Do you actually think it is YouTube wanting to demonetize these videos? No it other corporations saying “we don’t want to be associated with this, do not play our ads with this video.”
Do I think YouTube is doing it? No. As you note, other corporations don't want their ads played on certain videos. YouTube, in and of itself, doesn't care--it is a corporation and like all corporations exists only to make money, not take sides. I don't watch that much YT myself, these days, outside of streaming some 80s-style synthwave while typing or playing some other game.
If YouTube is de-monetizing conservative channel hosts then perhaps all those conservatives should get together and found their own hosted video/streaming channel service platform. Sure, you would have to compete against Google/YouTube but then there are "general" stores which compete against Wal-Mart and manage to turn a profit so it is possible.
I'm not sure I would actually call it possible, at least not if we're talking about rebuilding their following to a similar size as it was before demonetization. YouTube already hosts far more content, has incredible name recognition, and in the past, far-right video makers have relied on YouTube's algorithm to draw random people into the fold. If they set up a separate video hosting service, they would have to resort to advertising in order to grow their customer base, or post smaller sample videos on YouTube with links to their own platform.
This is the problem with trying to compete with existing tech giants. A lot of them were among the first of their kind, and they happened to ride a spectacular wave while the industry was still young and uncrowded. That allowed them to grow large enough to take over a huge share of the market very quickly, and now that they possess that advantage, it's not really possible for new companies to achieve the same success--the industry is too crowded, and companies like YouTube can afford to hire the best programmers and keep them away from their competitors. A tech company in a new industry only needs to beat out the competition for a brief period before it can dominate the market through sheer size and inertia for years to come. That rapid growth period in the early days is no longer possible.
I'm not one to lament the demonetization of radical videos of any kind, but being unable to host ads on videos on YouTube is not the kind of setback a band of plucky underdogs can realistically bounce back from. YouTube essentially is the online video platform for user-created content. The other video platforms are either defined and limited by a specific genre (people only go to Twitch or Pornhub when they're looking for a very specific thing), or are only popular because they're willing to host copyrighted content that YouTube would take down.
If YouTube is de-monetizing conservative channel hosts then perhaps all those conservatives should get together and found their own hosted video/streaming channel service platform. Sure, you would have to compete against Google/YouTube but then there are "general" stores which compete against Wal-Mart and manage to turn a profit so it is possible.
The thing is, it wouldn’t get advertisers to actually pay to put their ads in front of these videos.
Do you actually think it is YouTube wanting to demonetize these videos? No it other corporations saying “we don’t want to be associated with this, do not play our ads with this video.”
This is, of course, exactly what the issue is. And I'll let everyone in on a little secret. Prominent progressive channels like The Majority Report, David Pakman, and Secular Talk have all been hit by it as well. They just don't nail themselves to a cross over it on a daily basis. They have certainly OBJECTED to it, but do not make it their entire reason for being.
This is the problem with trying to compete with existing tech giants. A lot of them were among the first of their kind, and they happened to ride a spectacular wave while the industry was still young and uncrowded. That allowed them to grow large enough to take over a huge share of the market very quickly, and now that they possess that advantage, it's not really possible for new companies to achieve the same success--the industry is too crowded, and companies like YouTube can afford to hire the best programmers and keep them away from their competitors. A tech company in a new industry only needs to beat out the competition for a brief period before it can dominate the market through sheer size and inertia for years to come. That rapid growth period in the early days is no longer possible.
We are still in the "Standard Oil" days of web-based companies. At one time it would not have been possible to compete against Standard Oil, except in small, local markets. Congress has already set a precedent of forcibly breaking up companies which are de facto monopolies and it may do so again, but we probably aren't at that point yet re: Google (the likely target).
Time Warner and Comcast DO have total monopolies over telcom in most major media markets. Aa far as I know, Yahoo and Bing are still OPTIONS as search engines, as are Microsoft Edge and Firefox as browsers. No such option exists in cable and internet service for millions of people.
Moreover, search engines and web browsers are NECESSARY to use the internet. It can't function without it. YouTube is essentially an entertainment medium. It's probably THE entertainment medium, but it is essentially Netflix or cable TV for amateurs. You'd have to make a convincing argument that the telcom companies, search engines and browsers are subject to anti-trust provisions LONG before you'd ever get to YouTube and Facebook. They are on the 3rd level of this, when the 1st and 2nd haven't even been addressed yet.
Just watched the first night of the first Democratic primary debates and took some notes. I omitted generic statements of principles ("Every American should be able to afford a plumbus!") and looked for more concrete policies.
Beto O'Rourke struggled at first, completely dodging a question about whether he supported a 70% top tax rate proposal and offering a generic Democratic candidate comment about making the tax code more progressive. I noticed him pointing out that the biggest mental healthcare provider in Texas is the prison system, which was very much a surprise to me. Notably, O'Rourke stated that he supports military intervention for humanitarian reasons provided that it is done so in cooperation with U.S. allies.
O'Rourke got in a rather heated argument with Julian Castro. I am not familiar with the underlying subject, but my impression was that O'Rourke opposed repealing a law that the other candidates wanted to repeal, and so Castro pounced on it to put O'Rourke on the defensive. From what little I could hear of O'Rourke's explanation under Castro's interruptions (given that Castro was on the offensive, I'd say it was more accurate that Castro was interrupting O'Rourke rather than the other way around), it seemed to me like O'Rourke had a slightly different policy that supported the same objective. Since neither candidate had the time to explain the law and their policies in context, it came off to me as a cynical jab at O'Rourke by Castro, exploiting a lack of clarity and a lack of time.
Castro suggested passing the Equal Rights Amendment as a means of closing the pay gap, and also proposed a new Marshall Plan for Latin American countries to improve the situation in countries south of our border so fewer people would feel compelled to flee to the United States. I'm not sure how comparable modern Latin American nations are to post-WW2 European nations, but the suggestions seem noble if it's doable. I would need to know more details.
Cory Booker expressed support for anti-trust enforcement, which is excellent news, but apparently he previously disagreed with the prospect of breaking up companies without a "process"--which I think is also good news; anti-trust action should be organized rather than ad-hoc. Otherwise the government would only go after popular targets, like YouTube, and shy away from tougher ones, like the telecom companies @jjstraka34 and another friend of mine have pointed out. Booker called for criminal liability for drug companies who contribute to the opioid crisis, reinstating DACA and pathways to citizenship, and implementing a gun buyback program.
