Donald Trump Presidency discussion Thread VIII (threadbanned users listed in OP)

listermint

Reports on twitter this morning of a whistleblower in ICE claiming there is wide scale hysterectomy of people in detention.

If true surely this literally blows ICE apart as an entity.

looksee

I think I would need more than a twitter report to believe that!

Edit: ok then... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/14/ice-detainees-hysterectomies-medical-neglect-irwin-georgia

listermint

looksee wrote: »

I think I would need more than a twitter report to believe that!

Links provided

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1305674891082035201

StringerBell

The nazi comparisons grow louder each day whether it's waved away as hysterics or not.

If really hope this doesn't turn out to be correct.

pixelburp

For those who think this thread is just a series of Confirmation Bias stories; I sincerely, honestly hope this whistleblower is full of shít because the idea that ICE has just gone full blown Nazi is frightening to contemplate. I want this story to be false because otherwise it's not even a question of "slippery slope" anymore the US will have finally indulged in proper, industrialised crimes against humanity. The question of the Federal government being brought to the Hauge would become pertinent in my mind.

banie01

The whistleblower complaint as outlined in the guardian is extremely worrying.

On the one hand, part of me is actually quite immediately biased towards the fact the facility mentioned is in Georgia. It's Southern trash rednecks on a solo run.

Then that raises 2 concerns for me, my own immediate framing of the complaint in my own stereotyped racism.
And
Jesus Christ, please let it not be true!
Whatever about the godwinning of Trump and this thread, please don't let it be true that the US has descended to this level of cruelty and dehumanisation.

Eugenics and indeed any interference in the reproductive rights of people without their explicit and informed consent is a fúcking monstrosity.

TomOnBoard

listermint wrote: »

Links provided

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1305674891082035201

Once again, AOC offers a clear, direct, sober, frightening, horrific, barbaric indictment of a President, an Administration, a country and its people.

For all those who stand by and do nothing- shame on them.
For all those who participate- shame on them.
For all those who vote for the policies that allow this- shame on them.
For all those who go to work and actually do this- shame on them.

A time will come when the shame will be such that even atonement will not wash it off! As other peoples found out, they will not be able to hide behind "I didn't know"!

Quin_Dub

And in other , almost certainly not unrelated news , Judges rule that both the "Acting head" and "Acting Deputy head" of Homeland Security are unlawfully serving in those roles.

A federal judge in Maryland on Friday ruled that Chad Wolf is likely unlawfully serving as acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and temporarily barred the Trump administration from enforcing new asylum restrictions on members of two immigration advocacy groups, according to court documents.

"In sum, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs are likely to demonstrate (former acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin) McAleenan's appointment was invalid under the agency's applicable order of succession, and so he lacked the authority to amend the order of succession to ensure Wolf's installation as Acting Secretary," Judge Paula Xinis' 69-page ruling said.
Xinis also wrote that "by extension, because Wolf filled the role of Acting Secretary without authority, he promulgated the challenged rules also 'in excess of...authority,' and not 'in accordance with the law.'"

Two guys with fairly chequered histories to say the least in terms of their actions are breaking the law just by being there.

These guys ultimately control ICE.

Billy Mays

"If these women hadn't crossed the border illegally this wouldn't have happened" will be the excuse trotted out

duploelabs

Billy Mays wrote: »

"If these women hadn't crossed the border illegally this wouldn't have happened" will be the excuse trotted out

Already has been on the after hours/IMHO by the trolls that inhabit that thread

Timberrrrrrrr

Billy Mays wrote: »

"If these women hadn't crossed the border illegally this wouldn't have happened" will be the excuse trotted out

It has already been used in one of the other threads over in t'other village, still gobsmacked anyone could have written that excuse out especially if these horrific crimes are true.

aloyisious

MSN has posted a report by Danielle Zoellner filed with the Independent on the views of Michael Caputo Asst Sec for public affairs at DHSS about CDC staffers being seditious to Trump. Mr Caputo says Dr Redfield, head of CDC, is a good friend of his, presumably to preserve Dr Redfield in his job.

It's another part of Mr Caputo's thoughts, about the 2020 election result that stand out as unusual even when one looks at peoples het-up feelings in either camp and none. Mr Caputo, a political appointee of Trump to DHSS and former head of communications on his 2015/16 election campaign in NY, think's what'll happen next year if Joe doesn't concede to Don & Don refuses to stand aside at the inauguration, is that the shooting will begin and advises ladies and gentlemen to buy ammo if they carry guns. According to the report, Mr Caputo's thoughts were made on his facebook page privately to 5,000 friends there. Mr Caputo also made a comment about his family's life being at risk and an unidentified "they" going to have to kill him.

According to his Wiki page, Mr Caputo has a mixed history of employment as an advisor to different politicians around the world in areas where Trump has stated his concerns, including with Vlad in Russia and others in Ukraine.

fly_agaric

Would not be that shocked by it unfortunately.:(
The US prison system is as far as I know fairly inhumane and has had plenty of scandals over the years.
Americans seem to like it like that (or enough of them so the machine continues).
The current administration there has gone much further than before in fully criminalising and punishing illegal immigrants, so unfortunanately the cruel logic of that is they start to suffer same kinds of human rights violations that US prisoners suffer/have suffered when they are in ICE custody.

