What stupid shit has Trump done today?

[DexterTCN]

Among the thousands of fake submissions to the "consultation" on Net Neutrality was this one.

View attachment 123345

Such things barely even attract much comment these days. Didn't work last time, hopefully this breaks as well.

 

[J Ed]

Yea, both parties are the same. Why vote at all? Best to support the Democratic Socialists of America. But they don't run candidates. So, just dream of what could be.

Not sure where you're going. Or why.

What extraordinary replies to a post with basic information, especially given that this is a British forum in which there are very few Americans and those few Americans who do post here are unlikely to be swayed politically by anyone here. Elsewhere, in another context, the non-thinking political tribalism would at least make some, perhaps not much given who won the US election, tactical sense but what use is it serving here exactly? It's a sort of weird, zombie tribalism, with posters who do not even live in the US unable to break out of the spell of it.

 

[CRI]

Deportations down, arrests up apparently, which suggests a lot of people are being held in immigration detention facilities, some of them privately run, where conditions were apparently atrocious under the Obama administration and are unlikely to have improved under Trump.

Trump nominee for ICE director claims "overall removals are down because the border is under better control than it has been in 45 years," though he also denies that his officers are "conducting indiscriminate raids and sweeps, arresting people at churches, arresting people at hospitals" so he's probably full of shit.

U.S. deportations down in 2017 but immigration arrests up

In Florida, both have risen sharply under Trump's "leadership."

Arrests of undocumented immigrants rise in Florida amid Trump crackdown

After declining for years, arrests of undocumented immigrants have nearly doubled in a region overseen by federal immigration officials in South Florida.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Miami office reported taking 6,192 people into custody this year across Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. That’s up from 3,524 last year, according to agency figures released Tuesday.

Deportations also swelled by 20 percent. According to the data, the Miami office reported 7,100 removals this year compared with 5,600 last year.

Deportations from the interior of the United States are rising under Trump

Deportations from the interior of the United States are rising under President Trump as the administration expands enforcement from the U.S.-Mexico border and into immigrant communities deeper inside the country.

From Jan. 22 to Sept. 9, officials deported nearly 54,000 immigrants from the interior, a 34 percent increase over the same period last year, and said that they expect the numbers to climb.

While there are fewer people being stopped and deported as or just after they enter the US, a shedload more people away from border areas, who've been settled in the US for years, are being rounded up, thrown in detention centres and deported to countries they left perhaps decades ago, often as children, where they have no family or other contacts. Deportations haven't kept apace with detentions because not surprisingly, many detainees are trying to fight deportation in the courts.

Under Obama, the highest proportion of people deported were ones who'd just or not long arrived in the US, chancing their luck. Undocumented migrants with convictions where also targeted for deportation. Under Trump, not so many are taking their chance at the border it seems and he's repositioning them elsewhere in the US to detain ordinary, otherwise law abiding undocumented immigrants.

 

[CRI]

They are, however, gaining members faster than any other party. Their membership has tripled:




Seeing red: Membership triples for the Democratic Socialists of America

But even at that rate, it will be years before they catch up to even the Greens and Libertarian parties, and even their numbers are tiny.

Would like to think there would be more opportunities for coalitions between parties that share similar goals in future though (if there is a future . . . )

 

[DexterTCN]

They have zero chance in the US just now imo. (And I'm going to add...ever.)

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

But even at that rate, it will be years before they catch up to even the Greens and Libertarian parties, and even their numbers are tiny.

Would like to think there would be more opportunities for coalitions between parties that share similar goals in future though (if there is a future . . . )

I think there is an embryonic effort going on between the Democratic Socialists and the Bernie supporters under Our Revolution in that direction. There's a lot of overlap there, as you might suspect. For a lot of us, we've been unsure which way to jump since the election. We're unhappy with the Democratic Party, but don't see anything that looks wildly better. Those of us who are environmentalists are seriously unhappy, even beyond those who support Our Revolution. We've been especially annoyed with the attitude the Democrats have of "where do you think you're going to go?" They take us for granted and don't have the respect to even feel bad about it. (I even looked at starting a local Pirate Party group.) As a group, we're going to jump in the direction of who offers us more of our agenda points with the greatest possibility of success. I suspect that the Berniecrats are the future of the Democratic Party, the higher-ups in the party just haven't accepted it yet.

