Bernie Sanders for President...

[Ben in LA]

How come Trump and this cronies never talk about the illegals coming from Canada? What about building a wall up there?

[Stavros]

How come Trump and this cronies never talk about the illegals coming from Canada? What about building a wall up there?

Because they are not Mexicans?

a) Most of the illegal entrants from Canada are not Hispanic, but European, Caribbean or from the Middle East
b) the border in Michigan is mostly lakes and rivers, not solid land on which to build a wall
c) Canada is a nice country, and Canadians are nice people.

I believe this, from US Immigration.com was written in 2011:

The common image of an illegal immigrant sneaking into the U.S. involves a Latin American huddling for cover in the brush of an expansive desert. It’s hot, dry, and desolate. Perhaps they are attempting to swim across the Rio Grande as it meanders through the dusty climes of the southern U.S. or jump a fence in the middle of the night. There is a different, much less publicized form of illegal immigrant—the kind coming from Canada. Many of these individuals are not Latin American—U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have apprehended border jumpers from Albania, The Czech Republic, Israel, and India—and the often cross the many waterways of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New York by boat, jet ski, or by swimming.

Last year, in an attempt to slow the flow of illegal immigration from Canada, CBP spent $20 million on a surveillance system that monitors 34 miles of the St. Clair River bordering Michigan and Canada—a popular destination for illegal immigrants crossing from Canada. So far, the new system has caught four human smuggling attempts. However, it is sometimes citizens who end up nabbing illegal immigrants by accident. A fishing group on the St. Clair River noticed a man in a Speedo with a backpack swimming in the river recently. CBP was alerted and the man, who hailed from the Czech Republic, was apprehended. The flow of illegal immigration across the U.S.-Canadian border is much slower than that of the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is enough to warrant enforcement. CBP agent Chris Grogan said, "People will continue to try to get in. We can't stop that. But we are doing whatever we can do to stop them. They realize that we're there, and we're going to get them."

Michigan is a particularly popular crossing point. Many lakes and rivers compose the border between the state and Canada and illegal immigrants use the rugged vastness of the terrain to their advantage. Kyle Niemi of the U.S. Coast Guard division charged with patrolling Michigan’s waterways has said, "It's a very complex system. ... You have lakes that are akin to seas—they're humongous. And then there are rivers that in the winter months you can walk across. It's a fragile system." At times, these water crossings have been deadly. A young Albanian boy was attempting to cross the Detroit River with his mother in 2005. His jet ski turned over, drowning him. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Brian Moskowitz has said, "People need to be careful. Not only do they face us, but they face some very real personal dangers."

Many critics claim that border security will do nothing to curb illegal immigration until the incentive to come to the U.S. is removed. That incentive, for most, is the possibility of employment. The sluggish U.S. economy has been responsible for a downturn in illegal immigration but many U.S. lawmakers are pushing for the mandatory use of E-Verify, a federal government database that allows employers to check the residency status and legality of someone they wish to hire. If employers could not hire illegal immigrants, many argue, illegal immigrants would have little reason to risk life and limb to come to the U.S.
https://www.usimmigration.com/illega...gh-canada.html

[broncofan]

One thing to note is that the article mentions a lot of people from countries other than Canada using the U.S. Canadian border to enter the U.S. The most obvious reason this would be the case is that the economic incentive is much greater for a Mexican immigrant to come to the U.S. than a Canadian citizen since Canada is a wealthy country.

The gdp per capita in Canada is 52,000 dollars per person in 2013 numbers. It's around 10,000 dollars per person in Mexico. Of course even in a wealthy country there are people below the poverty line, but many Mexicans can actually improve their economic status by working in very unattractive conditions in the U.S, which is one reason we see so much exploitation of Mexican immigrants. As a result, there are a lot of illegal immigrants from Mexico and relatively fewer Canadian ones, which is one reason other than racism why there's so much hysteria surrounding the security of the U.S Mexico border.

I am all for border security. I think a wall is a terrible investment because it would be expensive and would harm our relations with Mexico. Better enforcement at the border would be great, but violating the civil rights of hispanic people who have been here for generations is very wrong, and pretending like immigration is an epidemic that justifies a quarantine is plainly xenophobic.

