Octopus Overlords

protecting “benevolent white supremacy,”

Kurth wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 11:32 am

Skinypupy wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 9:52 am So, all those kids that ICE separated from their parents and started tossing in DoD warehouses? Yeah, they've managed to lose 1,475 of them.

From page 8 of the HHS report to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:

From October to December 2017, ORR attempted to reach 7,635 UAC and their sponsors. Of this number, ORR reached and received agreement to participate in the safety and well-being call from approximately 86 percent of sponsors. From these calls, ORR learned that 6,075 UAC remained with their sponsors. Twenty-eight UAC had run away, five had been removed from the United States, and 52 had relocated to live with a non-sponsor. ORR was unable to determine with certainty the whereabouts of 1,475 UAC. Based on the calls, ORR referred 792 cases, which were in need of further assistance, to the National Call Center for additional information and services.

I don't care if they're "illegal" or not, they're still goddamn human beings. Treating children and families this way is just horrific.

I heard an in-depth segment on this on NPR yesterday. A couple important facts that have been misconstrued or misunderstood: (1) The 1,500 “missing” kids weren’t separated at the border by ICE. These were unaccompanied minors who had no adult with them when they arrived at the border. (2) Characterizing them as “missing” is a little off. They were each released into the custody of an adult sponsor in the U.S., and ICE has been unable to reconnect with those adult sponsors, apparently when it does a routine follow-up check-in call. While that’s not acceptable, it’s also not entirely shocking. Many of the adult sponsors of the kids are relatives or friends who themselves are in the U.S. illegally and subject to possible deportation. Not surprisingly, they often don’t supply ICE with accurate contact info or just refuse to take ICE’s check-in calls because they, understandably, want to have as little to do with ICE as possible.

The NPR segment was all about prevailing narratives in media and social media and how “fake news” gets started and spread. It also discussed how “fake news” isn’t a binary thing but how there are many different flavors and degrees. On this particular immigration story about the 1,500 kids ICE allegedly separated from their parents at the border and then lost, the narrative appears to be a mash-up of two different stories - the fact the Trump administration has a policy of separating kids/adults at the border and that ICE hasn’t been able to contact these 1,500 unaccompanied kids.

One other thing I found interesting: Trump’s policy of separating children and adults is not entirely new. It’s been standard policy for some time that ICE would separate kids from adults whenever ICE thought the adults in question may not be the parents of the kids or their lawful guardians. ICE has traditionally done this because of fears of child trafficking and also that kids are frequently kidnapped and forced to cross the border with an adult so that adult can make it into the U.S. The difference is, the Trump administration has suggested that the separation policy should be used as a deterrent to immigration, which really sucks.

Captain Caveman wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 11:42 am

Kraken wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 11:32 am

Captain Caveman wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 11:25 am The GOP in 2018: voting for white nationalists and pedophiles to own the libs.

He's running as an independent. You can't put this one on the GOP...in fact, he's going to be poaching their most deplorable voters.

Good point. But Roy Moore and this video below are consistent with the broader conclusion:

https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/stat ... 4676033537

El Guapo wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:40 pm Honestly, in the short term, it's probably better for them to run. Overt lunatics and white nationalists and the like do much worse in elections, and at this point your standard bearing GOP representative is 90% as harmful.

LordMortis wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 3:20 pm Agreed, or at least I hope, agreed. I never thought we'd have what we have which makes me fear there is actually a possibility that overt lunatics and white nationalists might get a seat at the table.

El Guapo wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:40 pm Honestly, in the short term, it's probably better for them to run. Overt lunatics and white nationalists and the like do much worse in elections, and at this point your standard bearing GOP representative is 90% as harmful.

Holman wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 3:38 pm

El Guapo wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:40 pm Honestly, in the short term, it's probably better for them to run. Overt lunatics and white nationalists and the like do much worse in elections, and at this point your standard bearing GOP representative is 90% as harmful.

Problem is the long run. Every foot of normalization makes the next a yard.

GreenGoo wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:12 pm I independently pursued more details on the "missing children" and came to the same conclusion.

While the system seems shaky there is nothing specifically nefarious about the current administration's handling of the situation, which seems to be the norm (unfortunately) through multiple admins.

GreenGoo wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 4:27 am That's not in any way related to the story that this administration has "lost 1500 children" though.

As you note, there are plenty of reasons to criticize this administration's immigration policies. Losing children is not one of them.

The picture of the noose surrounded by swastikas was the last straw. “It’s coming for you, are you excited?” a user on Gab wrote to Utsav Sanduja. Sanduja said he was calling the cops.

But Sanduja’s promise to alert law enforcement only made his opponents angrier.

Sanduja is the chief operating officer of Gab, a social media site beloved by the alt-right, including a vocal contingent of Nazis. The company bills itself as a “free speech” alternative to Twitter and Facebook. But the site’s anything-goes ethos seems to have chafed against its leadership; in recent weeks, members of Gab’s executive team have publicly railed against the site’s users, accusing some of sabotage and “PSYOPS,” with Gab execs threatening to call law enforcement on those users—a cardinal sin among some of the site’s “free speech” die-hards.

malchior wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:26 am https://twitter.com/Mediaite/status/1004332497000435712

Coward.

