US Politics: Flaming the Flamenco Flamingo

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

If someone is fleeing from a Central American country in fear of his life, he has reached safety when he crossed into Mexico. 

If he continues through Mexico to try and get into the US, he is doing it for economic opportunity, not to escape persecution. He is therefore an economic migrant not an asylum seeker.

Pretty simple. Unless you believe people should have free movement to work wherever the best economic opportunities are located. But that is not what asylum laws are for.

You are just making up bullshit, just like Trump and his administration.There is no ‘safety reached’ because a person reaches Mexico. There is no international law or treaty that says so. International law says refugees have a right of asylum. Asylum is where they feel safe, not you deciding where they feel safe.

[sologdin]

not, IMO, a very good sign.

thanks for that recitation.  agreed, that unilateral treaty revisionism has unsavory historical antecedents.

 

not you deciding where they feel safe

yeah, FNR's argument seeks to skip the credible fear determination stage of an asylum claim and summarily reject all claims on account of the claimant's point of origin--which reveals the nastiness of its ideological pedigree and the consequent dearth of its legal rigor.  whether a claimant is an 'economic migrant' is beside the point; if they satisfy the refugee convention, then it doesn't matter that they also need employment.  very likely most refugees will need employment; if they were not impecunious, they'd have other options under the INA as amended.

[Fragile Bird]

More idle speculation.

Russia needs help in the gulags. Although they have an endless supply of people they can imprison for, say, treason to the mother land, Siberia has become so warm in the summer their workers are dropping like flies.

Trump announces by tweet one day that Russia is a ‘safe third country’. There is no agreement, no treaty, just a nudge-nudge wink-wink. The US then deports all rejected refugee claimants who say their home countries are too dangerous to Russia, a ‘safe third country’.

[Fragile Bird]

Trump is tweeting for zero interest rates in the US or even negative interest rates.

He dreams of people paying him to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to build towers with the Trump name on them.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 hours ago, DMC said:

Retail politics do not matter in the general.  As for strong support among the AA community - so did Hillary in the primary.  That's because older black voters know him, are comfortable with him, and probably assume he has the best shot to win.  All that means is he'll likely have the same issue as Hillary in turning the black vote - he'll get the regulars, sure, but not eat in to the elevated turnout Obama's coalition included.

In terms of likeablity, yes Biden has an advantage over Hillary on that.  How long will that last, though, with Trump at full fire and Biden bumbling across the country?

Idk about that, but even if you’re right, it will still help in unifying the party after the primary, assuming he wins.

As far as sustained likability goes, idk, but he wouldn’t fall as far as Clinton did, and that should be enough, combined with his outreach to the white working class, to recapture the blue wall and win states like AZ.

[Varysblackfyre321]

6 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

If someone is fleeing from a Central American country in fear of his life, he has reached safety when he crossed into Mexico. 

If he continues through Mexico to try and get into the US, he is doing it for economic opportunity, not to escape persecution. He is therefore an economic migrant not an asylum seeker.

 

Lol, because a country experiencing massive gangland warfare is the pinnacle of safety? No one should have any fears about they’re safety in a environment where they’re in a position to be  easily brutalized, or murdered? Hell this is not even going into the nativist backlash people could face in Mexico where they’re  a made target for being the other.

6 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Pretty simple. Unless you believe people should have free movement to work wherever the best economic opportunities are located. But that is not what asylum laws are for.

No just pretty stupid quite frankly. Your argument ignores basic  international law when it comes refugees by retroactively saying any person  seeking asylum can’t get it from the US by virtue of just landing somewhere an administration says is “safe” first. 

Asylum laws are meant to protect refugees from being denied entry outright based upon some arbitrary standard like this. Honestly, by your logic it would be right for Jew who managed to get out of Nazi controlled territory in Europe, to be pressed to stay in any Country they landed no matter the fear they rightfully have that they may be captured/and or killed.

It’d be quite frankly perverse to look at this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/wwii-jewish-refugee-ship-st-louis-1939

And think it’d be acceptable for any Administration to turn them away by virtue of them having landed in countries said Administration unilaterally dubs safe before they tried for the US.

