USPOL August: Quoth The Donald, "Arzy more."

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL August: Quoth The Donald, "Arzy more."

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Samurai Sanders posted:

I believe the US is part of international treaties to that effect and I am told that treaties, once signed, are important to even the US.

We also played a key role in writing those treaties and really don't want to have to go through all the effort to writing "WE WERE WRONG ABOUT THE DEVIL WEED OK" into those treaties, especially since then it makes all our other anti-drug talk look pretty cheap and if there's one thing the US will avoid doing at all costs, it's saying we were wrong, since it degrades our ability to say we're right etc. etc. etc.

Very essentially, it's the same as any status quo in that there are lots of powerful people invested in saving face and keeping up a front so they can go on keeping up fronts and saving face on other things.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2016 05:05

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 14:08

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Eifert Posting posted:

All the more reason for Obama to executive order it in on the last day. The guy would set records for approval ratings.

If there's anything we know about Obama it's that we all wanted him to be this kind of guy and he just flat out isn't. :smith:

Also he seems pretty laser focused on his last big day thing being closing down Guantanamo. A last-minute order just shutting the whole place down seems far more likely if he can't get everyone transferred out before his last day, but even then I don't think he'll actually do it.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2016 05:15

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Ron Jeremy posted:

Aren't they the A and T in the BATF?

The definition of controlled substance is entirely determined by the Controlled Substances Act, so it doesn't cover substances that are just regulated. And yes, that's delightfully recursive!

21 U.S.C. � 802(6)[25 posted:

The term "controlled substance" means a drug or other substance, or immediate precursor, included in schedule I, II, III, IV, or V of part B of this subchapter. The term does not include distilled spirits, wine, malt beverages, or tobacco, as those terms are defined or used in subtitle E of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2016 05:20

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Eifert Posting posted:

At some point you have to think the actual popular support from voters is going to surpass monied interests. someone's always gonna be interested in throwing money at politicians, but voters are harder to replace.

Public opinion and public policy do tend to correlate in a democracy, obviously (there's a reason why a democracy's never had a famine), but the path of implementation tends to be a little knotty, and not at all guaranteed.

The Upshot did an interesting piece on this last year:

quote:

But the history of alcohol and tobacco offers some reason for pause about what happens next. On public health matters, individual rights don�t expand as reliably as they do in some other realms. There are too many potential big downsides. The drinking age is higher now than it once was, and tobacco use has become far more restricted. It�s possible marijuana will be legal nationwide in a few decades, but it hardly seems assured.

I personally think it seems assured based on how likely it is that recreational legalization will fare well at the ballot box in November � it's following a very traditional and super obvious pattern of using the states as test cases � but there are some issues where change comes quick despite a lack of supermajority support (see: gay marriage) and there are some issues where change comes slow despite overwhelming public support to the point where people think it's already a thing and stop even advocating for it (see: federal non-discrimination in employment policies for LGBTQ people), and it's interesting to think about.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2016 05:53

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

cheerfullydrab posted:

Has anyone written a book or an academic paper about how, in the last few decades, law enforcement and the government in general has focused on destroying various criminal or anti-government organizations, so they have been more and more split up into various splinter groups, a strategy that has worked until now, when any splinter group or lone crazy can find some compatriots or co-conspirators on the internet?

There's a whole genre of books and research about terrorism and/or guerrilla tactics and why top-down efforts don't do a great job at "defeating" them. :shrug:

I'm sure at least one of them talks about them in the context of this weird telepathy power so many of us suddenly have.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2016 06:25

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Lotka Volterra posted:

"Dumb white person holds stupid, insensitive opinion" isn't exactly news.

No, but it amuses us.

Especially given the amount of political attention coal as an industry and coal workers as an interest group get on a regular basis.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2016 18:34

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Samurai Sanders posted:

Can I be happy that in his flippant, ignorant way he's actually calling for an end to indefinite detention with no trial?

Yes. I can't remember the last time I read something about Guantanamo that wasn't just "GOP Says No to Obama's Plan, Obama Sad".

