Thought for the Day

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Originally Posted by Stavros

It is a disgraceful situation, and not so different from the mess being made of 'illegal immigration'/asylum seekers in the UK. In bith cases, there is it seems to me either no policy, or policies that clearly don't work. In the UK we still await a definitive legal decision on whether or not the Govt has the right to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing, a policy so daft when I first read about it I thought it was a joke. Only it ain't.

I agree it sounds morally fine to declare New York or anywhere else a 'Sanctuary city' but that is only half the cake, the rest being the reality of housing people, processing their claims and doing so in a fair way.

I think in the US you have a paralysis of decision making, overlaid by a degree of racism on the part of Republicans; it doesn't look like in practical terms there is a single coherent policy, largely because State and Federal governments are divided and bickering with each other.

What should the policy be? When there is a labour shortage, it is obvious, but allowing free movement of people seems to have become transformed from a key component of freedom itself, to a toxic social issue, as it was used by Nigel Farage in the Brexit debate to demonize immigrants.

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I don't know what the policy should be, but it shouldn't have been this:

Biden angrily opposed lifting Trump immigration bans but caved to left’s demands: book

//nypost.com/2023/09/05/biden-opposed-lifting-trump-immigration-bans-but-caved-to-lefts-demands/

I think the main problem is this and its brought up in the article:

[Biden] said that voters would never appreciate the difference between refugees fleeing tyranny and economic migrants from Central American. Since he was already getting pulverized on immigration, boosting the cap would just make things worse,” the book says.

Going back to the Obama administration because he had to deal with this situation too, I think word spread that if a person crosses the border illegally and asks for asylum, it will help them jump to the front of the line of the immigration process. But there is a difference between an immigrant, a migrant, and a refugee. But now it seems those differences no longer apply, along with the reasons for asylum, and we are treating everyone as if they're a refugee. When that simply isn't the case. Because let’s be honest, not all those migrants that have been coming since the beginning of the Biden administration are going to qualify for permanent residence and are going to have be sent back. Since they are spread all over the country, that’s going to be another problem.

As for the addressing the labor shortage, since the crisis began, many people have been calling for this to happen:

www.nytimes.com/2023/08/29/business/dealbook/ceos-new-york-migrants.html

"The C.E.O.s also said that immigration control was “clearly” a federal issue, siding with Hochul in calling for federal funding for educational, housing, security and health care services for migrants.

They also supported Hochul’s and Adams’s requests for faster processing of asylum applications and work permits, since newly arrived migrants must otherwise wait 180 days before they can work legally."

But still no word from the federal government if this will happen.

While I believe in freedom of movement within a country and between them, there should be some restriction of movement when it comes to country’s borders. By no means am I saying, “Build the Wall”. Just fix the patches that already exist.

What is depressing is not the absence of a solution, but the accumulation of obstacles to a solution. We can agree that there should be a sharp distinction between economic migrants and asylum seekers -where there are job vacancies, it makes sense to offer immigrants a legal entry procedure, if that does help with the job situation. Just as the processing of claims of asylum ought not to take more than 180 days where in the UK it can now take two to three years or more.

How did these conditions become unmanageable? Mostly through deliberate policies. In countries run by dictators, the solution to protest is simple -get rid of them, and if you can't kill them -as they have done in Syria, expel them, with the figures running into the millions. Russia, Syria, Myanmar have all given people they don't like a stark choice: die here, or leave.

Then there are those who exploit this for financial and political gain -viz Turkey and the scam that sent refugees from Syria to Germany -the people smugglers got their cut, the Turkish Govt got its slice of the pie from the EU. Central American countries with rampant crime and corruption could not care less how many people leave, they don't want them anyway. Again, people make money trafficking migrants north of the border.

But then in the domestic scene, if you have Govt that is more concerned with tax cuts for the rich with cuts to public services, the system begins to stall, cases mount up, while the failure of those who could do it, to create more affordable housing, to fund the public education service people want, creates its own tensions in communities that say they can't cope with new arrivals, because they can't -and that was the whole point. Because most of the tax cutting Conservatives are also racists, or play the race card to demonize immigrants of all categories without putting into place a 'cold turkey' plan whereby the new arrivals are rounded up and sent back to where they came from, if it can be done legally, which on the high seas it can not.

Until the domestic scene is properly funded, and clear and efficient, ie fast procedures put in place to process immigrants and asylum seekers, this problem will not go away. In the US you have the problem at the Federal level which is the hostility of Congress to workable solutions, but often because one party is voting on sectarian lines rather than in terms of what a good and affordable policy might be- right now you can't even agree a budget for your military for reasons that have nothing to do with military needs or policy, and everything to do with an attack on what are perceived to be 'liberal' provisions for service personnel.

In the UK we have had 13 years of 'austerity' which has cut so much money from the agencies that process immigration, that it now takes years to deal with it, while the Home Office wants to process asylum seekers in Rwanda, as daft an idea as ever existed.

