General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 42

His stances on most social issues would probably line up with Bernie's, but on the whole my guess is that there are a solid amount of Bernie supporters that were there because he was an "outsider" and "not a true politician". Unfortunately, that idiotic reason for support extends to people of all ideologies.

 

Looking at his platform his website, LGBT rights appear to be absent. Abortion rights he supports because its the law, but makes no reference towards funding stuff like funding planned parenthood (and so my assumption is that as a libertarian he would be in favor of cutting it). He criminal justice platform is all about drugs without any reference towards private prisons (which again, as a libertarian I'd assume he supports) and is devoid of any mention of race. So even on social issues, he feels like a pale comparison to Sanders

I certainly don't think Johnson is nearly as dangerous as Trump. I can even entertain the idea of supporting him over Hillary in order to try and force a change in the democrats. But unless it suddenly looks like he can actually win, i don't understand what he has over Stein

 

Honestly, Sanders supporters flocking to Trump makes considerably more sense to me than the ones flocking to Gary Johnson. I can only presume that those are the voters who vote solely on who they believe to be honest/righteous and don't regard actual policy.

 

Eh. For the people who are simply fed up with the political establishment and care about changing that more than the actual policies of the people in office, Johnson makes more sense than Trump (who is absolutely still establishment, just with the hood pulled down)

 

Chevron is deferring to governmental agencies for interpretations of statutes. With the employer mandate, there is nothing to interpret--The provision was to go into effect on January 1st, 2014. The administration would be hard pressed to prove that delaying will definitely ensure greater compliance and "less costs on the government", whatever that means.

So you'd call Bush's immigration policy "better" if Obama deported just one more person than Bush did, while still undertaking EO to protect thousands of others from deportation? That seems to be a weird way to measure better or worse.

These aren't hypothetical scenarios here--we know exactly what a GOP president would do with those executive orders. And they haven't been undertaken yet because the GOP has been kept out of the white house. The strategy many people here are advocating could very well put them back in the white house--where we, again, know exactly what they would do with those executive orders. Rest of the arguments I'll address later in the post...

We seem to be dealing with some conflicting sources here, but I'll do my best to untangle it. First, from your own link:

Furthermore, more and more of the people the Obama administration was apprehending, says Brown, were people crossing from Mexico who weren't from Mexico. Those people couldn't be returned either — "returns" can only be used for Mexicans on the southern border (and Canadians on the northern one). And due to the Consequence Delivery System, the administration preferred to remove people rather than return them. "That combination of factors," says Brown, "meant that the number of returns has gone down at the same time the number of removals has gone up."

In other words, catching people at the border and returning them was not something the law allowed since the people they were catching were not Mexicans. Now, combine that with the first link I posted pointing out that the amount of new removal cases being brought up was declining. The information in those two links seems to be pointing towards what I posted--More people are being caught at the border and either "removed" or "returned", while less immigrants already here and established are being removed. The "remove" number still looks higher because of people being caught and "removed" at the border, but that's a far different story than INS hunting down established immigrants at their new American homes and sending them back to their home countries--the link I posted seems to indicate that those people are being deported at a lower clip.

It's not always (or even often) about it being a "good job" or a "bad job"...it's about pointing out what the current, realistic alternative is. The current, realistic alternative to Obama's rhetoric is Donald Trump's rhetoric--he is the GOP presidential candidate, after all. But in this case, yes, protecting certain groups of immigrants from deportation while establishing rhetoric that will, over the long term, humanize these people and their plights at the subconscious level, is a pretty good job considering the political climate surrounding immigration at the moment.

As your link pointed out, "returns" are not an option for many of the people their catching at the border because the law seems to say returns are only possible for Mexican immigrants. Your link also points out that a huge part of lower returns is a dramatic drop in immigration in the first place. Less Mexican people getting caught at the border=less opportunities for returns.

See above.

