A 15-year-old migrant has gone missing after walking out of a detention center in Texas. Apparently officials at the center were not actually considered law enforcement and could not force the teenager to stay. All they could do was ask him not to leave. We don't know where he is or why he left--to find his parents, who apparently had been separated from him? To find shelter with someone else? Just to get away from the detainment center? To leave the country? A little boy should have a home, but if his parents are locked up, where does he go and how does he get there?
Handling children and making sure they're safe and accounted for seems complicated if there are still kids out there who haven't been reunited with their parents. If the separation before conviction policy has been reversed, these families should be reunited, but that has yet to happen. I wonder what's slowing things down? They should have records of whose parents go where, which would mean all you'd have to do is get someone to drive them to their parents and have them taken in.
But the circumstances in which the children were taken didn't necessarily involve bookkeeping or taking notes. Sometimes kids were snatched away from their parents by lying to the parents, saying the kids would be right back when in reality they had been taken away. If the people who stole the children didn't document the names of the parents, the names of the kids, and the names of the facilities where they had been separated, then you don't have the information you need to effectively reverse the policy.
That's one of the reasons why these processes need to go through existing channels: you need documentation in order to know what's going on. It's weird that people who entered the country without documentation are being handled by people who also process them without full documentation.
At a certain point the question has to become whether the incompetence is a feature rather than a bug. As I mentioned over the weekend, even parking your car in valet parking lot or checking your coat at a concert would involve assigning an identical number to the car or the jacket. That person then presents that number at the end of night to receive their property back. But as you mention, clearly if some of these border agents or detention center workers were using straight-out lies like "we are just going to give your kid a bath" to get them out of the hands of their parents, reunification wasn't first thing on anyone's mind. Some of these cases have come before judges and the judges are flabbergasted that there is not documentation tying the kids to the parents. Parents were given pamphlets with a number to call, and that seems to be about the extent of it. Some of these kids are toddlers and can't give any information about their parents to who has them now because they either don't speak English or haven't learned to communicate with anyone besides their parents at all.
They didn't care. They don't care. And it filters down from the top. They gave no more thought to the idea these kids might one day may need to be reunited with their children than they would dropping a puppy off at an animal shelter. Lawyers and immigration advocates are trying to get all the information they can, and the entire thing is in chaos. Inevitably, tons of these parents have already been put back on a plane back to Central America. I know of the intimate details of at least two of these parents by reading about them. The idea that we would ever send them back while still retaining custody of their child is insanity. Again, I have to ask how this isn't just kidnapping by the State, and not a hell of a lot different than what was done to Native American parents or slaves when their children were sold off to a different buyer.
The Supreme Court voted in favor of discrimination with the deciding vote cast by Neil Gorsuch who’s on the court because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held the seat open for him for nearly the full final year of Barack Obama’s presidency. That’s the legacy of today’s Republican Party.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that:
"The Court today goes out of its way to permit the State of Texas to use maps that he three-judge District Court unanimously found were adopted for the purpose of preserving the racial discrimination that tainted its previous maps. [...]
It means that, after years of litigation and undeniable proof of intentional discrimination, minority voters in Texas—despite constituting a majority of the population of the State—will continue to be underrepresented in the political process."
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Also the Supreme Court sent back a great ruling for gay rights against a bigoted florist to Washington state for reconsideration in light of the Court's ruling in the gay baker case. This is procedural, but the implication is that religious discrimination should be favored over LGBTQ rights.
Can you imagine the Republican appointed justices on the Supreme Court sending back an instance of racial discrimination purportedly justified by religious belief? We're pretty close to that they are already favoring discriminatory religious beliefs over sexual orientation.
Whole they were making terrible decisions the Supreme Court also decided Monday to not hear the appeal of Brendan Dassey, the teen featured in the Netflix documentary series “Making A Murderer.”
Fans of “Making A Murderer,” which became an instant hit following its release in December 2015, believe police coerced Dassey into giving a false confession.
A pharmacist at a Walgreens in Arizona denied a woman medication to induce a miscarriage. Her doctor had determined that the fetal heartbeat had stopped and she was in the process of a miscarriage. To avoid her having to undergo a surgical procedure and reduce the risk of post-miscarriage infection, her doctor prescribed a medication to induce the miscarriage. The pharmacist refused to fill the prescription due to his beliefs and also failed to follow Walgreens policy, which is to "refer the prescription to another pharmacist or manager on duty to meet the patient's needs in a timely manner." The woman left Walgreens in tears, not able to get the medication her doctor prescribed for her, because some holier-than-thou #&$@&! would rather her risk infection or undergo surgery than fill the prescription or hand it to another pharmacist.
This is "religious freedom" under today's GOP. It's not the freedom to worship as you choose, it's the "freedom" to wield your beliefs as a club against others.
Of course, the GOP is only in favor of this kind of "religious freedom" for certain religions, i.e., not Muslims.