Booker was a fairly strong speaker and I noticed that he made a clever metagaming move when the moderators asked the candidates to raise their hands if they would return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Booker kept his hand down, unlike everyone else, which prompted a question for which he had a cute answer: he wouldn't settle for the same old deal; he'd try to get a better one! This is not a political position, but I noticed that it was a clever rhetorical move.
I think I understand why Elizabeth Warren has been doing well in the polls. She spoke very clearly throughout the debate and managed to express strong emotion without getting off-topic, and she never ended up getting put on the defensive. As for her proposals, she called for R&D spending on green energy combined with an unusual requirement that companies that used that R&D would only manufacture in the U.S. (possible for domestic companies, but still hard to implement). She did not name any limits on abortion when asked, which is very meaningful for pro-life voters, and called for research into gun violence and gun control options in lieu of advocating specific options, a safer move.
I was especially pleased that Warren shares my deep suspicion of insurances companies, and I noticed that she condemned the same basic business model that I have complained about previously in the thread--health insurance companies don't provide any real services; they just shuffle around money and skim off the top, breaking promises to consumers whenever they can.
The moderators asked Warren and two other candidates (Delaney and de Blasio) how they would get a Supreme Court justice confirmed if Mitch McConnell was still the Senate Majority Leader in 2020 and refused to hold a hearing. None of the three had a real answer for the question, but I do: if the Senate does not uphold its responsibility to hold Supreme Court nominee hearings, entrust the hearings to the Senate's closest relative, the House of Representatives. If that fails, too, then nothing short of a new Constitutional Convention would suffice.
Tulsi Gabbard also struggled at first, completely dodging a question about the pay gap and changing the subject to national security, military spending, and other unrelated issues. She had an excellent and frank statement in which she turned her back on her old, non-progressive views on LGBTQ issues (a sticking point for many Democrats, I'm sure), and spoke strongly in favor of withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Gabbard's position on Afghanistan really got under the skin of Tim Ryan, who argued with her at length on the issue (which I think just ended up making him look worse; Gabbard was clearly more composed than he was). Ryan favored maintaining engagement in Afghanistan and also spoke in favor of supporting the solar industry and funding mental health counseling for every school in the United States.
Bill de Blasio frequently argued with other candidates, but I caught very few concrete policies from him. De Blasio, like Warren, advocated abolishing private insurance, and had a variation of O'Rourke's statement on intervention when given the same question: de Blasio supported humanitarian intervention abroad if and only if the President had Congressional approval. Notably, de Blasio named Russia as the primary geopolitical threat to the United States, a unique response among the candidates that echoed Mitt Romney's similar claim years ago, though it earned the Democratic audience's applause where Romney's did not.
John Delaney advocated raising the minimum wage and implementing an earned income tax credit and paid federal leave. He also proposed putting a price on carbon and named China as a primary geopolitical threat to the United States. In his closing statements, Delaney emphasized the importance of practicality in politics, calling back to his earlier arguments that abolishing private insurance was too risky and that Medicare for all plans would not be cost-effective for hospitals due to Medicare-standard prices being very low.
Jay Inslee stressed climate change as his top priority and called for including abortion access in a healthcare plan--both acceptable priorities for a Democratic audience, but much harder to sell in a general election. I was pleased, though, that he emphasized the strengthening of unions and collecting bargaining rights as a means of improving wages rather than relying simply on raising the minimum wage. Wages have been stagnant for decades, and while I would be glad if the government took action on the subject, worker compensation is better handled by labor unions on the ground.
Amy Klobuchar opposed abolishing private insurance on the grounds that many people get health insurance from their employer. She named two geopolitical threats to the United States: the economic threat being China, and the security threat being the Middle East. Her closing comments were unique among the candidates in that she emphasized a history of winning races, including in areas that had voted Republican in the past. I and some other Democrats place great importance on a candidate's chances at winning a general election against Donald Trump.
Tomorrow we see the other 10 candidates, notably including Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. I am especially interested in seeing Andrew Yang speak.
There are only 3 things to take from this debate tonight that will have any lasting impact:
1.) In this comically large field, Julian Castro was being ignored just like the majority of them. He made a calculated decision to not aim for a heavyweight like Warren, but to punch sideways and take out fellow Texan Beto, who is so, so not ready for this stage. And it worked. It won't make a difference in the end, but it makes him relevant instead of irrelevant.
2.) Booker's answer was too cute by half on Iran. At a time when Trump's exit from the Iran deal should be a deadly serious debate because of what it has directly caused, he is playing, as you said, a meta-game just so he can get one more question lobbed at him. Hated it. It feeds into the narrative there was something wrong with the deal in the first place rather than being the triumph of diplomacy it was.
3.) Warren has been and remains the cream of the crop, and nothing that happened tonight would dissuade me of that notion. Castro made himself more than a footnote, but Warren continues to prove day after day why she is steadily climbing, nearly even with Bernie and both with eyes on Biden, who will almost certainly get excoriated tomorrow night by Kamala Harris and Sanders.
That said, this is nearly pointless until the field is cut AT LEAST in half. Gabbard, DeBlasio, Delaney, Inslee, Klobuchar and O' Rourke might as well leave the race now if they don't want to flush money down the drain. They all have exactly ZERO chance of winning this primary. And I do mean zero. Castro and Booker probably bumped themselves up to slightly above 1% tonight. But those first six would be doing everyone a favor by ending the pointless exercise they are engaged in. The size of this field is absurd, and is causing valuable television time that could be spent on people who actually have a snowball's chance in hell of winning describing their views on the vanity exercises of no-names and people who have almost no constituency in the current Democratic Party.
I would say that Mar-a-Lago is the primary geopolitical threat to the United States. (rimshot)
hey-o haha.