 

Some people believe voting is the zenith of political participation. Others prefer actually interacting and organizing the people most affected by policy. The latter is correct, the former simply enshrine complicity in economic and social oppression because of the political environment and the extent to which they'll justify a liberal acting badly. In actuality, it is an ideology that has no faith in the people and only believes in top-down change, that says to people of color, your organizing doesn't matter if you do not vote. Yours is the group that would say, you need to calm down about civil rights, it isn't the right time. Follow the proper channels and everything will be okay, knowing that this is a lie.

 

"Establishment" is such a vapid term, but if I were to conceptualize it, I would not group Trump with it. He's been pretty fiery against trade agreements, open to single payer, and is now purportedly considering Democrats as potential VP running mates.

Fuck, I really hope he picks a Dem as his running mate. Some blue dog moron. Talk about starting a clusterfuck.

 

Hasn't Webb endorsed him? A Trump/Webb ticket would honestly a little scary.

Also what do you mean by Trump being "open to single payer"? His platform on his website certainly doesn't look like its single payer. So I presume at best he is only for single payer in the same way Hillary is for single payer

 

Yes and Chevron applies because the IRS is interpreting the statute, delays for purposes of implementation aren't necessarily violations even though the provision might be clear on its face, the delay if not arbitrary and to fulfill the purposes of Congress's intent would still be valid. And again, this also brings up prosecutorial discretion. Delays for the purposes of implementation are hardly setting any sort of dangerous precedent.

You're missing the larger point, Bush's immigration policy was unacceptably bad, Obama's is also unacceptably bad and not measurably better and possibly measurably worse. Protecting thousands from deportation would be great if he wasn't increasing deportations of those unprotected.

These are hypothetical scenarios, we don't know what Trump or any future president will actually do. Trump especially is someone where we can't take him at his word.

These aren't conflicting sources.

Total removals have gone up, and while interior removals (not recent border corssers) have dropped since 2009, they're still higher than every year of the Bush admin except for 2007-2008.

Removals and returns really have nothing to do with being caught at the border, they have to do with the process used. Removals have increased since the Bush years and they are a harsher punishment than returns.

Again being deported lower than where they were during 2009, but for much Obama's presidency they've still been higher than they were in the majority of the years in the Bush presidency.

So there will never ever be accountability for a Democratic president because as you've made clear no matter who the GOP president is they will be worse

How has Obama done a good job even humanizing these people if it's lead to the "rise of Trump" as you claim and led to this "political climate?" Rhetoric is all well and good until you're justifying Obama's deportations when he launches mass raids to "deport families who have fled violence in Central America."

Again, return + removals are higher than they were for much of the Bush presidency as well despite less immigration.

 

He supported it back in 2000. He praised the Canadian healthcare plan they have and said he would put forth a comprehensive healthcare plan funded by increasing corporate taxes. And last year also praised the Scotland system. However, ever since 2000 he never directly has talked about being open to a single payer system.

Politifact actually ruled his support for single payer "half true"
Is Donald Trump still 'for single-payer' health care?

 

But the healthcare plan of his platform is not single payer. So it doesn't really matter what he said in 2000. He's not actually for it.

 

I know. I was just explaining what Trotsky probably was referring to when he said open to single payer. Obviously he isn't anymore, the healthcare plan he has now is pretty wacky.

 

......

 

They represent executive changes to unambiguous statutes written by congress. Again there's nothing to "interpret" about "“EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013.”" If it would go to court, which I doubt it ever would because Republicans aren't going to sue to get the employer mandate into effect, the Administration would have a hard time proving legitimate reason for delay. And even if it were legal the whole time, it's use has been relatively unprecedented, which is kind of the point. The slow creep of executive power, especially if legal, means bad news when the GOP has the throne. Just like the Senate could always filibuster lower court appointments--it was always legal, it just wasn't done very much because it sets a bad precedent.

I disagree. We know exactly what Trump or any current GOP president will actually do to Obama's executive actions and orders as they pertain to DREAMers. They've all been pretty clear on that.