Well. I can remember. But my therapist recommends I focus on non-torture-related things these days.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 05:41

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

TheLoquid posted:

Monopoly legitimizes exploitation of renters. Risk legitimizes imperialism. Chess legitimizes authoritarianism and the exploitation of the most vulnerable. Don't play any games.

Is Civ cool if I exclusively play scenarios where I steamroll America as Gandhi?

Also we should Let's Play this :getin:

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 05:48

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

computer parts posted:

It's a contradiction of the idea that government funded media would solve all our problems in that field.

Which is ridiculous, given that NPR member stations receive 5% of their funds from governments. It's like PBS in that it barely qualifies as "public broadcasting" by the funding standards of any of the high-quality public broadcasters of Canada or the UK, especially given that NPR is both a fragmented network of local public radio stations and a content creator that syndicates some programming rather than a single coordinating entity.

By contrast the CBC just got an extra $150 million bucks to its $1.036 billion dollars of government funding, while Beeb and the other Euro corps are almost entirely publicly funded.

The government throwing a few bucks at a problem and people taking it as a sign that the policy doesn't work because the problem wasn't magically solved is really just about the most American thing ever. (Although yes, I know D&D is smarter than that.)

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 15:51

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Noam Chomsky posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXDe8HxHBA

I'm unironically in favor of this.

Going to need a GIF of Hillary saying "Yeah I vape so what".

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 16:01

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

edrith posted:

One of my friends is completely convinced that Putin is going to invade Estonia within the next three years. Specifically Estonia, because they have a large and apparently disliked Russian minority. How stupid is she being? I'm assuming very.

Estonia is a full fledged NATO member. Serious poo poo would go down if it was invaded.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2016 00:08

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Josef bugman posted:

This is the thing I don't get. How are people claiming he didn't say things he says?

1) It's usually their only defense.
2) It's a defense that seems to kind of work, or at least dampens the blow, because they know that any kind of disagreement turns a fact into a controversy.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 18:36

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Josef bugman posted:

Okay could someone sumurise the Don Lemon thing? I hate watching people argue if I can't get involved and the video is already a bit weird.

Dan Bongino/Trump stooge basically insulted Don Lemon a lot and Lemon told him he was lying and, best of all, that he should be ashamed of himself.

You aren't really missing out on much, although it's a great example of how the Trump team tries to defuse his controversies after the fact. If I was on the fence and didn't fully understand things, all the arguing would make me feel like it's just another unsettled political debate (although the facts are clear enough and Lemon and the panelists push back hard enough in this instance that it's also clear that the tactics of obfuscation can only do so much).

Also Dan Bongino is running for House Rep in Florida :psyduck:

Praise be that I don't have to work in the same building with ideologues like that and be told I have to try to pass legislation with them.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 18:56

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

WashPo just released an excellent in-depth story about the private prison where we've been stashing Central American asylum-seekers and the evolution of family detention policies. Sometimes there's no one in the prison, but never fear, the prison operators get paid the same rate regardless.

The US government basically dumped a billion-with-a-b bucks into a private prison company and it's not entirely clear we're really getting anything out of it because of legal mandates that we can't arbitrarily detain asylum-seekers for deterrence alone, especially when they're children.

quote:

As Central Americans surged across the U.S. border two years ago, the Obama administration skipped the standard public bidding process and agreed to a deal that offered generous terms to Corrections Corporation of America, the nation�s largest prison company, to build a massive detention facility for women and children seeking asylum.

The four-year, $1 billion contract � details of which have not been previously disclosed � has been a boon for CCA, which, in an unusual arrangement, gets the money regardless of how many people are detained at the facility. Critics say the government�s policy has been expensive but ineffective. Arrivals of Central American families at the border have continued unabated while court rulings have forced the administration to step back from its original approach to the border surge.