By the way, I don't think anyone mentioned it but Mueller from the Mueller report agreed to testify publicly in July. Trump claims he's not going to interfere with him (again) and will let him testify but you can be sure he's lying - he'll muck and interfere and tweet and throw a tantrum because he can't help himself. And of course then he went on Fox State News and created a new conspiracy against Mueller. Our President is very imaginative, just not in a good way. Imagine if he used his imagination for good and not evil lol. Anyway, Trump claimed that by firing the famous (well famous at least in Trump's conspiracy theories) Lisa Page and "her lover" Peter Strok, which he used to be happy about, now he calls that a grave so very serious crime hahahahahahahahaha so dumb. "I didn't commit any crimes - you committed the crimes! I'm not a puppet you're a puppet! I know you are but what am I!" - Big Brain McGoo
I watched the debate as well. I didnt think it was too substantive. I actually found that my "hot takes" from the debate were pretty different than news reaction after the debate in some cases.
Beto didnt do all that poorly. Neither did Klobuchar. Both of them are getting drubbed a bit (Beto more so). but they were largely fine.
I thought the worst performers were Tim Ryan, Jay Inslee and Bill de Blasio. Ryan actually looked the worst, but the other two didnt do or say much of anything to raise their stock.
Didnt love Gabbard's opening remarks, but I actually generally liked her after that. I think she'll see a modest bump from the Debate (Modest being key here. She'll be 2 or 3%, I think).
Castro was probably the best. Warren was also pretty good, although a lot of that was softball stuff for her (and she faded in the second half).
Beto and Booker treaded water - which isnt enough when they're as low in the polls as they are.
If I ranked their performances:
Castro
...
Warren
Gabbard
Klobuchar
Booker
Delaney
...
Beto
Inslee
de Blasio
...
Ryan
I could see an argument for dropping Gabbard a spot or two and raising Booker if you like what he was putting out there.
The field right now is essentially Biden at 30%, Sanders and Warren at 20 apiece, and Harris and Mayor Pete at 5 apiece. That's 80% on it's own, and since there are 15 other candidates, that tells you where they are polling. Most of them are barely cracking 1%.
The 2016 Republican field was also a clown show because of it's size, but this is worse. I understood why there was so many Republican candidates, which is because the right-wing media grift and the money that flows to it is so strong. There is no such apparatus waiting to shower Jay Inslee and DeBlasio when they drop out of this race. In a normal field, when someone drops out, their support shifts. Since most of these people don't HAVE any support, it isn't even going to be a blip on the radar when they leave. And we're going to have to put up with this until February of next year when Iowa cleaves half of them out of this by force. I have no patience for these spur of the moment vanity campaigns when the future of democracy may be at stake. Get serious people.
By the way, the Supreme Court, on conservative/liberal lines just basically entrenched partisan gerrymandering for all-time. We are watching a real-time, slow-motion destruction of democracy. They just said federal courts are now POWERLESS to stop political parties from permanently making themselves a majority by choosing their own voters. This game is basically over. McConnell's ploy on Garland was checkmate. Yeats sums up US politics right now:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
IF Democrats are able to gain back power again (big if going forward since they are already playing on a rigged board), then maybe they should try craven, power grab politics on for awhile. Because it not only works, it's the only thing the other side understands. Because this idea that rules, norms and the wisdom and decency of the American people is going to save things is hopelessly naive. John Roberts, perhaps not completely on board with totally sticking a shiv in the back of the Republic, did help rule AGAINST the Trump Administration on altering the census, but since there is at least a 50/50 chance they'll ignore it anyway, we'll have to wait and see on that.
By the way, the Supreme Court, on conservative/liberal lines just basically entrenched partisan gerrymandering for all-time. We are watching a real-time, slow-motion destruction of democracy. They just said federal courts are now POWERLESS to stop political parties from permanently making themselves a majority by choosing their own voters.
The actual decision, should anyone wish to read it for yourself, may be found here https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf. That sword cuts both ways--in a State with a Democratic majority in its Legislature may rearrange/redraw districts so that it is more likely to stay in power and Republicans would not be able to take a case to a District Court. This should make State Representative and State Senator campaigns more heated moving forward--oh joy.
On the other decision, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-966_bq7c.pdf, the citizenship question cannot be placed onto the 2020 Census because: "For a legal dispute to qualify as a genuine case or controversy, at least one plaintiff must “present an injury that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged behavior; and likely to be redressed by a favorable ruling.”" In other words, the Trump Administration could not make its case in a verbally or legally consistent manner.
It took less than 5 hours for my prediction to come true. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled against them, Trump is now going to attempt to DELAY the census itself. There is no longer even any cursory attempt to hide it. The Republican Party has abandoned the very idea of constitutional democracy. The Constitution explicitly MANDATES the census take place every ten years. The next step is delayed elections.
The actual decision, should anyone wish to read it for yourself, may be found here https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf. That sword cuts both ways--in a State with a Democratic majority in its Legislature may rearrange/redraw districts so that it is more likely to stay in power and Republicans would not be able to take a case to a District Court. This should make State Representative and State Senator campaigns more heated moving forward--oh joy.
The Supreme Court said that it is in the power of state legislatures and voters to end gerrymandering. This is to put it bluntly a crock of shit. Gerrymandering is state legislators picking their voters. Gerrymandering takes away the voice of the voters so that leaves state legislators with the "opportunity" to end gerrymandering. Tell me, why would the beneficiaries of gerrymandering vote to end gerrymandering? Why would the guy who would not be in office any other way then try and change the system and put himself out of a job??????
This Supreme Court decision is either hopelessly naive or crooked and these Conservative Justices are Republican politicians in robes.
Why doesn't it cut both ways? For one, Democratic voters don't want their politicians to steal power and cheat and lie like Republican voters are comfortable with. I guess after this ruling they're going to have to join the club or be chumps because surely the Republicans will take this green light and go for it.
I don't particularly like where that line of thinking leads, but I really don't see any other option, other than letting the conservative minority continue to steal or sell off everything on their way to despotism.
We've already crossed into the age of Republicans insisting that the single, solitary limit on Presidential power is impeachment as delineated in the Constitution and no other form of oversight is allowed, and that the Senate can treat it's "advice and consent" obligation as optional, and that the electoral college system is great because it regularly disenfranchises the majority of voters.
There are two options here: Democrats fight like Republicans and our institutions move ever closer to the brink of complete collapse as Republicans turn us into a one-party totalitarian state.
There are two options here: Democrats fight like Republicans and our institutions move ever closer to the brink of complete collapse as Republicans turn us into a one-party totalitarian state.
You listed only one option here, unless you meant that to read "fight like Republicans *or* our institutions...."