A pharmacist at a Walgreens in Arizona denied a woman medication to induce a miscarriage. Her doctor had determined that the fetal heartbeat had stopped and she was in the process of a miscarriage. To avoid her having to undergo a surgical procedure and reduce the risk of post-miscarriage infection, her doctor prescribed a medication to induce the miscarriage. The pharmacist refused to fill the prescription due to his beliefs and also failed to follow Walgreens policy, which is to "refer the prescription to another pharmacist or manager on duty to meet the patient's needs in a timely manner." The woman left Walgreens in tears, not able to get the medication her doctor prescribed for her, because some holier-than-thou #&$@&! would rather her risk infection or undergo surgery than fill the prescription or hand it to another pharmacist.
This is "religious freedom" under today's GOP. It's not the freedom to worship as you choose, it's the "freedom" to wield your beliefs as a club against others.
Of course, the GOP is only in favor of this kind of "religious freedom" for certain religions, i.e., not Muslims.
Yet the main story we are hearing about today is that the White House Press Secretary was denied service at a restaurant. I'm sorry to break it to people, but this is the Pandora's Box the GOP opened with their crusade for legalized discrimination. Not only are you going to see examples like what is posted above, but you are also now going to start seeing retaliation from left-leaning businesses as well, because a bully never stops their behavior until someone stands up to them.
And frankly, I've been warning about the dangers of the not filling a prescription situation for a long time, and it was basically shrugged off. This is now where we are. The right has now basically institutionalized this, and they are going to harp on about "incivility" whenever it happens to them. Never let it be forgotten that this is the country that they specifically said they wanted. No one who supports discriminating against gay customers or thinks a pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription is a-ok EVER gets to complain about a conservative being kicked out of a business for their political affiliations. I wrote at least half a dozen posts about this dynamic in the last year, and now it is taking center stage. And I correctly predicted the right would lose their shit once the tables were turned, and make themselves into martyrs over a cause they SPECIFICALLY supported. Expect more of this from both sides of aisle. Expect more conservative business owners or employees to refuse service to certain customers, and expect for left-leaning business owners to refuse service to Republican lawmakers or Administration officials. The left cannot be expected to unilaterally disarm in this arena so they seem "nice". Again, this all started with conservative legal challenges. I'm never going to walk up to someone and punch them, but if someone punches me, I'm not going to just lay on the ground and weep until they go away. Anyone who was bullied in elementary school knows the only thing that stops it is standing up for yourself. So it is in this dynamic.
The Supreme Court deferred a new case from North Carolina challenging partisan election maps today. Today's been a real Monday massacre from the Supreme Court, geez.
"The justices sent a challenge to North Carolina's 13 congressional districts -- 10 of which were drawn to favor Republicans despite relative parity statewide between the GOP and Democrats -- back to a federal district court for further review.
The action was based on procedural flaws the justices found in a similar case from Wisconsin last week. But unlike that case, challengers in North Carolina appear to meet the high court's procedural hurdles, such as having a plaintiff in every challenged district."
So they apparently sent it back for no reason but to protect Republican interests in screwing over voters.
Although there has been some positive expansion news from the US steel and aluminum producers protected by tariffs, that's likely to be outweighed by the losses in other industries - and that's before you factor in the general economic effect of cost increases from rising raw material prices.
... Yet the main story we are hearing about today is that the White House Press Secretary was denied service at a restaurant....
And frankly, I've been warning about the dangers of the not filling a prescription situation for a long time, and it was basically shrugged off. This is now where we are....
And I correctly predicted the right would lose their shit once the tables were turned, and make themselves into martyrs over a cause they SPECIFICALLY supported..The left cannot be expected to unilaterally disarm ...
Yes, you were right about both the dangers of right wingers treatment of women who get pregnant and other things.
And you are right that despite their "feck your feelings" t-shirts, their championing free speech but only when it comes to racists, these right wing regressive can't handle it when it gets turned around to them.
Snowflakes - that's another right wing term that fits these people more than it does those they use it against.
Although there has been some positive expansion news from the US steel and aluminum producers protected by tariffs, that's likely to be outweighed by the losses in other industries - and that's before you factor in the general economic effect of cost increases from rising raw material prices.
Pretty sure all those gains from the stock market that Trump was tweeting about all the time are gone due to Trumps trade wars. The giant tax cuts for the rich were overwhelmingly used for stock buybacks enriching corporations and shareholders.
Trump's attacks on ACA have left hundreds millions more without health care and those that still have coverage are paying more.
Gas prices have totally wiped out the average $40 gain for the average American from the tax cuts for the rich.
Republican House members are proposing cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other social services to pay for those tax cuts for the rich.
... Yet the main story we are hearing about today is that the White House Press Secretary was denied service at a restaurant....
And frankly, I've been warning about the dangers of the not filling a prescription situation for a long time, and it was basically shrugged off. This is now where we are....
And I correctly predicted the right would lose their shit once the tables were turned, and make themselves into martyrs over a cause they SPECIFICALLY supported..The left cannot be expected to unilaterally disarm ...
Yes, you were right about both the dangers of right wingers treatment of women who get pregnant and other things.
And you are right that despite their "feck your feelings" t-shirts, their championing free speech but only when it comes to racists, these right wing regressive can't handle it when it gets turned around to them.