[buttslinger]

If HUNG ANGELS held an Art Contest and offered up a prize of ....a date with a TS Honey or something, you'd see a spirited competition, perhaps even a little cheating, and everyone would have a great time and a few laughs and get to know each other a little better through people's artistic entries.
If, however, a million dollar prize was offered, guys would show up from all over the World with paintings that would blow your mind they would be so good.
People come from Mexico because they are dirt poor down there.
The Tea Baggers that were let down by Dubya are about to be let down once again by Trump.
Bernie won't be defeated by Jeb, he'll be defeated by Hillary.
The only way a poor black male will make it in this country is if the cops shoot him, because of Lawyers.
Bernie's fairness doctrine is naïve, because commies only succeed in poor countries.
One day you'll see Socialism in the USA, but it will only be after we've lost all our power and money. More along the lines of Canada and England. All the One Percenters and Ripoff Insurance Companies will be in China and India, making tons of cash. This isn't necessarily wrong, it's just the way it is.

[trish]

The Tea Baggers that were let down by Dubya are about to be let down once again by Trump.

There weren't Tea-Baggers during Dubya's tenure in office. They are an reaction against Obama before he even did anything. They made their appearance (guns and all) at the town hall meetings in 2009-10 throughout the States that convened to discuss health care.

Bernie won't be defeated by Jeb, he'll be defeated by Hillary.

Highly likely. But the fairness doctrine is not naive, it's simply right. Bernie may not win, but he's shifting the center of gravity to the left and Hillary's rolling toward it.

[buttslinger]

They way I remember it is the Rush Limbo crowd was in an uproar before Bush even left office because of his runaway spending. By the end of his term in office, those who would be baggers were hurt and confused that their boy had fiddled while Rome burned. And while New Orleans drowned. Obama in charge was simply the last straw!

Walter Cronkite was proud of the fact that the way he delivered THE NEWS........Republicans thought he was a Republican and Democrats thought he was a Democrat. Bernie reeks of .......white do-gooder, or something. Why the white and black working class don't come together and put Congresses feet to the fire is a mystery to me, I think the one percent must be putting subliminal messages in their commercials.

But to be serious for a minute,
....................
I honestly don't expect any real changes about anything unless some huge unforeseen boon or disaster takes place. By the time you're blaming the government, it usually means it's too late.

[buttslinger]

My Buttslinger Las Vegas LOCK is Clinton in 2016, and you can take that to the bank.
Trump, Sanders, Bush, Biden, emails.........all will be forgotten,..... or meaningless... a year from now.

The fact that we've had George W Bush, and then two "novelty" Presidents....a black man and a woman..... is troubling to me simply because I know that there are at least ten thousand more qualified Presidents out there, that we NEED, that for whatever reason, aren't interested.

I think Hillary is a cold fish bitch, but she really does have 8 years experience in the White House, and has been prepping for 16 years. She has the Machine behind her. A Woman in Charge, God help us all.

One reason Bernie Sanders won't fly in the BIGS is because people are superstitious about change, look at the last century, you've had airplanes, cars, antibiotics, and the internet,....but you've also had Hitler, Stalin, atomic bombs, and overpopulation. Every President's Campaign Promise of CHANGE has been diluted by real events, nothing ever changes. It's all been written in the book.

[Stavros]

Although I have contributed posts to this thread I must admit to knowing next to nothing about Bernie Sanders. So I spent a few hours watching the c-span recordings of the Democrat Summer Meeting which was addressed by Presidential candidates Lincoln Chafee, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton (the links are below but also includes DNC business so you may need to skip that stuff to get to the speeches).

Of the four, Chafee can be instantly dismissed, he has no depth or charisma, he seems like a nice guy but that's about it, and he used to be a Republican which might grate with some people, he was however the only one to refer to the current migrant crisis in Europe, but without offering any solutions. O'Malley sounds like a machine politician, and probably is. What if anything was noticeable is that he went through the check-list of Democrat issues and was followed by Bernie Sanders who did more or less the same thing.

It is a rota that takes in
-maintaining the Affordable Health Care Act;
-raising taxes to shift money from the super-rich to the average American;
-raising the minimum/living wage to $15 a hour;
-equal pay for men and women doing the same job;
-granting citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants;
-dealing with student debt;
-investing in the overhaul of the infrastructure.

Sanders cited issues others did not, such as
-his opposition to the fossil fuels industry;
-the public funding of elections;
-free tuition fees for college students and interest rate reductions on student debt;
-opposed to the Keystone pipeline.

Other than by raising taxes it was not clear to me where any of the money is going to come from to pay for these policies, and as a person he did not come across to me as a man with leadership potential. His opposition to fossil fuels might make sense as a long term strategy, if only because fossil fuels are a finite resource, but he shows no interest in the conventional petroleum industry or shale in spite of it being a jobs and wealth-generating sector of the economy, and presumably he would not get involved in the Arctic which by extension suggests the long term major players there will be Russia, Norway and perhaps the Canadians, to the detriment of the USA, this seems to me to be a lacuna in his policy-making portfolio: he doesn't really say what global role there is for the USA other than not getting involved in other people's wars -easier said than done.