Retr0gamer

The prisons being privatised is a big part of it. I mean only in a system like that would falling convictions be a problem. In some places convictions are up because they need to fill prisons to keep them profitable.

Muahahaha

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The prisons being privatised is a big part of it. I mean only in a system like that would falling convictions be a problem. In some places convictions are up because they need to fill prisons to keep them profitable.

And when prisons are privitised the companies are then naturally incentivised to bribe judges to fill them up.

In Kids for Cash scandal in Pennsylvania over 4,000 childrens convictions were overturned after it was found two judges took bribes of over $3m to fill up the empty space in them

A long-serving judge has been ordered to spend nearly 30 years in prison for his role in a bribery scandal that prompted the state's high court to overturn thousands of juvenile convictions.
Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr was sentenced on Thursday to 28 years in prison for taking $1m (£617,000) in bribes from the builder of two juvenile detention centres in a case that became known as "kids-for-cash".
The Pennsylvania supreme court overturned about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.
Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. His lawyers had asked for a "reasonable" sentence in court papers, saying, in effect, that he had already been punished enough.
"The media attention to this matter has exceeded coverage given to many and almost all capital murders, and despite protestation, he will forever be unjustly branded as the 'kids for cash' judge," they said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/11/kids-for-cash-judge-pennsylvania

A similar scandal happened in Texas too with the judge taking money to fill up the local prison. These are only the ones that are known about, theres likely to be more out there who have yet to be caught.

Retr0gamer

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/private-prisons-have-a-problem-not-enough-inmates

Only in america would falling prison numbers be seen as a bad thing.

Igotadose

Retr0gamer wrote: »

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/private-prisons-have-a-problem-not-enough-inmates

Only in america would falling prison numbers be seen as a bad thing.

Paywalled, but one thing it appears to point out is the new slavery they're doing with drug rehab. Putting people to work, no payment, raking in huge profits. It's why rehab should be if not outright banned, seriously regulated consistently nationwide in the US (and Ireland, too.)

TomOnBoard

Igotadose wrote: »

Paywalled, but one thing it appears to point out is the new slavery they're doing with drug rehab. Putting people to work, no payment, raking in huge profits. It's why rehab should be if not outright banned, seriously regulated consistently nationwide in the US (and Ireland, too.)

Such forms of slavery are endemic in the US prison system and have been since forever. Its not just a Trump Presidency issue. A current example can be found in California where prisoner firefighters battle wildfires and get $1 an hour. Indentured slavery exists all over the place. Remember the New York State using prisoners to make hand sanitizer early on in the Covid response. A good cause (in terms of outcome) serviced by an appalling system that is set up to profit from prisoners in almost all aspects of the so-called Justice system.

MadYaker

Retr0gamer wrote: »

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/private-prisons-have-a-problem-not-enough-inmates

Only in america would falling prison numbers be seen as a bad thing.

Well the privatised prison system is a big earner for groups like the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group

These guys need to keep the millions rolling in and that means people in cages no matter what. It's a great system they have over there :pac: a very effective method of moving tax payers money into the pockets of private individuals.

Overheal

Making prison for profit was a disaster waiting to happen. Every business in a capitalist economy is interested in only one activity: growth. There's only one way to do that when your product is incarceration.

Gbear

Overheal wrote: »

Making prison for profit was a disaster waiting to happen. Every business in a capitalist economy is interested in only one activity: growth. There's only one way to do that when your product is incarceration.

You could perhaps engineer a system where inmate numbers isn't the goal, but rather reducing recidivism is - bonuses based on how many inmates return to work, don't get arrested in the future, etc.

I don't necessarily disagree that capitalism might be a problem in this case, but the police state, racism and the latent facism of the US are bigger factors, IMO.

Private prisons are tailored that way because the goal is to incarcertate and disenfranchise large numbers of "neer-do-wells" - mostly minorities these days, but historically, lefties and hippies as well.

A bigger captialism-related failure would be how the legal system in the US in large part arose around protecting capital. Again, a lot of that was from minorities, but also from labour.

While they're less direct about it these days, I think the hand-wringing around destruction of property by the right wing, while there have been decades of failures to deal with police violence, or how the murder rates among black people are just shrugged at because "it's their own fault" or whatever, betrays the fact that the goal of the police is still to protect the capital class.

volchitsa

Gbear wrote: »

You could perhaps engineer a system where inmate numbers isn't the goal, but rather reducing recidivism is - bonuses based on how many inmates return to work, don't get arrested in the future, etc.

I don't necessarily disagree that capitalism might be a problem in this case, but the police state, racism and the latent facism of the US are bigger factors, IMO.

Private prisons are tailored that way because the goal is to incarcertate and disenfranchise large numbers of "neer-do-wells" - mostly minorities these days, but historically, lefties and hippies as well.

A bigger captialism-related failure would be how the legal system in the US in large part arose around protecting capital. Again, a lot of that was from minorities, but also from labour.

