Trump Dump: Internal Policy (Thread I)

[The Romulan Republic]

Still not clear from that quote that they're referring only to the instructions he received from Kushner regarding the Israel vote, though if ABC made a mistake, well, I'll acknowledge that, but there's really no way I could have known it at the time.

Of course, the "fake news" crowd will jump on any mistake as proof that Trump's innocence of any wrongdoing is definitively proven, and than any allegations to the contrary are just a conspiracy by the media. But even the best of us make mistakes sometimes. Doesn't really mean all that much one way or the other, in the big picture.

But if what Flynn is testifying about is completely innocuous, well... that begs the question of why Flynn would offer him a plea deal (because their unquestionably are other things they could have gone after Flynn for, like failing to register as a foreign agent) if Flynn had nothing significant to tell.

So again, we are back to assuming that Mueller must be either incompetent, or corrupt.

Or do you think Mueller is a McCarthyist as well?

[Vympel]

Still not clear from that quote that they're referring only to the instructions he received from Kushner regarding the Israel vote, though if ABC made a mistake, well, I'll acknowledge that, but there's really no way I could have known it at the time.

Of course, the "fake news" crowd will jump on any mistake as proof that Trump's innocence of any wrongdoing is definitively proven, and than any allegations to the contrary are just a conspiracy by the media. But even the best of us make mistakes sometimes. Doesn't really mean all that much one way or the other, in the big picture.

It's emblematic of the shambolic state of reporting regarding the investigation, where false reports are made nad then retweeted to the tune of tens of thousands while corrections get ... a lot less. So yeah, huge numbers of people have been misinformed, and don't know about it. That's bad.

But if what Flynn is testifying about is completely innocuous, well... that begs the question of why Flynn would offer him a plea deal (because their unquestionably are other things they could have gone after Flynn for, like failing to register as a foreign agent) if Flynn had nothing significant to tell.

So again, we are back to assuming that Mueller must be either incompetent, or corrupt.

Or do you think Mueller is a McCarthyist as well?

Mueller's investigation doesn't truck in McCarthyite rhetoric, so ... no? And nothing about Mueller's investigation necessitates its incompetent or corrupt.

Again: Mueller's investigation could - and already has - unconvered criminal conduct that has nothing at all to do with Russia. It is perfectly plausible that it could continue to do so.

In the case of Flynn, the most obvious issue is his bizarre relations with Turkey. Which is a country that is different from Russia.

[The Romulan Republic]

It may surprise you to know that I agree with everything you've just said, if not your ultimate conclusions regarding collusion. Except insofar as I feel that you are wrong to take individual errors and treat them as representing a "shambolic state of reporting regarding the investigation" overall. I'd rather we avoid those kinds of sweeping, generalized attacks on the press, considering that Trump (and others) are using such sweeping attacks to wage a very calculated and deliberate war on the freedom and independence of the press.

That said, any individual errors that may arise (and are either acknowledged as errors by those who made them, or demonstrated to be so by NON-PARTISAN sources) should absolutely be called out- both for the sake of factual accuracy, and because such errors undermine the credibility of accurate reports of wrongdoing by Trump, Russia, and others. So its not ultimately in the interests of my side either to give carte blanche to slop journalism, simply because its targeting our political opponents.

I think this is an area where we all need to try to do better.

[The Romulan Republic]

CNN interview with James Clapper on the recent developments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsLBlzBo1vo

It struck me as a rather fair and level-headed assessment, which acknowledges the possibility of collusion between Trump and Russia, and the interference of Russia in the election, without overreaching to conclusions that have not yet been verified.

[MKSheppard]

While you people were all hyperventilating over REEE RUSSIA:

HOTLANTA

‘Please, God, Don’t Let Me Get Stopped’: Around Atlanta, No Sanctuary for Immigrants
By VIVIAN YEE
NOV. 25, 2017

CHAMBLEE, Ga. — Not many notice when the SUVs arrive.

