It’s telling that there’s no Impeachment thread on VS...

[mjbabcock]

@BBB, my post above very clearly stated that I would need to "read it to see the [NYT] take" on the subject.
The cold reality is our nation does not benefit from caravans of low-skill people illegally flooding over the border.
Conservatives support people who wish to live here to access proper channels, wait patiently, and enter when invited.

Dude, you are about 98% wrong. Tons of wealthy republicans love refugees (yeah...I’m calling them that) because they offer a hard working low wage workforce with little to no rights. I know agriculture, and I know refugees are picking your berries, milking cows for your milk, driving tractors, slaughtering cows and chickens for your meat. The entire industry is built on refugees who work incredible hours doing horrible work for pennies on the dollar. In timber/logging, white guys run the skidders and processors, but migrant work crews get hired on to do the back breaking work of replanting. These industries pride themselves on their conservative credentials.

Jumping from ag to hospitality, how often do you scope out the cleaning crew in a hotel or motel. Again, cheap and reliable labor. These aren’t democratic welfare state institutions...these are multi-national institutions. Weren’t the Koch brothers just busted for a chicken plant a few months back? Here it was a Diesel engine rebuilding factory that got busted...it happens all the fucking time, and it happens because business owners want desperate employees. Many conservatives have refugee housekeepers or nannies? Our dear leader even had refugees working at his golf course. Refugees from Guatemala and Honduras are desperate. They don’t strike, don’t complain about unsafe working conditions, don’t fight for rights...they are slaves to the employer.

Conservatives have lost their credability in most arguments these days, as they shriek about immigrants or the rule of law or fiscal responsibility. Shut the fuck up. Your “conservatives” exploit refugee labor for personal gain, overrule sentencing guidelines of DOJ experts cause people are friends, and run massive deficits during our most prosperous times. Save it for the rallies.

[Blue Jays]

"... Shut the fuck up..."

No, I will not. We are all entitled to the free and open exchange of ideas.
That is unfortunate you do not wish to hear viewpoints outside your own.

[Matthew Strongin]

Matt, I believe every state is different, but this is my world in Massachusetts. Trust me - it's real.

Where I live on the North Shore of MA, I have seen our schools effected. Example- the school budgets for 28 kids per class, per history of students and census. 34 kids show up for the same class, teacher now is short of supplies, and often buys them themselves. Now times that by x amount of classes per grade. School can not say no to enrolled students, so overcrowding occurs. Now language issues happen, and translator(s) need to be hired-not budgeted for. Sports programs have turned into "pay-to-play" as the budget shuffle begins. un-accounted for kids who are gifted at sport often have to have their sport tuition absorbed by the rate the other parents must pay. The assumption is that citizen parents can afford the cost of co-opting the others. Threats of cutting those programs are now a yearly event, unless parents pay more and more. Art programs have been the first to be cut, followed by music and others. Teachers often hold cancelled classes after school, on their dime. Teachers have lost their aides due to budget cost.

Additional Food programs have been added, the gov and/or state pays for the food, but not the staff.

This is the middle school and high school situation.

I've also posted this before: Homeless US veterans are put behind un-documented families for living quarters. And during the process, if a city (state) worker asks if the undocumented are here legally, they can, will and have been fired. Families are often put up in hotels, due to the established housing being overfilled. Buses and vans are now added to the schools overtaxed budget, to go off-route to those hotels to pick up the children for school. Vets waiting for their housing keep getting pushed back in line. I've done volunteer work for homeless veterans, I know this as fact.

A nearby city has declared itself a "sanctuary city", and guess who's city has gained in number simply due to geography?

The city is not always able to re-coup cost from the state. I know this from the city council. Road re-paving and other projects have been delayed, due to budget over-runs. Our industrial park (a large tax base) has been losing occupants due to raising taxes...we do gain a few from other higher taxed locations, but overall, we have a lot of large empty buildings.

I'm sure there may be more issues I've forgotten at the moment, or don't even know about. None of this is "Fox News", this is reality where I live.

I am not without compassion for those who have less than I do. I'm just saying that nothing is free in life, somewhere someone foots the bill.

This makes me think that a big part of the issue is fundamentally poor budgeting and planning for elementary, middle and high school education. Underinvestment that is being stretched too thin. Though probably best in that other thread about candidates for 2020, this is why I have issues with the free college platform. We're underserving education from the ground up and should start there if we want to fix the education problem in the US. I don't see that as an immigration problem, I see it as an education problem.

[colker]

This makes me think that a big part of the issue is fundamentally poor budgeting and planning for elementary, middle and high school education. Underinvestment that is being stretched too thin. Though probably best in that other thread about candidates for 2020, this is why I have issues with the free college platform. We're underserving education from the ground up and should start there if we want to fix the education problem in the US. I don't see that as an immigration problem, I see it as an education problem.

Is education a federal or state cost in the US? I guess it´s state, right? If so... immigration x education seems like a problem for Florida, Arizona, Californa and Texas. Are Massachussets or Kansas flooded w/ immigrants? immigration became a fetish. Since one cannot deal w/ reality just create a fetish.

[jclay]

The age of conspiracy theories:

The Trump era is a golden age of conspiracy theories – on the right and left | Nicolas Guilhot and Samuel Moyn | Opinion | The Guardian

[colker]

There is an investigation on fake news in our congress right now. An employee of a political marketing company was summoned to testify and lied on the stand; he lied over a journalist who was also investigating the massive fake news campaign on what´s up. He had been fired then and opened his mouth to her. He was brought back to the company and told congress the journalist "promised sex" in exchange for information. Next the right wing circles smeared the journalist on social media. The people involved in the fake news campaign are so powerfull, even more than the president, that the testimony went the way it did. The journalist hit a sensitive nerve: if reals costs and connections responsible for the campaign on line are revealed then president will be impeached.
The people involved in the right wing international conspiracy are not afraid of offending justice in the most obvious ways. They are heavyweights and everything we have seen before pales in comparison.

