[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

This way they get to clutch their pearls and say "This is what the liberals asked for! Aren't they monsters!"

thrawn82 wrote:

Child only concentration camps are not improved by making them mixed age concentration camps

We, as a country, have been perfectly happy to have male only concentration camps in Guantanamo for years. When they are not americans (white, christian) we are perfectly willing to treat them as sub-human (I would say animals but we treat animals pretty well actually)

farley3k wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

Child only concentration camps are not improved by making them mixed age concentration camps

We, as a country, have been perfectly happy to have male only concentration camps in Guantanamo for years. When they are not americans (white, christian) we are perfectly willing to treat them as sub-human (I would say animals but we treat animals pretty well actually)

Not in Texas. Just watched a video of a mother and son that have rescued nearly 1000 dogs from high kill shelters in Texas by bringing them to Washington State and adopting them out.

They had started doing videos of her 8-year-old son playing with shelter pups, and saw a massive uptick in adoptions. It’s amazing how portraying an animal as a creature that can love and be loved changes people’s perceptions.

That’s why Trump and his supporters refer to immigrants as criminals, monsters, and pests that infest our country. It works on weak minds, allowing them to actually support the separation policy.

ICE Director: ICE Can't Be Compared To Nazis Since We're Just Following Orders

*I just can't believe they are this ... ignorant of history but the quote really does support the headline.

Asked what he thinks of people comparing ICE to Nazis, acting director Thomas Homan replied with the Nuremberg defense.

The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Monday that comparing ICE agents to Nazis is unfair, because “they’re simply enforcing laws enacted by Congress”.

Thomas Homan employed the “Nuremberg defense” – used by German Nazi officials in an attempt to escape accountability with the claim they were merely following orders.

Do you think he knows? I mean, did he know ahead of time that he was saying a think that actual nazis said to defend the actual things he is doing? Was he trolled by a subversive speech writer? IS this is cry for help from a position he can't escape?

Vox has a pretty good discussion about this on their front page right now. And seriously, I can't recommend Vox enough for smart, and mostly drama free, reporting that seeks to explain the hows and whys of politics and culture. Definitely leans liberal, but the tone and thorough research and reporting are what we should expect from all news outlets.

Vox: Why Border Patrol agents obey immoral orders
It’s more complicated than you think.

To shed some light on this issue, I reached out to Bernardo Zacka, a research fellow at the Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University and the author of the book When the State Meets the Street. Zacka’s book is an on-the-ground look at the choices bureaucrats must make every day, and the moral environment that structures those choices.
Sean Illing
A lot of people look at what’s happening on the border right now and wonder why Border Patrol agents would comply with orders many of them must know are wrong or immoral.

Bernardo Zacka
I worry that framing the matter like this detracts from the real problem. How many people are willing to risk their job to do the right thing? Can we really hold people to such a standard and be surprised if they fail to meet it? The problem is that we put people in situations where they must either act immorally or act heroically. That’s a recipe for disaster.

thrawn82 wrote:

Do you think he knows? I mean, did he know ahead of time that he was saying a think that actual nazis said to defend the actual things he is doing? Was he trolled by a subversive speech writer? IS this is cry for help from a position he can't escape?

I saw the guy on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, who asked him if the policy was immoral. The man could not go further than to say, it is the law. He then attacked Wolf and anyone critical of ICE by saying the real inhumane treatment is by those seeking asylum with their children.

But even he could not muster up the courage to call the policy humane. He just found a way to justify evil.

A "White Civil Rights" rally has been approved in DC for August 11th and 12th. Brought to you by one of the guys who organized the Charlottesville white supremacist rally last year. Yeah... this is a thing now. This is America in 2018.

Kehama wrote:

A "White Civil Rights" rally has been approved in DC for August 11th and 12th. Brought to you by one of the guys who organized the Charlottesville white supremacist rally last year. Yeah... this is a thing now. This is America in 2018.

Unless they all decide to wear masks and hoods, I betcha a lot of people are going to find themselves unemployed after the 12th.

What’s the over/under that Melania has been to Manchurian brainwashing camp or is a Stepford robot?

I thought this article was on point:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...

"The women of Trump’s family are doing what medieval queens regularly did: They are helping him project an image of strength, even when he is forced to back down, by framing his many reversals as responses to their pleas and not admissions of political weakness. It’s a time-honored, convenient trope. Don’t be taken in."

jdzappa wrote:

What’s the over/under that Melania has been to Manchurian brainwashing camp or is a Stepford robot?

A robot would have at least been programmed to fake empathy. There's a Python module for that.

New Republic: The Military Drinking-Water Crisis the White House Tried to Hide: A new, previously suppressed report has grave implications for service members, veterans, and their families.