Around 5 a.m., when the immigration agents pull into the parking lot of the Chamblee Heights apartments, 16 miles from downtown Atlanta, only one person is on the lookout.

Cristina Monteros catches sight of the cars with the telltale tinted windows from her small apartment near the front, where she runs a day care, and calls her downstairs neighbor: ICE is here.

The neighbor dials another, who passes it on. It takes less than 15 minutes for everyone in the complex to hear about “la migra,” whereupon they shut their doors and hold their breath. Some show up late to work, and others skip it altogether. The school bus might leave some children behind.

“It’s just us helping each other out,” said Ms. Monteros, 35. “There’s fear every day.”

Few places in the United States have simultaneously beckoned undocumented immigrants and penalized them for coming like metropolitan Atlanta, a boomtown of construction and service jobs where conservative politics and new national policies have turned every waking day into a gamble.

President Trump has declared anyone living in the country illegally a target for arrest and deportation, driving up the number of immigration arrests by more than 40 percent this year. While the Obama administration deported record numbers of undocumented immigrants, it directed federal agents to focus on arresting serious criminals and recent arrivals. The current administration has erased those guidelines, allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest and deport anyone here illegally.

Freed of constraints, the regional ICE office in Atlanta made nearly 80 percent more arrests in the first half of this year than it did in the same period last year, the largest increase of any field office in the country.

It has had help. Local sheriffs and the police have been working with federal agents to identify and detain immigrants, a model of cooperation that the Trump administration is rapidly trying to expand throughout the country.

Every few hours, an unauthorized immigrant is booked into a county jail on charges as serious as assault and as minor as failing to signal a right turn. Then the jail alerts ICE — contrary to what happens in the so-called sanctuary cities repeatedly denounced by Mr. Trump, where local authorities refuse to turn immigrants over to the federal agency except in cases involving the gravest crimes.

Atlanta’s immigrants can do little but hide. At strip-mall taquerias and fruit stands, business has lagged. Word of the arrests flows through neighborhood phone trees, and Facebook has become an early-warning system for people desperate for clues about where ICE is operating. All around the metropolitan area, cabs and Uber cars are picking up immigrants who know driving their own cars may get them no further than detention.

As the Trump administration pushes the rest of the country toward tougher immigration enforcement, the Atlanta area offers a glimpse of what could be.

‘You Should Be Scared’

Parked outside their target’s home in Norcross, northeast of Atlanta, in the pre-dawn blackness, the ICE agents watched the neighborhood blink awake, bedroom light by bedroom light.

Inside the small house was a 48-year-old school maintenance supervisor named David Martinez-Samano, who had a pair of felony convictions for domestic violence from 1996 and 1997, plus a rape charge that a plea bargain reduced to a lesser charge. He had served time in prison and had been deported to Mexico twice.

“So he’s a pretty bad guy,” one agent told the team, “and we want to get him off the streets.”

Mr. Martinez-Samano’s window glowed at 6:09 a.m. A little later, his wife emerged to walk one of their daughters to the school bus.

Then his Honda Civic shivered to life. As he headed for a turn, the blue lights of the SUVs went blazing down the street.

Within two minutes of being pulled over, Mr. Martinez-Samano was handcuffed, patted down and stowed in a back seat. The quick turnaround, ICE officials said, minimized the chances that rubbernecks would post a video on Facebook, where, inevitably, it would be described as a checkpoint or a random traffic stop.

At the agency’s Atlanta building, where detainees in orange jumpsuits filled the holding cells ringing the fluorescent intake room, Mr. Martinez-Samano sat stoically in handcuffs.

The agents were doing their jobs, he said in a brief interview. But, he said, he did not think he was worth ICE’s time. Having already gone to prison, he said, “I already paid.”

Just the day before, he and his wife had been at the hospital with their eldest daughter, celebrating the birth of their first grandson.

