The only US President to serve more than 2 terms was Franklin D. Roosevelt it was 4 terms. I think it was Truman who got the Twenty-second Amendment passed that a president could only serve 2 terms.
So here's something I'm concerned about, apologies for interrupting the discussion about elections. The Unites States has an external debt of over 7 trillion dollars, the largest in the world, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, France, etc. Most mainstream economists brush this off by saying that it's unlikely, if not impossible, for USA to enter a credit default. It's true that there has never been a credit default in the history of the US. However, I believe there is cause for concern. You might wonder why I care if I'm not from the US. Well, because if it does default in the future, it's likely to affect other countries, since almost every country has its own dollar reserves. A devaluation of the dollar would be brutal for everyone, not just folks from USA.
Also, a question about election. Can Trump runs again in 2024?
Legally, yes. A president that has served only one term - or one term and a bit - can run again even if it's not consecutive. Before the relevant constitutional amendment was passed in the mid-20th century, there were no restrictions at all on running again.
In practice, they don't, at least in recent memory. Jimmy Carter didn't run in 1984. George Bush didn't run in 1996. The last time a major party nominated a candidate that had previously lost a general election ... Richard Nixon. He served two terms as Eisenhower's vice president, was nominated for President and lost in 1960, then came back in 1968 and won.
If you go farther back, losers trying again gets more common. Eisenhower beat Adlai Stevenson twice. Truman beat Thomas Dewey twice. William Jennings Bryan lost three times. And, of course, there's Grover Cleveland, who sandwiched a lost election between his two presidential terms.
With Richard Nixon as a precedent? I wouldn't be surprised at Trump defying the norms on this one, or trying to.
You forgot Henry Clay, who lost 3 times; 1824, 1832 and 1844. He also lost his party nomination in 1840 and 1848. Committed that one.
If this woman is an actual nurse telling an accurate account of what she's seeing, then we are in even more trouble than I thought. This is Jonestown-level mass psychosis:
So here's something I'm concerned about, apologies for interrupting the discussion about elections. The Unites States has an external debt of over 7 trillion dollars, the largest in the world, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, France, etc. Most mainstream economists brush this off by saying that it's unlikely, if not impossible, for USA to enter a credit default. It's true that there has never been a credit default in the history of the US. However, I believe there is cause for concern. You might wonder why I care if I'm not from the US. Well, because if it does default in the future, it's likely to affect other countries, since almost every country has its own dollar reserves. A devaluation of the dollar would be brutal for everyone, not just folks from USA.
Some time ago there was quite a bit of discussion in the thread about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). That notes that there is no technical limit on the amount of money that a sovereign country can issue, though most MMT theorists accept there are practical constraints related to the level of resources available to the country. Historically, issuing money meant coining or printing it. Most money created now is electronic, but that doesn't change the basic analysis.
I'm not sure what measure of debt you're referring to. Often, headline figures about national debts relate to the total of gilts issued, but an alternative measure is to consider money issued as part of the debt. In relation to this, perhaps it's worth noting that the Bank of England has had a program of Quantitative Easing since the financial crash in 2008. QE is a mechanism to create money and this is done by the BofE buying up gilts already issued (with its latest tranche I think the BofE will own something like 1/3 of all UK gilts). They are thus replacing existing debt with new money, which may explain why it can be helpful to think of money as a government debt.
In principle the UK (or US) could use the same process to eliminate entirely existing national debts and hence the increasing size of those may not be seen as a problem. Such an action though would create other potential problems, causing inflation through various routes e.g.
- if external partners outside the UK, perceive the country to be creating more money than it can afford, they will require more payment for goods and services (either directly or, by requiring payment in other currencies, indirectly through exchange rate changes).
- MMT sees money as being essentially an IOU for future tax payments (at the point money is used to repay tax it is destroyed, which helps regulate the money supply). If too much money is in circulation, relative to the amount of tax due, the perceived value of that money will fall and prices will rise to compensate.
The remedy under MMT for inflation creeping up is to increase taxes - reducing the money supply and therefore making it more valuable. At the margins that works, but the impact of taxes on the population is uneven and significant changes in a short space of time have multiple impacts beyond inflation. Thus this is not a simple mechanism to either agree politically or to put into practice. If a country has been unwise enough to create very large sums of money relative to its economy, the inflationary impact will be too great to deal with through taxation and the only real remedy is to accept the failure of the sovereign currency and try again with a new one (often pegged to another currency like the dollar, to give it more credibility).
This is why the forums need a "this is funny" reaction.
@WarChiefZeke Its funny that during Trump's term, you REFUSED to talk about the concentration camps full of children. But as SOON as a Democrat is in the White House, suddenly it should be talked about as much as possible? Yeah, let's blame Biden for something that Trump is 100% responsible for. Gotta follow the standard conservative playbook.
This is why the forums need a "this is funny" reaction.
@WarChiefZeke Its funny that during Trump's term, you REFUSED to talk about the concentration camps full of children. But as SOON as a Democrat is in the White House, suddenly it should be talked about as much as possible? Yeah, let's blame Biden for something that Trump is 100% responsible for. Gotta follow the standard conservative playbook.
This is just a bald faced lie. Not only was it policy, but Obama and Trump had the nearly the same rates of "lost children", another liberal hysteria that they too implemented as policy but deny any responsibility for. From the AP Fact Check:
"An official from the Health and Human Services Department told a congressional hearing last month that his department placed follow-up phone calls from October to December to U.S. households that were sponsoring the minors after they came to the border without their parents. They reached 86 percent of the children or sponsors, determining 6,075 remained with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been removed from the U.S. and 52 relocated to live with someone else.
The department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some of many cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call, not surprising because many are in the U.S. illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities. HHS decided 792 of those cases merited more attention and referred them to the National Call Center.
It’s not highly unusual to fail to keep track of many minors who came unaccompanied to the border.
During the last year of the Obama administration, HHS was able to locate 85 percent of the minors or their sponsors, according to an inspector general’s report. The Trump administration slightly exceeded that success rate in the last three months of 2017, even as it is accused of losing children."
Biden's new transition team pick was interviewed about it as it was happening in 2011. Pure conservative lies, i'm sure.
"But even the supporters of the president — the Illinois governor [Democrat Pat Quinn], governor of New York [Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo] — have said the Secure Communities is doing more damage, and in fact there’s collateral damage of mothers being separated from their children, of fathers being separated from their children. Is this collateral damage that this administration is prepared to accept?
As a result of the concerns raised by the governor of Illinois, the governor of Massachusetts [Democrat Deval Patrick] and others, DHS made adjustments on how it’s implementing the policy, so the feedback from the community has been important in shaping DHS’s work.
But at the end of the day, when you have immigration law that’s broken and you have a community of 10 million, 11 million people living and working in the United States illegally, some of these things are going to happen. Even if the law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children."