Snowflakes - that's another right wing term that fits these people more than it does those they use it against.
Honestly, I don't want to get too deep into this because it's just going to cause a shitstorm even here on the forums. But I cannot just sit back and PRETEND that, in general, the right in this country has not been in lock-step behind every single case in which a person used their religious beliefs as a cudgel against certain customers. The problem with that is you cannot PROVE someone's religious beliefs. So now anytime someone like Sarah Sanders is essentially shamed in public or in a public restaurant, you cannot then turn around and say that the beliefs of that left-leaning business are not ALSO rooted in their religious beliefs. Because, once again, it can't be proven. Religious beliefs can be anything, and applied to any situation, because they are totally amorphous. And this is not going to be good for anyone, because it's just going to harden the battle-lines in a country who has two sides that increasingly want nothing to do with one another. But I've been on the record as saying many times that the main problem with the left is that they are goddamn wimps when it comes to standing up for themselves and what they believe in. Screw it. Fight fire with fire. If they are going to take babies from their mothers and try to ban transgender people from the military, I'm not gonna sit around and shed a tear when a Administration official who is the spokesman for those policies can't have a steak where she wants to, ESPECIALLY when they have specifically opened up an avenue in which they told the world at the top of their lungs that it is perfectly fine to discriminate in a place of business. Fine. You win that round. Now let's test how much you really believe that. Against a human culture-war flamethrower like Donald Trump, you don't score victories by playing patty-cake. The idea that we are now talking about the idea of "incivility" in a country now being run by Donald Trump is lunacy. His entire campaign was based around the idea that civility and social norms don't matter.
This man will turn on you quicker than you can blink. Doesn't matter if you are a CEO, an ostensible ally, a trusted family confidante....every other piece of humanity on Earth is something he views through the prism of his own malignant ego. In the end, he will humiliate you and throw you to his wolves.
He was surprised his stupid tarrifs failed, the rest of us are not.
Remember Trump says he knows more than anybody on everything business, politics, immigration, foreign policy. He alone can do it right he will tell you.
One thing to keep in mind is that Harley is willing to commit intensive resources and time to moving it's production overseas. Which means they do not see the consequences of Trump's trade war as being a blip on the radar, but the new normal. Buckle up.
Trump White House is working hard to arrange a phone call for Trump to talk to Turkish dictator Erdogan to celebrate his win in a fraudulent election they just had in Turkey.
Trump's been way too busy in his duties as restaurant inspector, CEO of Harley Davidson, and IQ assessor and Democratic representative threatener. No time!
Trudeau won’t be spending Canada Day in Ottawa, but is going to be travelling to 3 cities.
His first stop is Leamington, Ontario to remind Canadians there are Canadian companies (like Frenches who have a factory in Leamington) that make Ketchup, one of the products that are being hit by Canadian tariffs starting on the First of July (aka Canada Day)
He is then traveling to Regina, Winnipeg, where the steel industry has been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs. Expect some sort of compensation announcement with the “On this Canada Day, all Canadians stand with our Steel Workers.”
He then hops a flight to the Dawson City, Yukon to give the territories some love.
Trudeau won’t be spending Canada Day in Ottawa, but is going to be travelling to 3 cities.
His first stop is Leamington, Ontario to remind Canadians there are Canadian companies (like Frenches who have a factory in Leamington) that make Ketchup, one of the products that are being hit by Canadian tariffs starting on the First of July (aka Canada Day)
He is then traveling to Regina, Winnipeg, where the steel industry has been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs. Expect some sort of compensation announcement with the “On this Canada Day, all Canadians stand with our Steel Workers.”
He then hops a flight to the Dawson City, Yukon to give the territories some love.
Would I be wrong in assuming Trump's behavior at the G7 has helped Trudeau immensely from a political perspective??
So when's Trump supposed to visit the UK? Yeah I don't really see it happening. He only plays well to the crowd that would let him shoot someone on 5th Avenue. He'll find some reason to chicken out and appear in Fox and Friends instead.
So when's Trump supposed to visit the UK? Yeah I don't really see it happening. He only plays well to the crowd that would let him shoot someone on 5th Avenue. He'll find some reason to chicken out and appear in Fox and Friends instead.
Allegedly, July 12th, for 3 days.
And he MUST fit in a trip to a Scottish golf course in that time, of course. Which he owns. Of course.
Trudeau won’t be spending Canada Day in Ottawa, but is going to be travelling to 3 cities.
His first stop is Leamington, Ontario to remind Canadians there are Canadian companies (like Frenches who have a factory in Leamington) that make Ketchup, one of the products that are being hit by Canadian tariffs starting on the First of July (aka Canada Day)
He is then traveling to Regina, Winnipeg, where the steel industry has been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs. Expect some sort of compensation announcement with the “On this Canada Day, all Canadians stand with our Steel Workers.”
He then hops a flight to the Dawson City, Yukon to give the territories some love.
Would I be wrong in assuming Trump's behavior at the G7 has helped Trudeau immensely from a political perspective??
It united all political parties on all levels in their message. Even Ford, who many were afraid would rock the boat, is backing Trudeau.
