The Politics Thread

[GMac]

 

ICAM.  Our neighbors are mostly white families with less than a college education,  four wheeler loving, bonfire mud boggers.  My partner and I have considered them friends before but I can't.  I say hello these days and that's about it.  

 

My mind goes back to when we first moved on the street (10 years ago), the wife of the duck dynasty fan said she thought we'd be having parties all the time and was surprised at how "conservative" we are.  Grrr.  Now the parties on the street are the rednecks.  I guess she's OK with them.  

 

Trump supporters should be called out for their bullshit.  I'm sick of it.

 

[Roman]

http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/10/31/breaking-abc-uncovers-millions-of-payments-from-russia-to-trump-campaign-panics/

[Vee]

And there's this.

 

The FBI continues to investigate Manafort.

 

The Trump organization may have had a server designated for a Russian bank.

 

Hillary pounces:

 

 

Edited November 1, 2016 by Vee

[dragonflies]

 

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so what does this mean for Trump and his campaign??

[Vee]

The NYT quickly pushed this out, but every journalist on Twitter is mocking its opening lede:

 

As most journos are pointing out, the Russians are only hacking Clinton, so of course it's aimed at disrupting her and not Trump.

[ReddFoxx]

There is a rumor on Twitter that FSB (Russian intelligence) recorded Trump in an orgy and it is blackmail material. Just a rumor, but still 

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[quartermainefan]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/nyregion/brentwood-ms-13-gang-case-arrests-long-island.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/nyregion/they-keep-finding-bodies-gang-violence-in-long-island-town-fuels-immigration-debate.html

 

Apparently they are called MS-13 and they are no better than animals in many cases.      They have their origins in El Salvador I think and came to America to give  reasons for Hillary to call gang members super predators and for my friend to say "this is what the liberals gave us when they opened up immigration".    

 

I love talking to republicans because it is always so interesting to hear how someone else sees things that isn't even on my radar.   I never thought about the inheritance tax as being a compelling reason to vote one way or another, but I can see why that would be important to some.   I have another friend who is a border patrol agent and hates Obama with a passion because the border patrol budget got cut while they were put upon to be de facto police in isolated areas without cops for no compensation and with no training.   So isolated they don't even have cell phones and the govt is too cheap to do anything about getting them on the phone network.   I didn't even know that was a thing.    He wanted Bernie or Trump.   I have one friend, a cliche mainstream republican who actually puts on a jacket and tie to meet his parents for dinner at fancy Manhattan university alumni clubs that probably don't even allow jews, and he wanted Rubio.   Now he won't even discuss politics anymore and is sitting the election out.     I love talking politics, but it's more fun talking to people who disagree with you.  It's a shame Max sort of got driven off this forum.   He was our only republican I think.

 

[DramatistDreamer]

@quartermainefan, This gang has been around since the 1980s, it started in Los Angeles jails where large numbers of Salvadoran immigrants had migrated in the wake of the bloody civil war in El Salvador, which the U.S. was actively involved in, by the way (when I was in high school in  the 90s, I was friendly with a guy who migrated as a young child from El Salvador, so I heard from him personally of the chaos of the war).

 

The gangs were ostensibly for protection against the other gangs that already existed in the prisons in Los Angeles but contacts were established and strengthened over decades between the prison population and often newly released ex-convicts that discovered that they could use these links could help illegal money making enterprises flourish on the outside. Interestingly enough, El Salvador didn't have problems with gangs until Salvadoran deportees with gang links formed in U.S. prisons returned to the country, wreaking havoc, causing crimewaves and massive bloodshed, trying to forcibly recruit Salvadoran youngsters, harrassing young women, terrorizing Salvadoran families, etc. under threat of death.

 

See, this is what happens, when a prison population is locked away and ignored and the central problems of lack of rehabilitation is not addressed!

The gang flourished to other parts of the country as the population of gang members moved to other parts of the country while keeping ties to the gang.

 

I've heard of this gang for at least over a decade. Where is everyone else?  Why was no one else (including the self-righteous GOP) not paying any frickin' attention?

 

This gang is one of the MAIN reasons for that flood of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border that happened over the past few years!!  They were fleeing gang violence from El Salvador and Honduras (where gang violence also migrated over the last decade, spreading out from El Salvador into Honduras).