Like, if today,a gay man fleeing persecution for his orientation from Iran(where acting in a non-heterosexual way could get you hung) and lands in Iraq(where there’s a lot hate crimes perpetrated against non-heterosexual) do you seriously think he could be only be qualified as an economic migrant if he then tries to immigrate to the US saying he still doesn’t feel safe? Wait sorry just realized this example wouldn’t resonate with you. You’ve shown to think it’s perfectly ok for government to punish gay people for being gay so yeah. 

So I guess instead of a gay man let’s just say Christian. 

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

You are just making up bullshit, just like Trump and his administration.There is no ‘safety reached’ because a person reaches Mexico. There is no international law or treaty that says so. International law says refugees have a right of asylum. Asylum is where they feel safe, not you deciding where they feel safe.

True. But it aligns more with what the right feels the laws should ought to be like. So, it’s basically law. Makes sense if you don’t think about it.  Though quite frankly I don’t think most people that are even making this argument think Mexico is safe. 

Trump literally argued most of Mexico’s immigrants were rapists and Drug dealers with the clear implication of them sent here deliberately.

But oh, it’s definitely safe enough.

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, sologdin said:

yeah, FNR's argument seeks to skip the credible fear determination stage of an asylum claim and summarily reject all claims on account of the claimant's point of origin--which reveals the nastiness of its ideological pedigree and the consequent dearth of its legal rigor. 

But you see if these people are allowed to go through the proper legal proceedings in terms of dealing with Refugee applicants, some may actually get to stay, and that could encourage others to apply. 

It’s a slippery slope man. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Warren and Sanders Soc. Sec. plans would return the fund to solvency for decades. The article says till 2035 for hers and says his would add 35 years on that, so i"m assuming his plan, which is less expansive, would keep the fund solvent through 2070.

Elizabeth Warren proposes major expansion of Social Security

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/12/politics/elizabeth-warren-social-security-expansion-plan/index.html

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Don’t even dream of putting Amazon in the category of Uber. Amazon made $10.1 billion in profit in 2018.

I'll believe you, though maybe what I keep reading as amazilla's operation at a loss is the books and fashion and groceries part?  What is profitable then, is re-selling others' productions and taking a cut?  Because that sure as hell is amazon's streaming model.  They have very little worth watching at on their video with Prime 'service.'  Almost everything offered that one would want to watch will come only at a price to watch on the originators' own streaming service, and that price is where amazilla gets its money.  They provide perhaps four times a year something worth watching, either licensed or as an 'original.'

As for uber and lyft -- they are proven unsafe, particularly for women:

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/11/759899409/lyft-facing-flood-of-lawsuits-after-riders-report-they-were-sexually-attacked-by

Quote

 

WESTERVELT: Right now, it's impossible to tell just how many women have been sexually attacked using ride services. Lyft and Uber have pledged to publicly release such data. So far, they have not.

The vast majority of major police departments NPR contacted said they do not track sexual assaults by occupation or company. But the sheer number of calls to this firm shows it may well be an epidemic. So far, Abrams' partner Laurel Simes says they've heard from more than 150 female victims, and more calls come in every day.

 

With some friends last night, meeting for the purpose of sharing market strategies.  It struck me that all of us were as much 'playing obsessively' and in the same way as computer gamers, and ultimately, for what?  The entire market is a computer game into which more and more players are getting sucked. This is not a productive economy at all.

 

[Paladin of Ice]

6 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

If someone is fleeing from a Central American country in fear of his life, he has reached safety when he crossed into Mexico. 

If he continues through Mexico to try and get into the US, he is doing it for economic opportunity, not to escape persecution. He is therefore an economic migrant not an asylum seeker.

Pretty simple. Unless you believe people should have free movement to work wherever the best economic opportunities are located. But that is not what asylum laws are for.

Mexico isn’t a very safe country for Mexicans. Why, exactly, is it safe for Guatemalans, or Hondurans, or -insert random Central American nationality here-?

Especially when their status, lack of connections, and attempts to travel make them uniquely targetable for organized crime cartels to exploit, or traffick, etc.? Or has the dipshit right already forgotten how they were pretending to be so concerned about human trafficking of Central American refugees just a few months ago?

[Fragile Bird]

Hey, more great news out of Trump land.

There’s an international postal union that was created by an American guy named Blair (isn’t Blair House where the VP lives?) that sets international postal rates.

The US put in a notice one year ago it was withdrawing from the union unless postal rates were raised in other countries. Another ‘the world cheats the US’ Trumpism.

