Sec. Nielsen is out; expect things to somehow get worse

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HomerJS

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
36,730
28,908
136
He's pretty much the defacto Homeland Security czar for the time being. That should scare everyone. He wants to end nearly all immigration (incl. legal) unless you're explicitly sponsored for a white collar job. Expect the inhumane treatment of migrants and asylum seekers to get worse somehow.

Or are from Norway
 

dainthomas

Lifer
Dec 7, 2004
14,635
3,509
136
The fact that someone who locks babies in prison is out for not being horrible and racist enough is incredibly disturbing. Maybe they'll get Proud Boy guy or whoever runs stormfront next.
 

kage69

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
28,745
40,187
136
Taking breastfeeding babies away from mothers. Putting children into cages. And then there's the sexual assault that's been going on within our facilities.

Yeah fuck off Nielson. Trump needs someone 'tougher,' who probably doesn't enjoy as much Hispanic food.



I think we stopped being America in 2016. We're the United States of Shame until the mentally ill orange traitor is gone.
 

jackstar7

Lifer
Jun 26, 2009
11,679
1,944
126
LOL, apparently she was fired for not agreeing to return to the brilliant family separation policy!

Serious question guys... Is Donald Trump *trying* to lose this election?

https://apple.news/Aayhdra2-Tem1SZdyXqRlpA
Sad reality: Family separation isn't an election issue.

No one who supports him is going to turn away from him because of it. It's bad optics to the nation as a whole, but he doesn't lose a single vote over being actively racist.
 

Indus

Lifer
May 11, 2002
11,868
8,282
136
Sad reality: Family separation isn't an election issue.

No one who supports him is going to turn away from him because of it. It's bad optics to the nation as a whole, but he doesn't lose a single vote over being actively racist.

Yeah never thought we'd actually have an American administration openly advocating for and committing crimes against humanity.

We might just have to ship the entire bunch off to the Hague assuming we can win an election.
 

dawp

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
11,347
2,709
136
anyone who is associated with this administration is going to carry that taint for life.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,079
37,268
136
The head of the Secret Service is getting fired. Head of Immigration and Citizenship is expected to be out next.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/08/secret-service-chief-is-fired-nbc-news.html?__source=twitter|main

Trump has authorized Miller to purge the government of anyone who isn't willing to carry out their draconian policies even in the face of the law. Should the DHS simply decide to ignore US laws and the President ignore court orders then we explicitly have a lawless government acting outside the constitution.

But Obama was a dictator or whatever.
 
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hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
24,222
10,877
136
anyone who is associated with this administration is going to carry that taint for life.
That's why the people are lining up at the door to work for Trump. /s Bottom of the barrel. Hell, even the Republicans have flat out rejected some of Trump's noms without even interviewing them.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
Sad reality: Family separation isn't an election issue.

No one who supports him is going to turn away from him because of it. It's bad optics to the nation as a whole, but he doesn't lose a single vote over being actively racist.

I think you're wrong. Lots of people who aren't really very racist at all voted for Trump in 2016.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
The head of the Secret Service is getting fired. Head of Immigration and Citizenship is expected to be out next.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/08/secret-service-chief-is-fired-nbc-news.html?__source=twitter|main

Trump has authorized Miller to purge the government of anyone who isn't willing to carry out their draconian policies even in the face of the law. Should the DHS simply decide to ignore US laws and the President ignore court orders then we explicitly have a lawless government acting outside the constitution.

But Obama was a dictator or whatever.

It's all part of the systematic destruction of the institutions of American democracy.
 

soundforbjt

Lifer
Feb 15, 2002
17,788
6,040
136
The head of the Secret Service is getting fired. Head of Immigration and Citizenship is expected to be out next.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/08/secret-service-chief-is-fired-nbc-news.html?__source=twitter|main

Trump has authorized Miller to purge the government of anyone who isn't willing to carry out their draconian policies even in the face of the law. Should the DHS simply decide to ignore US laws and the President ignore court orders then we explicitly have a lawless government acting outside the constitution.

But Obama was a dictator or whatever.
Sheriff Joe as new head of Secret Service?
 