In hundreds of other detention contracts given out by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, federal payouts rise and fall in step with the percentage of beds being occupied. But in this case, CCA is paid for 100 percent capacity even if the facility is, say, half full, as it has been in recent months. An ICE spokeswoman, Jennifer Elzea, said that the contracts for the 2,400-bed facility in Dilley and one for a 532-bed family detention center in Karnes City, Tex., given to another company, are �unique� in their payment structures because they provide �a fixed monthly fee for use of the entire facility regardless of the number of residents.�

The rewards for CCA have been enormous: In 2015, the first full year in which the South Texas Family Residential Center was operating, CCA � which operates 74 facilities � made 14 percent of its revenue from that one center while recording record profit. CCA declined to specify the costs of operating the center.

�For the most part, what I see is a very expensive incarceration scheme,� said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House�s Immigration and Border Security subcommittee. �It�s costly to the taxpayers and achieves almost nothing, other than trauma to already traumatized individuals.�

The Washington Post based this account on financial documents � including copies of the agreements spelling out the Dilley deal obtained from the National Immigrant Justice Center � and interviews with government lawyers and former immigration and homeland security officials.

CCA�s chief executive, Damon Hininger, told investors in an earnings call this month that ICE recently has begun pushing for a more �cost-effective solution.� Those discussions, he said, are in the �preliminary stage.�

The facility in Dilley � built in the middle of sunbaked scrubland, in what used to be a camp for oil workers � now holds the majority of the country�s mother-and-child detainees. Such asylum seekers, until two years ago, had rarely been held in detention. They instead settled in whatever town they chose, told to eventually appear in court. The Obama administration�s decision to transform that policy � pushed by lawmakers assailing the porous state of the nation�s border � shows how the frenzy of America�s immigration politics can also bolster a private sector that benefits from a get-tough stance.

Before Dilley, CCA�s revenue and profit had been flat for five years. The United States� population of undocumented immigrants had begun to fall, reversing a decades-long trend, and the White House was looking to show greater leniency toward illegal immigrants already in the country. But under pressure to demonstrate that it still took border issues seriously, the administration took a tougher stance toward newly arriving Central Americans.

�This was about the best thing that could happen to private detention since sliced bread,� said Laura Lichter, a Denver immigration and asylum attorney who spent months living out of an old hunting lodge in Dilley.

For the first years of the Obama administration, the United States maintained fewer than 100 beds for family detention. But by the end of 2014, the administration had plans for more than 3,000 beds, and immigration advocates said the ramp-up had broken with America�s tradition of welcoming those seeking a haven from violence. At the Dilley facility, detainees described in interviews an understaffed medical clinic and rampant sickness among children, among other problems.

CCA, a Nashville-based public company valued at $3.18 billion, declined interview requests for this story. The company declined to respond to 28 of 31 written questions. It said that ICE oversees medical care at the facility, and the agency said it was comfortable with the quality of care.

�CCA is committed to treating all individuals in our care with the dignity and respect they deserve while they have due process before immigration courts,� the company said in a five-paragraph statement. �Responding to pressing challenges such [as] this � and doing so in a way that can flexibly meet the government�s changing needs � is a role that CCA has played for federal immigration partners for more than 30 years.�

The Central American asylum seekers were coming mostly from three countries in meltdown � El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras � where gang and drug-related violence have grown so rampant that their murder rates are now three of the world�s five highest, according to U.N. data. By claiming that they feared for their safety, the Central Americans were not subject, as are other unauthorized migrants, to ordinary deportation; they were entitled to press their asylum claims. But Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who oversees ICE, heard from border patrollers that the emergency was brewing momentum: People kept coming because word was out that the United States was granting permisos to new arrivals, allowing them to walk right into the country.

According to lawmakers and administration officials, Johnson determined that the United States could cut down the surge only by demonstrating that asylum seekers wouldn�t receive leniency. Johnson won approval from the White House to explore ramping up family detention for asylum seekers on a scale never before seen in America, part of what he called an �aggressive deterrence strategy.� He ordered ICE to figure out a way to make it work.