Trudeau won’t be spending Canada Day in Ottawa, but is going to be travelling to 3 cities.
His first stop is Leamington, Ontario to remind Canadians there are Canadian companies (like Frenches who have a factory in Leamington) that make Ketchup, one of the products that are being hit by Canadian tariffs starting on the First of July (aka Canada Day)
He is then traveling to Regina, Winnipeg, where the steel industry has been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs. Expect some sort of compensation announcement with the “On this Canada Day, all Canadians stand with our Steel Workers.”
He then hops a flight to the Dawson City, Yukon to give the territories some love.
Would I be wrong in assuming Trump's behavior at the G7 has helped Trudeau immensely from a political perspective??
It united all political parties on all levels in their message. Even Ford, who many were afraid would rock the boat, is backing Trudeau.
See, I can't even imagine this happening in the US anymore. The last time was just after 9/11, where even people like myself gave Bush plenty of room to prove himself for at least 5 or 6 months. Over the years it became fairly clear that not only was that show of good faith squandered, but it became abundantly clear that if Gore had been in office, he would have never gotten the same free pass, and would have taken blame for 9/11 Bush never had to reckon with.
So when's Trump supposed to visit the UK? Yeah I don't really see it happening. He only plays well to the crowd that would let him shoot someone on 5th Avenue. He'll find some reason to chicken out and appear in Fox and Friends instead.
Allegedly, July 12th, for 3 days.
And he MUST fit in a trip to a Scottish golf course in that time, of course. Which he owns. Of course.
Well maybe he'll go then if he can hide out at his properties. That's all he does here - hide in the whitehouse, make appearances on fox news, and hold rallies.
She has not called for violence but for civil disobedience - let these people know that their policies suck and they are supporting the worst.
Trump of course lies about it saying she wants violence she's going to get violence. The news on the Conservative media is they are shocked at the "incivility" of the left. Sarah "I know it’s hard for you to understand even short sentences" is shocked, shocked she says.
These are the people demanding we be civil - hilarious they are triggered Trump's already shown being incivil works.
Trump White House is working hard to arrange a phone call for Trump to talk to Turkish dictator Erdogan to celebrate his win in a fraudulent election they just had in Turkey.
Trump's been way too busy in his duties as restaurant inspector, CEO of Harley Davidson, and IQ assessor and Democratic representative threatener. No time!
I haven't posted about the Turkish election because I've been waiting to see if credible information came out about the extent of any ballot rigging. To date my feeling is that direct irregularities were of limited importance, so I'm not sure it's reasonable to describe the election as fraudulent. In this article, here's what Muharrem İnce, the main opposition candidate for President, had to say: “Did they steal votes? Yes, they did. But did they steal 10 million votes? No.” Noting similarities between official data and monitoring by his party, he said the victory margin was so wide that it “cannot be explained merely by election irregularities.”
Even if the results do reasonably represent the votes, that doesn't mean the election was fair of course. Things like imprisoning journalists and opposition candidates are not a good recipe for fairness.
On your wider point, I agree that there is a genuine danger of the US continuing to move towards authoritarianism. One way to do that in a democratic society is to create such deep divisions between different groupings that it becomes more important for a group in power to retain that power than to uphold the values of democracy. It's also helpful to have control of the media and create enemies both at home and abroad to distract attention and provide a pretext for 'temporary' emergency action against them. Those are all features that are well-developed in Turkey, but the US has also moved a significant distance along the same road.
Personally, the question of whether ballot rigging changed the result of the election is not nearly as important as whether ballot rigging happened in the first place. If people are trying to steal an election, that's a crime regardless of whether their efforts make a difference.
I would argue that jailing journalists and domestic political opponents on it's own makes an election illegitimate. Once that starts happening, fear of even being in opposition to the ruling party likely becomes of paramount concern. At that point, aren't we looking at masses of votes simply being for self-preservation?? How can an honest political process exist in such conditions?? Putin technically gets re-elected every time as well. How many journalists has he had assassinated?? And he also jails opponents on the regular. I guess I'm trying to say that, increasingly, we should be wary that elections being held doesn't equal legitimacy when everyone in the country is well aware that they are living under authoritarian rule. If Erdogan had actually lost, would we have ever found out, or would it have even mattered?? Somehow I doubt it.
Writing about temporary emergency action in the post about Turkey above prompted me to set out another train of thought I've been pondering. As I've said before the policy of separating children from families was a very deliberate one. However, I'm still not sure about the reasons for that policy. Using it as a way to get immigration reform through, persuading would-be immigrants not to come and inciting the Trump base to greater efforts all are plausible reasons, but I'm not sure they're the whole story.