They do have something to do with being caught at the border because Mexicans caught at the border were often given the "benefit" of being returned instead of removed. The law doesn't seem to allow that possibility for non-Mexican immigrants caught at the Mexican border.

Thanks for those charts, awesome info (no sarcasm). So it seems that a trend started before Obama took office, plateaued in his first two years, and then began to drop after that. Why do you believe that is? Serious question. I find it hard to believe Obama was gung ho on interior deportation his first year in office and then suddenly changed. That seems supported by the drop in new deportation cases that occurred every year he was in office. And of course new deportation cases being brought up seem to lag behind actual deportation numbers, which makes me wonder how many of the 2009 ones were originally started in 2008, 2010 in 2009, 2011 in 2010, etc. For example, 438,000 removals in 2013 vs. 187,000 new deportation cases brought to courts. I'm not super well versed on what if any lag time exists here, though. But it seems pretty clear that 1. Obama has brought a smaller of amount of new deportation cases year after year since 2009, and 2. It was a trend that started Pre-Obama and peaked during his first year (or two) in office. That seems to indicate the raw numbers don't tell the full story without context. There also seems to be some data on who is being deported The amount of non-criminal immigrants being deported dropped pretty much as soon as the Obama Administration started and continued on the trend, while the amount of violent criminals now makes up the largest % of people deported.

• Interior removals of noncriminals fell sharply under the Obama administration, from 77,000 (43 percent) in FY 2009 to 17,000 (13 percent) in FY 2013.

You can still hold them accountable through state wide elections. It's easier to primary out a district Rep or a senator for someone who will fight their own party for better immigration policy and put the President on the hot seat by getting that legislation through congress and to his desk. But right now the GOP is infinitely worse and advocating political strategy that would, at the current time, put those people into control is doing way more harm than good. Again, I go back to the quote that Democrats losing elections hasn't made them go further left--it's had the opposite effect.

Edit-Totally forgot about the Trump part. Obama not being a vicious asshole (aka "tough" on illegal immigration) has led to a right wing backlash that took form in the shape of Trump. And that's just been with him offering humanizing rhetoric and half-measures on immigration reform. I think you're underestimating how much more that would escalate had Obama did what it seems you wanted him to do. There's already violence coming from Trump supporters as it is.

No they're not. From you VOX link:

So the combined removals and returns under Bush are much higher than under Obama. But Obama will pass Bush's removals by the end of this year.

The chart from DHS seems to confirm that, with Bush's last year having 1.1 million, while Obama's first year (his "worst" year) being around 950,000. According to that same chart, Bush's removal+return number hovered somewhere around 1 million every year, whereas Obama was down to 650,000 in 2012 from the 2009 high.

 

lol

 

in my view a lot of bernie's supporters are former paul supporters

 

You deserve a medal for your patience, haha

 

Why a Trump-backing tow truck driver says he refused service to a Sanders supporter

 

He mentions that he's a conservative Christian.

....right, because that's totally what Jesus would've done.

 

It's flimsy, as is any Trump policy statement, but he has a few times in the past (before he gained Republican notoriety in the past 5 years) remarked on the efficacy of single payer systems in Western Europe and Canada. When pressed in one of the earlier debates, he amended the position to "Hey, look, all I'm saying is they seem to be doing okay and maybe we should look at what they're doing."

 

He's also a businessman and probably realizes how much money a single payer system would save him on health care costs in terms of providing insurance for employers. It's annoying how much of a blindspot conservatives have on that when it comes to their emphasis on the job creators. Imagine small businesses not feeling the pressure of having to provide health insurance because they know their employees will be covered either way.

 

Malia Obama announced she was going to Harvard, and immediately had racist comments posted on articles from certain websites in the comments section *cough foxnews cough*

 

The criticism I've read is that she's taking a gap year, which is a privilege for those in a wealthy family.

 

Yeah I saw that shit too. Some of the comments on the Harvard thing though...yikes.

 

Bill Kristol is trying to convince Mitt Romney to run third party