�This whole thing [was] building and reaching an unsustainable level,� said Christian Marrone, then Johnson�s chief of staff. �We had to take measures to stem the tide.�

Fast action
In a matter of days, ICE patched together a temporary solution. In June 2014, it placed the first batch of Central American mothers and children at a law-enforcement training site in Artesia, N.M. The agency pulled border agents off their usual jobs to help run the facility, and it was wary of hiring new employees and building a permanent facility for a problem it didn�t know how long would last.

�It makes sense that you put some of the risk on a private company,� said Mark Krikorian, executive director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter border control.

That�s how ICE made the call to CCA.

The company, founded three decades earlier, had risen from near-bankruptcy thanks to an immigrant detention boom that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Over the following 15 years, the share of revenue that CCA got from federal contracts more than doubled, according to the company�s annual reports. CCA and its only major competitor, the GEO Group, operate nine of the 10 largest immigration detention centers.

Through it all, CCA had pitched Washington on the idea that it could be an antidote to big government spending. One of the company�s co-founders, Thomas Beasley, told Inc. magazine in 1988 that selling prisons was no different from �selling cars, or real estate, or hamburgers.� But behind that pitch, CCA was a mega-sized business � one that pays its chief executive $3.4 million and has on its payroll a slew of former senior government officials.

Immigration activists say CCA had already proved itself incapable of running a family detention center. Between 2006 and 2009 � the only other major U.S. attempt to house women and children seeking asylum � CCA ran a facility in Taylor, Tex. Children wore prison uniforms, received little education and were limited to one hour of play time per day, according to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit filed against ICE in 2007 that led months later to a settlement agreement and improved conditions. Months after taking office, Obama closed the facility.

At ICE, officials saw the reboot of family detention as a welcome, if belated, sign of strength on the border. CCA was one of the two companies with the �means� to pull it off, along with GEO, said Phil Miller, an ICE deputy executive associate director who helps to oversee family detention. It could build a new facility quickly and had a legion of staff members with the right security clearances. (GEO, which referred all questions to ICE, ended up refurbishing a smaller facility.)

In forging their deal, CCA and ICE faced one major hurdle: the requirement for a public bidding process � one that threatened to significantly delay construction. So CCA found a workaround. In September 2014, the company approached Eloy, Ariz., an interstate town of 17,000, and asked its officials if they would be willing to amend its existing contract with the town. The company had been operating a detention center for undocumented men in Eloy since 2006. If Eloy modified that contract � essentially, directing CCA to build a new facility in another state, 1,000 miles away � the federal government would be freed from the bidding process. And by reaching out to a town already involved with the industry, CCA could also avoid the political risks that often come when trying to convince a new locality to build a detention center.

The deal is formed by two separate agreements: One between ICE and Eloy, the other between Eloy and CCA. Both were signed on the same day and refer to the family detention center in Dilley. As spelled out in the contracts, ICE provides the money to Eloy; Eloy, in turn, receives a small �administrative fee� for being party to the deal.

According to one Eloy official, county records and an account from the time in a local newspaper, the Eloy Enterprise, a CCA executive pitched the opportunity at a city council meeting in September 2014, saying Eloy could profit from the deal by collecting the payout from Washington, receiving a small percentage � roughly $1.8 million over the four years � and then passing the rest to CCA.

�At the time, there was some reluctance because of the optics� to go along with it, said Harvey Krauss, the Eloy city manager. �But I told everybody, we�re not taking a position; we�re just a fiscal agent. The federal government was in a hurry and this was an expedited way for them to get it done.�

ICE senior leaders signed off on the deal, an official at the agency said.

Mark Fleming, an attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center, who has reviewed hundreds of federal ICE contracts, said the deal was �singularly unique� and was designed to �avoid transparency.� The center obtained copies of the financial agreements through Arizona open-records laws and gave them to The Post. Several other experts on federal procurement said that while the government can avoid bidding laws in urgent or national security cases, they had never before seen a facility in one state created with the help of a recycled contract from another.