When faced by a choice between cock-up and conspiracy my default position is always that cock-up is the more likely answer. However, if I try to change my mind-set to one of conspiracy for a moment then I can construct the following rationale: 1) There are well-established legal procedures for dealing with immigrants, which Trump doesn't like. It is clear there would not be Congressional approval for emasculating those procedures and there are strong, recent, legal precedents that make it unlikely that the Supreme Court would agree to removing protections by the back door. 2) One particular protection is that the courts have accepted the 1997 Flores settlement means that children (whether unaccompanied or not) cannot be detained for more than 20 days without judicial procedure. That resulted in the Obama administration releasing families in situations where they might well have kept the parents in detention if there had been no children. 3) In order to get changes to the current system, Trump had to create a crisis. Criminal prosecutions of all illegal immigrants (whether or not they wish to be legal immigrants) provide the opportunity to do this. From the point of view of border control those prosecutions are pointless as illegal entry to the US is an offence under both civil and criminal law - and proceeding under civil law already allows you to deport immigrants and put them on watch lists to prevent them trying to legally enter the US at a later date. However, while proceeding under criminal law is vastly more expensive, it has the great advantage that it allows parents to be put in federal prisons. Children are not allowed in those prisons and therefore have to separated from their parents by default. 4) The outcry from a wide section of society about family separation was of course absolutely predictable. In itself an outcry would seem unlikely to affect Trump's decisions, so at one level it seems surprising that he changed his position so quickly. However, the policy of family separation was so indefensible that he had a good reason for the change - and of course he's been busily saying for months that this is all the fault of the Democrats anyway. 5) It's at least possible that the current situation is what Trump was aiming for all along, i.e. the issuing of an Executive Order allowing children to be detained indefinitely with parents. There was no need for him to issue an Executive Order in the first place, but he's taken the opportunity of the manufactured crisis to do so. That has given a facade of legitimacy to an order that would have very quickly and clearly been ruled illegal if he had done it without the crisis (as children can't be detained indefinitely). Trump has now given the courts a hard proposition to tackle - do they uphold the restrictions on detention (which the administration will say would require going back to the policy of family separation), or dismantle the Flores settlement? 6) On the Congressional side there's also room for suspecting skullduggery. The new policy of family detention will be insanely expensive and very quickly result in facilities being full up. Trump has already ordered the army to provide facilities to make this point more obvious. So Congress is faced with either continuously pumping more funding into this scheme or changing the law in a way Trump wants. 7) Of course Trump would prefer to operate outside the law entirely and it's hard to believe that it's a coincidence that he's now started tweeting about the need to tackle immigration purely through executive decisions without wasting time and money on judicial procedures. Having himself created a unsustainable situation where money is clearly being wasted, we should expect Trump to bang this particular drum on solving the situation ever harder in the forthcoming weeks and months.
I've set out a possible train of thought above, though I'm not entirely convinced by it. I've no doubt that Trump is capable of that type of duplicitous scheme and would not regard the impact on people's lives or the money wasted as important. However, the long-term planning involved doesn't seem typical of him. It may of course be though that he's been happy to adopt the ideas of someone else in the administration.
What I think makes the family separation tricky for Trump, is that it is the first time in his Presidency that the Republican base is divided. Polls put it pretty much at 50% vs 50% (with favor for separation usually slightly ahead, which is scary). In the past he tried to pander strongly to his base, but this time he can't do that easily. Instead of some devious scheme, I think he just wants not be the one responsible for the family separation but keep his anti-immigration supporters at the same time.
Trump craves approval. He has mostly given up on the Democrats, but he probably wants to keep Republican support for his major policies (more accurately, those in the news at the time) close to 100%. Having sort of satisfied the anti-separation Republicans, he is now increasing his anti-immigration rhetoric to try to pander to the other half. As he is more on the anti-immigration side himself, I think this produces the current over-the-top tweets and speeches.
The mother killdeer sat still and seemingly unperturbed on its nest, which is located in the middle of a circular cobblestone feature at the southwest corner of the festival grounds. The bird and the four eggs — which enjoy protected status in Canada — are nestled on a patch that would normally be directly underneath the main stage. On Monday, yellow caution tape kept the curious at a distance. The National Capital Commission has hired a security guard to stand 24/7 watch over the nest. The nest was were discovered Friday when workers arrived to begin setup — “Someone noticed there was a very agitated bird,” Monahan said. Killdeer perform an elaborate choreography when threatened, feigning an injured wing and hopping along the ground to decoy a predator away. The bird, which is common and widespread in North America, nests on the ground in May or June and incubates its eggs for four to six weeks. The birds are nomadic and leave the nesting area as soon as the young birds fledge. It’s not known when this bird laid her eggs or when they will hatch. Some research has shown the eggs can be successfully relocated and Monahan says the eggs might be moved to a spot about 50 metres away. One thing is certain, the nest can’t stay where it is. The main stage set up is to begin Tuesday, which will include a loading dock where eight to 10 tractor trailers will arrive every day to load and unload equipment. “If it were a simple situation where we had a small tent, it would be possible to relocate that,” Monahan said. “But we also know that within a week or so, there’s going to be several hundred thousand people congregating on this site. It may seem calm right now. It’s highly unlikely that that activity level … will be conducive for the eggs or the birds to continue to be here.” “Our goal is to resolve this in the next 24 hours. If we can’t move in our infrastructure starting tomorrow, then we’re faced with some delays that could start to snowball.”