Trump is out of office now. Biden can be responsible for himself without constantly blaming the specter of Trump. And maybe liberals should take some responsibility for the things they vote into office, considering that they spent the last 4 years demanding we "take responsibility", and do to this day.
If I ever refused to speak about a subject, by all means, reference the post. I have no memory of it and outright refusing to speak about a subject sounds very unlike me.
Now liberals could reasonably say Trump broadened the policy, which he did, and conservatives would be forced to agree. Instead, they deny they ever had any hand in it, which they did.
Obama did not separate children from their parents like steven miller and Trump have been doing.
He caged unaccompanied minors. Apparently he had trouble finding the parents of children that corssed the border alone.
Note that it didn't list the number of lost children under Obama only the "rate".
Also, what's crucially different between the two administrations that you seem to be missing from your argument is the policy of family separation which is Donald Trump's policy. He purposefully separates children from their parents then lost accountability. The Trump administration had parents and kids, knew where they were, separated them, then lost track.
So yes these are more conservative media lies and spin.
Obama did not separate children from their parents like steven miller and Trump have been doing.
He caged unaccompanied minors. Apparently he had trouble finding the parents of children that corssed the border alone.
Note that it didn't list the number of lost children under Obama only the "rate".
Also, what's crucially different between the two administrations that you seem to be missing from your argument is the policy of family separation which is Donald Trump's policy. He purposefully separates children from their parents then lost accountability. The Trump administration had parents and kids, knew where they were, separated them, then lost track.
So yes these are more conservative media lies and spin.
You're right that Trump broadened the policy. It was a policy that already had "kids in cages" and "missing children", every moral accusation thrown at Trump, baked into the cake.
So just tell me this. Are you okay with "kids in cages" and "missing children", as long as it follows the former Obama policy? I just want a clear answer since the goal posts move so often.
Obama did not separate children from their parents like steven miller and Trump have been doing.
He caged unaccompanied minors. Apparently he had trouble finding the parents of children that corssed the border alone.
Note that it didn't list the number of lost children under Obama only the "rate".
Also, what's crucially different between the two administrations that you seem to be missing from your argument is the policy of family separation which is Donald Trump's policy. He purposefully separates children from their parents then lost accountability. The Trump administration had parents and kids, knew where they were, separated them, then lost track.
So yes these are more conservative media lies and spin.
You're right that Trump broadened the policy. It was a policy that already had "kids in cages" and "missing children", every moral accusation thrown at Trump, baked into the cake.
So just tell me this. Are you okay with "kids in cages" and "missing children", as long as it follows the former Obama policy? I just want a clear answer since the goal posts move so often.
Is it the best thing ever kids in cages? No of course not. Kids that crossed the border alone do need to be held until you figure out what to do with them. Those options include find their family or otherwise direct them somewhere right to include deportation. Being unable to locate parents in this situation is more understandable since they aren't travelling together. The cage part still sucks.
Intentionally separating children from their parents then trying to lie about "Obama did it too" like the Trump administration has done is worse. It's intentionally cruel and incompetence. On top of that the Trump administration has lost hundreds of children's parents when they had arrived together.
They arrived together got separated by the Trump administration, then they lost track of them. Evil incompetence.
Obama did not separate children from their parents like steven miller and Trump have been doing.
He caged unaccompanied minors. Apparently he had trouble finding the parents of children that corssed the border alone.
Note that it didn't list the number of lost children under Obama only the "rate".
Also, what's crucially different between the two administrations that you seem to be missing from your argument is the policy of family separation which is Donald Trump's policy. He purposefully separates children from their parents then lost accountability. The Trump administration had parents and kids, knew where they were, separated them, then lost track.
So yes these are more conservative media lies and spin.
You're right that Trump broadened the policy. It was a policy that already had "kids in cages" and "missing children", every moral accusation thrown at Trump, baked into the cake.
So just tell me this. Are you okay with "kids in cages" and "missing children", as long as it follows the former Obama policy? I just want a clear answer since the goal posts move so often.
Is it the best thing ever kids in cages? No of course not. Kids that crossed the border alone do need to be held until you figure out what to do with them. Those options include find their family or otherwise direct them somewhere right to include deportation. Being unable to locate parents in this situation is more understandable since they aren't travelling together. The cage part still sucks.
Intentionally separating children from their parents then trying to lie about "Obama did it too" like the Trump administration has done is worse. It's intentionally cruel and incompetence. On top of that the Trump administration has lost hundreds of children's parents when they had arrived together.
They arrived together got separated by the Trump administration, then they lost track of them. Evil incompetence.
When Trump's government doesn't get their calls returned, it is evil incompetence. Okay. So what is it when Obama's government doesn't get calls returned? Is that, too, evil incompetence, or is something far more noble?
Again, nobody said Obama followed a mandatory family separation policy. This is what you *want* it to be about, because it is virtually the only relevant difference between the policies. The actual experience under custody remained virtually unchanged. You do not need such a thing to imprison children. My initial tweet was about "kids in cages" as dishonest rhetoric that will never be used against Biden or his policy, though it is a perfectly accurate description as much as Trumps was, followed by a response that labeled it as "concentration camps". While Obama did have the occasional family separation, it was for suspicion of crimes committed. Trump decided to prosecute every illegal border crossing, so it was a mere extension of existing policy.
So what are these ill equipped facilities where adults and children alike are temporarily imprisoned going to be called now?
"TRUMP on detention centers at the border: “President Obama is the one that built those prison cells.” — Telemundo interview.
TRUMP: “President Obama built the cages. Remember when they said that I built them?” — “Meet the Press” interview.
THE FACTS: He has a point. Whether they are called prison cells or something else, Obama held children in temporary, ill-equipped facilities and built a large center in McAllen, Texas, that is used now.
Democrats routinely and inaccurately blame Trump for creating “cages” for children. They are actually referring to chain-link fencing inside the McAllen center — Obama’s creation."
Trump is not "out of office". And the SPECIFIC goal, out of Jeff Session's own mouth, was to separate children as a deterrent and punishment. It wasn't a byproduct, it was the plan and the goal. Not jail time, not a fine, not deportation. Permanent loss of your child as retribution for crossing the border.
And the idea you would demand liberals take responsibility for anything is laughable. You spent 4 years denying anything Trump did should be tied to those who voted for him, and only promptly abandoned him yourself when the pandemic made it literally untenable to defend him anymore with a straight-face.
This is why the forums need a "this is funny" reaction.
@WarChiefZeke Its funny that during Trump's term, you REFUSED to talk about the concentration camps full of children. But as SOON as a Democrat is in the White House, suddenly it should be talked about as much as possible? Yeah, let's blame Biden for something that Trump is 100% responsible for. Gotta follow the standard conservative playbook.