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Sunburn74

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2009
5,037
2,615
136
I think you're wrong. Lots of people who aren't really very racist at all voted for Trump in 2016.
I don't really believe that.
If there was an open pedophile running for president on a pro pedophilia platform,can you claim you don't support pedophilia whilst voting for him just because he's giving you a tax break?

Somethings you can separate from the person but not when it's part of their political platform. I honestly believe that if someone voted for trump they are at least a closest racist. To non-racists having anything to do with racism is so toxic that it immediately is a non starter. In example, you could offer me a free house in exchange for supporting racism and I wouldn't do it.
 
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Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
Just kinda racist, right?

I won't deny that there's a streak of latent racism in white America. Trump potentiates it. It's always been a tool of top down class warfare, a way to set working people against each other. Depending on where you look, it's served the purposes of the ownership class for generations.

Given the demographic changes taking place it's more destructive today than it's ever been. It only ever worked because whites were a strong majority.
 

Indus

Lifer
May 11, 2002
11,868
8,282
136
Beto O'Rourke is correct: Trump's immigration rhetoric is straight out of the Third Reich

Republicans will express outrage at O'Rourke's comments about Trump and the Nazis. But the evidence is clear


Beto O'Rourke is correct. While speaking last Thursday to a reporter from the Associated Press, the former Texas congressman had this to say about Donald Trump's racism and nativism:

Well, I compared the rhetoric that the president has employed to rhetoric that you might have heard during the Third Reich. Calling human beings an infestation is something that we might’ve expected to hear in Nazi Germany. Describing immigrants — who have a track record of committing violent crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans — as rapists and criminals. Seeking to ban all Muslims — all people of one religion — what other country on the face of the planet does that kind of thing? Or in our human history or in the history of the Western world?
Putting kids in cages? Saying that neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists are very fine people? You draw your own conclusions, but this is not something that I expected to hear a president of the United States of America ever say.​
The evidence is overwhelming.

Donald Trump has repeatedly called Latino immigrants and refugees an "infestation" of "invaders," a race of rapists and criminals who are coming to America to reproduce, and by implication to "replace" white Americans. Trump has said, "These aren't people. These are animals." He was not speaking of migrants in general when he said that, but the rhetorical strategy at work here is to conflate gang members and other criminals with Latinos as a group.

As a standard talking point, Donald Trump and his allies in the Republican Party and right-wing media also describe nonwhite immigrants, refugees, and migrants as being a "burden" to American society, which is inferred to be "white."

Donald Trump has even told Fox News' Sean Hannity that "illegal migrants" at the U.S.-Mexico border could be shot and killed.

This is eliminationist rhetoric ,designed to encourage or condone large-scale violence against a group of people that Donald Trump and his right-wing movement have identified as a racial enemy. Dehumanization and cruelty are central to this process.


Trump's attitudes and values are echoed across his administration.

It is the stated policy of Donald Trump as outlined by Stephen Miller -- a person can reasonably be described as a white supremacist -- to inflict as much cruelty and harm on the families of Latino immigrants and refugees as is "legally" possible in order to deter them from coming to America. This has included putting babies and children in concentration camps.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing last December, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen did not even know how many people had died in the custody of the departmentshe supposedly led. (This weekend, Trump reportedly forced Nielsen to resign.) That was not professional incompetence. It was indifference. The Trump administration has admitted that it has "lost" more than 1,400 children who were taken from their families.

Hundreds of refugees from Central America were temporarily held under a bridge in El Paso, Texas, with little shelter or care, in what may have been a massive photo-op aimed at the Fox News audience.

There have been numerous reports of physical, sexual, psychological and other abuse by the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol and other government agents against refugee, migrant and immigrant women and children at the U.S.-Mexico border and elsewhere.


As reported by Harper's Bazaar, young women and girls who have been imprisoned in Trump's detention centers have routinely been denied reproductive health services. An actual calendar of their menstrual cycles was kept as a means of tracking pregnancies and denying these women and girls the right to an abortion.

Refugees are facing mortal danger by being deported back to their home countries without due process.

Trumpism is a social pathology that has infected a large swath of the American public. The president sets an example for the public's behavior, and during Trump's time in office there has been a significant increase in hate crimes and other political violence against nonwhites and other groups deemed as "un-American" by Trump and his allies.