The mother killdeer sat still and seemingly unperturbed on its nest, which is located in the middle of a circular cobblestone feature at the southwest corner of the festival grounds. The bird and the four eggs — which enjoy protected status in Canada — are nestled on a patch that would normally be directly underneath the main stage. On Monday, yellow caution tape kept the curious at a distance. The National Capital Commission has hired a security guard to stand 24/7 watch over the nest. The nest was were discovered Friday when workers arrived to begin setup — “Someone noticed there was a very agitated bird,” Monahan said. Killdeer perform an elaborate choreography when threatened, feigning an injured wing and hopping along the ground to decoy a predator away. The bird, which is common and widespread in North America, nests on the ground in May or June and incubates its eggs for four to six weeks. The birds are nomadic and leave the nesting area as soon as the young birds fledge. It’s not known when this bird laid her eggs or when they will hatch. Some research has shown the eggs can be successfully relocated and Monahan says the eggs might be moved to a spot about 50 metres away. One thing is certain, the nest can’t stay where it is. The main stage set up is to begin Tuesday, which will include a loading dock where eight to 10 tractor trailers will arrive every day to load and unload equipment. “If it were a simple situation where we had a small tent, it would be possible to relocate that,” Monahan said. “But we also know that within a week or so, there’s going to be several hundred thousand people congregating on this site. It may seem calm right now. It’s highly unlikely that that activity level … will be conducive for the eggs or the birds to continue to be here.” “Our goal is to resolve this in the next 24 hours. If we can’t move in our infrastructure starting tomorrow, then we’re faced with some delays that could start to snowball.”
Seriously? I can't throw a stick without hitting a killdeer here in Michigan! They're going to let that delay a major concert? Ludicrous...
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They didn't care. They don't care. And it filters down from the top. They gave no more thought to the idea these kids might one day may need to be reunited with their children than they would dropping a puppy off at an animal shelter. Lawyers and immigration advocates are trying to get all the information they can, and the entire thing is in chaos. Inevitably, tons of these parents have already been put back on a plane back to Central America. I know of the intimate details of at least two of these parents by reading about them. The idea that we would ever send them back while still retaining custody of their child is insanity. Again, I have to ask how this isn't just kidnapping by the State, and not a hell of a lot different than what was done to Native American parents or slaves when their children were sold off to a different buyer.
The Supreme Court voted in favor of discrimination with the deciding vote cast by Neil Gorsuch who’s on the court because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held the seat open for him for nearly the full final year of Barack Obama’s presidency. That’s the legacy of today’s Republican Party.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that:
"The Court today goes out of its way to permit the State of Texas to use maps that he three-judge District Court unanimously found were adopted for the purpose of preserving the racial discrimination that tainted its previous maps. [...]
It means that, after years of litigation and undeniable proof of intentional discrimination, minority voters in Texas—despite constituting a majority of the population of the State—will continue to be underrepresented in the political process."
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Also the Supreme Court sent back a great ruling for gay rights against a bigoted florist to Washington state for reconsideration in light of the Court's ruling in the gay baker case. This is procedural, but the implication is that religious discrimination should be favored over LGBTQ rights.
Can you imagine the Republican appointed justices on the Supreme Court sending back an instance of racial discrimination purportedly justified by religious belief? We're pretty close to that they are already favoring discriminatory religious beliefs over sexual orientation.
Fans of “Making A Murderer,” which became an instant hit following its release in December 2015, believe police coerced Dassey into giving a false confession.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pharmacist-denied-miscarriage-drug_us_5b2fa267e4b0040e2743f360
A pharmacist at a Walgreens in Arizona denied a woman medication to induce a miscarriage. Her doctor had determined that the fetal heartbeat had stopped and she was in the process of a miscarriage. To avoid her having to undergo a surgical procedure and reduce the risk of post-miscarriage infection, her doctor prescribed a medication to induce the miscarriage. The pharmacist refused to fill the prescription due to his beliefs and also failed to follow Walgreens policy, which is to "refer the prescription to another pharmacist or manager on duty to meet the patient's needs in a timely manner." The woman left Walgreens in tears, not able to get the medication her doctor prescribed for her, because some holier-than-thou #&$@&! would rather her risk infection or undergo surgery than fill the prescription or hand it to another pharmacist.
This is "religious freedom" under today's GOP. It's not the freedom to worship as you choose, it's the "freedom" to wield your beliefs as a club against others.
Of course, the GOP is only in favor of this kind of "religious freedom" for certain religions, i.e., not Muslims.
And frankly, I've been warning about the dangers of the not filling a prescription situation for a long time, and it was basically shrugged off. This is now where we are. The right has now basically institutionalized this, and they are going to harp on about "incivility" whenever it happens to them. Never let it be forgotten that this is the country that they specifically said they wanted. No one who supports discriminating against gay customers or thinks a pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription is a-ok EVER gets to complain about a conservative being kicked out of a business for their political affiliations. I wrote at least half a dozen posts about this dynamic in the last year, and now it is taking center stage. And I correctly predicted the right would lose their shit once the tables were turned, and make themselves into martyrs over a cause they SPECIFICALLY supported. Expect more of this from both sides of aisle. Expect more conservative business owners or employees to refuse service to certain customers, and expect for left-leaning business owners to refuse service to Republican lawmakers or Administration officials. The left cannot be expected to unilaterally disarm in this arena so they seem "nice". Again, this all started with conservative legal challenges. I'm never going to walk up to someone and punch them, but if someone punches me, I'm not going to just lay on the ground and weep until they go away. Anyone who was bullied in elementary school knows the only thing that stops it is standing up for yourself. So it is in this dynamic.
