... to be over the moon that Trump has been found GUILTY on all 34 charges?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Whoop whoop!

@Bullpuckey

You really need to read project 2025 and you need to consider the ways that women's current access to reproductive care is being impacted in Republican run states.

Look at the direction of travel.

A Republican party that's aggressively opposed to immigration and also to an expansion of social provision when it comes to affordable housing and childcare; a party that's ideologically wedded to trashing the regulatory framework that protects employees, and against extending women's rights to paid maternity leave - this is a party that is facing an existential crisis: it has an ageing workforce and a plummeting birth rate. These things are simply facts - you cannot grow your economy without a constant supply of new workers and with a disproportionately sick and elderly population.

And it's this this accounts for the heat around women's access to reproductive care. This and the rise of the influence of Christian Nationalists in the Republican party. They want women pushed back in the home making babies.

Look, you have every right to vote how you want. I have every right to think you're either stupid, loathsome or a combination.

You do not have the right to misrepresent what I said, which is that he said he was ok with states monitoring women's pregnancies. Here's the actual interview.

https://time.com/6972022/donald-trump-transcript-2024-election/

And, you're citing Youngkin's spokesperson as a reliable source on what Democrats are doing? There aren't enough lols in the world for that.

And the reality is that things don't happen until they do, but groundwork is laid. This is a really interesting book that goes in depth into how as Democrats spent years trying to win hearts and minds on abortion/reproductive care, the Republicans were stacking courts, state legislatures and legislation like dominos. This is yet another domino.

I understand the Federal system perfectly well, by the way, but thanks for your concern.

"the broad public support for abortion access is why the former president has tiptoed or flip-flopped around this issue, but he has repeatedly said that he would allow states to restrict abortion care as much as they want to, including even tracking pregnancies."

Trump is a chaos merchant who will do whatever is best for Trump at that particular moment in the political ecosphere. Which is why he's made contradictory statements about both birth control and abortion.

"Trump's line has become, that the votes aren't there for a national 15-week abortion ban, that there aren't 60 votes in the Senate for it.
But language across the Project 2025 document makes clear that the authors believe that life begins at conception. And they specifically state that the Health and Human Services Department should return to being known as the Department of Life. They explicitly reject the notion that abortion is health care.
And so some of their abortion policy proposals include scrapping federal funding to Planned Parenthood, undoing the Biden administration rule that shields medical records related to abortion from criminal investigations — that's if a patient crosses state lines — reversing the FDA approval of mifepristone, which is one of the two pills used for medical abortion, and mailing — making mailing abortion pills to patients illegal.
And they would do that under the Comstock Act, a 19th century law that bans mailing anything that could facilitate an abortion."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trumps-plans-for-healthcare-and-reproductive-rights-if-he-returns-to-white-house

So no answer to why the USA - with its low population density and high GDP is simply unable to accommodate working adults under DACA who've lived practically their whole lives in the country and are deeply enmeshed in their communities, including those whose spouses and children are US citizens

Just because America ‘has the space’ (we don’t, actually) doesn’t mean we are obligated to accept illegal migrants and their non-citizen children.

When do we actually get to enforce immigration laws? We make an allowance for this, more will end up coming hoping to bend the rules. You know it, and you really don’t care because you fundamentally don’t believe in borders, do you?

(Except, I suppose, when it comes to colonialism. THEN it doesn’t matter to you at all, the colonisers need to go home, correct?)

Immigration can be very bad — you see it in the Palestinian situation. Do you think the desperate Jewish migrants, targeted for literal death, should have been allowed to settle in Palestine and change the demographics of the region beyond recognition? Really?

You don't think it's cruel to take someone who's got no memory of having lived in their birth country, who has likely never visited that country since they left as children or babies, to forcibly remove them from their home and family in the US and send them to live in this place they don't know?

I don’t think it is. That is their home country, they have relatives/extended family to which their parents are sending remittances and they will certainly be able to speak the local language.

Or you've developed into a hard hearted person as you've got older and that's what's drawn you towards the Republican Party?

No, the Democrats have changed. They used to be supportive of border control because it hurt their blue collar voters.

I don’t remember the Clinton years so well, but I’ve seen clips where he talked in very clear terms about the need for deportation and stiff penalties for illegal immigrants. He was behind the ‘Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act’ which were really very restrictive.

Now you're justifying the police shooting people who are engaging in this

It is not just police. It is the shopkeepers who are protecting their property.

You often ask why shopkeepers value their property over another’s life, but few ask why some people value other’s property over their own life?