El Guapo wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:24 amI hear you, but as long as he wins his reelection bid and keeps caucusing with the Democrats, he can be open to supporting Hitler for all I care.

Paingod wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:30 am

El Guapo wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:24 amI hear you, but as long as he wins his reelection bid and keeps caucusing with the Democrats, he can be open to supporting Hitler for all I care.

The same thinking on the other side is how we got here.

I'm open to voting for people who make reasonable sense. Someone without the backbone to stand up for America is not what we need. Now, if his opposition is "I love Trump, I'll have his children right after the sex change" then he automatically becomes the lesser of two evils and wins.

El Guapo wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:52 am

Paingod wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:30 am

El Guapo wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:24 amI hear you, but as long as he wins his reelection bid and keeps caucusing with the Democrats, he can be open to supporting Hitler for all I care.

The same thinking on the other side is how we got here.

I'm open to voting for people who make reasonable sense. Someone without the backbone to stand up for America is not what we need. Now, if his opposition is "I love Trump, I'll have his children right after the sex change" then he automatically becomes the lesser of two evils and wins.

In general, sure. But the 2018 election is uniquely important in terms of flipping one chamber of Congress in order to get some actual oversight of Trump. Manchin will vote for Schumer for majority leader. Ordinarily that might not be enough, but this year it is.

Also - and this is important - but are you familiar with the West Virginia electorate? Manchin is by far the most sane possible endproduct that we could hope for.

malchior wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:04 pm

El Guapo wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:52 am

Paingod wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:30 am

El Guapo wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:24 amI hear you, but as long as he wins his reelection bid and keeps caucusing with the Democrats, he can be open to supporting Hitler for all I care.

The same thinking on the other side is how we got here.

I'm open to voting for people who make reasonable sense. Someone without the backbone to stand up for America is not what we need. Now, if his opposition is "I love Trump, I'll have his children right after the sex change" then he automatically becomes the lesser of two evils and wins.

In general, sure. But the 2018 election is uniquely important in terms of flipping one chamber of Congress in order to get some actual oversight of Trump. Manchin will vote for Schumer for majority leader. Ordinarily that might not be enough, but this year it is.

The Senate is probably not going to be in play. This win at any costs nonsense is why we are here. This is cowardly and pathetic. He deserves to lose.

Also - and this is important - but are you familiar with the West Virginia electorate? Manchin is by far the most sane possible endproduct that we could hope for.

Sure but he still only gives a shit about #1 so what does that say?

Unagi wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 7:26 pm or the iron cross on the tank.

Police have yet to find the man who stole Alexander Gauland's clothes while he swam in a lake last week, forcing the co-leader of the German Parliament's most far-right party to walk half-naked through the streets — an image that is going viral on social media.

At least the motive for the crime seems clear. “Nazis need no bathing fun!” Gauland said the thief shouted as he stole the 77-year-old lawmaker's shirt and pants.

https://twitter.com/emilyrs/status/1004302253858181120

Gauland has never publicly defended the German Nazis, who during their 12-year rule started World War II, killed millions of people and tried to exterminate all Jews. But he has repeatedly suggested that it's time to stop apologizing for the past.

“If the French are rightly proud of their emperor, and the Britons of Nelson and Churchill, we have the right to be proud of the achievements of the German soldiers in two world wars,” Gauland said in September, according to the Guardian. “People no longer need to reproach us with these 12 years. They don’t relate to our identity nowadays.”

A week and a half after he made that speech, Alternative for Germany — a party co-led by him — came third in a six-way national election, becoming the first far-right party to join the German Parliament since the Nazis.
...
As for Gauland, he has railed against foreigners of many kinds since co-founding Alternative for Germany, or AfD, in 2013.

He has called to ban Muslims from the country, Deutsche Welle reported, and once said that “not everyone who holds a German passport is German.”

Gauland denied telling a German newspaper that a black athlete was good enough to play soccer but would not be desirable as a neighbor. But he did not deny calling for a political rival to be "dumped" in Turkey, where his ancestors were born, nor has he expressed regret for any of his statements.

“Why should I?” Gauland told The Washington Post in an interview before the September election. He went on to agree with another member of his party who had objected to the Jewish Holocaust memorial in Berlin.

“He has spoken of a 'monument of shame' in the midst of the German capital,” Gauland told The Post. “And that is totally correct.”

malchior wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:04 pm The Senate is probably not going to be in play. This win at any costs nonsense is why we are here.

hepcat wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:47 pm “Nazis need no bathing fun” is one of my favorite new sayings.

We’ve condensed America down to one tweet.

"This is the gofundme for the man with terminal cancer whose wife had to go back to work to pay for it and was murdered in school the other day."

GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:09 pm Says the idiopath.

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:51 pm It really sings in its original tongue:

hepcat wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 4:02 pm I've said it before, but I'll say it again: you could be ordering a baked potato at a restaurant, but if it's in German, it will still sound like you're commanding the Wehrmacht to take Warsaw.