Staying Out of Sight

ICE’s Atlanta office made 7,753 arrests across Georgia and the Carolinas from January through June, the most recent period for which data was available. That was more than any other field office except Dallas’s, and an increase of nearly 80 percent over the same period last year.

“If you’re in this country illegally, you should be scared,” said Sean Gallagher, the Atlanta field office director. “We’re probably going to come knocking at some point.”

ICE officials say that agents do not randomly arrest people, instead targeting immigrants such as Mr. Martinez-Samano. But rumor often outpaces fact. In the suburban neighborhoods where hundreds of thousands of immigrants have made precarious camp, dread of a knock from ICE informs every decision.

When even going to work seems chancy, trips to the food courts and clothing stands of Plaza Fiesta, a vast Hispanic shopping mall north of Atlanta, have started to seem like a luxury. At El Rosario, which sells rosaries and spiritual sundries, the owner, Ana Robles, said business was down, although one item was selling better than usual: a white Holy Spirit candle, burned to ward off immigration trouble.

But information about ICE’s movements, however thin, is worth a thousand candles.

Every morning, Rolando Zeron, a former civil engineer in Honduras who now fixes floors, maps his way to work after checking the Facebook page of Mario Guevara, a reporter for the newspaper Mundo Hispánico who updates his feed about ICE activity throughout the day.

“If Mario says, ‘Hey, I see guys on Buford Highway,’ I move,” said Mr. Zeron, 44. “Mario’s like family. I’ve never met him — just online. That’s my dream, to meet him. I want to buy him a beer.”

Mr. Guevara, who has 250,000 Facebook followers and counting, is usually in his car by 4:30 a.m., gulping coffee and chasing tips from suburb to suburb.

Asked whether he had any reservations about helping readers evade immigration law, he said he preferred to think he was helping people with no criminal records stay in the country. “Honestly, I believe it’s an honor as a journalist if the people can use your information for protecting their own families,” he said.

As he approached a Chamblee Heights apartment one afternoon, three little girls spotted him. “Mario!” they shouted. “Mario!”

They were the daughters of another devoted reader, Paola, 37. Even as she and her husband discussed moving to a more immigrant-friendly state, she was preparing her children’s passports and laboring to improve their Spanish.

“Someday we’ll be back in Guatemala or Honduras,” she told them, “and no one speaks English there.”

Though one daughter played the clarinet in an after-school music program last year, she had to drop out this year because Paola could not pick her up.

In Georgia, after all, it is risky even to drive.

From Traffic Stop to Ticket Out

Thousands of undocumented immigrants since 2012 have been arrested and handed over to ICE in Georgia after routine traffic stops revealed that they were driving without a license.

State legislators have empowered local police officers to question suspects about their immigration status, a job normally reserved for federal agents, and three county jails near Atlanta participate in a program, known as 287(g), that allows sheriff’s deputies to identify undocumented immigrants and hand them over to ICE. The Trump administration has signed dozens of new 287(g) agreements with jails around the country.

“It’s huge for us,” said Mr. Gallagher of ICE, calling the program “a force multiplier.”

Gabriela Martinez, 28, a single mother of three who illegally crossed the border from Mexico in 2005, was moving the last of her family’s belongings to the new house she had just rented in Norcross when her Ford Expedition was pulled over for a broken brake light in April.

She knew the risks. The father of her 5-, 7- and 10-year-old daughters, was deported after being pulled over in 2012. Ever since, she had taught the girls to be extra diligent about wearing seatbelts. Once Mr. Trump took office, she rode with friends and took Ubers as often as possible.

But she said she had no choice but to drive to her daughters’ school, to the doctor or to the houses she cleans. As rapidly as the Atlanta area has grown, public transit is practically absent outside Atlanta itself.

“Every time I pull out of here, I think, ‘Please, God, please, God, don’t let me get stopped,’” she said.