I am 100% with @smeagolheart. I don't know what good playing by the rules does when the other side has not only tossed the rulebook out the window, but then gone outside, taken a dump on it, and then lit it on fire. And appealing to this notion of fair play in a nation full of mostly civic illiterates is suicide. And it's becoming crystal clear to me that Elizabeth Warren is the only one who fundamentally understands what she's up against. The rest of the Dems are whistling past the graveyard. And this statement is 100% accurate:
it's becoming crystal clear to me that Elizabeth Warren is the only one who fundamentally understands what she's up against. The rest of the Dems are whistling past the graveyard.
All she has to do is beat both Biden and Sanders, as well as all the other contenders.
You listed only one option here, unless you meant that to read "fight like Republicans *or* our institutions...."
Fight dirty like Republicans on the crooked chessboard they've set up or do nothing and watch our country and its institutions continue to get destroyed as we barrel towards a one party despotism.
That's what I thought you meant. There are far too many times when people here misconstrue the words of others and I did not want to see that happen to you.
The so-called "jokes" or "trolling the libs" about serving more than two-terms (now even Lindsey Graham is getting in on the act) or delaying the census are MEANT to be dismissed casually. And they will keep doing it, because it isn't a "joke". It's meant to normalize ideas previously unthinkable. Working like a charm, I might add.
The so-called "jokes" or "trolling the libs" about serving more than two-terms (now even Lindsey Graham is getting in on the act) or delaying the census are MEANT to be dismissed casually. And they will keep doing it, because it isn't a "joke". It's meant to normalize ideas previously unthinkable. Working like a charm, I might add.
Remember when some people pretended this was a joke? Just change the date to 2019.
We are going to tone police our way into oblivion. If people who are upset about the terminology were 1/100th as upset by what is happening in them, maybe it wouldn't be taking place.
There have not been any concentration camps in the United States since World War II. People may continue to refer to detention facilities as such, of course, but it isn't my problem if they choose to be incorrect.
"Trump is putting people in concentration camps!" is a great microcosm of this political era as a whole. Every word of it is inaccurate, borderline hysterical, ignorant of basic history, lacking context, and mostly designed to just rile people up on an emotional level because who needs rational thinking?
The Trump administration has locked people up without due process of law, including people seeking asylum legally, and then separated them from their children and kept them in cold cells indefinitely while providing little food and medical care. As a result, people died in custody.
The Trump administration has waived background checks for some immigration officials. As a result, children were raped in custody.
When people are literally dying and children get molested, I don't think "let's not resort to hyperbole" is the proper response. The people responsible for the family separation policy need to be removed from their positions and prosecuted.
Death and child molestation should rile us up on an emotional level.
Every word of it is inaccurate, borderline hysterical, ignorant of basic history, lacking context, ...
Please explain how every word of it is inaccurate. Then please explain how you know history better than historians on this matter. What exactly is a concentration camp to you?
This is the never-ending loop of the Trump Administration. Liberals are in hysterics, none of this is actually going to happen blah blah blah. Then it does, then the say the same thing about the next topic. Well, let's start on this one. Eyewitness accounts from those who have actually gotten in to see the children. I'm sure they're making it all up as a plot against Trump though. From The New Yorker:
And then we started to pull the children who had been there the longest to find out just how long children are being kept there. Children described to us that they’ve been there for three weeks or longer. And so, immediately from that population that we were trying to triage, they were filthy dirty, there was mucus on their shirts, the shirts were dirty. We saw breast milk on the shirts. There was food on the shirts, and the pants as well. They told us that they were hungry. They told us that some of them had not showered or had not showered until the day or two days before we arrived. Many of them described that they only brushed their teeth once. This facility knew last week that we were coming. The government knew three weeks ago that we were coming.
So, in any event, the children told us that nobody’s taking care of them, so that basically the older children are trying to take care of the younger children. The guards are asking the younger children or the older children, “Who wants to take care of this little boy? Who wants to take of this little girl?” and they’ll bring in a two-year-old, a three-year-old, a four-year-old. And then the littlest kids are expected to be taken care of by the older kids, but then some of the oldest children lose interest in it, and little children get handed off to other children. And sometimes we hear about the littlest children being alone by themselves on the floor.
Many of the children reported sleeping on the concrete floor. They are being given army blankets, those wool-type blankets that are really harsh. Most of the children said they’re being given two blankets, one to put beneath them on the floor. Some of the children are describing just being given one blanket and having to decide whether to put it under them or over them, because there is air-conditioning at this facility. And so they’re having to make a choice about, Do I try to protect myself from the cement, or do I try to keep warm?
We weren’t originally planning to be there on Thursday, but one of the reasons why we came back for a fourth day is that some of the children, on Wednesday, told us that there was a lice infestation, as well as an influenza outbreak, at that facility, and so a number of the children are being taken into isolation rooms, quarantine areas where there’s nobody with them except for other sick children.
There was one child-mother who took her baby in there, because the baby got the flu. And then the mother, because she was in there caring for the child, got the flu as well. And so then she was there for a week, and they took the baby out and gave the baby to an unrelated child to try to take care of the child-mother’s baby. Sorry, I was trying to remember where I was going with that.
Oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. This is important. So, on Wednesday, we received reports from children of a lice outbreak in one of the cells where there were about twenty-five children, and what they told us is that six of the children were found to have lice. And so they were given a lice shampoo, and the other children were given two combs and told to share those two combs, two lice combs, and brush their hair with the same combs, which is something you never do with a lice outbreak. And then what happened was one of the combs was lost, and Border Patrol agents got so mad that they took away the children’s blankets and mats. They weren’t allowed to sleep on the beds, and they had to sleep on the floor on Wednesday night as punishment for losing the comb. So you had a whole cell full of kids who had beds and mats at one point, not for everybody but for most of them, who were forced to sleep on the cement.
And for the "law and order" crowd who doesn't actually care about those things at all, we have this:
I just got back from this facility where laws were being broken right and left. There is a judgment in this case that says that children are supposed to be treated a certain way when they are in government custody. All of these children are in government custody, and those very basic standards are being violated.
For example, in Flores, which is the class-action suit that governs the standards for the care of these children that are in U.S. custody, it clearly says that children are supposed to be kept in safe and sanitary conditions. And there is nothing sanitary about the conditions they are in. And they are not safe, because they are getting sick, and they are not being adequately supervised by the Border Patrol officers. This is a violation of the case law. In addition to that, these children are not supposed to be in a Border Patrol facility any longer than they absolutely have to, and in no event are they supposed to be there for more than seventy-two hours. And many of them were there for three and a half weeks.
