[Winstonm]

Quote

President Trump Dennison vetoed a tribute drafted by White House officials that praised the late Sen. John McCain for his military service and labeled him a “hero,” instead opting for his perfunctory “deepest sympathies” tweet, according to a Sunday report from the Washington Post

To be fair, it is difficult to compare the degrees of heroic behavior between a U.S. military member who was captured and tortured by the North Vietnamese with another who avoided military service six times while he battled really uncomfortable bones spurs and the accompanying aggravation of trying to find a comfortable yet stylish pair of Cole Hahn loafers to wear to his 6 appearances in bankruptcy court.

[kenberg]

 Winstonm, on 2018-August-26, 19:38, said:

To be fair, it is difficult to compare the degrees of heroic behavior between a U.S. military member who was captured and tortured by the North Vietnamese with another who avoided military service six times while he battled really uncomfortable bones spurs and the accompanying aggravation of trying to find a comfortable yet stylish pair of Cole Hahn loafers to wear to his 6 appearances in bankruptcy court.

Surely anything that Trump chose to say, even the "deepest sympathy and deepest respect" that he did say, would appear hypocritical and unwelcome. Really the best Trump could do is to shut up. In theory he could reflect on how it got to the point where the best he can say is nothing at all, but reflection is not his style.

[barmar]

 kenberg, on 2018-August-27, 06:35, said:

Surely anything that Trump chose to say, even the "deepest sympathy and deepest respect" that he did say, would appear hypocritical and unwelcome. Really the best Trump could do is to shut up. In theory he could reflect on how it got to the point where the best he can say is nothing at all, but reflection is not his style.

He had to say something. Ignoring McCain's passing completely would be viewed as even a bigger diss than his sympathy for the family tweet. Yeah, praising him now after the horrible things he's said about him in the past would seem artificial. But sometimes purely symbolic gestures are called for, like keeping the flag at half staff until the man is laid to rest. But Trump can't even manage that.

[Winstonm]

 barmar, on 2018-August-27, 09:32, said:

He had to say something. Ignoring McCain's passing completely would be viewed as even a bigger diss than his sympathy for the family tweet. Yeah, praising him now after the horrible things he's said about him in the past would seem artificial. But sometimes purely symbolic gestures are called for, like keeping the flag at half staff until the man is laid to rest. But Trump can't even manage that.

He is petty and vindictive as are the majority of his supporters.

[johnu]

Dennison, without evidence, blames China for hacking Clinton emails

I'm sure Fox Propaganda Channel will add additional details like whether the "real" hacker weighed 400 pounds.

[Winstonm]

WaPo reports:

Quote

PHARR, Tex. — On paper, he’s a devoted U.S. citizen.

His official American birth certificate shows he was delivered by a midwife in Brownsville, at the southern tip of Texas. He spent his life wearing American uniforms: three years as a private in the Army, then as a cadet in the Border Patrol and now as a state prison guard.

But when Juan, 40, applied to renew his U.S. passport this year, the government’s response floored him. In a letter, the State Department said it didn’t believe he was an American citizen.

As he would later learn, Juan is one of a growing number of people whose official birth records show they were born in the United States but who are now being denied passports — their citizenship suddenly thrown into question. The Trump administration is accusing hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Hispanics along the border of using fraudulent birth certificates since they were babies, and it is undertaking a widespread crackdown on their citizenship.

O.K. I'm calling bull. Time for Dennison to provide proof that not only is he American born, but also born to human parents. (We know Stephen Miller is not human).

[barmar]

 Winstonm, on 2018-August-29, 16:27, said:

O.K. I'm calling bull. Time for Dennison to provide proof that not only is he American born, but also born to human parents. (We know Stephen Miller is not human).

Trump was the unofficial leader of the "birther" movement regarding Obama, so this should hardly be surprising.

But you should be careful what you say. He actually sued Bill Maher 5 years ago for calling Trump the son of an orangutan and demanding he produce birth records showing he was born to humans (although he withdrew the lawsuit a couple of months later).

https://www.reuters....E9310PL20130402

[ggwhiz]

Abigail Spanberger is a former CIA officer running for office who's detailed and unredacted security clearance application is in the hands of and being used by a Republican super PAC causing the DNC to warn a total of 34 of it's candidates in similar circumstances from past positions they have held.

Illegal as hell and necessarily so personally intrusive that no journalist would bother to file an information request including one. The political weaponization of clearances was started by Trump and appears to be catching on within the GOP. WTF? They need an intervention.

[andrei]

 Winstonm, on 2018-August-29, 16:27, said:

WaPo reports:

PHARR, Tex. — On paper, he’s a devoted U.S. citizen.

His official American birth certificate shows he was delivered by a midwife in Brownsville, at the southern tip of Texas. He spent his life wearing American uniforms: three years as a private in the Army, then as a cadet in the Border Patrol and now as a state prison guard.

