This is exactly the type of partisan vitriol that I hoped (but knew it wouldn't) this thread could avoid. Most of the thread has been adult, mature discussion though. One bad apple

I love the line of attack about Trump being a failed businessman. It's incredible how illogical and partisan the thinking has become at times. I can only hope that I can drive businesses into the ground like he has.

10 billion may be overstated? But yeah, I would say he beat the game.

So, if Sanders manages to tie or get within, say 100 points of Clinton in regular delegates, does anyone think the super delegates will flip over and give it to Sanders? What would be the threshold? I somewhat fear he'd have to go 200 points above her to win the super delegates.

That old dude would be ridiculous on the world stage as president. Even more so than Trump.

Of course there are racists in the Democratic party, even white ones. I generally care a lot more about racists with the political and economic power to harm those below them rather than isolated resentment from various minorities at the majority that's holding them down, but hey, if you want to pretend those two things are equal, I can't really stop you.

Uh, if bilingualism is a job requirement, why do you think you get to skip out on a job requirement?

Honestly, I was struggling to come up with what political issue you were alluding to with the IDs in the park thing. Voter ID was the only thing I could think of where people are angry. People aren't, in large part, angry about your fake ID thing. Identity theft is a problem, but it's a much bigger problem online than in the park, and it's not a partisan issue.

I got a scholarly study of nationwide crime statistics as more instructive than a single visit to a single jail, but hey, what do I know?

Donald Trump not knowing things is not partisan vitriol. The man quite obviously does not know basic facts about campaign issues. He doesn't understand how trade deficits work. He doesn't understand that his proposal for how to make Mexico build the wall is laughable. He doesn't understand how the Iran deal works or what it does. He doesn't understand ISIS. He doesn't know what happened on 9/11. He doesn't understand unemployment rates. He doesn't understand the Geneva Conventions. He doesn't understand the Trans Pacific Partnership, even rudimentary details like the fact that China is not a party to it. He doesn't understand how the federal budget works. He doesn't understand the 1st or 14th Amendments.

Knowing things about things is not a partisan issue, and there's not some requirement that we treat Donald Trump like he knows things just because one party picked him to represent them.

Huh? He has a lot more in common with European politicians than Hillary does.

But what is calling him a buffoon? There are lots of things all of the candidates don't know or aren't well versed in.

Donald Trump talks about his penis size on the debate stage. His rhetorical style is petty name calling.

Wookie,

You're rarely fair to both sides. Your posts are almost always pro-left/anti-right. Regardless of which side of an issue I'm on I'm always fair to both, and point out the pros and cons of both. That is what I meant near the beginning of the thread by intellectually honest discussion. When people give balance to both sides, you get discussion. When people stick to one side or the other, you get arguments, and that's what the Politics forum is full of and we'd like to stay away from.

What would you have me say about Trump's proposal to make Mexico pay for his wall that would make my posting more "fair?"

It's astonishingly difficult to take all of this seriously, but why not?

The minimum sentencing laws were passed by Democrats. California introduced the harshest 3 strike laws in the nation back in the mid-90s. The reason it was so harsh was that you got canned for life for a misdemeanor. A petition and vote was voted on dozens of times to remove this horrible part, but it failed many times. Good stuff.

It is also against the law for ex-felons, even non-violent, to vote in California. Good stuff.

Just don't go down these roads.

The rest of this is going to dispel a lot of ignorance or naivete, depending on what connotation you prefer.

Bilingual is actually "Spanish only okay, Spanish / English (?) okay, English-only not good."

Why does this bother me, aside from the fact that I've had to walk out of McDonald's because I couldn't place my order due to language barriers?

Because the purported human-rights that you spout are actually causing more devastation and issues for the immigrants. Let's cover a few examples, shall we? I used to work in construction, where Spanish was, and still is, very much a mandatory need in many cases. I'll give you some situations that I personally have knowledge of or witnessed:

1- A foreman is sort of the manager of a subset of a crew. It is well-known that the crew is working for $3 / hour, and the foreman often gets about double that. The foreman is also responsible for paying his crew. Wanna guess how often for the foreman tells his crew to **** off? Quite often, but the crew has no legal recourse.

2- I was working on one site where the glass team had an accident. An illegal immigrant was standing next to the glass truck and on 2,000 lb piece fell on him. I'm sure you can figure out he was squashed like a bug and it was visible for the entire crew to see.

The family was still back in Mexico, and since there are no good laws dealing with illegal immigrants dying on the job (this happens more often than you think, but I'll save that for the next point), the family was not able to get any financial recourse and his death was basically a big "oh well." What do you suppose a single mother with children is going to do in this situation?

3- Many jobs only offered to "bilingual" employees are very dangerous. It isn't unheard of for an English-speaking foreman to scream "watch out" only to see the worker crushed under a box of shingles.

4- Illegal immigrants are actually dying from heat exhaustion on the job. They get injured and that is their problem. They have no legal recourse.

5- read this: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...fields/305754/

I'm glad I'm allergic to strawberries. I'd hate to be the perpetrator of this absolute crime.

