Usa Thread

[Steve]

I have a friend in LA who is an immigration lawyer. His social media says that the law was meant for unattended minors who enter the United States. Almost always there is a relative or someone they know in America they are going to and in the rare occasions there aren't any they are detained individually.

However, these children have parents.

 

If this was the law, then why wasn't this done widely prior to April? It was done before but under the context of the above or in need of medical attention or extenuating circumstances according to my lawyer friend. He's Salvadorean actually, UCLA law school grad (in case someone needs an immigration lawyer..lol).

 

Lastly, if it was so easy to stop it with an executive order, why wasn't it done before?

[Coss]

Problem now is that the Trump administration has not addressed and seems not to want to, the issue of the 2,000+ kids who have already been separated, so what happens to them now? This is gonna end up shitting on Trumps shoes with lifts in them.

[Steve]

A little change of pace from the usual "politricks" These American towns and cities will be under water.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/american-cities-that-will-soon-be-under-water/ss-AAyRWxS?ocid=sf

[Steve]

Stephen Miller has been credited with the idea of separating the kids.

 

https://www.salon.com/2018/06/20/why-wont-the-mainstream-media-tell-the-truth-about-racist-ghoul-stephen-miller

[Coss]

A little change of pace from the usual "politricks" These American towns and cities will be under water.

 

https://www.msn.com/...AAyRWxS?ocid=sf

 

Whilst I like arguing about Global warming / Climate change, and I am prepared to give, that the world is at present warming, rather than cooling, I do take issue with the "by next Tuesday" alarmism that pervades the discussion. I read somewhere recently that the world's sea level has gone up, in the last decade, at six times the rate they were expecting, if the rate had been the same as the decade before. So it's gone up by 0.6mm instead of the expected 0.1mm. The scientist in me says, let me know when it's gone up by 6mm over a decade, then I'll believe that the "hockey stick" effect is in play. I also take issue with, how much of the warming is attributed to Human influence. As I said, I can believe that the planet is warming, I just don't think there's evidence, of warming too much, or a vast Anthropogenic contribution to same. And if we get a cooling period, It could be part of a cycle, or part of trend.

 

 

Stephen Miller has been credited with the idea of separating the kids.

 

https://www.salon.co...-stephen-miller

 

"racist ghoul" - nice turn of phrase, for an abhorrent individual. I could forgive Trump a lot, if the people he chose to boost his popularity, weren't such vile scum.

[Steve]

Gun sales overall have plunged since Trump was elected.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/20/news/companies/american-outdoor-brands-earnings/index.html

 

..however they have risen for one demographic.

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/31/598503554/african-americans-guns-and-trump

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/age-trump-producing-more-black-gun-owners-n758211

 

What about yours truly? I don't live in America but if I did, I would possibly get a gun. I don't like the idea of having guns per se (although I fully support the 2nd amendment), I would have one in my home possibly and if I were in an open carry state, I would likely have one in my car or concealed on my person.

 

Why? I am hearing from many friends and family of verbal and sometimes physical attacks randomly as well as in my news feeds. The one thing I would definitely do and I think any black person that doesn't is nuts for not, is to install a hidden audio/visual recording device in their car.

 

In this day and age, no matter how compliant you are, there are cops who will escalate and frankly all the reports of unarmed blacks being killed is scary as hell to me. I've stated this years ago during but I've had a gun cocked and pointed at me at least a half dozen times and with one exception they have all been by police. I am as compliant as one can get when Im stopped. I don't argue at all. Raised that way by a father who would punish any of his sons for speaking disrespectively to any adult authority be they a teacher, cop or whatever. For me its yes officer, no officer and I don't argue. If I don't like the ticket I'll fight it in traffic court.

 

In LA i've even had guns drawn on me while I was in a shirt and tie. These are all "routine traffic stops" . I've noticed that in every single case where the cop was found to have been wrong there was a video and I can't think of any incident in recent memory where they were found to be wrong without a video.

 

The police narrative of events reigns supreme. I have a friend who is a LA county deputy sheriff. I introduced him to his present wife a good friend of mine. He joined the LA county sheriff's office after we had known each other for some time. He said, technically its impossible to drive 100 feet without breaking some minor traffic violation. He can always come up with a cause to stop you. It may be extremely petty (you didn't signal 100 feet exactly before turning right) but they can. Its their leeway.