She was held for four days at the Gwinnett County jail — where a sign outside announces “This is a 287(g) facility” — before being transferred to an immigration detention center. The friend who had been watching her children when she was arrested told them their mother was traveling for work, but Ms. Martinez called to tell her 10-year-old daughter, Evelyn, the truth.

“If I don’t come home,” she told her, “you’re in charge.”

Evelyn began to wail, sobbing so hard that she dropped the phone. Ms. Martinez could only listen.

She was released with an ankle monitor after telling ICE agents about her American-born children. But she still faces possible deportation.

An analysis of one month of Gwinnett County jail records from this summer shows that 184 of the 2,726 people booked and charged at the jail were held for immigration authorities. Almost two-thirds of those detained for ICE had been charged with a traffic infraction such as failing to stay in their lane, speeding or driving without a license. Others were booked on charges including assault, child molestation and drug possession.

Advocates for immigrants have accused officers in 287(g) counties of targeting Hispanic drivers, a claim local police have denied.

“Local law enforcement is just chasing Latinos all over the place for tiny traffic infractions,” said Adelina Nicholls, the executive director of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights.

But to Butch Conway, the longtime sheriff of Gwinnett County, there is no reason his deputies should not turn in immigrants caught driving without a license. They are, after all, doubly breaking the law.

“I find it offensive that they just thumb their nose at our laws and operate vehicles they are not licensed to operate,” Mr. Conway said in a 2010 interview, “on top of the fact that they are here illegally.” (Through a spokeswoman, he declined to comment for this article.)

In nearby Cobb County, Maria Hernandez, a school janitor from Mexico, was arrested while driving home from work one night in May. An officer conducting a random license tag check, a common practice in some police departments, had determined through a state database that the tag had been suspended because the car lacked insurance. After pulling over Ms. Hernandez, the officer then discovered she had no driver’s license.

Her boss tried to bail her out of the Cobb County jail, but was told that the money would go to waste: She was headed to immigration detention, where she would spend three days trying to explain that she was a single mother with a sick child. Estefania, her 13-year-old daughter, was being treated for depression after a suicide attempt.

Ms. Hernandez was released, given an ankle monitor and told to report back with a plane ticket. (A lawyer has helped delay the deportation.)

Her car, in fact, was insured; the officer had called in the wrong license tag, according to a Cobb County Police Department spokesman, Sgt. Dana Pierce.

Sergeant Pierce said it made no difference, given Ms. Hernandez’s lack of a driver’s license. Generally, “there is no singling out of any race, creed, color, religion or anything else,” the sergeant said.

But by the time the mistake was discovered, it was too late. Ms. Hernandez was already being booked into the county jail.

Robert Gebeloff contributed reporting from New York, and Mariano Castillo from Chamblee.

Chicago bakery loses 800 workers after immigration raid

CHICAGO — A Chicago bakery lost 800 workers to an immigration raid earlier this year.

Bloomberg reports that the Cloverhill Bakery on the Northwest Side, lost more than a third of its employees who didn’t have sufficient documentation.

The Swiss-based company makes hamburger buns for McDonald’s and other chains.

A spokesman said the bakery is struggling to replace staff, is facing pressure to raise wages, and has lost $21 million due to the disruption.

Link

Chicago Immigration Raid Leaves Swiss Baker Scrambling to Restaff
By Thomas Mulier

November 27, 2017, 6:02 AM EST Updated on November 27, 2017, 7:02 AM EST

A Swiss maker of hamburger buns for McDonald’s Corp. said it’s struggling to run a Chicago bakery after it lost a third of its workers in a clampdown on 800 immigrants without sufficient documentation.

About 35 percent of the workers at Cloverhill Bakery had to be replaced, according to Zurich-based Aryzta AG. The company, which makes baked goods for fast-food chains and supermarkets, said the employees were supplied by a job-placement agency that faced federal audits earlier this year.

“It’s proceeding very, very slowly because it’s like having a brand new factory and a brand new workforce,” Chief Executive Officer Kevin Toland said on a call with analysts. “That’s presenting a lot of challenges, as you can imagine.”