�This is the arrangement of a no-bid contract by twisting and distorting the procurement process past recognition,� said Charles Tiefer, a University of Baltimore law school professor, former solicitor and deputy general counsel of the House of Representatives, who reviewed the deal at the request of The Washington Post.

The contract shows how CCA is assured of a predictable payment, collecting a fixed amount of around $20 million per month � even when the facility�s population drops.

A CCA spokesman, Jonathan Burns, said that the company is required by the contract to provide full staffing and other services no matter the population. But, from the government�s perspective, the contract becomes less cost-effective when fewer people stay in Dilley. When 2,400 people are detained, the government spends what amounts to $285 per day, per person, according to a Post calculation. When the facility is half-full, as it has been in recent months, the government would spend $570. On some days when the facility is nearly empty, as it was for a period in January, the government would be paying multiples more.

At more than 200 non-family immigration detention sites, most per diems are between $60 and $85, according to an ICE document. The daily cost to detain children is higher, ICE officials said, because the government requires a litany of extra standards such as education courses and medicine for nursing mothers.

Critics say ICE could have chosen much more cost-effective alternatives. Ankle monitors, which could track asylum seekers as they await court dates, for example, cost several dollars per day.

Miller, the ICE official, said his agency didn�t push as hard as usual for lower costs because of the �immediacy� of the need.

�If you need an air conditioner today, you�re going to pay what the AC guy tells you,� Miller said. �If it�s December and you want a new AC unit in place by June, you have more time to research.�

The deterrence issue
For the opening of the South Texas Family Residential Center on Dec. 15, 2014, Johnson flew to Dilley and announced that the country�s borders are �not open to illegal migration.� A U.S. government ad blitz in Central America spread a similar message.

But immigration activists cast doubt on whether the United States is getting what it paid for: deterrence.

Border-crossing among asylum-seeking women and children has changed little from two years ago. Over the previous 12 months, according to government statistics, 66,000 �family units� � mostly women and children � have been apprehended at the border, compared with 61,000 in the same period two years earlier.

�What is the root problem? I don�t believe it�s a pull factor so much as a push,� said John Sandweg, a former acting ICE director who left in early 2014, months before the immigration surge. �I do not believe that family detention has been a deterrent.�

Initially, the government had intended Dilley to hold families for months at a time. But that model has been changed by two court decisions in 2015 � one determining that ICE couldn�t detain asylum seekers �simply to deter others,� and one that the government had to abide by a two-decade-old settlement requiring that migrant children be held in the least restrictive environment possible. The judge in that case, Dolly Gee, ordered the government to release children �without unnecessary delay,� and Homeland Security has so far been unsuccessful in appealing.

As a result, stays at Dilley have shortened. Families are typically released in a matter of weeks, after women pass an initial interview establishing they have a �credible� reason to fear returning home. Even when Dilley has many empty beds, families sometimes aren�t detained at all, according to immigration lawyers.

Use of the Dilley facility has become so �haphazard,� said Ian Philabaum, an advocacy coordinator, that in January it was nearly empty, even as Central Americans were arriving at a steady pace along the Texas border.

Government officials no longer say that the Dilley detention center is for deterrence. But Johnson said at a recent roundtable with reporters that family detention, though it had been �reformed considerably,� had still been useful for women and children while the government determined whether they had health problems or posed flight risks.

�I think we need to continue the practice so we�re not just engaging in catch-and-release,� Johnson said.

CCA declined to comment on the evolution of family detention policy. But Hininger, CCA�s chief executive, said in a release for investors that the company was �pleased� with its performance at the start of the year. Its increase in revenue, the company said, was �primarily attributable� to the South Texas Family Residential Center.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 04:35

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

citybeatnik posted:

I'm unable to go in to details as to why but gently caress CCA for all they stand for in general and for this asylum poo poo in particular.

Knowing that they're offering the kind of tempting, instant solution the government just can't pass up to get the increase in revenues they need is the worst part. Especially given that they were on the verge of being wiped from existence prior to 9/11.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 04:44

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

FuzzySlippers posted:

I know the conventional wisdom is that when white people get scared they run to the Republican party but is Trump really the safe law and order candidate? The crazy man with chaotic rallies, who calls for his political opponents to be killed or hacked by a foreign power, has deep ties to Russian oligarchs, etc?