 

Anyway, if I'm stopped, I want the whole thing recorded. I want it recorded surreptitiously. A secondary reason is a car accident that isn't my fault. Anyway, if a cop is acting badly enough, I would use the video the sue him, the department, his pension fund, the city, his cat, his dog, every one my lawyer can think of. I respect their job too much. Sounds strange? I try and make their job easy even if I think its a bullshit stop. They are in a dangerous job where they want to go home to see their family. However, they are given a whole lot of authority. They can legally use deadly force and that responsibility that was given as well as the powers they have should be used advisedly. If they can't do the job correctly then they shouldn't have taken it. When that power and responsibility is abused it can have life ending consequences obviously and I want those cops removed. If he or she is going to stop me and escalate things to the point they are trying to justify murder, then I'm going to make sure that they be made an example of to save others.

 

To a large extent I blame our city governments. For a few decades now the police have been used as a revenue maker. They are graded and judged in part by how many tickets and arrests they make. These monies goes into the city coffers to be used (or rather wasted) anyway the city sees fit. Its the dark little secret mayors don't tell you. Even the most liberal mayors. DeBlasio is the most liberal mayor NYC has had since possibly Ed Koch. When the mayor took the side of the victim over a well publicized unarmed shooting, the police did a slowdown. They only addressed the most urgent matters, murder, rape, etc.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/tickets-drop-92-week-apparent-nypd-slowdwon-article-1.2066763

 

It wasn't that the cops weren't answering calls for serious crimes. They just weren't writing the usual bullshit tickets for jaywalking or whatever. The city was losing a few million a day because of it and that couldn't happen.

 

American cities are broke. All of them. They can't keep taxing the citizens so they come up with taxes in another form. Tickets are one of them. That's why I saw more cops at speed traps and intersections at rush hour than you would see them in the heavily gang and drug areas. The working people are easy pickings. The drug dealers are more difficult to catch in the act because they have a system in place.

 

But I digress. The climate in America has changed. There is a dramatic increase in unprovoked verbal racial/ethic assaults on blacks, latinos, asians, etc. Especially in schools. I grew up in Philly and spent my last year and a half in the suburbs and I'm reading articles and seeing feeds on my social media from friends and family of fans and athletes traveling to away games and being met with the most offensive verbal abuse you can imagine. These are done with the adults there. I know both of these schools. Cheltenham HS sits right outside the northwest border of Philly and has a very large black population. Quakertown as its name my suggest is almost all white about 40 miles or so outside the city. I played against both those schools in HS.

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/after-racial-incident-quakertown-supe-says-this-is-not-just-a-one-time-incident-we-have-a-problem-20171019.html

 

I told my friends with kids. The one thing I would make sure my kid knew before he left elementary school was some form of self defense. Be it tae kwon do or karate or whatever. Your kid would only bully my kid once.

 

The climate nationally on the whole is very bad. Well, very bad for certain people. I was in LA for about a month in April and even though its a liberal city, it wasn't the same. I hear any small disagreement that would have been an annoyance prior such as who gets the parking space you both reach at the same time or the person is taking a bit too long to give their order, goes from 0 to 100kph escalation into verbal attacks. A few friends have told me that.

 

Interestingly enough, its the women that are the worse.

 

My advice whomever you are, and whomever the abuse comes from, make such behavior costly. Sue the shit out of people. I don't like being the over zealous person who ties up the courts with bullshit lawsuits but specifically to this type of stuff, I would. Make it costly to do that shit to people. Record it and doxy them so their names are out there and sue the shit out of them. When I hear people have gotten fired from doing saying some of the most horrendous things to people and its recorded, I have no sympathy. I'm not talking the usual 'Hey asshole, I was here first' with regards to a parking space. That's normal. I'm talking the epitath laden, n bomb laden verbal attacks.

[Steve]

I'm not scientist either. I don't know the science of global warming. I do know this though, the coal and oil industry are funding opposition to the notion of global warming due to human factors and they are pouring big money to people and scientists who will discredit the notion. For no other reason that who is funding it, I am on the side there is global warming. I've yet to see big oil on the right side of any issue, ever.

[Steve]

A quick word on ideology and the parties. I've changed over the years. I'm in my progressive state now but I (and don't kill me) supported Bush in '00. By 2004 re-election I wised up...lol...and Bernie was my man in '16. So, I have supported candidates of both parties, be it local, state or national. That said, if I had my wish tomorrow and the US would have nothing but progressives in all 3 branches I wouldn't wish it all. Because it would tend to favor the fringe, the fringe left would be the center sort of. I think we need both parties and both ideologies as a check against the other. I fear the fringe right far more but the fringe left isn't too far behind.