This is just a bald faced lie. Not only was it policy, but Obama and Trump had the nearly the same rates of "lost children", another liberal hysteria that they too implemented as policy but deny any responsibility for. From the AP Fact Check:
"An official from the Health and Human Services Department told a congressional hearing last month that his department placed follow-up phone calls from October to December to U.S. households that were sponsoring the minors after they came to the border without their parents. They reached 86 percent of the children or sponsors, determining 6,075 remained with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been removed from the U.S. and 52 relocated to live with someone else.
The department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some of many cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call, not surprising because many are in the U.S. illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities. HHS decided 792 of those cases merited more attention and referred them to the National Call Center.
It’s not highly unusual to fail to keep track of many minors who came unaccompanied to the border.
During the last year of the Obama administration, HHS was able to locate 85 percent of the minors or their sponsors, according to an inspector general’s report. The Trump administration slightly exceeded that success rate in the last three months of 2017, even as it is accused of losing children."
Biden's new transition team pick was interviewed about it as it was happening in 2011. Pure conservative lies, i'm sure.
"But even the supporters of the president — the Illinois governor [Democrat Pat Quinn], governor of New York [Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo] — have said the Secure Communities is doing more damage, and in fact there’s collateral damage of mothers being separated from their children, of fathers being separated from their children. Is this collateral damage that this administration is prepared to accept?
As a result of the concerns raised by the governor of Illinois, the governor of Massachusetts [Democrat Deval Patrick] and others, DHS made adjustments on how it’s implementing the policy, so the feedback from the community has been important in shaping DHS’s work.
But at the end of the day, when you have immigration law that’s broken and you have a community of 10 million, 11 million people living and working in the United States illegally, some of these things are going to happen. Even if the law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children."
Trump is out of office now. Biden can be responsible for himself without constantly blaming the specter of Trump. And maybe liberals should take some responsibility for the things they vote into office, considering that they spent the last 4 years demanding we "take responsibility", and do to this day.
If I ever refused to speak about a subject, by all means, reference the post. I have no memory of it and outright refusing to speak about a subject sounds very unlike me.
Now liberals could reasonably say Trump broadened the policy, which he did, and conservatives would be forced to agree. Instead, they deny they ever had any hand in it, which they did.
The key words in this article are ‘without their parents.’
The Trump administration separated parents from children and then lost them. There is a large difference here.
We will spend the next 4 years comparing everything Biden does to Trump and justifying it on that basis, rather than its own merit, mark my words.
Yes, we will, and all he has to do to be better in comparison is not do absolutely nothing whatsoever while a quarter million people drop dead. That is what tends to be the dynamic when you oversee a historic disaster. Rural hospital systems are literally melting down, with no stop in sight. The President (who is President for two more months) is having a pity party, and what's MORE, he won't even allow the Biden team access to transition funds in a moment of accute crisis.
He's a commander who has abandoned his troops (the American people) while they are surrounded on all sides. And Trump's COVID-19 disaster isn't over yet. If anyone thinks it's been bad so far, wait til you see what happens in the next 30 days.
And forget his lack of "action" for a moment. His rhetoric about the virus has been more damaging still, enabling a small but very SIGNIFICANT portion of the electorate to believe it either isn't a big deal or isn't real at all. And that 20-25% of the population is making the efforts of everyone else essentially useless. We're all hostages to their bullshit and delusions. Which could have been dampened with even a MODICUM of more responsible messaging from the top.
This is why the forums need a "this is funny" reaction.
@WarChiefZeke Its funny that during Trump's term, you REFUSED to talk about the concentration camps full of children. But as SOON as a Democrat is in the White House, suddenly it should be talked about as much as possible? Yeah, let's blame Biden for something that Trump is 100% responsible for. Gotta follow the standard conservative playbook.
This is just a bald faced lie. Not only was it policy, but Obama and Trump had the nearly the same rates of "lost children", another liberal hysteria that they too implemented as policy but deny any responsibility for. From the AP Fact Check:
"An official from the Health and Human Services Department told a congressional hearing last month that his department placed follow-up phone calls from October to December to U.S. households that were sponsoring the minors after they came to the border without their parents. They reached 86 percent of the children or sponsors, determining 6,075 remained with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been removed from the U.S. and 52 relocated to live with someone else.
The department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some of many cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call, not surprising because many are in the U.S. illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities. HHS decided 792 of those cases merited more attention and referred them to the National Call Center.
It’s not highly unusual to fail to keep track of many minors who came unaccompanied to the border.
During the last year of the Obama administration, HHS was able to locate 85 percent of the minors or their sponsors, according to an inspector general’s report. The Trump administration slightly exceeded that success rate in the last three months of 2017, even as it is accused of losing children."
Biden's new transition team pick was interviewed about it as it was happening in 2011. Pure conservative lies, i'm sure.
"But even the supporters of the president — the Illinois governor [Democrat Pat Quinn], governor of New York [Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo] — have said the Secure Communities is doing more damage, and in fact there’s collateral damage of mothers being separated from their children, of fathers being separated from their children. Is this collateral damage that this administration is prepared to accept?
As a result of the concerns raised by the governor of Illinois, the governor of Massachusetts [Democrat Deval Patrick] and others, DHS made adjustments on how it’s implementing the policy, so the feedback from the community has been important in shaping DHS’s work.
But at the end of the day, when you have immigration law that’s broken and you have a community of 10 million, 11 million people living and working in the United States illegally, some of these things are going to happen. Even if the law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children."
Trump is out of office now. Biden can be responsible for himself without constantly blaming the specter of Trump. And maybe liberals should take some responsibility for the things they vote into office, considering that they spent the last 4 years demanding we "take responsibility", and do to this day.
If I ever refused to speak about a subject, by all means, reference the post. I have no memory of it and outright refusing to speak about a subject sounds very unlike me.
Now liberals could reasonably say Trump broadened the policy, which he did, and conservatives would be forced to agree. Instead, they deny they ever had any hand in it, which they did.
The key words in this article are ‘without their parents.’
The Trump administration separated parents from children and then lost them. There is a large difference here.
Called it less than a minute before it happened.
It's okay to lose children, as long as they are in even more desperate situations and actually did a dangerous border crossing alone, apparently. Kids without parents can't use the internet or a cell phone and get in touch with their parents or a family member back home like kids with parents can. Kids with nobody have nobody.
People lose all sense of morality and perspective when blinded by partisanship.
Trump will quickly have no power anymore. The incoming administration appears ready to continue the pre-existing policy. I think it's time to begin to stop using Trump as a catch-all excuse for everything, no?
This is why the forums need a "this is funny" reaction.