Remember all those scary terrorist attacks this summer over in Europe? Yeah, Trump didn't even get a bump from them.

ComradeCosmobot posted:

A specter is haunting the world: the specter of illiberal democracy. Yascha Mounk over at Slate has a long-form piece that paints a pretty dire picture of the future of left-wing governance around the world based on the awfulness that was July in world news.

Illiberal democracies of today are absolutely deserving of scrutiny and reform, but this is fearmongering bullshit, honestly.

There are some great points in there about the democratic divide, and Turkey and Britain have been backsliding towards authoritarianism for ages, but A) neither of those are new criticisms and B) neither of those are valid criticisms to argue that democracy is broken, especially when we live in the most prosperous, peaceful, and stable world known to man in the history of the species.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 05:21

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

UV_Catastrophe posted:

How bad could this Manafort stuff end up being for Trump?

The new NYT story is pretty tame, we already knew Manafort worked in the Ukrainian sphere when its government was a Russian puppet, which automatically puts you a few degrees of influence away from Putin. The tweets promising more dirt in that direction might get some of the super paranoid patriots to consider voting Johnson instead, but it seems unlikely to sway the minds of those already solidly supporting Trump, who genuinely want someone like Putin in power anyway.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 05:27

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

showbiz_liz posted:

Who's "we"? We, the supernerds who post on this weirdass political forum, or we, the general American populace who had absolutely no idea who Paul Manafort was until they saw that article?

We, the politics nerds, already knew about Manafort and his background. They, the average person, may or may not have been exposed to the widespread "Trump = Russian stooge??? :tinfoil:

" story/rumor, but regardless they, the average Trump voter, seems unlikely to be persuaded that the internal Trump person they've never heard of maybe had a connection to Russia once should make them change their vote.

This is based entirely on my own personal judgement and exposure to Trump supporters, of course, not focus groups or polling.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 06:04

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

This is the best new thing to come out of the HILLARY'S HEALTH bullshit:

https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/765727501104586758

(Can't wait to see her inaugurated :allears:

)

axe_vendetta posted:

Sometimes recent immigrants overcompensate out of a sense of insecurity. Some of the most anti-immigration people I know are 2nd generation Asians. Also, Jews and Blacks know full well that this is not merely rhetoric or dog-whistling but something altogether new and sinister

2nd generation tends to hyperassimilate and reject their heritage, 3rd generation tends to want to go back to their roots.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2016 06:32

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Riosan posted:

For the first time in over a year, Reince puts down the handle of Jack. "Maybe now I can find inner peace. The pivot is here," he thinks to himself. The following day, Trump devours a Christian newborn on live television.

He always goes to pieces ever more spectacularly after giving prepared remarks so I can't wait to see what the aftermath brings :allears:

# ¿ Aug 19, 2016 01:18

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Is this really what we're going to do until November? Try to untrigger CelestialScribe every time they forget to take a Xanax? :effort:

The Colon Powell recommendation at least sounds realistic to me, I can absolutely see him essentially telling her to look out for number 1 and not get screwed over like he did.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2016 02:44

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Mechafunkzilla posted:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/donald-trump-model-management-illegal-immigration

Holy moly. I knew labor in the fashion industry was basically Silicon Valley-levels of awfulness, but this is basically indentured servitude with a side of human trafficking. And Trump basically uses the agency as his personal eye candy supply store for all his stupid Trump Inc. events. Disgusting.

quote:

Anna recalled that prior to her arrival, Trump agency staffers were "dodging around" her questions about her immigration status and how she could work legally in the United States. "Until finally," she said, "it came to two days before I left, and they told me my only option was to get a tourist visa and we could work the rest out when I got there. We never sorted the rest out."

quote:

Nearly three years after signing with Trump's agency, Blais had little to show for it�and it wasn't for lack of modeling jobs. Under the contracts that she and other Trump models had signed, the company advanced money for rent and various other expenses (such as trainers, beauty treatments, travel, and administrative costs), deducting these charges from its clients' modeling fees. But these charges�including the pricey rent that Blais and her roommates paid�consumed nearly all her modeling earnings. "I only got one check from Trump Models, and that's when I left them," she said. "I got $8,000 at most after having worked there for three years and having made tens of thousands of dollars." (The check Blais received was for $8,427.35.)