Counties which hosted Trump rallies in 2016 subsequently experienced a 200 percent increase in hate crimes. Trump-inspired political violence includes such horrific incidents as the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, the New Zealand mosque attacks and the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. A Trump admirer threatened to kill prominent Democrats and members of the news media with mail bombs. A 55-year-old New York man was recently arrested for planning to assassinate Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., because he "hates radical Muslims in our government". A Coast Guard officer was arrested with a huge cache of weapons. His apparent goal was to wage a "race war" and kill journalists and Democrats in order to protect Trump from impeachment.

Donald Trump and his movement's eliminationist rhetoric, impulses, and behavior are nothing new.

In its primer "The 8 Stages of Genocide," the human rights group Genocide Watch offers the following warnings and guidance. "Genocide is a process that develops in eight stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process."

These stages are:

  1. CLASSIFICATION: All cultures have categories to distinguish people into “us and them” by ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality: German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi. ...
  2. SYMBOLIZATION: We give names or other symbols to the classifications. We name people “Jews” or “Gypsies,” or distinguish them by colors or dress; and apply the symbols to members of groups. Classification and symbolization are universally human and do not necessarily result in genocide unless they lead to the next stage, dehumanization. ...
  3. DEHUMANIZATION: One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in print and on hate radios is used to vilify the victim group. In combating this dehumanization, incitement to genocide should not be confused with protected speech. Genocidal societies lack constitutional protection for countervailing speech, and should be treated differently than democracies. Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable. Leaders who incite genocide should be banned from international travel and have their foreign finances frozen. Hate radio stations should be shut down, and hate propaganda banned. Hate crimes and atrocities should be promptly punished.
  4. ORGANIZATION: Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility. ...
  5. POLARIZATION: Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Laws may forbid intermarriage or social interaction. Extremist terrorism targets moderates, intimidating and silencing the center. Moderates from the perpetrators’ own group are most able to stop genocide, so are the first to be arrested and killed. ...
  6. PREPARATION: Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is expropriated. They are often segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. ...
  7. EXTERMINATION begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called “genocide.” It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human. ...
  8. DENIAL is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. ...
As with Donald Trump's pseudo-fascist rise to power, Genocide Watch's model of eliminationist violence will continue adapt itself to America's particular social and political culture.

Trump and his administration's physical and psychological warfare against nonwhite immigrants, migrants, and refugees is a combination of philosopher Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" mixed with craven greed and raw, unadulterated right-wing ideology.

Many Americans have succumbed to outrage fatigue. Others, including white Christian conservatives, enthusiastically support Trump's campaign of cruelty against brown and black people. Some Americans are actively resisting Trumpism and the threat it represents to our democracy, but most Americans are too exhausted, overwhelmed or distracted, and have surrendered to learned helplessness.

These are explanations and not excuses, a diagnosis for passivity when confronted by evil. The American people would be wise to heed the words of Beto O'Rourke: "These are the consequences of our silence. Silence is complicity in what this administration is doing.”
 

Maxima1

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2013
3,538
759
146
So Donnie is firing everyone who won't break the law for him and doesn't have the utmost in loyalty to him. This admin is consolidating power until nothing can stop them.

When is Nancy-impeachment-is-off-the-table-Pelosi going to start impeachment proceedings?
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
So Donnie is firing everyone who won't break the law for him and doesn't have the utmost in loyalty to him. This admin is consolidating power until nothing can stop them.

When is Nancy-impeachment-is-off-the-table-Pelosi going to start impeachment proceedings?

When she figures it will induce the GOP Senate to follow through.
 
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jackstar7

Lifer
Jun 26, 2009
11,679
1,944
126
When she figures it will induce the GOP Senate to follow through.
The proceedings required would be worth it. There's a calculus that's more than efficacy of the hearings, and it could be a jarring enough that would gain incredible media coverage. The GOP can ride the Titanic to the end of the line, but they don't have to take the public with 'em... and if they public turns significantly, that would matter.

We're quickly getting to the point where the military is going to be ordered to do something and their response will dictate the rest of American history.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
24,222
10,877
136
When she figures it will induce the GOP Senate to follow through.
I don't understand why this is difficult to figure out. It's math. We don't have a normal opposition party anymore that can be brought to reason.