But language across the Project 2025 document makes clear that the authors believe that life begins at conception

This is typical Heritage Foundation stance. It isn’t Trump’s stance necessarily. And pro-life politicians nor referendums have done well with voters

And so some of their abortion policy proposals include scrapping federal funding to Planned Parenthood, undoing the Biden administration rule that shields medical records related to abortion from criminal investigations — that's if a patient crosses state lines — reversing the FDA approval of mifepristone, which is one of the two pills used for medical abortion, and mailing — making mailing abortion pills to patients illegal

LOL. LMAO. Good luck getting that through Congress (not gonna happen)

That said, I don’t think taxpayer money should go to Planned Parenthood given that many disagree with the practice of abortion. There will be plenty of people happy to donate their post-tax income (and get a tax break!!!) so no need to fund it federally imho

But language across the Project 2025 document makes clear that the authors believe that life begins at conception

So go harder. Fuck that snowflake thinking. Life begins well before conception obviously. Every sperm is sacred. We need a constitution amendment to make male masturbation punishable by death. It's the only language they understand.

It's not as if these folk are playing with the science - or a full deck anyway.

@Bullpuckey

"This is typical Heritage Foundation stance. It isn’t Trump’s stance necessarily."

Trump doesn't have any values except to do what's best for Trump. Which is what makes him so profoundly dangerous as a leader.

"And pro-life politicians nor referendums have done well with voters"

Trump is working hand in glove with organisations who know that the radical social and economic agenda they are planning for America will simply not be possible without subverting democratic norms.

That plan is already underway. Complex and detailed plans for expanding the powers of the executive and deconstruct the administrative state are described in granular detail in the 900 pages of Project 2025. It's been described as 'a blueprint for authoritarianism'.

This is what you're facilitating if you vote for Trump.

Please read bpr.studentorg.berkeley.edu/2023/11/17/project-2025-democratic-doomsday/

"That said, I don’t think taxpayer money should go to Planned Parenthood given that many disagree with the practice of abortion. There will be plenty of people happy to donate their post-tax income (and get a tax break!!!) so no need to fund it federally imho"

And people who are pacifists and conscientious objectors - why should they have to pay to arm the US forces, or for the cost of operations in the theatre of war?

What about atheists? They're paying through their tax dollars for the public services & infrastructure used by churches that the churches don't pay for themselves because they're tax exempt.

Or people who disagree with the death sentence paying for their tax dollars to fund the costs of executions.

You're arguing to set a very dangerous precedent.

BTW - Planned Parenthood is absolutely fundamental to the healthcare of poorer women. It doesn't just provide abortions. It provides sexual health education and treatment, cancer screening, birth control, emergency contraception. Why would you want to dispense with a service so vital to the wellbeing of women?

And people who are pacifists and conscientious objectors - why should they have to pay to arm the US forces, or for the cost of operations in the theatre of war?

Amish people don’t. They aren’t even subject to conscription. So if you don’t want your taxes to go to the military, start forming a community.

What about atheists? They're paying through their tax dollars for the public services & infrastructure used by churches that the churches don't pay for themselves because they're tax exempt

Atheists can do this too. Did you know the Church of Satan (an atheist religion) has tax-free status?

Or people who disagree with the death sentence paying for their tax dollars to fund the costs of executions

This is funded at the state level. You can abolish the death penalty at the state level (or move somewhere more in keeping with your views)

BTW - Planned Parenthood is absolutely fundamental to the healthcare of poorer women

I agree and I have literally donated to them in the past. I just don’t think taxpayers should fund it as many do disagree with abortion on ethical grounds. It’s a legitimate position to hold even if you don’t agree with it.

It doesn't just provide abortions. It provides sexual health education and treatment, cancer screening, birth control, emergency contraception. Why would you want to dispense with a service so vital to the wellbeing of women?

I am not. I have donated to them in the past (again, tax breaks!) and I know that, as many Americans feel strongly about their mission, plenty others will donate as well!

"Just because America ‘has the space’ (we don’t, actually) doesn’t mean we are obligated to accept illegal migrants and their non-citizen children."

Factually - you do have 'space'.

And no, you're not legally obligated to behave in a humane way towards DACA recipients.

Ethically? Obviously the majority of Americans, and the vast majority of Republicans are Christians. So much for Christian compassion. 🙄

So are you arguing that nobody's tax dollars should go towards paying for any PP services? Ie, abolish PP?

Or just that people who object to abortion should withhold their taxes for that aspect of PP?