 

Right now the traditional Republican that we have either come to know and love or hate is the center. The far right is new norm. The Democratic party hasn't been liberal since prior to 1992. Anyone that has studied the party knows that Bill Clinton and others were part of a small clique in the party that was advocating they embrace business and distance themselves from unions because that was the norm. The dems lost 3 straight elections by wide margins ('80, '84 and '88) and didn't seem likely to win anymore. So they embraced Wall Street and the business sector. Clinton, both of them are centrists. Obama started out as a progressive but quickly became a centrist before he even took office. Anyone that can call him a liberal either doesn't know or doesn't care. He had a few Republicans in his cabinet. Comey and the others were Obama administration leftovers. Known Republicans.

 

Whisper this quietly but I wasn't thrilled with Obama either and couldn't wait to see him go. I didn't think Hillary Clinton was going to be much better either. Sanders didn't seem too far left to me. He was basically advocating European style policies such as free or low cost universities which is common in European countries, same with nationalized health care which is pretty much what all G20 nations save America and possibly a couple others haven't enacted.

[Steve]

IQs have been consistently dropping for everyone. I personally think this has to do a lot with social media. I think a lot of what we call intelligence and what we test for is from interacting face to face with the outside world. Young people are spending more and more time inside. Malls are closing all over America in large part that young people no longer go to malls. It was where my friends and I went to talk to girls, play pacman (remember that?) and see what new stuff we wanted but couldn't afford.

 

Boys are into gaming in a huge way, I've seen my friends daughters sit in front of the tv with their friends and send messages back and forth to the person next to them while watching tv. Its crazy!! Instead of talking they send messages.

 

Finally, I don't put stock in the whole notion of IQ anyway. I think its used as a precursor for more nefarious things when its applied to groups and such.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/health/falling-iq-scores-study-intl/index.html

[Coss]

Gun sales overall have plunged since Trump was elected.

http://money.cnn.com...ings/index.html

 

..however they have risen for one demographic.

https://www.npr.org/...-guns-and-trump

 

https://www.nbcnews....-owners-n758211

 

What about yours truly? I don't live in America but if I did, I would possibly get a gun.

 

If I was in America, I would get a gun, unless I could be assured that no-one in several hundred miles had one. But I'm sorry to say, someone would have to pay me a huge truck of money to go to the USA again. Too much trouble for meek and timid me.

 

I'm not scientist either. I don't know the science of global warming. I do know this though, the coal and oil industry are funding opposition to the notion of global warming due to human factors and they are pouring big money to people and scientists who will discredit the notion. For no other reason that who is funding it, I am on the side there is global warming. I've yet to see big oil on the right side of any issue, ever.

 

You have a point about big oil, but they're arguing the PR, the notion, to keep sales going.

 

The good thing about the response to global warming is that everything that is being done, should be being done anyway, warming or cooling...

 

PTBM will take issue with me here, but some of the islands in the pacific are suffering sinking, others are not, some are growing, same same coastal erosion. My parents holiday by the seaside here in NZ and after every storm, the sea shore is either gone, or has comeback in a big way, often to the tune of 10~ 20 acres...

 

My stance, is that climate changes, continuously, Anthropogenic contributions may or may not be significant.

 

A quick word on ideology and the parties. I've changed over the years. I'm in my progressive state now but I (and don't kill me) supported Bush in '00. By 2004 re-election I wised up...lol...and Bernie was my man in '16. ...

 

Sanders most closely aligns to my view of the world. The rest are self enriching scum in my opinion

 

IQs have been consistently dropping for everyone...........

Finally, I don't put stock in the whole notion of IQ anyway. I think its used as a precursor for more nefarious things when its applied to groups and such.

https://www.cnn.com/...intl/index.html

 

You may have seen this earlier::

 

I am sure education before the IQ test plays a big part. Just being able to understand the test, is a part of it in my humble opinion...

 

When I took the test at age 12, here in NZ, one of the questions was about nickels, dimes and quarters. We here in NZ had dollars and cents and there were at the time 1c, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, and $1 notes etc etc. But we called 'em that, 1c, 2c, etc.

 

So we hadn't heard of much American language at the time and used British like the Queen spoke it.

 

I worked out what a quarter was, but had no idea whether nickels and dimes referred to denominations or parts of the country - so next time I did the test , I'd found out.