@WarChiefZeke Its funny that during Trump's term, you REFUSED to talk about the concentration camps full of children. But as SOON as a Democrat is in the White House, suddenly it should be talked about as much as possible? Yeah, let's blame Biden for something that Trump is 100% responsible for. Gotta follow the standard conservative playbook.
This is just a bald faced lie. Not only was it policy, but Obama and Trump had the nearly the same rates of "lost children", another liberal hysteria that they too implemented as policy but deny any responsibility for. From the AP Fact Check:
"An official from the Health and Human Services Department told a congressional hearing last month that his department placed follow-up phone calls from October to December to U.S. households that were sponsoring the minors after they came to the border without their parents. They reached 86 percent of the children or sponsors, determining 6,075 remained with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been removed from the U.S. and 52 relocated to live with someone else.
The department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some of many cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call, not surprising because many are in the U.S. illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities. HHS decided 792 of those cases merited more attention and referred them to the National Call Center.
It’s not highly unusual to fail to keep track of many minors who came unaccompanied to the border.
During the last year of the Obama administration, HHS was able to locate 85 percent of the minors or their sponsors, according to an inspector general’s report. The Trump administration slightly exceeded that success rate in the last three months of 2017, even as it is accused of losing children."
Biden's new transition team pick was interviewed about it as it was happening in 2011. Pure conservative lies, i'm sure.
"But even the supporters of the president — the Illinois governor [Democrat Pat Quinn], governor of New York [Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo] — have said the Secure Communities is doing more damage, and in fact there’s collateral damage of mothers being separated from their children, of fathers being separated from their children. Is this collateral damage that this administration is prepared to accept?
As a result of the concerns raised by the governor of Illinois, the governor of Massachusetts [Democrat Deval Patrick] and others, DHS made adjustments on how it’s implementing the policy, so the feedback from the community has been important in shaping DHS’s work.
But at the end of the day, when you have immigration law that’s broken and you have a community of 10 million, 11 million people living and working in the United States illegally, some of these things are going to happen. Even if the law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children."
Trump is out of office now. Biden can be responsible for himself without constantly blaming the specter of Trump. And maybe liberals should take some responsibility for the things they vote into office, considering that they spent the last 4 years demanding we "take responsibility", and do to this day.
If I ever refused to speak about a subject, by all means, reference the post. I have no memory of it and outright refusing to speak about a subject sounds very unlike me.
Now liberals could reasonably say Trump broadened the policy, which he did, and conservatives would be forced to agree. Instead, they deny they ever had any hand in it, which they did.
The key words in this article are ‘without their parents.’
The Trump administration separated parents from children and then lost them. There is a large difference here.
Called it less than a minute before it happened.
It's okay to lose children, as long as they are in even more desperate situations and actually did a dangerous border crossing alone, apparently. Kids without parents can't use the internet or a cell phone and get in touch with their parents or a family member back home like kids with parents can. Kids with nobody have nobody.
People lose all sense of morality and perspective when blinded by partisanship.
Trump will quickly have no power anymore. The incoming administration appears ready to continue the pre-existing policy. I think it's time to begin to stop using Trump as a catch-all excuse for everything, no?
You can start blaming Biden the moment they decide to cooperate with the transition, like EVERY other outgoing Administration in modern history.
We will spend the next 4 years comparing everything Biden does to Trump and justifying it on that basis, rather than its own merit, mark my words.
Just like last term, when you deflected any criticism of Trump directly at Obama? There is so much projection here.
Obama held FAMILIES TOGETHER. Not the same, not even remotely. And you know what? A federal judge ruled that unconstitutional, and Obama COMPLIED and released the families. Trump, separated children, and when ordered to return them by the courts, didn't do that. Trump's separation was a new policy, and the only way you can even attempt to defend it is pull the kindergarten defense, or to deny it ever happened. You've lost the ability to do the latter, since you pulled it up yourself to try and blame Biden for something Trump did.
This is why the forums need a "this is funny" reaction.
@WarChiefZeke Its funny that during Trump's term, you REFUSED to talk about the concentration camps full of children. But as SOON as a Democrat is in the White House, suddenly it should be talked about as much as possible? Yeah, let's blame Biden for something that Trump is 100% responsible for. Gotta follow the standard conservative playbook.
This is just a bald faced lie. Not only was it policy, but Obama and Trump had the nearly the same rates of "lost children", another liberal hysteria that they too implemented as policy but deny any responsibility for. From the AP Fact Check:
"An official from the Health and Human Services Department told a congressional hearing last month that his department placed follow-up phone calls from October to December to U.S. households that were sponsoring the minors after they came to the border without their parents. They reached 86 percent of the children or sponsors, determining 6,075 remained with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been removed from the U.S. and 52 relocated to live with someone else.
The department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some of many cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call, not surprising because many are in the U.S. illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities. HHS decided 792 of those cases merited more attention and referred them to the National Call Center.
It’s not highly unusual to fail to keep track of many minors who came unaccompanied to the border.
During the last year of the Obama administration, HHS was able to locate 85 percent of the minors or their sponsors, according to an inspector general’s report. The Trump administration slightly exceeded that success rate in the last three months of 2017, even as it is accused of losing children."
Biden's new transition team pick was interviewed about it as it was happening in 2011. Pure conservative lies, i'm sure.
"But even the supporters of the president — the Illinois governor [Democrat Pat Quinn], governor of New York [Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo] — have said the Secure Communities is doing more damage, and in fact there’s collateral damage of mothers being separated from their children, of fathers being separated from their children. Is this collateral damage that this administration is prepared to accept?
As a result of the concerns raised by the governor of Illinois, the governor of Massachusetts [Democrat Deval Patrick] and others, DHS made adjustments on how it’s implementing the policy, so the feedback from the community has been important in shaping DHS’s work.
But at the end of the day, when you have immigration law that’s broken and you have a community of 10 million, 11 million people living and working in the United States illegally, some of these things are going to happen. Even if the law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children."
Trump is out of office now. Biden can be responsible for himself without constantly blaming the specter of Trump. And maybe liberals should take some responsibility for the things they vote into office, considering that they spent the last 4 years demanding we "take responsibility", and do to this day.
If I ever refused to speak about a subject, by all means, reference the post. I have no memory of it and outright refusing to speak about a subject sounds very unlike me.
Now liberals could reasonably say Trump broadened the policy, which he did, and conservatives would be forced to agree. Instead, they deny they ever had any hand in it, which they did.
The key words in this article are ‘without their parents.’
The Trump administration separated parents from children and then lost them. There is a large difference here.
Called it less than a minute before it happened.
It's okay to lose children, as long as they are in even more desperate situations and actually did a dangerous border crossing alone, apparently. Kids without parents can't use the internet or a cell phone and get in touch with their parents or a family member back home like kids with parents can. Kids with nobody have nobody.
People lose all sense of morality and perspective when blinded by partisanship.