But it reveals the collapse of a rational approach to a problem that does have a solution, but not in one place. Chaos in Libya enables traffickers to load the boats that go to Lampedusa where a small island cannot cope -it was a relatively poor and deprived place before this business took off and for all his promises, Berlusconi did nothing practical to solve the problem.

I don't envy Biden or Harris trying to get to grips with this. And the problem is made worse by the shabby antics of De Santis and Abbott who traffic men, women and children for political gain rather than as a solution to the wider problem. Unless, and until a new approach is made to both immigration and the funding and staffing of local services, and foreign governments forced to take control of their own borders, this will not go away.

Don't Rush with your Hosannas just yet, for we are now informed there are Good Jews, Bad Jews, and Jews Who Nose Nuffink-

"Former President Donald Trump marked the start of the Jewish High Holy Days with a fiery missive on Sunday reminding his followers that “liberal Jews” voted to “destroy America & Israel” through their support of Joe Biden."
Trump Says On Rosh Hashanah That ‘Liberal Jews’ Voted To ‘Destroy America’ (yahoo.com)

"Elon Musk has accused George Soros’s foundation of wanting to destroy western civilisation, as the tech tycoon prepares to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in California."
Elon Musk hits out at Soros foundation before meeting Israel’s Netanyahu | Elon Musk | The Guardian

The more the MAGA King And Domestic Terrorist Leader Donald Trump attacks Special Prosecutor Jack Smith,Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and DC Judge Tayna Chutkan,the bigger the hole he dug for himself gets,because everything he says in public can be used against him in court.

Fact Checking: Everything Donald-MAGA King-Trump said in the interview on Meet The Press with Kristen Welker is a lie. Another prime example of him being a pathological liar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw_enJa4PkQ

I recall that in the past there were 'Southern Gentlemen' in Congress who would be passing legislation or attacking Gay Rights during the day, and 'entertain' young men at night.

Lauren Boebert, given her latest 'outing' in Colorado, seems to think it is one thing to attack 'Woke' culture, LGBTQ rights and so on, then reach for the 'Lunchbox' of her date who owns clubs that give work to the very same people she thinks are destroying her country.

Given the scurrilous claims about her past as a 'model' on sugardaddy something-or-other and those photos and that abortion, I suppose you could say, Ms Boebert has both an interest in Rod and Tackle, being possessed of Rack and Form -?

Lauren Boebert's date from groping video owns drag-friendly bar (thepinknews.com)

Disclaimer -I do not know if the material on this site is legit

It Appears Rep. Lauren Boebert Had an 'Explore Talent' Modeling/Actor Page and YIKES (politicalflare.com)

Trump's Instincts: A second term of the MAGA King and Domestic Terrorist Leader Donald Trump,will be a hell of alot worse than his first term because he's shown who he is,and what he's willing to do to stay in power,which includes spreading lies about election fraud,claiming he won the election and causing an insurrection by riling up his supporters to storm the capitol to stop the counting of votes. And also shown he is a threat to democracy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhr0TC4WLK4

I found this on yahoo with regard to Michael Wolff's book on Murdoch

"According to a New York Times review, Wolff describes the Fox-host-turned-Trump-surrogate Kimberly Guilfoyle “settl[ing] into a private plane on the way to [Roger] Ailes’s funeral”, adding: “What was also clear, if you wanted it to be, was that she was wearing no underwear.”
Key takeaways from Michael Wolff’s book on Murdoch, Fox and US politics (yahoo.com)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FslTpwcX...g&name=900x900

The Guest is yet to Come...?

Strong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhYE0vnV_Bg

In 1957 a feature film was released in the USSR, called The Cranes are Flying (dir. Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957). It is one of the worst films I have ever seen, so I am not surprised there is a Crane in Congress who is so offensive he should be 'flying tonight'. And no surprises he is buddies with Matthew Gaetz, who now appears to be Trump's deputy leader, indicating just how desperate this so-called party has become.

A force for change, or change by force? And with no regard for what the American people want...

"“He encouraged the audience to watch a speech by a right-wing pastor who blamed cultural change on a group of German Jewish philosophers and condemned Barack Obama for having a ‘homosexual agenda.'
”“If we don’t wake up,” Crane said, according to the Post, “if we don’t study what they’re doing, and if we don’t put people in influential positions that understand what this war is all about, what they’re trying to do and have and have the courage to call it out, we’re going to lose this country.”

In August, while standing next to Donald Trump at a campaign rally, Congressman Gaetz said, “Mr. President, I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country. They are opening our borders. They are weaponizing our federal law enforcement against patriotic Americans who love this nation as we should.”
“But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C. And so to all my friends here in Iowa, when you see them come for this man, know that they are coming for our movement and they are coming for all of us.”"
'He holds the line': Gaetz praises GOP congressman who echoes his call for change 'through force' (msn.com)