The raid on workers at Cloverhill is one of the biggest U.S. employment headaches reported by a European company so far as President Donald Trump has made curbing undocumented immigration a centerpiece of his presidency. Aryzta said it faces challenges in retaining staff in the U.S. and pressure to raise wages.

The Cloverhill issues led to a 7 percent decline in Aryzta’s sales from North America in the three months through October. The increase in employment costs -- which is affecting retailers and restaurants nationwide -- will eventually lead to higher consumer prices, Toland said.

Aryzta wasn’t able to verify that the workers had the necessary documents to work because they were brought in by a staffing agency, interim Chief Financial Officer David Wilkinson said in September. He also said the board wasn’t aware of the extent of the risk that existed to the business. The company first reported the loss of 800 workers at that time.

The Swiss company didn’t name the staffing company.

[TheFeniX]

I'm no fan of the the current U.S. stance on immigration, but I'm having issues getting worked up that a company is having to pay out higher wages because all the illegals they were likely underpaying got nabbed. Prices will go up? Yea, that's to be expected when you're forced to treat your workers like people. And... crazy thought: if you paid out more money and prices go up, people could afford the higher prices.

Spank the shit out of the companies relying on underpaid illegal labor with huge fines. Watch the problem resolve itself and/or watch Walmart throw millions at Congress to gum that process up.

And I'm getting tired of, even in general mind you, driving with an expired license being no big thing. If anything, the U.S. is due for upping the standard in the first place, but has anyone here dealt with being hit by an uninsured/underinsured driver? I have and so have multiple people I know. You get fucked unless you've got full coverage yourself. And if that isn't the case, you have to hope your state helps out. Texas does, which means this cost is dumped off on everyone but the person who can't afford insurance or just decided not to get it.

I actually do empathize with these people. Especially the woman just trying to work a living to raise her kids. But driving without a license and insurance is illegal for good goddamn reason. And just ignoring illegals does nothing to fix a shitty problem. I'm not empathizing much with the guy sporting two rape convictions though.

[Simon_Jester]

The thing is, the driver's license people are people who would get licenses if they could. They'd rather be law-abiding citizens or at least residents, but there is literally no way for them to attain this goal because of how low we've set our immigration quotas. And yet, we still offer them wages that give them opportunities they never had at home, for themselves and their children, whether they're law-abiding citizens or not.

So surprise surprise, some of them choose to break a law by... showing up and driving around in our country. This is roughly on par with how if you criminalize sleeping on park benches, you suddenly find a surge of extra crime among homeless people. Or if you criminalized alcohol, you'd suddenly have a huge swarm of literal bootleggers smuggling booze around.

Make a law against a thing normal people have a strong incentive to do, even when they're not trying to hurt anyone, and you will create an uptick in criminality.

Given that our society still wants cheap immigrant labor, the only non-schizo solutions we have are to make it legal for illegal immigrants to drive, or to let in legal immigrants to do the damn jobs, the way we used to back in the 1800s when you could immigrate to the US for the purpose of performing unskilled labor.

[K. A. Pital]

Given that our society still wants cheap immigrant labor

That's... brutally honest, and a bit unexpected. Does your society need it? Or do the masters need it?

[Civil War Man]

Given that our society still wants cheap immigrant labor

That's... brutally honest, and a bit unexpected. Does your society need it? Or do the masters need it?

Technically he said want and not need, but I'd say a little of column A, a little of column B. The masters want cheap labor because, by definition, they don't have to pay as much for it, and they can get away with paying undocumented immigrants less because they have fewer legal protections (though they are trying to fix that by also taking away citizens' legal protections). The society as a whole doesn't necessarily care one way or the other, but a lot of people like and/or can only afford cheap consumer goods, which, again by definition, can only be produced by cheap labor, at which point you can refer back to the previous sentence.