There is some reason to hope at the local level. We are fielding candidates at the local level. We got one man on our city counsel who's an Our Revolution candidate. Other people are running at the local level for other offices. A good friend of mine is running for the Public Service Commission and we're fielding a candidate to challenge one of our senators next Nov. After her vote on health care and tax reform, she's pretty vulnerable. Things like this are going on all over the country.

 

[MightyTibberton]

I do sometimes thing the end of political parties would be among the best things for political change. . .

 

[SpackleFrog]

I do sometimes thing the end of political parties would be among the best things for political change. . .

That seems an odd thing to say given the weakness of parties in the US context.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I do sometimes thing the end of political parties would be among the best things for political change. . .

The founding fathers were also suspicious of political parties:

"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."

-- John Adams

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."

-- George Washington

Naturally, it didn't take long for political parties to take hold.

 

[MightyTibberton]

it is literally just something I sometimes think, SpackleFrog, (the compromise, the fund-raising, the in-fighting...) it's not a considered manifesto or anything.

 

[MightyTibberton]

Ha! Well, there you go! My version certainly isn't as considered as that!

My view mostly came from my own experience of watching local politics in the UK and seeing things divide into political camps when it didn't seem appropriate or beneficial and it looked like a strong independent representitive could do more to reflect and represent the needs of their constituents than someone forced to join a political group.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Naturally, it didn't take long for political parties to take hold.

Well quite. They're a natural, organic development and a logical conclusion of political conflict.

My view mostly came from my own experience of watching local politics in the UK and seeing things divide into political camps when it didn't seem appropriate or beneficial and it looked like a strong independent representitive could do more to reflect and represent the needs of their constituents than someone forced to join a political group.

I think the problem with politics in the UK is the lack of a strong mass workers party - I have absolutely no desire to see more independents.

 

[CRI]

Over 50% of eligible voters in the US aren't even registered, and of course an overwhelmingly disproportionate number of those unregistered are African American. Your "data" tells us nothing about what African Americans think of Sanders and Clinton, just what registered African American Democrats thought, which would of course be skewed towards the middle classes.

The broader point though - since you're being obtuse about it - is that you speak as if African Americans are a homogeneous group who you can speak on behalf of, and you can't.

- 82% of Black men and 94% of Black women voted Clinton for President in November 2016
- 81% of Black men and 91% of Black women voted Northam (who was not endorsed by Sanders) for Virginia Governor last month.
- 93% of Black men and 98% of Black women voted Jones (who was not endorsed by Sanders) as Senator for Alabama last week.

In the 2016 Democratic primaries, over 75% of African Americans chose Clinton and just over 23% chose Sanders.

In the recent Alabama race, 28% of votes cast were by African Americans, but they make up only 26% of the voting age population, showing they were more likely to vote than white Alabamians.

And of course I'm not speaking for or about all African American people, any more than other members here talking about "working class people" claim to speak for or about all of them. Having said that, quite a few do seem to make broad assumptions about white working class people in the US when in fact, they are far more varied in experience and motivation than African Americans. For starters, all Black Americans share the experience of living within an institutionally white supremacist nation. White working class people come from a wider range of backgrounds and cultural traditions and there are a lot more of them. They also live in a wider range of areas and settings and have access to more varied opportunities because movement, work and educational opportunities have all been historically more constrained for Black Americans.

Okay, so you're dismissing the voting figures because they tell "us nothing about what African Americans think of Sanders and Clinton?" because they only involve registered voters, and you're assuming they're mostly middle class (by the American rather than the US definition)?

