Fucking scum.
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If you’re willing to have children fill out legal forms like this, why bother having children actually fill out legal forms like this?
I mean, that legal instrument is such obvious bullshit (“Your Honor, of course the child understood—she signed her name, didn’t she?”), so what’s the point? Would it somehow be more unethical or illegal to do all this without these sham legal forms? It’s all just so, so… perverse.
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Let’s ask all the 14 year old POC being tried as adults in the US courts today.
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Uh yeah, they were nice, too bad you couldn’t have met them.
This is a crime. People need to go to jail for this.
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You’d think, but I have no expectation this is true. These kids are among the demographic that slips through the cracks during better administrations.
And the lifetime of the media furor in the current atmosphere is… ?
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sadly, this wouldn’t really be hyperbole if you left off the “/s”…
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This is nothing short of disgusting and infuriating.
Shame upon you, USA. I really hope you guys redeem yourself at some point in the near future, because you are heading to the dark place we Germans allready have been.
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I think this is one of those cases where you can say immoral and not amoral…
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How about just plain evil 
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Also, if you are in a “safe” district, please take a look at close races elsewhere and do what you can - sisterdistrict.com and swingleft.org are good places to find out ways to help, especially via phone canvassing, but even if you can just throw some dollars towards candidates that’s at least something.
The House is by no means a done deal, and it’s our last, best hope right now. And even though the Senate is a long shot, every single seat counts.
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FYI - 5 year olds representing themselves in immigration court is not a new thing. It has been going on for years, even under Obama.
I think John Oliver had a piece on it, if you want to look that up on youtube. I think Vox or Vice did too.
So the moral of the story is: morally repugnant things have been going on before Trump and will happen after Trump. Don’t suddenly become unaware of these things once he leaves office in 2 years.
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Yeah, that was part of the problem with Obama. Lots of unhappiness about GW Bush’s policies, but then the people who were upset often gave Obama a free pass even when he did the same things (because he’s “our guy”).
I kinda of find it funny how far the right maligns him, when he really continued most of the Bush era policies. Gitmo still open, drone strikes increased, troops were withdrawn - but that probably would have happened whomever got elected, border patrol drastically increased, and for the first half of his presidency, deportations increased.
And what is maddening is how many want to give credit or blame for the economy to the president, when almost never is the economy directly linked to something they did. At least not at the time. 2008 wasn’t Obama’s fault. It was the banks fault - though you could give some blame to Clinton relaxing regulations.
The economy is strong despite Trumps actions. Though that might falter because many industries are feeling the sting of the Tariffs. I know Ford is supposed to be going through a restructure to cut costs, including laying off people.
This is true, and even younger kids, as young as 3, have been forced to “represent” themselves. In the John Oliver piece (I think) there is a terrible sound bite of the judge “assuring” all in attendance that in his opinion the child is capable of understanding the charges and implications of the proceedings. I am as certain as I can be that the kid di not understand single word that was used in that sentence.
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Yes, and plenty of people were speaking out then too, but they got ignored, because democrats or whatever. How about we use the energy created by opposition to Trump to push for these large scale changes that will be permanent and long last, and create all those things in the real world that we claim to hold dear? None of us are perfect human beings, but if nothing else we have an opportunity to point out the failings in the larger system and to push for effective changes.
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I don’t even know if it is “democrats” or what ever. I mean, I understand the media, in general, is accused of a “liberal bias”. And I suppose that is true to a degree. Like you said, plenty of people spoke out, especially the lawyers and orgs that deal with immigration. But it didn’t really make the main stream news or conscious. I hadn’t heard about it until well after the fact.
Why was that?
Was it not a big enough story? Did it not have enough controversy? Unfortunately, while there is “real news” and journalism still out there, the cable news is more or less a reality game show, where number of eyeballs determine the winners. And like your Facebook news feed, what gets the attention is the most divisive and controversial stories.
So, maybe thanks to having a “big bad” in office, stories glossed over now have a new appeal? Or because he made things even worse that it is now bad enough to talk about it? I dunno.
But I do agree with your statement: “but if nothing else we have an opportunity to point out the failings in the larger system and to push for effective changes.”
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