Trump will quickly have no power anymore. The incoming administration appears ready to continue the pre-existing policy. I think it's time to begin to stop using Trump as a catch-all excuse for everything, no?
‘Children’ being lost in this case are teenagers. Not as bad as misplacing someone’s 5 year old. In fact, I actually object to the word ‘children’ being used for this article and instead it should be using ‘minors.’
There is also this line: The department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some of many cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call, not surprising because many are in the U.S. illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities.
Which isn’t the case for the Trump administration. The children that Trump lost, are children their parents are looking for after being deported back to their home country. Only people who like to speak in partisan points doesn’t recognize this.
I also said, that Americans should still hold Biden to a higher standard than they did Trump, however, Biden isn’t even in power yet, he actually isn’t even able to transition because of the current administration placing up roadblocks and you are accusing him of just going to use the same playbook.
Even on day one, I do not expect this issue to be rectified as there are more serious problems happening in America that needs to be addressed first such as an out of control pandemic.
But feel free, once the first picture of new kids in cages get released to post it here.
But maybe that is one good thing about the Trump presidency. People may actually start calling for more transparency on these types of issues and actually issue in fundamental change to asylum and immigration laws so human beings fleeing dire situations aren’t treated like livestock.
One massive difference between the Obama and Trump policies has been mentioned repeatedly, i.e. that Trump as a specific policy objective split up existing families. The only time when Obama split them up was in those few cases where parents were suspected of major crimes and/or child abuse.
@deltago has mentioned another major issue - that the unaccompanied children referred to above are mainly older teenagers, 16 and 17 years old when transferred (and older when follow-up phone calls are made asking for information about them). They are thus more equipped to look after themselves than the much younger children separated from their families by Trump and it's not that surprising that some of them dropped out of the system.
There are other differences between the policies though. For instance children are not supposed to be in detention for more than 5 days, but Trump's record on that was poor. When they turn 18, children are also supposed to be transferred to the least restrictive facility possible, but in recent years the majority of such cases have been immediately placed in adult jails.
In addition, the law provides that immigration authorities have to act in the best interests of an unaccompanied child - typically that used to involve attempting to reunify them with family members in the country. However, in April 2018 that responsibility, that used to lie with Health & Human Services, was transferred to ICE. An information sharing agreement was also implemented that enabled ICE to use any information discovered from a child to act against any of their undocumented relatives in the US. Thus, rather than the previous situation where unaccompanied children were reunited with their parents, ICE pressured children to provide information on their relatives and then used that to detain and deport them (and in some cases non-relatives in the same households). It seems to me that this information sharing agreement should be unlawful - given the incentives it creates for ICE to act entirely contrary to the best interests of the child - but it is still in operation. This is the main reason why it's become more difficult during the Trump administration to find relatives to sponsor unaccompanied children - the growth in the numbers of those in custody is not to do with more arriving, but inability to find sponsors to take them. Edit: here is a pamphlet explaining the problems associated with the agreement. There have been several minor changes since it was introduced, but the basic problems remain that it discourages sponsors (leaving children in custody for longer) and does not put the child's best interests at the heart of decision making.
The immigration system has clearly had problems for many years, so it's not difficult to make the case that things were not all rosy under Obama. However, it seems clear to me that there was not simply a difference in degree of problems between the administrations, but also a difference in kind. The Obama administration never had anything remotely akin to a policy objective to split families up in order to discourage future asylum seekers. It was that specific policy, which I think could only be contemplated by an administration that regarded asylum seekers as something less than human, which shifted me from merely disliking Trump to finding him contemptible.
It's worth examining the reason WHY Obama took what some would consider a harsher stand on deportations and border crossings than one would assume a Democratic politician would (though, if that's the case, then what was Trump even running on??). It goes back to Obama's original and greatest sin, which was his mistaken belief (for at least the first 5 out of 8 year) that he could get Republicans to come to the table. In this case, in regards to comprehensive immigration reform. The belief was that he HAD to show he was willing to be tough on the enforcement side to have a chance, when, of course, there was never a chance at all.
If there is one thing I blame Obama for more than anything, it was the persistent delusion that his attempts to work across the aisle could succeed. He did eventually wake up, and is QUITE candid about his own mistake in this regard in hindsight:
The Cliff's Notes version of modern US politics is this: one side is deeply flawed, but believes governing is important and takes it seriously, while the other side is engaged almost exclusively in nihilistic power grabs that can result in tax cuts and deregulation. And the nature of the game board means Democrats are FORCED to maintain centrist positions, while their opponents are free to sprint as far to right as humanly possible while suffering basically no repercussions.
The word that gets thrown around to describe this most in recent months is "asymmetrical". The Democrats are playing on Insane difficulty while the Republicans are cruising by in Story Mode. SOME of this is their own fault (the failure to engage in basic partisan politics as well as their opponents in down ballot races most years). But most of it is just rules of the game.
‘Children’ being lost in this case are teenagers. Not as bad as misplacing someone’s 5 year old. In fact, I actually object to the word ‘children’ being used for this article and instead it should be using ‘minors.’
I've been sourcing my claims, I feel it is fair to expect the same. Where does it say 100% of Obama's missing children were teenagers?
There is also this line: The department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some of many cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call, not surprising because many are in the U.S. illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities.
Which isn’t the case for the Trump administration. The children that Trump lost, are children their parents are looking for after being deported back to their home country. Only people who like to speak in partisan points doesn’t recognize this.
It is exactly the same case for the Trump administration. The same methods, a follow up phone call, were used in both cases to verify whether they were "missing" or not. The same reasons they wouldn't answer, because they were here illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities, is exactly the same. If they are very young that is the fault of the caretakers, a system which if broken you can blame on previous administrations who set the legal framework, but such a thing would never happen. So the same excuse can be made in both cases.
The only difference is in the amount of people who were brought into the process, not anything about the process itself changed. The process itself, from the holding facilities to the possibility for missing children allowed in the legal framework, was a product of previous administrations. As long as a process liberals once claimed were equivalent to sending kids to "concentration camps" and "prisons for children" capture only the defenseless kids who come across without adults, who later disappear off of the government radar, everything is righteous and just about it. Apparently it represents such a seismic moral difference that all can be forgiven and excused. The false moralizing gets ever more obnoxious and ever more out of touch with reality.
I also said, that Americans should still hold Biden to a higher standard than they did Trump
Unsurprisingly, the only thing this thread cares about is how everything compares to Trump. Nobody can talk about Democratic policy because the conversation immediately moves to endless defensive lectures about how it represents a 5% improvement over Trump.
I don't see a higher standard being applied. I don't see any standard.
however, Biden isn’t even in power yet, he actually isn’t even able to transition because of the current administration placing up roadblocks and you are accusing him of just going to use the same playbook.