Right, well how about providing some credible evidence of the political views of those non-registered Black Americans, rather than just making assumptions they are widely different from the views of Black Americans who are registered.

 

[SpackleFrog]

- 82% of Black men and 94% of Black women voted Clinton for President in November 2016
- 81% of Black men and 91% of Black women voted Northam (who was not endorsed by Sanders) for Virginia Governor last month.
- 93% of Black men and 98% of Black women voted Jones (who was not endorsed by Sanders) as Senator for Alabama last week.

In the 2016 Democratic primaries, over 75% of African Americans chose Clinton and just over 23% chose Sanders.

In the recent Alabama race, 28% of votes cast were by African Americans, but they make up only 26% of the voting age population, showing they were more likely to vote than white Alabamians.

And of course I'm not speaking for or about all African American people, any more than other members here talking about "working class people" claim to speak for or about all of them. Having said that, quite a few do seem to make broad assumptions about white working class people in the US when in fact, they are far more varied in experience and motivation than African Americans. For starters, all Black Americans share the experience of living within an institutionally white supremacist nation. White working class people come from a wider range of backgrounds and cultural traditions and there are a lot more of them. They also live in a wider range of areas and settings and have access to more varied opportunities because movement, work and educational opportunities have all been historically more constrained for Black Americans.

Okay, so you're dismissing the voting figures because they tell "us nothing about what African Americans think of Sanders and Clinton?" because they only involve registered voters, and you're assuming they're mostly middle class (by the American rather than the US definition)?

Right, well how about providing some credible evidence of the political views of those non-registered Black Americans, rather than just making assumptions they are widely different from the views of Black Americans who are registered.

Your voting stats prove that African Americans voters overwhelmingly vote Democrat. We know that. But they don't tell us that African Americans 'prefer' Clinton to Sanders. The primaries are not representative of the population as a whole, and in any case primary voters could easily have gone with Clinton cos they thought Sanders couldn't win an election or wouldn't be allowed the nomination or a million other things, it really doesn't justify the grand claim you're making. As with Corbyn here, the support for Sanders largely came from outside the Democratic party so I don't see how primaries can be seen as representative.

I take your points about African American's shared experience of institutional racism, of course we build our politics on shared human experience, but I'm not so sure what to make of your suggestion that African Americans have a narrower range of experiences as an ethnic group or why you're raising that.

I'm not claiming to be able to tell you what the views of Black Americans are, I just thought your suggestion they 'prefer' Clinton sounds like bollocks and a lot of African Americans would have liked Sanders policies, like universal health care and free education.

 

[CRI]

Your voting stats prove that African Americans voters overwhelmingly vote Democrat. We know that. But they don't tell us that African Americans 'prefer' Clinton to Sanders. The primaries are not representative of the population as a whole, and in any case primary voters could easily have gone with Clinton cos they thought Sanders couldn't win an election or wouldn't be allowed the nomination or a million other things, it really doesn't justify the grand claim you're making. As with Corbyn here, the support for Sanders largely came from outside the Democratic party so I don't see how primaries can be seen as representative.

I take your points about African American's shared experience of institutional racism, of course we build our politics on shared human experience, but I'm not so sure what to make of your suggestion that African Americans have a narrower range of experiences as an ethnic group or why you're raising that.

I'm not claiming to be able to tell you what the views of Black Americans are, I just thought your suggestion they 'prefer' Clinton sounds like bollocks and a lot of African Americans would have liked Sanders policies, like universal health care and free education.

If support for Sanders came from outside the Democratic Party, my suggestion would be that he build his base of support either within a different party, or found his own. I genuinely don't understand the obsession with dragging the Democratic party in a direction most members don't want, rather than trying to influence its direction by discussion, listening to the base and yes, compromise.