If you know the stories on the ground, you realize that the porous borders and lasse attitude on illegal immigration is more or less a promotion of horrible and deadly working conditions, along with a healthy dose of slavery.

It's a problem no matter what you think of it. The fact that this trading of illegal documents is done so openly, with full public and police awareness, is an issue.

It's a good thing you are going to get skewed results. Let me tell you about my wonderful week in LA County (which I stayed for the crime of failing to pay a jaywalking ticket). Or rather not, I'm sure I'll come across as a racist because I was legitimately afraid for my life.

But I'd like to end with another fun story. I once watched a guy stab someone to death in front of 200 people. He did this with professional precision (spleen, heart, armpit), which isn't something you guess on, so it stands to reason this guy probably had a criminal past and he definitely had training. It was a truly terrifying thing to see, but two people and I tracked him down, and I was the one who risked my life to stop him from jumping into a cab car to get away. He started charging me and it was a good thing the police showed up with their tasers or I may not be sitting here today.

The wonderful bit about this is that, despite being an illegal, we have to pay our tax dollars on police, sequestering, imprisonment, and (hopefully) deportation. Yes, this is an issue.

There you go, a wide swatch of gray areas. I'm, in general, very much pro-immigration, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it, and no matter what, you cannot argue that what we are doing now is right. The issues are very deep, but California especially, let it get way out of hand.

Uh, nothing? The whole wall thing is obviously ridiculous, there's no way it happens even if he legitimately tries. Way to cherry-pick an absurd example though and completely ignore the point.

You always defend the left or attack the right, and never the other way around. Nobody ITT was being so one-sided until you showed up. And look what happened? People went one-sided to the right to bring balance to the discussion, and now the thread has gotten completely polarized. Congrats.

I know these things. I also know about Bill Clinton's welfare reform and crime bills. I oppose all these. What is your point?

I know of these things also, and I've read the strawberry article before. That is why I support legal status for illegal immigrants, so that they have legal recourse in these abuses. I would much rather expand legal immigration than perpetuate illegal immigration, but there's currently no legal way for a single unskilled Mexican guy without family here to immigrate here legally. I would like to see that changed.

I'm sorry about your scary encounter. It's also known that illegal immigrants commit violent crimes at lower rates than citizens, so it's not like they are a singular cause of higher taxes to fund law enforcement.

If Mr Clinton passed all these laws you are against, why would you want Mrs Clinton in office?

They're not the same person.

I don't agree with either Hillary or Bernie on everything, and I think Trump is substantially worse than both. It's pretty ridiculous to say that Hillary = Trump, and it's also ridiculous to say that because both are flawed, I shouldn't have a preference. Trump and the Republican party are in many ways much worse on those same issues than Hillary is, even though I disagree with Hillary.

Not wanting Trump in office doesn't equal wanting Hillary in office.

Personally I'm pretty depressed that Hillary being president is best case scenario. She's pretty awful.

And even as much as I don't want to see Trump as president I'm not willing to actually cast a vote for Hillary, especially considering how willfully blind she and the rest of the DNC establishment are being to the changes in their parties base.


Amusing that you guys call Wookies support of the Democrats 'going left.' Ha. There is no left wing party in this country.

There is a right leaning centrist party, and a far right party. No left wing party in sight, at least not one with any power.

If you expand legal immigration, it will never get to the unskilled Mexican laborer. You already have a backlog of US college educated immigrants that didn't make the h1-b quota or wasn't able to find a job during the OPT period after graduation. Then you have the masses of foreign college educated that takes up your next group.

Suppose there is a fast path for illegal immigrants to become citizens. How is it fair to people who did everything by the book and waited 10 years for citizenship, may without a working permit?

No, not really. Unless you're using a very broad definition of "creates."

The first step in the process is for all the executive branch agencies to put together their agency budget request and then submit it to the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB works with each agency, going back-and-forth, until they agree on that specific budget request. After finalizing each agency's request, OMB then puts them all together, thus creating the overall budget request and it gets submitted to Congress under the President's signature, usually within a couple of weeks following the President's State of the Union Request, where he highlights what's in his budget.

It's at this point that Congress get involved, by holding individual hearings on various aspects of the budget and then voting on a Budget Resolution (which does not go to the President for signature). The Budget Resolution, once passed by both the House and the Senate, sets spending targets for the individual appropriations' bills.

It's at this final step where line items in each appropriations bill are hammered out and a final bill is crafted (or created) and voted on. Once approved by Congress, the individual bills then go to the President for either signature or veto. The President and his agency heads are fully involved in this budget process from beginning to end; it is a mischaracterization to simply say that Congress creates the Budget and the President either signs or vetos it.

Wrong.

Source

This is not the only option. Nor is it a requirement that we keep enforcing a bad system just because some people endured that bad system.

What do you think is fair?

I don't have a firm opinion on the best plan, but making them pay a fine, submit to a background check, and work in good standing for, say, 5 years before they could become citizens doesn't seem unreasonable.