Convenient. I guess we still have time to use the Trump Excuse.
But feel free, once the first picture of new kids in cages get released to post it here.
As if liberals would be ready to drop the sophistry and perpetual evasion of accountability under being "better than Trump" will end once that time comes.
Once the Biden Presidency is in full swing, years from now, and they get justly criticized, it will be endless "at least it's not Trump" deflections. It is the only thing offered now, and will be the only thing offered during that time.
It's possible Democrats wouldn't use (or be able to use) previous Administrations as counter-points and side by side comparisons if they weren't inheriting absolute dumpster fires every time they take office for the last 30 years. But that is, in fact, what has happened. 1992: recession. 2008: financial collapse. 2020: recession AND out of control pandemic. Meanwhile, W. and Trump inherited a decade long economic boom and a steady if unremarkable recovery, respectively. These two parties are not passing off the same baton. Republicans are dipping it in raw sewage during their laps. But one of your points isn't TOTALLY wrong (though the 5% number is). Democratic Administrations are, for the most part, nothing but damage mitigation. It's all we have left.
It's possible Democrats wouldn't use (or be able to use) previous Administrations as counter-points and side by side comparisons if they weren't inheriting absolute dumpster fires every time they take office for the last 30 years. But that is, in fact, what has happened. 1992: recession. 2008: financial collapse. 2020: recession AND out of control pandemic. Meanwhile, W. and Trump inherited a decade long economic boom and a steady if unremarkable recovery, respectively.
1992 is a bad example. That wasn't much of a recession and "The Hand Grenade With Ears" (Ross Perot) and "Read My Lips" (trust the Democrats to not use this against me) had far more to do with Bush Sr. not being re-elected than any 'dumpster fire' he was responsible for.
It's possible Democrats wouldn't use (or be able to use) previous Administrations as counter-points and side by side comparisons if they weren't inheriting absolute dumpster fires every time they take office for the last 30 years. But that is, in fact, what has happened. 1992: recession. 2008: financial collapse. 2020: recession AND out of control pandemic. Meanwhile, W. and Trump inherited a decade long economic boom and a steady if unremarkable recovery, respectively.
1992 is a bad example. That wasn't much of a recession and "The Hand Grenade With Ears" (Ross Perot) and "Read My Lips" (trust the Democrats to not use this against me) had far more to do with Bush Sr. not being re-elected than any 'dumpster fire' he was responsible for.
It also had alot to do with a candidate who could sweet talk your Republican grandmother into the sack if necessary, and the fact that Republicans could not reasonably claim the economic situation wasn't entirely their doing after 12 years in power. There WAS a reason the mantra of the Clinton campaign was "it's the economy, stupid". It's why James Carville is still on TV to this day.
I'd like to address this. Because the question that begs an answer here is "why the hell did you hire him in the first place??" Trump is RIGHT about Bolton, but it's not like his positions were a secret. And the answer to why he hired him is simple. He saw him alot on FOX News:
The irony of the entire argument is that the only difference in family separation policy between Trump, Obama, and now Biden spans the entirety of the few months in which Trump's new policy was in place before widespread public rejection of it caused him to change it back to what it was. It is those few months- could even be weeks, my memory on it isn't perfect but it was a very short time- which will be the whole of the defense for the existence of the existing policy which does all the exact same things they were condemning as pure evil, and delivered with all the moral fury and righteousness of the most devout believer.
Convinced that after this day of exchange that Greenwald was basically right. As kids continue to be imprisoned in these low quality facilities with questionable ability to meet their needs, the entirety of the moral rhetoric that once surrounded this issue will disappear and it will be entirely forgotten, because it was all bullshit in the first place. Once they have the power to change it, all interest suddenly vanishes and they find the existence of the system perfectly fine.
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You forgot Henry Clay, who lost 3 times; 1824, 1832 and 1844. He also lost his party nomination in 1840 and 1848. Committed that one.
Some time ago there was quite a bit of discussion in the thread about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). That notes that there is no technical limit on the amount of money that a sovereign country can issue, though most MMT theorists accept there are practical constraints related to the level of resources available to the country. Historically, issuing money meant coining or printing it. Most money created now is electronic, but that doesn't change the basic analysis.
I'm not sure what measure of debt you're referring to. Often, headline figures about national debts relate to the total of gilts issued, but an alternative measure is to consider money issued as part of the debt. In relation to this, perhaps it's worth noting that the Bank of England has had a program of Quantitative Easing since the financial crash in 2008. QE is a mechanism to create money and this is done by the BofE buying up gilts already issued (with its latest tranche I think the BofE will own something like 1/3 of all UK gilts). They are thus replacing existing debt with new money, which may explain why it can be helpful to think of money as a government debt.
In principle the UK (or US) could use the same process to eliminate entirely existing national debts and hence the increasing size of those may not be seen as a problem. Such an action though would create other potential problems, causing inflation through various routes e.g.
- if external partners outside the UK, perceive the country to be creating more money than it can afford, they will require more payment for goods and services (either directly or, by requiring payment in other currencies, indirectly through exchange rate changes).
- MMT sees money as being essentially an IOU for future tax payments (at the point money is used to repay tax it is destroyed, which helps regulate the money supply). If too much money is in circulation, relative to the amount of tax due, the perceived value of that money will fall and prices will rise to compensate.
The remedy under MMT for inflation creeping up is to increase taxes - reducing the money supply and therefore making it more valuable. At the margins that works, but the impact of taxes on the population is uneven and significant changes in a short space of time have multiple impacts beyond inflation. Thus this is not a simple mechanism to either agree politically or to put into practice. If a country has been unwise enough to create very large sums of money relative to its economy, the inflationary impact will be too great to deal with through taxation and the only real remedy is to accept the failure of the sovereign currency and try again with a new one (often pegged to another currency like the dollar, to give it more credibility).
How is he ahead Jesse? They counted the votes.
This is why the forums need a "this is funny" reaction.
@WarChiefZeke Its funny that during Trump's term, you REFUSED to talk about the concentration camps full of children. But as SOON as a Democrat is in the White House, suddenly it should be talked about as much as possible? Yeah, let's blame Biden for something that Trump is 100% responsible for. Gotta follow the standard conservative playbook.
This is just a bald faced lie. Not only was it policy, but Obama and Trump had the nearly the same rates of "lost children", another liberal hysteria that they too implemented as policy but deny any responsibility for. From the AP Fact Check:
"An official from the Health and Human Services Department told a congressional hearing last month that his department placed follow-up phone calls from October to December to U.S. households that were sponsoring the minors after they came to the border without their parents. They reached 86 percent of the children or sponsors, determining 6,075 remained with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been removed from the U.S. and 52 relocated to live with someone else.