African Americans have a narrower range of experiences in America because of the constraints of white supremacy. There was literal segregation of public spaces and services that in parts of America that was still in place during my lifetime. There were "Sundown Towns" elsewhere, and "zoning policies" that barred Black folks from renting or buying in some areas. There were government backed programmes like New Deal and the GI Bill that weren't open to Black Americans, but set up a whole cohort of white blue collar folks with greater financial and social stability they could pass on through the generations. Many Trade Unions excluded Black workers, and shop floors were often segregated with jobs occupied by white workers attracting better salaries and conditions. Even now, we see white supremacy at work in the way communities are policed, how crises are managed (or not), how education is resourced, etc. White people, even those that are poorer with limited opportunities still don't suffer the limitations POC do within a white supremacist nation.

There is information out there that shows African Americans backed Clinton because they liked her policies and they generally aren't convinced by the message Sanders and his followers are giving out even now. For example, you've mentioned universal health care and free education. I've posted lots of links before, but it's not hard to find articles, blogs and social media discussions from African Americans explaining exactly why they aren't convinced by the "if it's good for everyone, it will be good for you" argument. History tells us that "universal programmes" can still exclude some people (see New Deal, GI Bill, etc.) and it tends to be the people who are already more advantaged get the most from these. And, you'll also see that they're not buying the idea that Sanders' approach will bring an end to structural racism or the mechanisms of white supremacy because well, they don't actually address them at all.

In a recent Ohio Rally, Trump said, "I think that the vast majority of Trump supporters are people who are in pain, who are struggling economically, who are worried to death that their kids are going to be in even worse shape economically than they are, and they turned to Trump because Trump said things that made sense." Back in March, he said, "Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I don't agree . . ." He's has said similar things on other occasions. His continuing refusal to genuinely acknowledge and condemn the racism of Trump and his supporters undermines efforts to "reach out" to Black Americans.

You said, "Your suggestion they "prefer" Clinton sounds like bollocks and a lot of African Americans would have liked Sanders policies like universal health care and free education." Black voters aren't stupid. They understood the respective policies of Clinton and Sanders, and of Clinton and Trump and made their choices who to support accordingly. I'd suggest so long as Sanders fails to acknowledge the magnitude of white supremacy in the US and persists with the fantasy that universal social programmes and wealth redistribution will make that all go away, he's never going to get significant numbers of African Americans to back him. My worry is he's too afraid of alienating his own base of support, who either think the whole racism thing is over-blown and/or frankly don't want to critically examine their own part in perpetuating white supremacy. So, sadly, I think he'll still be chasing that unicorn disaffected, economically anxious, blue collar Trump supporter who just needs a bit of tlc and they'll convert the Sanders cause. Maybe someone will follow him who does have the have the courage to leave the comfort zone, but I'm not seeing signs of that yet.

 

[Yossarian]

Meanwhile, in Virginia, the Republicans have lost control of the House of Delegates by a single vote, recount put it at 11,608 to 11,607.

Newport News recount shows Democrat winning by just one vote, setting up 50-50 split in Va. House of Delegates

 

[J Ed]

Having said that, quite a few do seem to make broad assumptions about white working class people in the US when in fact, they are far more varied in experience and motivation than African Americans.

Isn't this a bit.. well.. you know?

 

[seventh bullet]

Only when somebody else does it.

 

[J Ed]

You said, "Your suggestion they "prefer" Clinton sounds like bollocks and a lot of African Americans would have liked Sanders policies like universal health care and free education." Black voters aren't stupid. They understood the respective policies of Clinton and Sanders, and of Clinton and Trump and made their choices who to support accordingly. I'd suggest so long as Sanders fails to acknowledge the magnitude of white supremacy in the US and persists with the fantasy that universal social programmes and wealth redistribution will make that all go away, he's never going to get significant numbers of African Americans to back him. My worry is he's too afraid of alienating his own base of support, who either think the whole racism thing is over-blown and/or frankly don't want to critically examine their own part in perpetuating white supremacy. So, sadly, I think he'll still be chasing that unicorn disaffected, economically anxious, blue collar Trump supporter who just needs a bit of tlc and they'll convert the Sanders cause. Maybe someone will follow him who does have the have the courage to leave the comfort zone, but I'm not seeing signs of that yet.