And, in addition to that, they are not supposed to be breaking up families. In the Ms. L case that was brought last year, when children were being routinely separated by their parents, that judge ruled that these children need to be kept with their parents, that family integrity is a constitutional right and is being violated. There were children at this facility who came across with parents and were separated from parents. There were other children at the facility who came across with other adult family members. We met almost no children who came across unaccompanied. The United States is taking children away from their family unit and reclassifying them as unaccompanied children. But they were not unaccompanied children. And some of them were separated from their parents.
This country has advertised itself to the world as a "shining city on a hill" for decades upon decades. All that ended up being was a patriotic circle jerk to make Americans feel better about themselves. They shouldn't. To have this happening in 2019 should be an eternal shame on every citizen in the country. But like Rustin Cole said in True Detective, "people incapable of guilt do tend to have a good time". Oh, and Anne Frank, easily the most famous victim of the Holocaust, was not killed in a gas chamber. She died of typhus contracted from unsanitary living conditions.
Alright, there is alot to this debate, but only really one thing that matters, which is that I now remember exactly why I have supported Kamala Harris being a top-tier contender for almost two years. She probably just lopped 5 points off Biden's poll numbers, and thank frickin' god for that. This woman is an IMMENSELY talented pol. A debate between Kamala Harris and Trump would consist of nothing but Harris ripping his entrails out and feeding them to him on stage. Do debates move votes anymore?? Who knows, but there isn't a single person I'd pick over Kamala Harris in American politics right now. She is a goddamn animal. This woman is NOT afraid of a fight, nor is she unprepared for one. I simply cannot choose between her and Warren right now, and I honestly think the best thing to do at this point is double-down and put them on the ticket together against the misogynist in chief, regardless of who is at the top of the ticket. These women are head and shoulders above everyone else in instinct and intelligence.
Every word of it is inaccurate, borderline hysterical, ignorant of basic history, lacking context, ...
Please explain how every word of it is inaccurate. Then please explain how you know history better than historians on this matter. What exactly is a concentration camp to you?
Well, if we listen to the "expert" NewsWeek so helpfully provides us, not that I take much stock in them, that's the only conclusion a reasonable person can come to.
"Sociology professor Richard Lachmann at the University at Albany, SUNY, agreed, telling Newsweek: "Concentration camps are any place where large numbers of people are held in poor conditions because of their nationality, ethnicity, religion or other characteristics rather than as individuals convicted of crimes.""
Assuming this is an acceptable definition then yes, they are the furthest thing from it. They're being apprehended and held because they were caught in the act of a crime, not because we're rounding up particular races because they are particular races. I'm sure there are some that are really well and truly convinced that they are being rounded up on the basis of nothing more than racial animus, but they are simply wrong.
The usage of the word may inaccurate, and hyperbolic to the point of dishonesty, but that's simply standard fare for media narratives these days.
How are toddlers capable of committing a "crime"?? And we have been over and over what the crime actually is. It's a low-level misdemeanor, and that is ASSUMING they have no legal right to apply for asylum (and many of these crossings are taking place because Trump has deliberately closed legal entry points for precisely this purpose). The purpose of these camps is to keep them OUTSIDE the judicial system entirely.
Now, I know crossing a line on a map is clearly WAY worse than say, oh I don't know, blatantly obstructing justice or raping someone, but maybe we can get on board with the idea that the answer to that crime is NOT kidnapping their children and then sending those children to live in their own puke, shit, and lice for months at time, and not having sadistic border patrol agents confiscating what passes for their bedding as a punishment for losing a fucking comb.
Comments
Do I think YouTube is doing it? No. As you note, other corporations don't want their ads played on certain videos. YouTube, in and of itself, doesn't care--it is a corporation and like all corporations exists only to make money, not take sides. I don't watch that much YT myself, these days, outside of streaming some 80s-style synthwave while typing or playing some other game.
This is the problem with trying to compete with existing tech giants. A lot of them were among the first of their kind, and they happened to ride a spectacular wave while the industry was still young and uncrowded. That allowed them to grow large enough to take over a huge share of the market very quickly, and now that they possess that advantage, it's not really possible for new companies to achieve the same success--the industry is too crowded, and companies like YouTube can afford to hire the best programmers and keep them away from their competitors. A tech company in a new industry only needs to beat out the competition for a brief period before it can dominate the market through sheer size and inertia for years to come. That rapid growth period in the early days is no longer possible.
I'm not one to lament the demonetization of radical videos of any kind, but being unable to host ads on videos on YouTube is not the kind of setback a band of plucky underdogs can realistically bounce back from. YouTube essentially is the online video platform for user-created content. The other video platforms are either defined and limited by a specific genre (people only go to Twitch or Pornhub when they're looking for a very specific thing), or are only popular because they're willing to host copyrighted content that YouTube would take down.
This is, of course, exactly what the issue is. And I'll let everyone in on a little secret. Prominent progressive channels like The Majority Report, David Pakman, and Secular Talk have all been hit by it as well. They just don't nail themselves to a cross over it on a daily basis. They have certainly OBJECTED to it, but do not make it their entire reason for being.
We are still in the "Standard Oil" days of web-based companies. At one time it would not have been possible to compete against Standard Oil, except in small, local markets. Congress has already set a precedent of forcibly breaking up companies which are de facto monopolies and it may do so again, but we probably aren't at that point yet re: Google (the likely target).
Moreover, search engines and web browsers are NECESSARY to use the internet. It can't function without it. YouTube is essentially an entertainment medium. It's probably THE entertainment medium, but it is essentially Netflix or cable TV for amateurs. You'd have to make a convincing argument that the telcom companies, search engines and browsers are subject to anti-trust provisions LONG before you'd ever get to YouTube and Facebook. They are on the 3rd level of this, when the 1st and 2nd haven't even been addressed yet.
Beto O'Rourke struggled at first, completely dodging a question about whether he supported a 70% top tax rate proposal and offering a generic Democratic candidate comment about making the tax code more progressive. I noticed him pointing out that the biggest mental healthcare provider in Texas is the prison system, which was very much a surprise to me. Notably, O'Rourke stated that he supports military intervention for humanitarian reasons provided that it is done so in cooperation with U.S. allies.