The department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some of many cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call, not surprising because many are in the U.S. illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities. HHS decided 792 of those cases merited more attention and referred them to the National Call Center.
It’s not highly unusual to fail to keep track of many minors who came unaccompanied to the border.
During the last year of the Obama administration, HHS was able to locate 85 percent of the minors or their sponsors, according to an inspector general’s report. The Trump administration slightly exceeded that success rate in the last three months of 2017, even as it is accused of losing children."
Biden's new transition team pick was interviewed about it as it was happening in 2011. Pure conservative lies, i'm sure.
"But even the supporters of the president — the Illinois governor [Democrat Pat Quinn], governor of New York [Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo] — have said the Secure Communities is doing more damage, and in fact there’s collateral damage of mothers being separated from their children, of fathers being separated from their children. Is this collateral damage that this administration is prepared to accept?
As a result of the concerns raised by the governor of Illinois, the governor of Massachusetts [Democrat Deval Patrick] and others, DHS made adjustments on how it’s implementing the policy, so the feedback from the community has been important in shaping DHS’s work.
But at the end of the day, when you have immigration law that’s broken and you have a community of 10 million, 11 million people living and working in the United States illegally, some of these things are going to happen. Even if the law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children."
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/cecilia-munoz-even-broken-laws-have-to-be-enforced/
Trump is out of office now. Biden can be responsible for himself without constantly blaming the specter of Trump. And maybe liberals should take some responsibility for the things they vote into office, considering that they spent the last 4 years demanding we "take responsibility", and do to this day.
If I ever refused to speak about a subject, by all means, reference the post. I have no memory of it and outright refusing to speak about a subject sounds very unlike me.
Now liberals could reasonably say Trump broadened the policy, which he did, and conservatives would be forced to agree. Instead, they deny they ever had any hand in it, which they did.
Obama did not separate children from their parents like steven miller and Trump have been doing.
He caged unaccompanied minors. Apparently he had trouble finding the parents of children that corssed the border alone.
Note that it didn't list the number of lost children under Obama only the "rate".
Also, what's crucially different between the two administrations that you seem to be missing from your argument is the policy of family separation which is Donald Trump's policy. He purposefully separates children from their parents then lost accountability. The Trump administration had parents and kids, knew where they were, separated them, then lost track.
So yes these are more conservative media lies and spin.
You're right that Trump broadened the policy. It was a policy that already had "kids in cages" and "missing children", every moral accusation thrown at Trump, baked into the cake.
So just tell me this. Are you okay with "kids in cages" and "missing children", as long as it follows the former Obama policy? I just want a clear answer since the goal posts move so often.
Is it the best thing ever kids in cages? No of course not. Kids that crossed the border alone do need to be held until you figure out what to do with them. Those options include find their family or otherwise direct them somewhere right to include deportation. Being unable to locate parents in this situation is more understandable since they aren't travelling together. The cage part still sucks.
Intentionally separating children from their parents then trying to lie about "Obama did it too" like the Trump administration has done is worse. It's intentionally cruel and incompetence. On top of that the Trump administration has lost hundreds of children's parents when they had arrived together.
They arrived together got separated by the Trump administration, then they lost track of them. Evil incompetence.
When Trump's government doesn't get their calls returned, it is evil incompetence. Okay. So what is it when Obama's government doesn't get calls returned? Is that, too, evil incompetence, or is something far more noble?
Again, nobody said Obama followed a mandatory family separation policy. This is what you *want* it to be about, because it is virtually the only relevant difference between the policies. The actual experience under custody remained virtually unchanged. You do not need such a thing to imprison children. My initial tweet was about "kids in cages" as dishonest rhetoric that will never be used against Biden or his policy, though it is a perfectly accurate description as much as Trumps was, followed by a response that labeled it as "concentration camps". While Obama did have the occasional family separation, it was for suspicion of crimes committed. Trump decided to prosecute every illegal border crossing, so it was a mere extension of existing policy.
So what are these ill equipped facilities where adults and children alike are temporarily imprisoned going to be called now?
"TRUMP on detention centers at the border: “President Obama is the one that built those prison cells.” — Telemundo interview.
TRUMP: “President Obama built the cages. Remember when they said that I built them?” — “Meet the Press” interview.
THE FACTS: He has a point. Whether they are called prison cells or something else, Obama held children in temporary, ill-equipped facilities and built a large center in McAllen, Texas, that is used now.
Democrats routinely and inaccurately blame Trump for creating “cages” for children. They are actually referring to chain-link fencing inside the McAllen center — Obama’s creation."
https://apnews.com/article/fdfbafe1f2784a759bc7c3a8e8ddbcab
And the idea you would demand liberals take responsibility for anything is laughable. You spent 4 years denying anything Trump did should be tied to those who voted for him, and only promptly abandoned him yourself when the pandemic made it literally untenable to defend him anymore with a straight-face.
The key words in this article are ‘without their parents.’
The Trump administration separated parents from children and then lost them. There is a large difference here.
Yes, we will, and all he has to do to be better in comparison is not do absolutely nothing whatsoever while a quarter million people drop dead. That is what tends to be the dynamic when you oversee a historic disaster. Rural hospital systems are literally melting down, with no stop in sight. The President (who is President for two more months) is having a pity party, and what's MORE, he won't even allow the Biden team access to transition funds in a moment of accute crisis.
He's a commander who has abandoned his troops (the American people) while they are surrounded on all sides. And Trump's COVID-19 disaster isn't over yet. If anyone thinks it's been bad so far, wait til you see what happens in the next 30 days.
And forget his lack of "action" for a moment. His rhetoric about the virus has been more damaging still, enabling a small but very SIGNIFICANT portion of the electorate to believe it either isn't a big deal or isn't real at all. And that 20-25% of the population is making the efforts of everyone else essentially useless. We're all hostages to their bullshit and delusions. Which could have been dampened with even a MODICUM of more responsible messaging from the top.
Called it less than a minute before it happened.
It's okay to lose children, as long as they are in even more desperate situations and actually did a dangerous border crossing alone, apparently. Kids without parents can't use the internet or a cell phone and get in touch with their parents or a family member back home like kids with parents can. Kids with nobody have nobody.
People lose all sense of morality and perspective when blinded by partisanship.
Trump will quickly have no power anymore. The incoming administration appears ready to continue the pre-existing policy. I think it's time to begin to stop using Trump as a catch-all excuse for everything, no?
You can start blaming Biden the moment they decide to cooperate with the transition, like EVERY other outgoing Administration in modern history.
Just like last term, when you deflected any criticism of Trump directly at Obama? There is so much projection here.
Obama held FAMILIES TOGETHER. Not the same, not even remotely. And you know what? A federal judge ruled that unconstitutional, and Obama COMPLIED and released the families. Trump, separated children, and when ordered to return them by the courts, didn't do that. Trump's separation was a new policy, and the only way you can even attempt to defend it is pull the kindergarten defense, or to deny it ever happened. You've lost the ability to do the latter, since you pulled it up yourself to try and blame Biden for something Trump did.