It may be true the Chinese don’t pay enough, idk, but holy fuck, postal rates in Canada are out of this edging (that’s effing, thank-you spell-check) world high. If we end up paying more to subsidize Americans, fuck you.

eta: upon doing more reading, I see that rates were last set before the explosion in ordering stuff directly from China, and China, as a 3rd world country, has a low rate. Rates are set to rise by 10%, but the US wants them to double, it looks like, so that a package from China costs more than a package being shipped from LA to NY. Since all 192 countries in the union have a single vote, it’s unlikely the US has the votes to swing that and the Us will leave the world wide postal union and weaponize postal rates as a trade bludgeon. In the meantime, it likely means the cost of delivering anything to the US will go up for the rest of us.

So. Much. Winning.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Love how the bulk of people I talk to who consider themselves libertarians are super anti-immigration and want strong borders.  Not that the hardcore libertarians are any less whacked but at least they're consistent compared to the people that latch onto it because it's a less tired, cooler word, linguistically and culturally, than Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, or socialist.

[HexMachina]

19 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Funny thing is, they deny them their benefits as an employee and they're still not even close to profitable. Uber lost $5 billion (!) just last quarter.

Maybe if they spent less time, effort and money fighting these lawsuits they might turn a profit!

[Frey family reunion]

8 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

You are just making up bullshit, just like Trump and his administration.There is no ‘safety reached’ because a person reaches Mexico. There is no international law or treaty that says so. International law says refugees have a right of asylum. Asylum is where they feel safe, not you deciding where they feel safe.

Just out of curiosity, what has been the most frequent reason (if there is a common one) that most asylum seekers from Central America have been using to claim right of asylum?  Can it be as simple as my country is really violent and crappy?  Or does there have to be a specific persecution based on race/religion/politics ect?

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

I'll believe you, though maybe what I keep reading as amazilla's operation at a loss is the books and fashion and groceries part?  What is profitable then, is re-selling others' productions and taking a cut?

What is profitable is Amazon Web Services, which is making MASSIVE money via monetizing data centers and computer cycles. Only in the last year or two has the actual store hit profitability at all. 

 

[Kalbear]

16 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Just out of curiosity, what has been the most frequent reason (if there is a common one) that most asylum seekers from Central America have been using to claim right of asylum?  Can it be as simple as my country is really violent and crappy?  Or does there have to be a specific persecution based on race/religion/politics ect?

Fear of reprisal from gangs is the most common reason given. It has to be a fairly specific reason in order to be accepted, such as having actually been threatened with violence or having other family members threatened or experience violence.

[Zorral]

25 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

What is profitable is Amazon Web Services, which is making MASSIVE money via monetizing data centers and computer cycles. Only in the last year or two has the actual store hit profitability at all. 

 

Ah!  That's right.  I completed forgot about that, though how I could forget I do not know.  But I managed.

``````

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/12/twitter-raul-castro-state-media-outlets-blocked

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

If we end up paying more to subsidize Americans, fuck you.

It seems like you've already retaliated in a rather boorish way:

Quote

America is facing a crisis at the border. It’s just not the one you might have heard about. According to officials with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), sightings of feral hogs along the northern US-Canadian border have increased in recent years, and the prospect of the invasive species has wildlife experts worried.

The roving swine have reportedly set their itinerary for Montana, according to the Daily Inter Lake.

“Multiple people say that if we were to design an invasive species that would do the most widespread damage, feral swine aren’t too far off from being the perfect specimen,” Dale Nolte of the USDA’s National Feral Swine Program told the Daily Inter Lake. “It would be a disaster.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/12/feral-hogs-us-canada-border-wall

[Fragile Bird]

52 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It seems like you've already retaliated in a rather boorish way:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/12/feral-hogs-us-canada-border-wall

Bah, nonsense! There are so many feral pigs in the US there’s actually a reality show with pig hunters! And then there was that idiot who responded to the question, why would anyone need an AR-15 who said he’d need one to protect his children if a herd of feral pigs came rampaging through! Only to have someone post a story from The Fish and Game people, whoever they come under, saying automatic weapons aren't helpful against feral pigs. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Fucking hell could Warren or Sanders just say "taxes will go up but savings on healthcare will go up to the point that middle class families are saving money"