What gets lost in the endless rhetoric over border walls is that migration (legal and illegal) has actually slowed from Mexico-- it had intensified from other Central American countries such as El Salvador and Honduras, where people (mostly women and children) are fleeing violence!

 

Does nobody pay attention?!

 

These kids who are being killed (some of these cases are tied to kids who were missing for quite some time with no attention to their cases-- is it because these are non-white kids??) because these gangs have been allowed to flourish over decades and have fanned out from the West coast and are now on the East Coast.  

 

Like legal hardworking Central American immigrants have moved to the New York suburbs like L.I. (where they are willingly received to do migrant labor like construction and landscaping for miniscule pay with no concern for where/how they will live- hey as long as no apartment buildings are built to obscure the views of the nice 1-2 family red brick homes, right?) the gangs have also migrated, in kind.

 

I think attention to these poor kids who were killed is being used as a political talking point, rather than addressing the urgency of what has been happening to Black and Brown kids who were being victimized by gang violence for years! The parents and the local churches and some community leader care but I'm dubious in regards to the politicians who act as if this is a brand new phenomenon. Well, it's not, folks!  

 

Hopefully better late than never, but I won't hold my breath.

 

What's happening with Mara Salvatrucha or M-13, is what happens when a country like the U.S. inserts themselves into a conflict in another sovereign country with no real plan for the aftermath- politically, economically and social. This is why President Obama has been so halting in Syria. Perhaps he has read about all the chaos that can be created and spread gradually over decades?

 

Edited November 1, 2016 by DramatistDreamer

[marceline]

Sam Wang of the PEC posted this on Sunday:

 

"Oh, I’ll go out on a limb on one last item: there is time for one more weird twist in the campaign. Considering the life cycle of journalists’ hidden thought processes, I’ll say it is Donald Trump’s turn for the next adverse story."

 

Looks like he called it. Now it's Trump and Russia.

 

 

Does your friend not understand that Congress is in charge of the budget?

[DramatistDreamer]

There's an article in the NYT describing the methods that Trump used dubious methods for tax avoidance- methods that his tax attorneys even warned against him using but I doubt that will get much traction, at this point because the U.S. media is more interested in Anthony Weiner's d*ck pics and what comes out of that.

 

John Heilman was on CBS This Morning and he expressed puzzlement over the apparent double standard. The FBI didn't announce the investigation of Trump's possible link to Russia (they decided that there was no evidence of direct links) until after the investigation had concluded but the FBI felt the need to announce the investigation into Clinton's e-mails before, during, and after it had concluded and now again-- which is unprecedented for the FBI, which has never talked about an investigation as it was taking place. Interesting.

 

On another note,

 

It's been noted that Huma Abedin is absent from the campaign trail since this Carlos Danger investigation has reared its 'head'.  It's also been noted that HRC mentioned a 'staffer' in a PC but did not mention Abedin by name.  Folks are speculating whether this separation between Abedin and HRC is temporary or for the forseeable future.

[DRW50]

More on early voting in Florida, with some of the turnout concerns I'd mentioned a few weeks back. I wonder if any of it is down to voter suppression laws. 

 

http://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2016/10/clinton-campaign-struggles-in-getting-african-americans-to-early-voting-polls-106931

[DramatistDreamer]

Interesting.

 

Get Ready for Another Swing in the Polls, but Not Necessarily a Shift in the Race

 

 

[JaneAusten]

Excellent article by David Frum with the Atlantic on the de-volution of the GOP and it's impact on our country and voters. It honestly helped me better understand the mind of the voter and what I see as warped it really 20 plus years(and more) of disenfranchisement. And explains why many don't care really who Trump is or the abhorrent things he represents. Lengthy read but worth it if you have time.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-seven-broken-guardrails-of-democracy/484829/

[DRW50]

Thanks. I remember when Frum was a big conservative voice for writing W speeches. Weird how much has changed in the last decade. 

 

All tied up in NC - and this is another poll that was done before Comey decided to help Trump. It's frightening, and yet oddly predictable, how many states governed by bigotry, hate and fear refuse to ever back down, even as North Carolina has seen its economy devastated thanks to hate and bigotry. Yet they are still inching toward reelecting a proud bigot. 

 

http://www.politico.com/blogs/swing-states-2016-election/2016/11/poll-who-is-winning-in-north-carolina-230583

[dragonflies]

I'm in Ohio and it's wonderful to see so many people early voting!!!!!