@Bullpuckey

So have you familiarised yourself with Project 2025 yet? If you vote for Trump you'll be sanctioning this, so you probably should...

And people who are pacifists and conscientious objectors - why should they have to pay to arm the US forces, or for the cost of operations in the theatre of war?

I don't understand this mindset at all.

Lets face it you have to be extremely dense to think war and conflict are a good thing. But its a necessary evil. Bullies cannot prevail, men wage war, and it's mainly men, so defence not attack has to be prepared for and expected

It's far too simplistic to talk in terms of "these people over here are pacifists and here's this other group over here who are warmongers". Who are these black-and-white people anyway?

Nor that the "pacifists" shouldn't have to pay tax to defend the country, keep it secure, support humanitarian crises,because they don't believe it war. That's crazy. They may not like all the messy nasty stuff but they get to benefit all the same while they take the moral high ground on their CND soapbox

It's like people who rage against pharmaceutical companies, if their loved one is sick will they refuse medical treatment because drugs have to be tested on animals, no so they then go into cognitive dissonance and somehow self-justify their decision, because its them not someone else

BTW - Planned Parenthood is absolutely fundamental to the healthcare of poorer women. It doesn't just provide abortions. It provides sexual health education and treatment, cancer screening, birth control, emergency contraception. Why would you want to dispense with a service so vital to the wellbeing of women?

This. I used Planned Parenthood in my 20s to do exactly this….plan not to become pregnant yet. I got my birth control pills there so I could be in control of when I started my family. Planned Parenthood was my lifeline to access birth control pills in a country with no NHS.

Factually - you do have 'space

Just because you live cheek to jowl in the UK doesn’t mean the rest of the world is required to live like you do.

I have lived in China with its billion people. It is, as they say, people ocean people sea. We don’t have to live like this.

And no, you're not legally obligated to behave in a humane way towards DACA recipients

We can deport people humanely. Giving them notice, giving them time to arrange their affairs, allowing them to remit their finances, and perhaps get all their social security contributions back. Only use force when they refuse to go home.

Obviously the majority of Americans, and the vast majority of Republicans are Christians. So much for Christian compassion

I am not Christian. But you don’t have to allow infinity immigrants out of Christian compassion. Look what happened to the Lebanese — Christians used to be the majority religion in that country. Now the Muslims make up over half the population. It is not the open, cosmopolitan society it was in the past.

Or indeed—Palestine. In hindsight, Palestine should never have accepted so many Jewish refugees. They’ll never get their country back. Is this an acceptable outcome, because the Jews needed a safe place to go?

"Just because you live cheek to jowl in the UK doesn’t mean the rest of the world is required to live like you do. "

90% of the UK is not built on. We do not 'live cheek by jowel'.

In the US many people choose to live in cities with high population density. There are vast swathes of the country with very low population density where the economy is struggling as a result.

But the fact that you offer it as justification for treating DACA recipients so inhumanly. God you people are gross.

"We can deport people humanely"

'We can separate people from their spouse, work, family, community and everything they've ever known, and send them to a place that's poor and dangerous - a place they do not know, they may know no one and may not be able to find work. We can ban them from returning to the only place they've ever known as home. We can do this HUMANELY.'

Sure you can.

Did someone drop you on your head as a child?

Would you like a spade so you can keep digging?

@Bullpuckey

"you don’t have to allow infinity immigrants out of Christian compassion"

That's not what we've been discussing though, and I have not argued that American should have open borders.

We've been talking about the fate of people living in the US under the DACA programme who are in the situation they're in through no fault of their own, many of whom have known no other life than the one they've lived in the US and most of whom are highly integrated into their community.

If you need to throw in straw man arguments to distract from the fact that you can't adequately defend your position on DACA then it's no point discussing this issue with you.
I

90% of the UK is not built on. We do not 'live cheek by jowel

You actually do though and everyone feels it within their cramped housing.

In the US many people choose to live in cities with high population density

Thats where the jobs are.

There are vast swathes of the country with very low population density where the economy is struggling as a result

Bringing in unskilled migrant workers will not help these areas. In fact, this has been done for years in the US and things have only got worse in those places (I am from one such place; I can assure you it is worse than ever)

But the fact that you offer it as justification for treating DACA recipients so inhumanly. God you people are gross

We are not treating them inhumanely. They have a home country. This part you refuse to understand.

We can separate people from their spouse, work, family, community and everything they've ever known, and send them to a place that's poor and dangerous

If everyone who left a ‘poor and dangerous’ country fled to the global north, what do you think would happen?

