week. While broadcast and cable news and the front pages of major newspapers have focused on Trump calling an ex-employee a “dog” and pulling the security clearance of the former Central Intelligence Agency Director who took down Osama bin Laden, buried deep in a handful of newspapers is the news that in signing the military spending bill, Trump claimed in a signing statement that he has the authority to overrule dozens of provisions that he believes constrains his executive power. What that means is that he and his cronies believe that they do not have to follow the law as written.
According to the New York Times, Trump’s signing statements claim he can :
Ignore a ban on recognizing Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
Bypass restrictions on bilateral military-to-military cooperation between the United States and Russia.
Ignore a provision requiring the Pentagon to develop uniform standards for counting and reducing civilian bystander deaths as a result of American military operations.
Disregard a restriction against reducing the number of active-duty troops stationed in South Korea below 22,000.
Judging from how Congress has responded in the past when presidents have ignored the law in prosecuting foreign wars, what the $716 billion represents is a pool of money that Trump can essentially use in any way he sees fit, as long as the military contractors get their piece of the pie.
Donald Trump’s history of developing and running hotels and casinos demonstrates that when you give this guy a few billion bucks, he screws it all up, losing money for investors and wreaking havoc for suppliers. Now he has $716 billion dedicated to warfare…excuse me…defense…so the mess he creates is bound to be bigger and more painful for its victims. Let’s hope it doesn’t result in a “Big Bang,” this one not creating a new universe but ending human life on our small planet.
Unfortunately, voting for Democrats across the board may not help change our foreign policy. This year’s mid-term is coalescing around a handful of very important issues—healthcare, economic equity, immigration, racism, and the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The Democratic position on all these issues is far better than the Republicans for everyone in the United States except for the ultra-wealthy. The Republic Party has allowed itself to be hollowed out and taken over by what pundits like to call the “Trump base” So by all means pull the lever for any and every Democrat in November.
But as usual, not much is being said about defense spending or foreign policy, and for good reason. From Harry Truman through Obama, both parties have pretty much agreed on the broad outline of defense strategy and foreign policy. Even those who have called for a reduction or eradication of nuclear weapons like Obama have approved budgets that contained increased spending for these weapons of mass destruction. Thus, if the Democrats sweep and then manage to impeach and convict the current president and vice president, the United States may return to being a more consistent alley, but we will still be a bellicose, overly militarized nation. We will still continue to rely on force to get our way far too often, even as we negotiate and enter into peace and trade agreements.
8 notes · View notes