O'Rourke got in a rather heated argument with Julian Castro. I am not familiar with the underlying subject, but my impression was that O'Rourke opposed repealing a law that the other candidates wanted to repeal, and so Castro pounced on it to put O'Rourke on the defensive. From what little I could hear of O'Rourke's explanation under Castro's interruptions (given that Castro was on the offensive, I'd say it was more accurate that Castro was interrupting O'Rourke rather than the other way around), it seemed to me like O'Rourke had a slightly different policy that supported the same objective. Since neither candidate had the time to explain the law and their policies in context, it came off to me as a cynical jab at O'Rourke by Castro, exploiting a lack of clarity and a lack of time.
Castro suggested passing the Equal Rights Amendment as a means of closing the pay gap, and also proposed a new Marshall Plan for Latin American countries to improve the situation in countries south of our border so fewer people would feel compelled to flee to the United States. I'm not sure how comparable modern Latin American nations are to post-WW2 European nations, but the suggestions seem noble if it's doable. I would need to know more details.
Cory Booker expressed support for anti-trust enforcement, which is excellent news, but apparently he previously disagreed with the prospect of breaking up companies without a "process"--which I think is also good news; anti-trust action should be organized rather than ad-hoc. Otherwise the government would only go after popular targets, like YouTube, and shy away from tougher ones, like the telecom companies @jjstraka34 and another friend of mine have pointed out. Booker called for criminal liability for drug companies who contribute to the opioid crisis, reinstating DACA and pathways to citizenship, and implementing a gun buyback program.
Booker was a fairly strong speaker and I noticed that he made a clever metagaming move when the moderators asked the candidates to raise their hands if they would return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Booker kept his hand down, unlike everyone else, which prompted a question for which he had a cute answer: he wouldn't settle for the same old deal; he'd try to get a better one! This is not a political position, but I noticed that it was a clever rhetorical move.
I think I understand why Elizabeth Warren has been doing well in the polls. She spoke very clearly throughout the debate and managed to express strong emotion without getting off-topic, and she never ended up getting put on the defensive. As for her proposals, she called for R&D spending on green energy combined with an unusual requirement that companies that used that R&D would only manufacture in the U.S. (possible for domestic companies, but still hard to implement). She did not name any limits on abortion when asked, which is very meaningful for pro-life voters, and called for research into gun violence and gun control options in lieu of advocating specific options, a safer move.
I was especially pleased that Warren shares my deep suspicion of insurances companies, and I noticed that she condemned the same basic business model that I have complained about previously in the thread--health insurance companies don't provide any real services; they just shuffle around money and skim off the top, breaking promises to consumers whenever they can.
The moderators asked Warren and two other candidates (Delaney and de Blasio) how they would get a Supreme Court justice confirmed if Mitch McConnell was still the Senate Majority Leader in 2020 and refused to hold a hearing. None of the three had a real answer for the question, but I do: if the Senate does not uphold its responsibility to hold Supreme Court nominee hearings, entrust the hearings to the Senate's closest relative, the House of Representatives. If that fails, too, then nothing short of a new Constitutional Convention would suffice.
Tulsi Gabbard also struggled at first, completely dodging a question about the pay gap and changing the subject to national security, military spending, and other unrelated issues. She had an excellent and frank statement in which she turned her back on her old, non-progressive views on LGBTQ issues (a sticking point for many Democrats, I'm sure), and spoke strongly in favor of withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Gabbard's position on Afghanistan really got under the skin of Tim Ryan, who argued with her at length on the issue (which I think just ended up making him look worse; Gabbard was clearly more composed than he was). Ryan favored maintaining engagement in Afghanistan and also spoke in favor of supporting the solar industry and funding mental health counseling for every school in the United States.
Bill de Blasio frequently argued with other candidates, but I caught very few concrete policies from him. De Blasio, like Warren, advocated abolishing private insurance, and had a variation of O'Rourke's statement on intervention when given the same question: de Blasio supported humanitarian intervention abroad if and only if the President had Congressional approval. Notably, de Blasio named Russia as the primary geopolitical threat to the United States, a unique response among the candidates that echoed Mitt Romney's similar claim years ago, though it earned the Democratic audience's applause where Romney's did not.
John Delaney advocated raising the minimum wage and implementing an earned income tax credit and paid federal leave. He also proposed putting a price on carbon and named China as a primary geopolitical threat to the United States. In his closing statements, Delaney emphasized the importance of practicality in politics, calling back to his earlier arguments that abolishing private insurance was too risky and that Medicare for all plans would not be cost-effective for hospitals due to Medicare-standard prices being very low.
Jay Inslee stressed climate change as his top priority and called for including abortion access in a healthcare plan--both acceptable priorities for a Democratic audience, but much harder to sell in a general election. I was pleased, though, that he emphasized the strengthening of unions and collecting bargaining rights as a means of improving wages rather than relying simply on raising the minimum wage. Wages have been stagnant for decades, and while I would be glad if the government took action on the subject, worker compensation is better handled by labor unions on the ground.
Amy Klobuchar opposed abolishing private insurance on the grounds that many people get health insurance from their employer. She named two geopolitical threats to the United States: the economic threat being China, and the security threat being the Middle East. Her closing comments were unique among the candidates in that she emphasized a history of winning races, including in areas that had voted Republican in the past. I and some other Democrats place great importance on a candidate's chances at winning a general election against Donald Trump.
Tomorrow we see the other 10 candidates, notably including Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. I am especially interested in seeing Andrew Yang speak.
1.) In this comically large field, Julian Castro was being ignored just like the majority of them. He made a calculated decision to not aim for a heavyweight like Warren, but to punch sideways and take out fellow Texan Beto, who is so, so not ready for this stage. And it worked. It won't make a difference in the end, but it makes him relevant instead of irrelevant.
2.) Booker's answer was too cute by half on Iran. At a time when Trump's exit from the Iran deal should be a deadly serious debate because of what it has directly caused, he is playing, as you said, a meta-game just so he can get one more question lobbed at him. Hated it. It feeds into the narrative there was something wrong with the deal in the first place rather than being the triumph of diplomacy it was.