But when Juan, 40, applied to renew his U.S. passport this year, the government’s response floored him. In a letter, the State Department said it didn’t believe he was an American citizen.

As he would later learn, Juan is one of a growing number of people whose official birth records show they were born in the United States but who are now being denied passports — their citizenship suddenly thrown into question. The Trump administration is accusing hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Hispanics along the border of using fraudulent birth certificates since they were babies, and it is undertaking a widespread crackdown on their citizenship.

O.K. I'm calling bull. Time for Dennison to provide proof that not only is he American born, but also born to human parents. (We know Stephen Miller is not human).

Rio Grande Midwives Deliver Citizenship : A birth certificate scam sheds light on a thriving network of women who help Mexican mothers have babies in Texas. Under lax laws, they can declare the newborns Americans.

Maybe reading something else than WP would help ...

[shyams]

 andrei, on 2018-August-30, 14:18, said:

Rio Grande Midwives Deliver Citizenship : A birth certificate scam sheds light on a thriving network of women who help Mexican mothers have babies in Texas. Under lax laws, they can declare the newborns Americans.

Maybe reading something else than WP would help ...

Would such schemes/scams have been in existence 40 years ago when Juan was born?

[Winstonm]

 andrei, on 2018-August-30, 14:18, said:

Rio Grande Midwives Deliver Citizenship : A birth certificate scam sheds light on a thriving network of women who help Mexican mothers have babies in Texas. Under lax laws, they can declare the newborns Americans.

Maybe reading something else than WP would help ...

Here is the deal - your Times article points it out. I quote: Under lax laws, they can declare the newborns Americans.

When brown people take advantage of lax U.S. laws they are criminals; when Dennison tooks advantage of tax laws to pay zero income taxes he said that made him "smart".

Which is it? Or does race have everything to do with it?

[Winstonm]

The Atlantic looks at a different reason for Dennison's choices of law enforcement targets to attack.

Quote

Bruce Ohr. Lisa Page. Andrew Weissmann. Andrew McCabe. President Donald Trump has relentlessly attacked these FBI and Justice Department officials as dishonest “Democrats” engaged in a partisan “witch hunt” led by the special counsel determined to tie his campaign to Russia. But Trump’s attacks have also served to highlight another thread among these officials and others who have investigated his campaign: their extensive experience in probing money laundering and organized crime, particularly as they pertain to Russia.

[andrei]

 Winstonm, on 2018-August-30, 18:48, said:

Here is the deal - your Times article points it out. I quote: Under lax laws, they can declare the newborns Americans.

When brown people take advantage of lax U.S. laws they are criminals; when Dennison tooks advantage of tax laws to pay zero income taxes he said that made him "smart".

Which is it? Or does race have everything to do with it?

LOL, did you even read the article?

Quote

Although some fraud had long been suspected, the scale of the Rio Grande document scam has cast a spotlight on the lax regulation of midwifery in Texas, where there are few provisions to prevent an unscrupulous partera from lying about the details of a birth.
...
The parents, who allegedly paid $800 to $1,200 for the documents, have not been targeted for prosecution. Most of the midwives, in exchange for cooperating with investigators, also will avoid prison terms at their sentencing next month.

So what do you think, were the midwives criminals?


Same source

Quote

What authorities want most is simply to identify all of the fraudulent records to prevent the children from applying for Social Security cards or other benefits.

"We just want to keep those kids out of the system," said INS Special Agent Gilbert Trevino, adding that at least another half-dozen midwives remain under investigation. "I'm looking at the future. I'm thinking about the taxpayers."
....
Despite the millions of dollars spent every year to keep illegal immigrants out

This was 1995
Bill Clinton
Racist

[andrei]

 shyams, on 2018-August-30, 15:48, said:

Would such schemes/scams have been in existence 40 years ago when Juan was born?

Who knows?
The article is 23 years old and I somehow doubt the scam have been discovered in its infancy.

It seems, per State Department, that people delivered by midwives in Texas have been denied passports before, under both Bush/Obama.

The base had to be re-energized, so Wash. Post obliged.

[Winstonm]

Quote

LOL, did you even read the article?

Yes. Did you?

Quote

So what do you think, were the midwives criminals?

People who are convicted of felonies are felons, yes.

Now, you answer. It is legal for a pregnant Mexican woman to obtain a visa for entry into the U.S. - and it is legal for her to have her baby here. If a Mexican woman follows the law for the purpose of having her child be born in the U.S. so the child will be a U.S. citizen, has she been "smart" like David Dennison or "criminal" because she is not white?