[K. A. Pital]

But either way it's... bad, if not outright horrible.

[Broomstick]

And, of course, it's the cheap illegal laborers that bear the legal consequences with those hiring them getting a slap on the wrist at best - if the people hiring such labor faced jail time you'd find a lot less of this going on.

There's also whining about "Americans don't want to do this work" - what that really means is that Americans don't want to do that work for starvation wages in shitty, unsafe conditions. It's harder to exploit citizens, and when that happens (as when a former employer decided she didn't have to pay my wages) the citizens have legal recourse that can ruin an owner. The people profiting off illegal labor don't want to be forced to hire citizens and legal residents because that means paying at least minimum wage and at least a nod towards safe conditions, which costs the exploiters money.

Boo-fucking-hoo, The law should slap the owners/hirers as hard as the illegal immigrants.

[Dominus Atheos]

^This. I don't like illegal immigrants undercutting American workers. Although the correct solution to that problem is to aggressively prosecute the employers, with large fines on a first offense and seizure of business and jail time for subsequent offenses.

#leftwingpopulism

[Highlord Laan]

^This. I don't like illegal immigrants undercutting American workers. Although the correct solution to that problem is to aggressively prosecute the employers, with large fines on a first offense and seizure of business and jail time for subsequent offenses.

#leftwingpopulism

But that's dirty leftist nazi communism! You can't interfere with business!

[Simon_Jester]

Given that our society still wants cheap immigrant labor

That's... brutally honest, and a bit unexpected. Does your society need it? Or do the masters need it?

Our society wants consumer goods to be cheap. Consumer goods would get significantly more expensive without cheap labor. The masters want it more, but on some level I think most Americans want the consequences of access to cheap labor. Furthermore, immigrants can sometimes be more motivated and competent than local-born Americans who can be hired at the same price. Because it's easier to find a person in the top 50% of talent and competence in El Salvador willing to work for low wages in the US, than to find a person in the top 50% of the American population who's willing to do anything other than go to college and do white-collar work.

"Americans don't want these jobs" is a whine, but it's not entirely a lie, especially since we've spent the past half-century turning physical labor into a low-status occupation that the middle class is uncomfortable with.

So yes, most Americans desire the consequences of allowing unskilled immigration into the US, resulting in a cheaper, more competent pool of unskilled and low-skilled labor.

If we had immigration under 19th century rules, this would be beneficial to everyone. Even the immigrants. Huge numbers of immigrants came to the US in the 1800s and early 1900s, started out very poor and working under bad conditions, but gradually improved their own situation until they were as prosperous as the median American. Many Americans are descended from one or more of those immigrants. On the whole, those immigrants got a decent deal and are no worse off than they would have been staying at home. Maybe better off, in some cases.

The entire reason we have an immigration problem in the first place is that in the 20th century, the descendants of earlier immigrant generations kicked down the ladder behind them, making it nearly impossible for unskilled laborers with high motivation and work ethic to move to America legally. However, the economic imperatives did not change. Drawing relatively talented, motivated people with the opportunity to work one's way up the socioeconomic ladder via several years of hard, low-skilled labor still works, and we still wanted the rewards of doing so, even as we had cut off our own legal access to the supply of such persons.

So the incentives are still there. The incentive to immigrate is still there, the desire for what the immigrants provide is still there, but the legal access to the labor is gone... which has, predictably, created a black market.

[K. A. Pital]

I see your point, but from my view, this is not good. You said yourself that people will have to accept a higher cost of consumer goods to ensure that they are ethically produced and not made through excessive exploitation of the poor.

Now it looks like a complete about-face. And social mobility in the US is a joke. Immigrants can just choose between being an underclass in the global division of labour or be an underclass inside the US.

The no-rules employment of immigrants also led to a lot of tragedies - no workplace safety, being at the full mercy of employers, and finally being deported in the millions at the sight of a recession (remember the Roosevelt and post-WWII mass deportations of foreign workers).