3.) Warren has been and remains the cream of the crop, and nothing that happened tonight would dissuade me of that notion. Castro made himself more than a footnote, but Warren continues to prove day after day why she is steadily climbing, nearly even with Bernie and both with eyes on Biden, who will almost certainly get excoriated tomorrow night by Kamala Harris and Sanders.
That said, this is nearly pointless until the field is cut AT LEAST in half. Gabbard, DeBlasio, Delaney, Inslee, Klobuchar and O' Rourke might as well leave the race now if they don't want to flush money down the drain. They all have exactly ZERO chance of winning this primary. And I do mean zero. Castro and Booker probably bumped themselves up to slightly above 1% tonight. But those first six would be doing everyone a favor by ending the pointless exercise they are engaged in. The size of this field is absurd, and is causing valuable television time that could be spent on people who actually have a snowball's chance in hell of winning describing their views on the vanity exercises of no-names and people who have almost no constituency in the current Democratic Party.
I would say that Mar-a-Lago is the primary geopolitical threat to the United States. (rimshot)
Well, it's not their money right. Campaign donations that people corporations gave away.
hey-o haha.
By the way, I don't think anyone mentioned it but Mueller from the Mueller report agreed to testify publicly in July. Trump claims he's not going to interfere with him (again) and will let him testify but you can be sure he's lying - he'll muck and interfere and tweet and throw a tantrum because he can't help himself. And of course then he went on Fox State News and created a new conspiracy against Mueller. Our President is very imaginative, just not in a good way. Imagine if he used his imagination for good and not evil lol. Anyway, Trump claimed that by firing the famous (well famous at least in Trump's conspiracy theories) Lisa Page and "her lover" Peter Strok, which he used to be happy about, now he calls that a grave so very serious crime hahahahahahahahaha so dumb. "I didn't commit any crimes - you committed the crimes! I'm not a puppet you're a puppet! I know you are but what am I!" - Big Brain McGoo
Beto didnt do all that poorly. Neither did Klobuchar. Both of them are getting drubbed a bit (Beto more so). but they were largely fine.
I thought the worst performers were Tim Ryan, Jay Inslee and Bill de Blasio. Ryan actually looked the worst, but the other two didnt do or say much of anything to raise their stock.
Didnt love Gabbard's opening remarks, but I actually generally liked her after that. I think she'll see a modest bump from the Debate (Modest being key here. She'll be 2 or 3%, I think).
Castro was probably the best. Warren was also pretty good, although a lot of that was softball stuff for her (and she faded in the second half).
Beto and Booker treaded water - which isnt enough when they're as low in the polls as they are.
If I ranked their performances:
Castro
...
Warren
Gabbard
Klobuchar
Booker
Delaney
...
Beto
Inslee
de Blasio
...
Ryan
I could see an argument for dropping Gabbard a spot or two and raising Booker if you like what he was putting out there.
The 2016 Republican field was also a clown show because of it's size, but this is worse. I understood why there was so many Republican candidates, which is because the right-wing media grift and the money that flows to it is so strong. There is no such apparatus waiting to shower Jay Inslee and DeBlasio when they drop out of this race. In a normal field, when someone drops out, their support shifts. Since most of these people don't HAVE any support, it isn't even going to be a blip on the radar when they leave. And we're going to have to put up with this until February of next year when Iowa cleaves half of them out of this by force. I have no patience for these spur of the moment vanity campaigns when the future of democracy may be at stake. Get serious people.
By the way, the Supreme Court, on conservative/liberal lines just basically entrenched partisan gerrymandering for all-time. We are watching a real-time, slow-motion destruction of democracy. They just said federal courts are now POWERLESS to stop political parties from permanently making themselves a majority by choosing their own voters. This game is basically over. McConnell's ploy on Garland was checkmate. Yeats sums up US politics right now:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
IF Democrats are able to gain back power again (big if going forward since they are already playing on a rigged board), then maybe they should try craven, power grab politics on for awhile. Because it not only works, it's the only thing the other side understands. Because this idea that rules, norms and the wisdom and decency of the American people is going to save things is hopelessly naive. John Roberts, perhaps not completely on board with totally sticking a shiv in the back of the Republic, did help rule AGAINST the Trump Administration on altering the census, but since there is at least a 50/50 chance they'll ignore it anyway, we'll have to wait and see on that.
The actual decision, should anyone wish to read it for yourself, may be found here https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf. That sword cuts both ways--in a State with a Democratic majority in its Legislature may rearrange/redraw districts so that it is more likely to stay in power and Republicans would not be able to take a case to a District Court. This should make State Representative and State Senator campaigns more heated moving forward--oh joy.
On the other decision, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-966_bq7c.pdf, the citizenship question cannot be placed onto the 2020 Census because: "For a legal dispute to qualify as a genuine case or controversy, at least one plaintiff must “present an injury that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged behavior; and likely to be redressed by a favorable ruling.”" In other words, the Trump Administration could not make its case in a verbally or legally consistent manner.
The Supreme Court said that it is in the power of state legislatures and voters to end gerrymandering. This is to put it bluntly a crock of shit. Gerrymandering is state legislators picking their voters. Gerrymandering takes away the voice of the voters so that leaves state legislators with the "opportunity" to end gerrymandering. Tell me, why would the beneficiaries of gerrymandering vote to end gerrymandering? Why would the guy who would not be in office any other way then try and change the system and put himself out of a job??????
This Supreme Court decision is either hopelessly naive or crooked and these Conservative Justices are Republican politicians in robes.
Why doesn't it cut both ways? For one, Democratic voters don't want their politicians to steal power and cheat and lie like Republican voters are comfortable with. I guess after this ruling they're going to have to join the club or be chumps because surely the Republicans will take this green light and go for it.
I don't particularly like where that line of thinking leads, but I really don't see any other option, other than letting the conservative minority continue to steal or sell off everything on their way to despotism.
We've already crossed into the age of Republicans insisting that the single, solitary limit on Presidential power is impeachment as delineated in the Constitution and no other form of oversight is allowed, and that the Senate can treat it's "advice and consent" obligation as optional, and that the electoral college system is great because it regularly disenfranchises the majority of voters.
There are two options here: Democrats fight like Republicans and our institutions move ever closer to the brink of complete collapse as Republicans turn us into a one-party totalitarian state.