The Trump administration feared it would be a “public relations nightmare”: a major federal study that concluded contaminated groundwater across the country, especially near military bases, was more toxic than the government realized. Political aides to President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt pressured the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry against releasing the results.

“The public, media, and Congressional reaction to these numbers is going to be huge,” an unidentified White House aide wrote, according to Politico. “The impact to EPA and [the Defense Department] is going to be extremely painful. We cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be.” The study was not released.

That is, until Wednesday. Amid a media firestorm about the administration’s immigration policy, the ATSDR—a division of the Department of Health and Human Services—quietly published its 852-page review of perfluoroalkyls, or PFAS, which are “used in everything from carpets and frying pan coatings to military firefighting foams,” according to ProPublica. “All told, the report offers the most comprehensive gathering of information on the effects of these chemicals today, and suggests they’re far more dangerous than previously thought.”

Politico: White House, EPA headed off chemical pollution study: The intervention by Scott Pruitt’s aides came after one White House official warned the findings would cause a ‘public relations nightmare.'

Scott Pruitt’s EPA and the White House sought to block publication of a federal health study on a nationwide water-contamination crisis, after one Trump administration aide warned it would cause a "public relations nightmare," newly disclosed emails reveal.

The intervention early this year — not previously disclosed — came as HHS' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry was preparing to publish its assessment of a class of toxic chemicals that has contaminated water supplies near military bases, chemical plants and other sites from New York to Michigan to West Virginia.

The study would show that the chemicals endanger human health at a far lower level than EPA has previously called safe, according to the emails.

“The public, media, and Congressional reaction to these numbers is going to be huge,” one unidentified White House aide said in an email forwarded on Jan. 30 by James Herz, a political appointee who oversees environmental issues at the OMB. The email added: “The impact to EPA and [the Defense Department] is going to be extremely painful. We (DoD and EPA) cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be.”

More than three months later, the draft study remains unpublished, and the HHS unit says it has no scheduled date to release it for public comment. Critics say the delay shows the Trump administration is placing politics ahead of an urgent public health concern — something they had feared would happen after agency leaders like Pruitt started placing industry advocates in charge of issues like chemical safety.

This Administration cares about PR nightmares? I thought that was what fed Sanders?

Yeah he cares so much about the military huh? All the anthem bullsh*t where he uses them, meanwhile letting them get poisoned by water.

Separating families is an American tradition

In this Washington Post video, Karen Attiah shows that America has a long history of doing terrible things to families of migrants, Native Americans, slaves, Japanese Americans, and others.

*not on Youtube so not embedded.

What’s the Yield Curve? ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

You can try to play down a trade war with China. You can brush off the impact of rising oil prices on corporate earnings.

But if you’re in the business of making economic predictions, it has become very difficult to disregard an important signal from the bond market.

The so-called yield curve is perilously close to predicting a recession — something it has done before with surprising accuracy — and it’s become a big topic on Wall Street.

Terms like “yield curve” can be mind-numbing if you’re not a bond trader, but the mechanics, practical impact and psychology of it are fairly straightforward. Here’s what the fuss is all about.

Typical. Finally Obama's policies are catching up.

Maybe sarcasm, but I have no doubt some white house spokesmouth will be saying that soon. Probably Fox News first, though.

AZ Walgreens pharmacist denies mother miscarriage medicine on personal morals

Honestly a dick move but instead of following company policy and allowing one of the other two pharmacists to fill he worked with he forced the woman to discuss it on site and denied her the medication regardless of her medical need. I am not aware of any moral reason to help remove a dead child from a woman. This infuriates me. I remember when I wasn't there when my wife went in to hear our baby's heart beat and she dealt with hours of tests and the news we lost it. Then I was there for her DNC procedure, we cried, we grieved, and we moved on.

If I had heard my wife was made to do this and I went and was turned away I would have gone on a hell fire path to get this man fired and sue the sh*t out of Walgreens for HIPPA violations.

And Walgreens just got listed on the Dow Jones, replacing...General Electric.

Prederick wrote:
The so-called yield curve is perilously close to predicting a recession — something it has done before with surprising accuracy — and it’s become a big topic on Wall Street.

"The stock market has forecast nine of the past five recessions." - Paul Samuelson (1966)

Keldar wrote:
Prederick wrote:
The so-called yield curve is perilously close to predicting a recession — something it has done before with surprising accuracy — and it’s become a big topic on Wall Street.

"The stock market has forecast nine of the past five recessions." - Paul Samuelson (1966)

The article is about bonds, not stocks.

From the article:

Curve inversions have “correctly signaled all nine recessions since 1955 and had only one false positive, in the mid-1960s, when an inversion was followed by an economic slowdown but not an official recession,” the bank’s researchers wrote in March.

Edit: note that we're not at an inversion yet.