‘Children’ being lost in this case are teenagers. Not as bad as misplacing someone’s 5 year old. In fact, I actually object to the word ‘children’ being used for this article and instead it should be using ‘minors.’
There is also this line: The department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some of many cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call, not surprising because many are in the U.S. illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities.
Which isn’t the case for the Trump administration. The children that Trump lost, are children their parents are looking for after being deported back to their home country. Only people who like to speak in partisan points doesn’t recognize this.
I also said, that Americans should still hold Biden to a higher standard than they did Trump, however, Biden isn’t even in power yet, he actually isn’t even able to transition because of the current administration placing up roadblocks and you are accusing him of just going to use the same playbook.
Even on day one, I do not expect this issue to be rectified as there are more serious problems happening in America that needs to be addressed first such as an out of control pandemic.
But feel free, once the first picture of new kids in cages get released to post it here.
But maybe that is one good thing about the Trump presidency. People may actually start calling for more transparency on these types of issues and actually issue in fundamental change to asylum and immigration laws so human beings fleeing dire situations aren’t treated like livestock.
@deltago has mentioned another major issue - that the unaccompanied children referred to above are mainly older teenagers, 16 and 17 years old when transferred (and older when follow-up phone calls are made asking for information about them). They are thus more equipped to look after themselves than the much younger children separated from their families by Trump and it's not that surprising that some of them dropped out of the system.
There are other differences between the policies though. For instance children are not supposed to be in detention for more than 5 days, but Trump's record on that was poor. When they turn 18, children are also supposed to be transferred to the least restrictive facility possible, but in recent years the majority of such cases have been immediately placed in adult jails.
In addition, the law provides that immigration authorities have to act in the best interests of an unaccompanied child - typically that used to involve attempting to reunify them with family members in the country. However, in April 2018 that responsibility, that used to lie with Health & Human Services, was transferred to ICE. An information sharing agreement was also implemented that enabled ICE to use any information discovered from a child to act against any of their undocumented relatives in the US. Thus, rather than the previous situation where unaccompanied children were reunited with their parents, ICE pressured children to provide information on their relatives and then used that to detain and deport them (and in some cases non-relatives in the same households). It seems to me that this information sharing agreement should be unlawful - given the incentives it creates for ICE to act entirely contrary to the best interests of the child - but it is still in operation. This is the main reason why it's become more difficult during the Trump administration to find relatives to sponsor unaccompanied children - the growth in the numbers of those in custody is not to do with more arriving, but inability to find sponsors to take them.
Edit: here is a pamphlet explaining the problems associated with the agreement. There have been several minor changes since it was introduced, but the basic problems remain that it discourages sponsors (leaving children in custody for longer) and does not put the child's best interests at the heart of decision making.
The immigration system has clearly had problems for many years, so it's not difficult to make the case that things were not all rosy under Obama. However, it seems clear to me that there was not simply a difference in degree of problems between the administrations, but also a difference in kind. The Obama administration never had anything remotely akin to a policy objective to split families up in order to discourage future asylum seekers. It was that specific policy, which I think could only be contemplated by an administration that regarded asylum seekers as something less than human, which shifted me from merely disliking Trump to finding him contemptible.
If there is one thing I blame Obama for more than anything, it was the persistent delusion that his attempts to work across the aisle could succeed. He did eventually wake up, and is QUITE candid about his own mistake in this regard in hindsight:
The Cliff's Notes version of modern US politics is this: one side is deeply flawed, but believes governing is important and takes it seriously, while the other side is engaged almost exclusively in nihilistic power grabs that can result in tax cuts and deregulation. And the nature of the game board means Democrats are FORCED to maintain centrist positions, while their opponents are free to sprint as far to right as humanly possible while suffering basically no repercussions.
The word that gets thrown around to describe this most in recent months is "asymmetrical". The Democrats are playing on Insane difficulty while the Republicans are cruising by in Story Mode. SOME of this is their own fault (the failure to engage in basic partisan politics as well as their opponents in down ballot races most years). But most of it is just rules of the game.
I've been sourcing my claims, I feel it is fair to expect the same. Where does it say 100% of Obama's missing children were teenagers?
It is exactly the same case for the Trump administration. The same methods, a follow up phone call, were used in both cases to verify whether they were "missing" or not. The same reasons they wouldn't answer, because they were here illegally and reluctant to speak to authorities, is exactly the same. If they are very young that is the fault of the caretakers, a system which if broken you can blame on previous administrations who set the legal framework, but such a thing would never happen. So the same excuse can be made in both cases.
The only difference is in the amount of people who were brought into the process, not anything about the process itself changed. The process itself, from the holding facilities to the possibility for missing children allowed in the legal framework, was a product of previous administrations. As long as a process liberals once claimed were equivalent to sending kids to "concentration camps" and "prisons for children" capture only the defenseless kids who come across without adults, who later disappear off of the government radar, everything is righteous and just about it. Apparently it represents such a seismic moral difference that all can be forgiven and excused. The false moralizing gets ever more obnoxious and ever more out of touch with reality.
Unsurprisingly, the only thing this thread cares about is how everything compares to Trump. Nobody can talk about Democratic policy because the conversation immediately moves to endless defensive lectures about how it represents a 5% improvement over Trump.
I don't see a higher standard being applied. I don't see any standard.
Convenient. I guess we still have time to use the Trump Excuse.
As if liberals would be ready to drop the sophistry and perpetual evasion of accountability under being "better than Trump" will end once that time comes.
Once the Biden Presidency is in full swing, years from now, and they get justly criticized, it will be endless "at least it's not Trump" deflections. It is the only thing offered now, and will be the only thing offered during that time.
1992 is a bad example. That wasn't much of a recession and "The Hand Grenade With Ears" (Ross Perot) and "Read My Lips" (trust the Democrats to not use this against me) had far more to do with Bush Sr. not being re-elected than any 'dumpster fire' he was responsible for.
It also had alot to do with a candidate who could sweet talk your Republican grandmother into the sack if necessary, and the fact that Republicans could not reasonably claim the economic situation wasn't entirely their doing after 12 years in power. There WAS a reason the mantra of the Clinton campaign was "it's the economy, stupid". It's why James Carville is still on TV to this day.
Convinced that after this day of exchange that Greenwald was basically right. As kids continue to be imprisoned in these low quality facilities with questionable ability to meet their needs, the entirety of the moral rhetoric that once surrounded this issue will disappear and it will be entirely forgotten, because it was all bullshit in the first place. Once they have the power to change it, all interest suddenly vanishes and they find the existence of the system perfectly fine.