There is a good solution: force employers to hire people legally and with guarantees, or face destruction. But that won’t do in the US. And so the division and abuse of the immigrant workforce will go on.

[Simon_Jester]

I see your point, but from my view, this is not good. You said yourself that people will have to accept a higher cost of consumer goods to ensure that they are ethically produced and not made through excessive exploitation of the poor.

Well, I'm not sure it IS unethical as such to hire people to work at low wages if for them those low wages represent a high wage or an increase in wages.

it might well be that were those same workers citizens, they could reasonably expect higher wages. But if that's the problem, then the exploitative part of the system is not "cheap immigrant labor," it's "no path to citizenship for the immigrants."

Likewise, there's a problem in that illegal immigrants are afraid to report crimes and unsafe working conditions to the authorities, for fear of deportation. But then the exploitative part of the system is not "cheap immigrant labor," it's "local and federal governments betray the trust of illegal immigrants and refuse to enforce the law when illegals are the victims."

Illegals are undoubtedly being exploited, but I'm not sure "they get paid less" is the reason in and of itself. It would depend heavily on the context and whether existing labor protection laws are being violated.

Now it looks like a complete about-face. And social mobility in the US is a joke. Immigrants can just choose between being an underclass in the global division of labour or be an underclass inside the US.

Which is, I agree, grossly unfair... but the problem is the lack of a 19th-century-style path to citizenship FOR the immigrants, not the immigration itself. We should EITHER actually close the borders OR let people into our country to become citizens and move on to happiness and prosperity, none of this "half of one, half of the other" crap.

The no-rules employment of immigrants also led to a lot of tragedies - no workplace safety, being at the full mercy of employers, and finally being deported in the millions at the sight of a recession (remember the Roosevelt and post-WWII mass deportations of foreign workers).

Yes, and again, the fundamental problem is that the 1800s-era demand for cheap immigrant labor never went away, but the legal supply of immigrant labor with a viable path to citizenship DID go away.

There is a good solution: force employers to hire people legally and with guarantees, or face destruction. But that won’t do in the US. And so the division and abuse of the immigrant workforce will go on.

The closest we seem to be able to come is sporadic amnesties and things like the DREAM Act, which have the disadvantage of being semi-random and encouraging contempt for the law. Of course, it's a contemptible legal system to begin with, so it more or less forces people into contempt of it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Nothing wrong with disregarding an unjust law. I am (barring very rare circumstances where the lives of large populations are on the line and all alternatives have been exhausted) opposed to political violence, but I am a very enthusiastic believer in civil disobedience and the right to conscientious objection.

Laws expelling people who have lived law-abiding lives here for years, and have families here, because they didn't fill out the right paper-work (in a badly-designed system) to come here, are deeply unjust. They are also largely promoted by bigots, for often overtly xenophobic reasons. Such laws should be ignored, whenever possible, just as people were right to violate, say, the Fugitive Slave Act.

For that matter, I'm of the view that any five/four decision passed with Gorsuch's vote should be automatically disregarded and subject to civil disobedience, on the grounds that he fills a seat which Constitutionally was Obama's to fill, had the Republicans not been derelict in their duty to hold hearings for blatantly partisan reasons.

[Simon_Jester]

There are so many coordination problems with that.

[The Romulan Republic]

There are so many coordination problems with that.

I expect there are.

But still, there are certain laws which are so unjust, either in their consequences or the manner in which they were enacted, that I would not criticize anyone harshly for choosing to ignore them.

[AniThyng]

There are so many coordination problems with that.

I expect there are.

But still, there are certain laws which are so unjust, either in their consequences or the manner in which they were enacted, that I would not criticize anyone harshly for choosing to ignore them.