"The justices sent a challenge to North Carolina's 13 congressional districts -- 10 of which were drawn to favor Republicans despite relative parity statewide between the GOP and Democrats -- back to a federal district court for further review.
The action was based on procedural flaws the justices found in a similar case from Wisconsin last week. But unlike that case, challengers in North Carolina appear to meet the high court's procedural hurdles, such as having a plaintiff in every challenged district."
So they apparently sent it back for no reason but to protect Republican interests in screwing over voters.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/25/supreme-court-wont-hear-case-north-carolina-partisan-election-map/726772002/
Republicans on the Supreme Court are refusing to protect Democracy and to protect people from discrimination.
Totally disgusting.
Although there has been some positive expansion news from the US steel and aluminum producers protected by tariffs, that's likely to be outweighed by the losses in other industries - and that's before you factor in the general economic effect of cost increases from rising raw material prices.
And you are right that despite their "feck your feelings" t-shirts, their championing free speech but only when it comes to racists, these right wing regressive can't handle it when it gets turned around to them.
Snowflakes - that's another right wing term that fits these people more than it does those they use it against.
Trump's attacks on ACA have left hundreds millions more without health care and those that still have coverage are paying more.
Gas prices have totally wiped out the average $40 gain for the average American from the tax cuts for the rich.
Republican House members are proposing cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other social services to pay for those tax cuts for the rich.
Awful.
Harley-Davidson to outsource jobs from the USA to avoid EU tariffes.
According to HD's own estimates the tariffes would hurt their business by 100 millions € a year, making the current situation quite undesirable.
It didn't take a lot of time here.
This man will turn on you quicker than you can blink. Doesn't matter if you are a CEO, an ostensible ally, a trusted family confidante....every other piece of humanity on Earth is something he views through the prism of his own malignant ego. In the end, he will humiliate you and throw you to his wolves.
Remember Trump says he knows more than anybody on everything business, politics, immigration, foreign policy. He alone can do it right he will tell you.
Unless it fails then he'll blame someone else.
Trump's been way too busy in his duties as restaurant inspector, CEO of Harley Davidson, and IQ assessor and Democratic representative threatener. No time!
Warning to US: Erdogan Has Used Same Techniques as Trump to De-Democratize Turkey
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/06/25/warning-us-erdogan-has-used-same-techniques-trump-de-democratize-turkey
His first stop is Leamington, Ontario to remind Canadians there are Canadian companies (like Frenches who have a factory in Leamington) that make Ketchup, one of the products that are being hit by Canadian tariffs starting on the First of July (aka Canada Day)
He is then traveling to Regina, Winnipeg, where the steel industry has been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs. Expect some sort of compensation announcement with the “On this Canada Day, all Canadians stand with our Steel Workers.”
He then hops a flight to the Dawson City, Yukon to give the territories some love.
And he MUST fit in a trip to a Scottish golf course in that time, of course. Which he owns. Of course.
The news of the day -overshadowing all the terrible decisions by the rigged Supreme Court to allow Republicans to keep rigging elections was Maxine Waters calling to resist/harass/call out Trump cabinet officials.
She has not called for violence but for civil disobedience - let these people know that their policies suck and they are supporting the worst.
Trump of course lies about it saying she wants violence she's going to get violence. The news on the Conservative media is they are shocked at the "incivility" of the left. Sarah "I know it’s hard for you to understand even short sentences" is shocked, shocked she says.
These are the people demanding we be civil - hilarious they are triggered Trump's already shown being incivil works.
WARNING: DEPLORABLES BEING DEPLORABLE - LANGUAGE
Trump supporter assaults a reporter
“Did they steal votes? Yes, they did. But did they steal 10 million votes? No.” Noting similarities between official data and monitoring by his party, he said the victory margin was so wide that it “cannot be explained merely by election irregularities.”
Even if the results do reasonably represent the votes, that doesn't mean the election was fair of course. Things like imprisoning journalists and opposition candidates are not a good recipe for fairness.
On your wider point, I agree that there is a genuine danger of the US continuing to move towards authoritarianism. One way to do that in a democratic society is to create such deep divisions between different groupings that it becomes more important for a group in power to retain that power than to uphold the values of democracy. It's also helpful to have control of the media and create enemies both at home and abroad to distract attention and provide a pretext for 'temporary' emergency action against them. Those are all features that are well-developed in Turkey, but the US has also moved a significant distance along the same road.