While they're less direct about it these days, I think the hand-wringing around destruction of property by the right wing, while there have been decades of failures to deal with police violence, or how the murder rates among black people are just shrugged at because "it's their own fault" or whatever, betrays the fact that the goal of the police is still to protect the capital class.

But then that's not the market economy or capitalism, that's just the government setting desired targets and paying according to how well they are fulfilled. Which is akin to the Communist centrally-controlled system.

In fact it sounds very much like how I imagine the Chinese system now works - private enterprise obeying the dictat of the government.

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The prisons being privatised is a big part of it. I mean only in a system like that would falling convictions be a problem. In some places convictions are up because they need to fill prisons to keep them profitable.

It's one of those things I knew but each time I remember it I can't help but laugh; many states use prisoners as back-up firefighters so they end up fighting wildfires. Great, I guess they're learning a skill for when they get out. Except having a felony conviction usually prevents them from joining the fire service.
It's just a depressingly perfect example of the Prison Industrial Complex doing nothing for prisoners.
The California governor is now (yesterday?) signing a bill to change that in CA at least. Though in his statement I noticed a strong "some" being used so the devil could well be in the detail.

Gbear

volchitsa wrote: »

But then that's not the market economy or capitalism, that's just the government setting desired targets and paying according to how well they are fulfilled. Which is akin to the Communist centrally-controlled system.

In fact it sounds very much like how I imagine the Chinese system now works - private enterprise obeying the dictat of the government.

Public private partnerships are pretty standard everywhere, and that's already how it works in the US. AFAIK, they're paid by the state for each inmate (as are private companies by ICE, for immigrants). They also use the inmates as slave labour, but that's another thing.

The people getting paid are still private companies and there is competition for contracts and for being able to meet the requirements in a way that maximises their own revenue.

The changing of targets from just sheer number of inmates, and an independent investigatory and regulatory body would shift the focus from cramming in bodies for cash to trying to output reformed people. Now, that might still be inferior than just having publicly owned prisons, but at least you couldn't argue they're a deliberate attempt to destroy minority communities for political ends.

fly_agaric

Gbear wrote: »

Public private partnerships are pretty standard everywhere, and that's already how it works in the US. AFAIK, they're paid by the state for each inmate (as are private companies by ICE, for immigrants). They also use the inmates as slave labour, but that's another thing.

I think if the goal is fill up the prisons, spend as little as possible on inmate upkeep/welfare and also use them as slave labour to wring out as much profit as possible, the only outcome can be a disgusting, inhumane and cruel system.
I suppose some of the same perverse incentives are at work for companies contracting for ICE.

Gbear

fly_agaric wrote: »

I think if the goal is fill up the prisons, spend as little as possible on inmate upkeep/welfare and also use them as slave labour to wring out as much profit as possible, the only outcome can be a disgusting, inhumane and cruel system.
I suppose some of the same perverse incentives are at work for companies contracting for ICE.

Well, that's why I said change the goal.

As with virtually every social issue, it doesn't take much digging to find that the Republican stated position is one being stated in bad faith.

With gun control, if there were sane, competent ideas being floated to reduce gang violence, like proposing changes to drug legislation, or proposing improvements to healthcare access to reduce suicide, you could believe the honesty of people arguing about relative harms of gun deaths or how spree shooters aren't actually that significant as a cause of death in the US.

With abortion, if you saw conservatives pushing for reform to sexual education, to access to contraception, or other measurse to decrease the numbers of people getting pregnant and helping them stay in school, you might believe they're actually pro life.

With prisons and justice, if they had any interest in reducing the grip of the police state on minority communities, if they were against capital punishment (which, if nothing else, is incredibly inefficient), and if they had some kind of suggestion to change the incentive structure of the prison industrial complex to attempt to produce a reduction in recidivism rather than being a hole where you throw the out-group, you might actually believe they mean law and order, and not a police state that oppresses those outside certain protected ethnic and religious groups.

But it's all bull****. And that is why the GOP is brimming with narcissistic, amoral con-artists from top to bottom. If you don't have any true democratic, egalitarian principles, it's no surprise that a fascist rocks up and has near unanimous support.

TomOnBoard

Not sure which thread is dealing with this subject at this stage, but Caputo allegedly held an emergency meeting in DHHS today to a) apologise for his weekend tirade and b) signal that he's looking for a medical leave of absence.

Water John

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Not sure which thread is dealing with this subject at this stage, but Caputo allegedly held an emergency meeting in DHHS today to a) apologise for his weekend tirade and b) signal that he's looking for a medical leave of absence.

Sadly his brain is a bit disconnected from reality. When they start digging more into him, wonder what they will find? Hasn't a great employment history.

TomOnBoard

Water John wrote: »

Sadly his brain is a bit disconnected from reality. When they start digging more into him, wonder what they will find? Hasn't a great employment history.

Should never had been put in... now exhibiting the paranoid schitzophrenia symptoms. Real or avoidance of Congress inquiry???

StringerBell

mcmoustache wrote: »

Probably worked for Putin or some such. You know how it is with these guys.

He worked for Yeltsin anyway.