"This is a system where they actually end up making money on the back of these foreign workers," Blais added. She noted that models can end up in debt to their agencies, once rent and numerous other fees are extracted.

This is known in the industry as "agency debt." Kate said her bookings never covered the cost of living in New York. After two months, she returned home. "I left indebted to them," she said, "and I never went back, and I never paid them back."

quote:

Trump has taken an active role at Trump Model Management from its founding. He has personally signed models who have participated in his Miss Universe and Miss USA competitions, where his agency staff appeared as judges. Melania Trump was a Trump model for a brief period after meeting her future husband in the late 1990s.

The agency is a particular point of pride for Trump, who has built his brand around glitz and glamour. "True Trumpologists know the model agency is only a tiny part of Trumpland financially," the New York Sun wrote in 2004. "But his agency best evokes a big Trump theme�sex sells." Trump has often cross-pollinated his other business ventures with fashion models and has used them as veritable set pieces when he rolls out new products. Trump models, including Blais, appeared on The Apprentice�and they flanked him at the 2004 launch of his Parker Brothers board game, TRUMP.

Part of Blais' job, she said, was to serve as eye candy at Trump-branded events. Recalling the first time she met the mogul, she said, "I had to go to the Trump Vodka opening." It was a glitzy 2006 gala at Trump Tower where Busta Rhymes performed, and Trump unveiled his (soon-to-be-defunct) line of vodka. "It was part of my duty to go and be seen and to be photographed and meet Donald Trump and shake his hand," she remembered.

Trump made a strong impression on her that night. "I knew that I was a model and there was objectification in the job, but this was another level," she said. Blais left Trump Model Management the year after the Trump Vodka gala, feeling that she had been exploited and shortchanged by the agency.

Kate, who went on to have a successful career with another agency, also parted ways with Trump's company in disgust. "My overall experience was not a very good one," she said. "I left with a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't like the agency. I didn't like where they had us living. Honestly, I felt ripped off."

These days, Kate said, she believes that Trump has been fooling American voters with his anti-immigrant rhetoric, given that his own agency had engaged in the practices he has denounced. "He doesn't like the face of a Mexican or a Muslim," she said, "but because these [models] are beautiful girls, it's okay? He's such a hypocrite."

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 19:04

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

zoux posted:

APs extremely un clickbaity social media promotion continues.

https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/770689439400099842

I eagerly look forward to learning more about Hillz 'n' Huma's fav TV shows/IT weaknesses.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 19:38

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Trabisnikof posted:

Imagine if we had the Gay National Anthem before all sporting events

Well, during the Super Bowl we usually play it during half time at least :shrug:

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 20:17

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

The Dems are, and should be, very actively welcoming Jesus freaks of all kinds who actually give a poo poo about their fellow man regardless of their beliefs, circumstances, and/or appearance.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2016 17:17

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 14:08

Combed Thunderclap: Jan 4, 2011

Wikkheiser posted:

lol @ NY Times

How do you gently caress up an article on a speech?

They obviously wrote a "OMG HORSE RACE" piece before and/or immediately after the speech and shoved it out into the world without actually reporting on A) how crappy the speech was or B) the immediate heel-face turn Trump made as soon as he was in front of an audience who cheered him on to say his usual nasty poo poo.

Then they had to go and make a few updates after the fact because the reality turned out a little different.

The power of the incentive to make every election THE CLOSEST OF ALL TIME is really blindingly obvious this time around.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2016 06:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL August: Quoth The Donald, "Arzy more."