You listed only one option here, unless you meant that to read "fight like Republicans *or* our institutions...."
All she has to do is beat both Biden and Sanders, as well as all the other contenders.
Fight dirty like Republicans on the crooked chessboard they've set up or do nothing and watch our country and its institutions continue to get destroyed as we barrel towards a one party despotism.
Remember when some people pretended this was a joke? Just change the date to 2019.
The Trump administration has waived background checks for some immigration officials. As a result, children were raped in custody.
When people are literally dying and children get molested, I don't think "let's not resort to hyperbole" is the proper response. The people responsible for the family separation policy need to be removed from their positions and prosecuted.
Death and child molestation should rile us up on an emotional level.
Please explain how every word of it is inaccurate. Then please explain how you know history better than historians on this matter. What exactly is a concentration camp to you?
Academics rally behind alexandria ocasio-cortez over concentration camp comments: 'she is completely historically accurate'
Https://www.newsweek.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-concentration-camps-immigrants-detention-centers-southern-border-experts-1445483
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1019381
And then we started to pull the children who had been there the longest to find out just how long children are being kept there. Children described to us that they’ve been there for three weeks or longer. And so, immediately from that population that we were trying to triage, they were filthy dirty, there was mucus on their shirts, the shirts were dirty. We saw breast milk on the shirts. There was food on the shirts, and the pants as well. They told us that they were hungry. They told us that some of them had not showered or had not showered until the day or two days before we arrived. Many of them described that they only brushed their teeth once. This facility knew last week that we were coming. The government knew three weeks ago that we were coming.
So, in any event, the children told us that nobody’s taking care of them, so that basically the older children are trying to take care of the younger children. The guards are asking the younger children or the older children, “Who wants to take care of this little boy? Who wants to take of this little girl?” and they’ll bring in a two-year-old, a three-year-old, a four-year-old. And then the littlest kids are expected to be taken care of by the older kids, but then some of the oldest children lose interest in it, and little children get handed off to other children. And sometimes we hear about the littlest children being alone by themselves on the floor.
Many of the children reported sleeping on the concrete floor. They are being given army blankets, those wool-type blankets that are really harsh. Most of the children said they’re being given two blankets, one to put beneath them on the floor. Some of the children are describing just being given one blanket and having to decide whether to put it under them or over them, because there is air-conditioning at this facility. And so they’re having to make a choice about, Do I try to protect myself from the cement, or do I try to keep warm?
We weren’t originally planning to be there on Thursday, but one of the reasons why we came back for a fourth day is that some of the children, on Wednesday, told us that there was a lice infestation, as well as an influenza outbreak, at that facility, and so a number of the children are being taken into isolation rooms, quarantine areas where there’s nobody with them except for other sick children.
There was one child-mother who took her baby in there, because the baby got the flu. And then the mother, because she was in there caring for the child, got the flu as well. And so then she was there for a week, and they took the baby out and gave the baby to an unrelated child to try to take care of the child-mother’s baby. Sorry, I was trying to remember where I was going with that.
Oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. This is important. So, on Wednesday, we received reports from children of a lice outbreak in one of the cells where there were about twenty-five children, and what they told us is that six of the children were found to have lice. And so they were given a lice shampoo, and the other children were given two combs and told to share those two combs, two lice combs, and brush their hair with the same combs, which is something you never do with a lice outbreak. And then what happened was one of the combs was lost, and Border Patrol agents got so mad that they took away the children’s blankets and mats. They weren’t allowed to sleep on the beds, and they had to sleep on the floor on Wednesday night as punishment for losing the comb. So you had a whole cell full of kids who had beds and mats at one point, not for everybody but for most of them, who were forced to sleep on the cement.
And for the "law and order" crowd who doesn't actually care about those things at all, we have this:
I just got back from this facility where laws were being broken right and left. There is a judgment in this case that says that children are supposed to be treated a certain way when they are in government custody. All of these children are in government custody, and those very basic standards are being violated.
For example, in Flores, which is the class-action suit that governs the standards for the care of these children that are in U.S. custody, it clearly says that children are supposed to be kept in safe and sanitary conditions. And there is nothing sanitary about the conditions they are in. And they are not safe, because they are getting sick, and they are not being adequately supervised by the Border Patrol officers. This is a violation of the case law. In addition to that, these children are not supposed to be in a Border Patrol facility any longer than they absolutely have to, and in no event are they supposed to be there for more than seventy-two hours. And many of them were there for three and a half weeks.
And, in addition to that, they are not supposed to be breaking up families. In the Ms. L case that was brought last year, when children were being routinely separated by their parents, that judge ruled that these children need to be kept with their parents, that family integrity is a constitutional right and is being violated. There were children at this facility who came across with parents and were separated from parents. There were other children at the facility who came across with other adult family members. We met almost no children who came across unaccompanied. The United States is taking children away from their family unit and reclassifying them as unaccompanied children. But they were not unaccompanied children. And some of them were separated from their parents.
This country has advertised itself to the world as a "shining city on a hill" for decades upon decades. All that ended up being was a patriotic circle jerk to make Americans feel better about themselves. They shouldn't. To have this happening in 2019 should be an eternal shame on every citizen in the country. But like Rustin Cole said in True Detective, "people incapable of guilt do tend to have a good time". Oh, and Anne Frank, easily the most famous victim of the Holocaust, was not killed in a gas chamber. She died of typhus contracted from unsanitary living conditions.
Well, if we listen to the "expert" NewsWeek so helpfully provides us, not that I take much stock in them, that's the only conclusion a reasonable person can come to.
Assuming this is an acceptable definition then yes, they are the furthest thing from it. They're being apprehended and held because they were caught in the act of a crime, not because we're rounding up particular races because they are particular races. I'm sure there are some that are really well and truly convinced that they are being rounded up on the basis of nothing more than racial animus, but they are simply wrong.
The usage of the word may inaccurate, and hyperbolic to the point of dishonesty, but that's simply standard fare for media narratives these days.
Now, I know crossing a line on a map is clearly WAY worse than say, oh I don't know, blatantly obstructing justice or raping someone, but maybe we can get on board with the idea that the answer to that crime is NOT kidnapping their children and then sending those children to live in their own puke, shit, and lice for months at time, and not having sadistic border patrol agents confiscating what passes for their bedding as a punishment for losing a fucking comb.