His plea at the end, 'If we stand together there is nothing that we cannot accomplish' is wishy-washy idealism; it would make more sense to tell people in what is evidently a divided society how those divisions can be mended, good luck to anyone who can come with a solution to that one.

Surprisingly or not, Mrs Clinton gave the most accomplished speech and sounded like a leader, although she was high on aspiration and for all her practical examples (one of them about her grand-daughter pinched from Obama's Chicago speech on the night of the election in 200-eight, she too did not say how any of her policies would be paid for, and sometimes it was easy to forget that the USA already has a Democrat in the White House. She also has an irritating habit of nodding in agreement with the cheers her one-liners get, her aides may need to talk her out of that. Her own one-liners were sometimes quite good; when making a fool of Donald Trump (which is not hard) she said of her hair: 'the hair is mine, the colour isn't' and that could not be said of Trump's...
She was also the only one of the four to make a strong statement on gun control, which came across as sincere and compelling.

I think it was Clinton who said that raising income was 'the defining economic challenge of the times' or words to that effect, but in common with the other three, did not say how or where new, and more jobs would come from without which there is no income, unless everyone lives on welfare. The economy may be the key issue in Presidential elections but I wonder if the USA has a similar credibility gap as the UK when it comes to job-creation, I think people here are tired of politicians delivering platitudes, of which there was an abundance at this DNC meeting.

So far I would say Hillary Clinton is way, way ahead of the other three, but it remains to be seen how she would fare when talking to a hostile audience, or being grilled on the details of both her record in office and her aspirations. I see no long term future for Sanders, he is not up to the job, it is as simple as that.

The morning session, with presentations by Chafee and Clinton are here:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?327791-...summer-meeting

The afternoon sessions with O'Malley and Sanders are here:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?327791-...summer-meeting

[buttslinger]

The fine writing skills of Stavros once again remind me that the posts here tell me less about the reality and more about the poster.
And once again raises the question is there a reality out there that truly exists as an entity unto itself, or is the reality in the eyes and minds of the human beholders? And what difference does it make?

There are lots of political newspaper writers out there that have forgotten more than I'll ever know about politics, but in the end they report, they make educated guesses, they stand and watch. What we call change only happens if enough people read their articles or see them on TV, and accept what they say as the truth and trust them. In other words, most people have absolutely no idea what's going on. The people that thought the world was flat now believe the world is round.

It's not enough to actually understand what is best for the USA, first, you have to sell it. In fact, the Presidency has become a combination of Madison Ave, and the Electoral College. Fact and fiction. In some ways this puts us ahead of the rest of the world and in some ways it puts us behind. Hitler thought democracy meant the president was operating with one hand tied behind his back. Saddam Hussein said it took him eight years in office to even begin to understand what he was doing.

I have no doubts that Bernie and Trish are right, in spite of all the Americans that don't know or even care what he's saying, but he may become a Ralph Nader and elect another George Bush, such are the realities of politics. One of my friends doesn't even vote, and he used to have John McCain come over to dinner at his house when he was a kid. When Sarah Palin was governor of Alaska the price of oil was so high she looked like a genius, if the San Andreas Fault ever acts up like it's supposed to, it won't matter who's President, hard times will be inevitable. There are countless factors in play. Sometimes when times are worst is when trust is highest.

Anyway, talking politics on a site devoted to tits and dicks is ridiculous, there is probably something terribly wrong with everyone reading this drivel. I like the read between the lines and try to figure out just how twisted each individual poster really is, despite them pretending to know what they're talking about. Hey, maybe this is a good place for politics after all.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=buttslinger;1630729]
The fine writing skills of Stavros once again remind me that the posts here tell me less about the reality and more about the poster.
And once again raises the question is there a reality out there that truly exists as an entity unto itself, or is the reality in the eyes and minds of the human beholders? And what difference does it make?

Flattered though I suppose I should be, I don't have a vote in your elections as I am not an American, and have no desire to swim from Thunder Bay to Duluth to become one (before Scott Walker builds a wall across the US-Canadian border); but comment on US politics out of interest and because the USA is still hugely influential -on specific issue such as TTIP, and general matters of politics and economics which has an impact on the rest of the world.

I can understand why you are cynical about US politics, but the candidates did refer to real issues, such as a living wage of $15 an hour, equal pay for equal work, the prison population, fossil fuels, education and health and so on. I think that is where the debate ought to be going. Many of those issues are not so different from what is on the agenda here in the UK. And it is, after all, debate that keeps democracies going.