What does any of this actually mean? In what way has Clinton 'acknowledged' White Supremacy in a way that Sanders hasn't? In reality, both have a history of support of some very damaging legislation and some better legislation in this regard. One has a history of some very racist rhetoric and support for Goldwater, the other put his body on the line to support the CIvil Rights movement.

At the end of the day, when you strip down this argument what you are arguing is that redistributionist politics are racist and so is trying to get people to vote for you who previously voted for someone else. It's difficult to say this without being unkind so I won't bother. You have no idea what you are talking about even about areas which you probably regard as your 'specialist subjects' to such an extent that there is very little hope that you will be able to come to any more sensible or informed conclusions.

Here's some nice pics and vids and stuff, to make it a bit more like twitter, and more your speed.

 

[J Ed]

Only when somebody else does it.

Why black people are all the same and not campaigning for right-wing white candidates is racist... a woke explanation.

 

[J Ed]

I wonder whether the Honduras coup and subsequent murderous repression, aimed specifically at indigenous peoples, leftists, women and trade unionists, was part of confronting white supremacy.

Before Her Assassination, Berta Cáceres Singled Out Hillary Clinton for Backing Honduran Coup | Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about Honduras. I want to go to Hillary Clinton in the 2009 coup in Honduras that ousted the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. In her memoir, Hard Choices, Hillary Clinton wrote about the days following the coup. She wrote, quote, “In the subsequent days I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa [in] Mexico. We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections [could] be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot,” unquote.

Since the coup, Honduras has become one of the most dangerous places in the world. In 2014, the Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres spoke about Hillary Clinton’s role in the 2009 coup. This is the woman who was assassinated last week in La Esperanza, Honduras. But she spoke about Hillary Clinton’s role in the 2009 coup with the Argentine TV program Resumen Latinoamericano.

BERTA CÁCERES: [translated] We’re coming out of a coup that we can’t put behind us. We can’t reverse it. It just kept going. And after, there was the issue of the elections. The same Hillary Clinton, in her book, Hard Choices, practically said what was going to happen in Honduras. This demonstrates the meddling of North Americans in our country. The return of the president, Mel Zelaya, became a secondary issue. There were going to be elections in Honduras. And here, she, Clinton, recognized that they didn’t permit Mel Zelaya’s return to the presidency. There were going to be elections. And the international community—officials, the government, the grand majority—accepted this, even though we warned this was going to be very dangerous and that it would permit a barbarity, not only in Honduras but in the rest of the continent. And we’ve been witnesses to this.

I don't necessarily use this framework because I don't think it's that helpful (what does white supremacy waged by an admin with a black president even mean, clearly it is something else), but if I did, then I would say that the fact that Trump is currently continuing to support the coup government through fraudulent elections and repression in Honduras would be a good example of the continuation of the sort of white supremacy perpetuated by Clinton. The fact that there is literally no difference between an Obama administration, Clinton as SoS, policy towards Latin American countries on the US periphery on the one hand and that of a far-right admin on the other should tell us a lot.

 

[J Ed]

Good article on Honduras in the NYT yesterday by a relative of Cáceres, notes the continuity between the Obama and Trump admins.

Opinion | America’s Blind Eye to Honduras’s Tyrant

“He may be an S.O.B., but he’s our S.O.B.” That quip — of uncertain origin, but often traced to Franklin D. Roosevelt about Nicaragua’s ruthless dictator Anastasio Somoza — became a shorthand excuse for dubious American foreign policies during the 1930s and the Cold War. It touched policy in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and particularly Latin America. It backfired often — notably in Central America, Cuba, Vietnam and Iran — but was never fully abandoned.