Their parents took them to America as children—the parents would have known they could be deported at any moment. Yet their children are somehow unprepared for this outcome? Not very likely.

We can ban them from returning to the only place they've ever known as home. We can do this HUMANELY

I have described a humane process of deportation. There is nothing inhumane about sending a non-citizen back to their home country in principle.

Did someone drop you on your head as a child

For someone from the ‘be kind’ contingent, you should refrain from engaging in nasty personal attacks. Please remain civil.

Ah, that's the US right wing. Complaining about incivility while advocating the most inhumane policies possible. Such snowflakes. My heart bleeds.

@Bullpuckey
For someone from the ‘be kind’ contingent, you should refrain from engaging in nasty personal attacks. Please remain civil."

What makes you think I'm from the 'be kind contingent'? What even is the 'be kind contingent'?

I don't think we should 'be kind' to anyone who's facilitating America's slide into a autocracy.

I don't think we should be kind to people who support obviously inhumane immigration policy.

I think we should call out cruelty, lies, distortions and stupidity when we're confronted with them. If you people had done that you wouldn't be facing going into an election with a convicted felon and a sociopath as the Republican candidate.

I have described a humane process of deportation. There is nothing inhumane about sending a non-citizen back to their home country in principle.

Well, not if you completely ignore the devastating psychological and social impact of tearing a person away from their family - including spouses & children, friends and community, and sending them to live alone in a country they may have no memory of at all, knowing they can never return to live in the country they know as home.

By the way I notice you need to refer to DACA recipients as 'non-citizens'. You can't refer to them as 'people' because that would require you to think of them as human beings with the same needs and feelings that you have.

Ah, that's the US right wing. Complaining about incivility while advocating the most inhumane policies possible. Such snowflakes. My heart bleeds

Ah yes. Attack the person when you cannot attack the argument. If your arguments were so strong, you’d not resort to such tactics.

@Bullpuckey
"Their parents took them to America as children—the parents would have known they could be deported at any moment. Yet their children are somehow unprepared for this outcome? Not very likely."

How do you psychologically prepare someone for the possibility of losing everything they've got? Everything they've worked for? For losing community, family, friends, work, home?

How?

I'm sure most DACA recipients have grown up knowing that there's a chance of them being deported. But some DACA recipients have gone on to obtain citizenship, so of course families live in hope.

I don't think we should 'be kind' to anyone who's facilitating America's slide into an autocracy

That much is clear lol.

I don't think we should be kind to people who support obviously inhumane immigration policy

You saying it is inhumane doesn’t make it so.

Well, not if you completely ignore the devastating psychological and social impact of tearing a person away from their family - including spouses & children, friends and community, and sending them to live alone in a country they may have no memory of at all, knowing they can never return to live in the country they know as home

By definition it is not their home. It may be psychologically difficult to live in a country you do not belong to; that is their parent’s fault.

Although America has some fault for not deporting them in a timely fashion.

By the way I notice you need to refer to DACA recipients as 'non-citizens'. You can't refer to them as 'people' because that would require you to think of them as human beings with the same needs and feelings that you have

I am making a distinction between citizens, who have the right to stay, with non-citizens, who don’t. I could say people, but that is imprecise. They aren’t citizens so have no right to stay.

How do you psychologically prepare someone for the possibility of losing everything they've got? Everything they've worked for? For losing community, family, friends, work, home

Anyone on a working visa knows that it could cease at any moment and prepare for that possibility. In some countries, you might only have one month to get your affairs in order if your contract is not renewed. If you are working illegally, it is doubly risky and you must prepare your children for that.

But some DACA recipients have gone on to obtain citizenship, so of course families live in hope

And this is WHY people keep coming. You must take away this incentive or people will keep trying to bend the rules in their favor

Why wouldn't someone attack the morals and behaviour of someone who's exhibiting the sort of hard heartedness that you've made such a display of on this thread?

You'll shout 'Godwin's Law' in response to this, but the lesson of 20th century history is that as a society we shouldn't ignore or normalise the dehumanisation of other people, for the sake of politeness. Your posts make it so clear that you don't see DACA recipients as having the same humanity as American citizens. The fact that it hasn't even occurred to you that it would be absolutely psychologically devastating for someone who has only ever known home to be the USA to be torn out of their community and banned from ever returning. The fact that you've repeatedly ignored it when I've pointed out that this will often involve tearing families apart - separating children from parents, adults from their spouses. :-(