When faced by a choice between cock-up and conspiracy my default position is always that cock-up is the more likely answer. However, if I try to change my mind-set to one of conspiracy for a moment then I can construct the following rationale:
1) There are well-established legal procedures for dealing with immigrants, which Trump doesn't like. It is clear there would not be Congressional approval for emasculating those procedures and there are strong, recent, legal precedents that make it unlikely that the Supreme Court would agree to removing protections by the back door.
2) One particular protection is that the courts have accepted the 1997 Flores settlement means that children (whether unaccompanied or not) cannot be detained for more than 20 days without judicial procedure. That resulted in the Obama administration releasing families in situations where they might well have kept the parents in detention if there had been no children.
3) In order to get changes to the current system, Trump had to create a crisis. Criminal prosecutions of all illegal immigrants (whether or not they wish to be legal immigrants) provide the opportunity to do this. From the point of view of border control those prosecutions are pointless as illegal entry to the US is an offence under both civil and criminal law - and proceeding under civil law already allows you to deport immigrants and put them on watch lists to prevent them trying to legally enter the US at a later date. However, while proceeding under criminal law is vastly more expensive, it has the great advantage that it allows parents to be put in federal prisons. Children are not allowed in those prisons and therefore have to separated from their parents by default.
4) The outcry from a wide section of society about family separation was of course absolutely predictable. In itself an outcry would seem unlikely to affect Trump's decisions, so at one level it seems surprising that he changed his position so quickly. However, the policy of family separation was so indefensible that he had a good reason for the change - and of course he's been busily saying for months that this is all the fault of the Democrats anyway.
5) It's at least possible that the current situation is what Trump was aiming for all along, i.e. the issuing of an Executive Order allowing children to be detained indefinitely with parents. There was no need for him to issue an Executive Order in the first place, but he's taken the opportunity of the manufactured crisis to do so. That has given a facade of legitimacy to an order that would have very quickly and clearly been ruled illegal if he had done it without the crisis (as children can't be detained indefinitely). Trump has now given the courts a hard proposition to tackle - do they uphold the restrictions on detention (which the administration will say would require going back to the policy of family separation), or dismantle the Flores settlement?
6) On the Congressional side there's also room for suspecting skullduggery. The new policy of family detention will be insanely expensive and very quickly result in facilities being full up. Trump has already ordered the army to provide facilities to make this point more obvious. So Congress is faced with either continuously pumping more funding into this scheme or changing the law in a way Trump wants.
7) Of course Trump would prefer to operate outside the law entirely and it's hard to believe that it's a coincidence that he's now started tweeting about the need to tackle immigration purely through executive decisions without wasting time and money on judicial procedures. Having himself created a unsustainable situation where money is clearly being wasted, we should expect Trump to bang this particular drum on solving the situation ever harder in the forthcoming weeks and months.
I've set out a possible train of thought above, though I'm not entirely convinced by it. I've no doubt that Trump is capable of that type of duplicitous scheme and would not regard the impact on people's lives or the money wasted as important. However, the long-term planning involved doesn't seem typical of him. It may of course be though that he's been happy to adopt the ideas of someone else in the administration.
Trump craves approval. He has mostly given up on the Democrats, but he probably wants to keep Republican support for his major policies (more accurately, those in the news at the time) close to 100%. Having sort of satisfied the anti-separation Republicans, he is now increasing his anti-immigration rhetoric to try to pander to the other half. As he is more on the anti-immigration side himself, I think this produces the current over-the-top tweets and speeches.
Ottawa Bluesfest is in trouble.
It isn't because some of the headliners like the Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews Band, Beck or Jethro Tull are backing out. Nope it's because a bird decided to nest right where centre stage is going to be.
The mother killdeer sat still and seemingly unperturbed on its nest, which is located in the middle of a circular cobblestone feature at the southwest corner of the festival grounds. The bird and the four eggs — which enjoy protected status in Canada — are nestled on a patch that would normally be directly underneath the main stage.
On Monday, yellow caution tape kept the curious at a distance. The National Capital Commission has hired a security guard to stand 24/7 watch over the nest. The nest was were discovered Friday when workers arrived to begin setup — “Someone noticed there was a very agitated bird,” Monahan said.
Killdeer perform an elaborate choreography when threatened, feigning an injured wing and hopping along the ground to decoy a predator away. The bird, which is common and widespread in North America, nests on the ground in May or June and incubates its eggs for four to six weeks. The birds are nomadic and leave the nesting area as soon as the young birds fledge.
It’s not known when this bird laid her eggs or when they will hatch.
Some research has shown the eggs can be successfully relocated and Monahan says the eggs might be moved to a spot about 50 metres away. One thing is certain, the nest can’t stay where it is. The main stage set up is to begin Tuesday, which will include a loading dock where eight to 10 tractor trailers will arrive every day to load and unload equipment.
“If it were a simple situation where we had a small tent, it would be possible to relocate that,” Monahan said. “But we also know that within a week or so, there’s going to be several hundred thousand people congregating on this site. It may seem calm right now. It’s highly unlikely that that activity level … will be conducive for the eggs or the birds to continue to be here.”
“Our goal is to resolve this in the next 24 hours. If we can’t move in our infrastructure starting tomorrow, then we’re faced with some delays that could start to snowball.”