[colker]

No, I will not. We are all entitled to the free and open exchange of ideas.
That is unfortunate you do not wish to hear viewpoints outside your own.

There is difference between viewpoint and propaganda. it´s not even subtle.

[colker]

Google AT&T Warner fusion> Trump> Bolsonaro.

and then there is the convergence of style and words.

[guido]

Judge Sentences Roger Stone to House Arrest in Susan Collins’s Home | The New Yorker

[JoB]

My guy, if that's the stuff you use to support your cause ... well that ain't it. Extraordinary statements requiring extraordinary evidence, and all that.

DuckDuckGo using short phrase like "hospital bankruptcy illegal immigrant" for reports.

Here is an article from a well-known source that appeared. Will have to read it to see their take:
Hospitals Feeling Strain From Illegal Immigrants - The New York Times

[JoB]

sure, believe what you want. But if making extraordinary statements, you better back them up with documented facts.

"you're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts", or something like that. And with that, I'm out.

The United States is a free country, @BBB. We can each believe what we feel is right for the long-term health of this great nation.
The bottom line? Unchecked mass immigration of people flooding any border is damaging to the receiving country.

As a citizen of Australia it is good to see you are concerned for the welfare of the United States.

Friends of mine have had cars destroyed by illegal immigrants driving recklessly with fake licenses, fake registrations, and fake insurance.
I know longtime doctors and nurses who have watched in utter disbelief as their ER facilities are used for primary care...and go bankrupt.

[Blue Jays]

"...sure, believe what you want..."

Thank you. I will.

"...And with that, I'm out..."

OK. Have a pleasant day.

[theflashunc]

@BBB, my post above very clearly stated that I would need to "read it to see the [NYT] take" on the subject.
The cold reality is our nation does not benefit from caravans of low-skill people illegally flooding over the border.
Conservatives support people who wish to live here to access proper channels, wait patiently, and enter when invited.

If your ancestors arrived in this country before 1870 or so, they arrived to a nation that had literally no laws around immigration. Just show up and you're in.

And research clearly demonstrates that immigrants are a net gain for economies in the long run. The second and third generation of immigrants in particular are net gains on the economy. And given the low US birth rate leading to a long term population crisis, what's one great way to offset that, immigration.

This is such coded "afraid of brown people" dog whistling as it just not a serious or credible argument. It wasn't when Samuel Morse tried it back in the 1840s and it isn't now.

[Blue Jays]

"...And given the low US birth rate leading to a long term population crisis..."

The population of the United States is doing fine without unvetted, unknown, and unqualified masses simply flooding the border and overwhelming our current infrastructure.

"...This is such coded 'afraid of brown people' dog whistling as it just not a serious or credible argument..."

I am of mixed heritage and one of the so-called "brown people" you mention.

[Ras72]

If this wasn't a story about the ongoing conduct in regards to the president of the United States, it'd be funny.
Trump and Bloomberg trade blows as the president targets the Democratic contender
Sadly, it represents the current state of affairs. Right here in good'ol 'merica...

Keep America in the Sandbox.

[HorsCat]

That's the thing I find most perplexing about Noah the Flood Guy - he's never there with his Ark when he is most needed!

[theflashunc]

The population of the United States is doing fine without unvetted, unknown, and unqualified masses simply flooding the border and overwhelming our current infrastructure.


I am of mixed heritage and one of the so-called "brown people" you mention.

Then stop repeating racist immigration arguments, which are the same arguments that depicted the Irish coming here as apes and broodmares, the Italians as Catholic threats to our government, and the Chinese as some yellow menace.

The US population is not, in fact, doing fine. Just ask Japan what a stagnant population and aging workforce mean for economic success long-term.

U.S. Population Growth Lowest In 1 Years: Business & Economic Implications

US population growth is the lowest it's been since 1918. Here's why that's terrible news for the economy. | Markets Insider

U.S. Population Growth Slowing to a Crawl | St. Louis Fed

[Corso]

This makes me think that a big part of the issue is fundamentally poor budgeting and planning for elementary, middle and high school education. Underinvestment that is being stretched too thin. Though probably best in that other thread about candidates for 2020, this is why I have issues with the free college platform. We're underserving education from the ground up and should start there if we want to fix the education problem in the US. I don't see that as an immigration problem, I see it as an education problem.

So it's bad budgeting. Odd how the same formula worked for decades before surprise students appeared. Perhaps it's because I see the situation first hand, and your 3,000 miles away. I guess Florida is truly a paradise.

[Corso]

Is education a federal or state cost in the US? I guess it´s state, right? If so... immigration x education seems like a problem for Florida, Arizona, Californa and Texas. Are Massachussets or Kansas flooded w/ immigrants? immigration became a fetish. Since one cannot deal w/ reality just create a fetish.

Fetish? Sometimes if you don't know what you'er talking about it's best not to say anything. Brazil doesn't have an illegal immigration problem does it? I wonder why.

[JoB]

Thank you, and I mean this sincerely, please do the same. I read my own post back to myself and don't like the way it can be interpreted. I am reminded why I shouldn't discuss politics on a bike forum.

Cheers.

Thank you. I will.


OK. Have a pleasant day.