[awm]

As I understand it the issue is as follows:

1. There are several midwives (and at least one doctor) who’ve delivered babies both in the US and Mexico.
2. In at least a few cases, they falsified records to show a baby born in Mexico was born in US.
3. This is of course illegal. But it happened decades ago, MOST of the babies these people delivered were in fact born in the US, and those few cases of falsified records may not even be aware of the possibility.
4. The US government response has been to revoke/deny passports to ALL children delivered by these people and detain them for deportation.

So we’re imprisoning large numbers of legitimate US citizens in order to “get” a small number whose documents were falsified at their birth (but who nonetheless have lived their whole lives thinking they are US citizens). Why would we do a thing like this, especially when the detained individuals usually win when they challenge in court? Because they’re Latino of course...

It’s like if a professional tax preparer was found to have once or twice helped clients cheat on their taxes and the government response was to throw everyone who ever used that preparer in jail for tax fraud. Yes a crime was committed, but most of the people in trouble are innocent and even the ones who are “guilty” might not have done anything intentional.

But of course we’d never do that with rich white folks who might use a shady tax preparer... poor brown folks, whole different story.

[barmar]

 awm, on 2018-August-31, 00:04, said:

So we’re imprisoning large numbers of legitimate US citizens in order to “get” a small number whose documents were falsified at their birth (but who nonetheless have lived their whole lives thinking they are US citizens). Why would we do a thing like this, especially when the detained individuals usually win when they challenge in court? Because they’re Latino of course...

It’s like if a professional tax preparer was found to have once or twice helped clients cheat on their taxes and the government response was to throw everyone who ever used that preparer in jail for tax fraud. Yes a crime was committed, but most of the people in trouble are innocent and even the ones who are “guilty” might not have done anything intentional.

Or like prohibiting all immigration from majority-Muslim countries, because a tiny fraction of Muslims are dangerous terrorists.

Or like building a wall at the Mexico border, because some illegal immigrants might be violent criminals.

Or like separating children from their parents when they're caught entering illegally, because there are some illegal immigrants who kidnap children to create fake families.

I sense a pattern here. Trump can't see differences in scale -- it all started when he thought his inauguration audience was bigger than Obama's, and that his Electoral College win was the biggest in recent history (not even close).

And he's also a racist, of course.

[kenberg]

 awm, on 2018-August-31, 00:04, said:

As I understand it the issue is as follows:

1. There are several midwives (and at least one doctor) who've delivered babies both in the US and Mexico.
2. In at least a few cases, they falsified records to show a baby born in Mexico was born in US.
3. This is of course illegal. But it happened decades ago, MOST of the babies these people delivered were in fact born in the US, and those few cases of falsified records may not even be aware of the possibility.
4. The US government response has been to revoke/deny passports to ALL children delivered by these people and detain them for deportation.

So we're imprisoning large numbers of legitimate US citizens in order to "get" a small number whose documents were falsified at their birth (but who nonetheless have lived their whole lives thinking they are US citizens). Why would we do a thing like this, especially when the detained individuals usually win when they challenge in court? Because they're Latino of course...

It's like if a professional tax preparer was found to have once or twice helped clients cheat on their taxes and the government response was to throw everyone who ever used that preparer in jail for tax fraud. Yes a crime was committed, but most of the people in trouble are innocent and even the ones who are "guilty" might not have done anything intentional.

But of course we'd never do that with rich white folks who might use a shady tax preparer... poor brown folks, whole different story.

And one more point that I think great many would agree with: At some point the past is past. This doesn't apply to murder and it shouldn't apply to sexual abuse of children, but it surely should apply to forged birth certificates. In fact my 1939 birth certificate has false information, incorrectly identifying my birth mother. I was taken home by my future adoptive parents at age about three months and after the adoption was completed a birth certificate was issued with my (adoptive) mother identified as my birth mother. This was both intentional and legal, back then it was thought that the factually accurate details are nobody's business other then my own and my parent's.

At some point history should not justify action. Coming around to a 40 year old and telling him that his parents did something illegal concerning his birth, and he must accept the consequences, is unconscionable. I think a great many people agree with this.

[hrothgar]

Papadopolus's Defense Sentencing memo just dropped.

In the memo, Papadopolulus states that Trump and Session approved a Russian backchannel.

Note: this is the memo in which Papadopolus is begging for mercy. Its highly unlikely that he's going to be introducing new lies or new info.
Which pretty much means that Mueller already haas a case against Trump for trying to open a back channel to Russia.

"No collusion" indeed...

[y66]

Re: the tax cut and who benefits, here's a very readable op-ed by Bethany McLean at NYT that argues that the shale oil industry is economically unsustainable, has net debt of over $200 billion as of 2015 and is "a bit reminiscent of the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s when internet companies were valued on the number of eyeballs they attracted, not on the profits they were likely to make". And a related story by Justin Makula at DESMOG about the "persistent paltry returns" of cash burning shale oil companies and how windfalls from the tax bill are obscuring what looks like a ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff blush.