Now it appears that the State Department has given the strategy new life. In Honduras, President Juan Orlando Hernández, having twisted his country’s laws to allow himself to seek re-election and having presided over a vote count so suspicious that his opponents and international observers called for a new election, has now officially been pronounced the winner by the country’s discredited electoral commission. That allows him to achieve his second, unlawful, term after all.

To all of which, the administration in Washington has turned a blind eye.

Why? Perhaps the Trump administration, like the Obama administration before it, believes Mr. Hernández to be good for Honduras and American interests there. A Honduran military base houses hundreds of United States military personnel. Maybe that outweighs a list of authoritarian actions that Mr. Hernández and his government minister, Arturo Corrales, have committed for years to keep themselves in power.

The list is long: widely documented corruption, illegal changes to the Constitution, documented ties to drug traffickers, attacks on a free press, criminalization of peaceful protests, repeated violations of human rights by security forces, one of the highest crime rates in the world, manipulation of homicide statistics that affect Honduras’s access to United States aid and a permissive attitude toward political assassinations.

 

[krtek a houby]

What extraordinary replies to a post with basic information, especially given that this is a British forum in which there are very few Americans and those few Americans who do post here are unlikely to be swayed politically by anyone here. Elsewhere, in another context, the non-thinking political tribalism would at least make some, perhaps not much given who won the US election, tactical sense but what use is it serving here exactly? It's a sort of weird, zombie tribalism, with posters who do not even live in the US unable to break out of the spell of it.

Also extraordinary; this is a thread called "what stupid shit has trump done today".

The anti-Clinton tribalism is certainly worthy of scrutiny but what's it doing here?

Why are a select few voices determined to shift way from the Trump focus?

(and just again for clarification, I do not support HRC. But she is not PoTUS. She lost. Over a year ago...)

 

[maomao]

- 82% of Black men and 94% of Black women voted Clinton for President in November 2016
- 81% of Black men and 91% of Black women voted Northam (who was not endorsed by Sanders) for Virginia Governor last month.
- 93% of Black men and 98% of Black women voted Jones (who was not endorsed by Sanders) as Senator for Alabama last week.

In the 2016 Democratic primaries, over 75% of African Americans chose Clinton and just over 23% chose Sanders.

Of those who voted. US turnouts are spectacularly low and lower amongst black people. Your figures are extremely misleading.

 

[J Ed]

The anti-Clinton tribalism is certainly worthy of scrutiny but what's it doing here?

If you think that posting statistics about immigration which contradict official narratives, and the campaign pronouncements of Trump, is 'anti-Clinton tribalism', then the problem is with you and the weird second hand dichotomous worldview that you have absorbed.

 

[krtek a houby]

If you think that posting statistics about immigration which contradict official narratives, and the campaign pronouncements of Trump, is 'anti-Clinton tribalism', then the problem is with you and the weird second hand dichotomous worldview that you have absorbed.

Here, go over and be condescending on this thread.

The DNC and Democratic Party politics

 

[J Ed]

Here, go over and be condescending on this thread.

The DNC and Democratic Party politics

I'll take this as an acknowledgement of a moment's self-awareness on your part. Merry Christmas!!

 

[krtek a houby]

I'll take this as an acknowledgement of a moment's self-awareness on your part. Merry Christmas!!

You can kindly take your "British forum" and stuff it.

What makes you the expert here? All opinions here are every bit as valid as yours, British, American or otherwise.

 

[J Ed]

You can kindly take your "British forum" and stuff it.

What makes you the expert here? All opinions here are every bit as valid as yours, British, American or otherwise.

Why did you just reply to me with disgusting anti-Armenian bigotry? I think you'll find that the Armenian genocide did happen and you can stuff your disgusting propaganda to the contrary!

 

[krtek a houby]

Why did you just reply to me with disgusting anti-Armenian bigotry? I think you'll find that the Armenian genocide did happen and you can stuff your disgusting propaganda to the contrary!

When did your brain finally break?