But who gets to decide which laws are just or unjust? I mean I think the who Catalonian thing was a farce, but enough of them clearly thought it was unjust that Catalonia could not hold a vote or is denied independence or whatever

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

Generally it's best to focus your civil disobedience campaigns on specific rules that can be fixed in some actionable manner. Otherwise it just because a generic excuse for lawlessness.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd be inclined to agree, normally. Although the original topic under discussion (laws pertaining to the deportation of illegal immigrants, particularly those such as the DREAMers, is fairly specific).

But in the case of my comments regarding Trump's pet Justice, its not a question of deciding weather the laws are good or bad. In my opinion, he does not have a right to rule as a Justice, because he has no right to be on the court-he's only there because Republicans deliberately obstructed Obama from doing his Constitutional duty as President by refusing to do their duty, for partisan gain- violating at least the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution.

That's not a precedent we want to see followed, though it already is being followed, with the news that Conyers' (solidly Democratic) seat will remain empty for almost a year rather than calling a special election, thanks to the state's Republicunt governor.

Refusing to recognize only the legitimacy of 5/4 rulings decided by Gorsuch's vote, rather than calling the entire legitimacy of the court into question, is my attempt to be more narrow, focussed, and moderate in my response.

[His Divine Shadow]

Given that our society still wants cheap immigrant labor

That's... brutally honest, and a bit unexpected. Does your society need it? Or do the masters need it?

This is true in europe as well, seems to me most people recognize it, even talk about it as a good thing more often than not, often those people are self-described leftists but fail to make the connection, or suppress it because my access to cheap goods and food > other peoples right to decent wages.

[K. A. Pital]

This is true in europe as well, seems to me most people recognize it, even talk about it as a good thing more often than not, often those people are self-described leftists but fail to make the connection, or suppress it because my access to cheap goods and food > other peoples right to decent wages.

This. It is an unacceptable compromise with conscience to me. Why are labour rights so low on everyone's radar? Maybe because most First Worlders are entitled rentiers who no longer have to work to enjoy the life standard? I am honestly baffled by the attitude.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd be inclined to agree, normally. Although the original topic under discussion (laws pertaining to the deportation of illegal immigrants, particularly those such as the DREAMers, is fairly specific).

But in the case of my comments regarding Trump's pet Justice, its not a question of deciding weather the laws are good or bad. In my opinion, he does not have a right to rule as a Justice, because he has no right to be on the court-he's only there because Republicans deliberately obstructed Obama from doing his Constitutional duty as President by refusing to do their duty, for partisan gain- violating at least the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution.

That's not a precedent we want to see followed, though it already is being followed, with the news that Conyers' (solidly Democratic) seat will remain empty for almost a year rather than calling a special election, thanks to the state's Republicunt governor.

Refusing to recognize only the legitimacy of 5/4 rulings decided by Gorsuch's vote, rather than calling the entire legitimacy of the court into question, is my attempt to be more narrow, focussed, and moderate in my response.

I hadn't heard about the timing of the Conyers special election.

I am beginning to think you have a point. When not carrying out appointments and special elections becomes a normative action carried out by more than one body, used to exploit vacancies in the government as a means of achieving one's agenda, there does come a point at which one must fight back.

Color me unconvinced but convinceable.

[sighs]

This is true in europe as well, seems to me most people recognize it, even talk about it as a good thing more often than not, often those people are self-described leftists but fail to make the connection, or suppress it because my access to cheap goods and food > other peoples right to decent wages.

This. It is an unacceptable compromise with conscience to me. Why are labour rights so low on everyone's radar? Maybe because most First Worlders are entitled rentiers who no longer have to work to enjoy the life standard? I am honestly baffled by the attitude.

Again, my own take is that lower wages than the First World would normally pay are not exploitative in and of themselves, if they act as a rung on a ladder that lets people who lived in even worse conditions climb upwards to better ones. An informed, reasonable person on the low end of that bargain might well choose to take it and be glad for it.

What's exploitative is offering the reduced wages, then kicking down the ladder. Or imposing "didn't sign up for this" conditions on the workforce after you have them as a captive audience.