2024 US Presidential Election

[Psy-Fi]

Who is Jason Palmer? Biden loses the American Samoa Democratic caucuses to entrepreneur

[Psy-Fi]

"Running Out Of Options" - Supreme Court Keeps Trump on Ballot Infuriating the Establishment

[SGR]

Joe Biden says he was WRONG to describe Laken Riley's accused murderer as an 'illegal' and vows to never treat migrants with 'disrespect'

Well that's nice - an illegal alien is let into the country by Biden's administration - said illegal alien bashes a young 22 year woman's skull in and kills her - Biden botches her name in his SOTU speech and refers to him as an 'illegal alien' - and now went back on TV to apologize for referring to him as an 'illegal alien' when he believes he should've used 'undocumented person' and promises to show them more respect in the future. Nice to see Joe's got his priorities in order.

[DJChameleon]

Joe Biden says he was WRONG to describe Laken Riley's accused murderer as an 'illegal' and vows to never treat migrants with 'disrespect'

Well that's nice - an illegal alien is let into the country by Biden's administration - said illegal alien bashes a young 22 year woman's skull in and kills her - Biden botches her name in his SOTU speech and refers to him as an 'illegal alien' - and now went back on TV to apologize for referring to him as an 'illegal alien' when he believes he should've used 'undocumented person' and promises to show them more respect in the future. Nice to see Joe's got his priorities in order.

Illegal alien term is outdated though regardless of what said undocumented person did

[SGR]

Illegal alien term is outdated though regardless of what said undocumented person did

It's not outdated. It describes accurately and succinctly exactly what he was. Democrats want to make it 'outdated' though. Changing minds through the manipulation of language.

But let's assume that is true for the sake of argument.

Correcting an outdated term applicable to a murderer who shouldn't have been in the country in the first place should be the priority over expressing remorse for a dead, murdered American and explaining and addressing how policy changes will be enacted to mitigate this from happening in the future?

[DJChameleon]

Correcting an outdated term applicable to a murderer who shouldn't have been in the country in the first place should be the priority over expressing remorse for a dead, murdered American and explaining and addressing how policy changes will be enacted to mitigate this from happening in the future?

It is outdated because people are humans not aliens. It doesn't describe them accurately. It just continues the xenophobic terminology to fear monger people into hating undocumented people.

It's not an either or thing. Both can AND should be done.

Correcting the term AND discussing solutions to prevent it from happening again through policy changes.

Republicans are on a full scale war against migrants and their messaging is the type that is trying to divide the lower/middle class when they should be joining together against the upper class and fighting to get the uber rich taxed fairly.

[SGR]

It is outdated because people are humans not aliens. It doesn't describe them accurately. It just continues the xenophobic terminology to fear monger people into hating undocumented people.

It's not an either or thing. Both can AND should be done.

Correcting the term AND discussing solutions to prevent it from happening again through policy changes.

Republicans are on a full scale war against migrants and their messaging is the type that is trying to divide the lower/middle class when they should be joining together against the upper class and fighting to get the uber rich taxed fairly.

The evolution of language and terms into pejoratives is kind of interesting. I think one of the more obvious examples is 'retard'. What once was meant simply as 'delayed development' and was applied to those with delayed mental development became a term used to insult others ("What are you, retarded?").

I don't necessarily find 'illegal alien' or 'illegal immigrant' to be cut from the same cloth though. It is an accurate term (much of the time) - and unlike other terms that evolve into pejoratives that necessarily refer to humanity or personhood of someone, this term simply means that someone is a foreign national who's current immigration status in the country is illegal. That's true in this guy's case (José Antonio Ibarra).

I'd argue that, often times, 'undocumented person' is much less precise and accurate term. It makes it sound like these people either don't have any papers or form of identification (which is not true, as many of them have birth certificates (from another country), passport (from another country), international drivers license, etc), or that we (the U.S. / ICE / Department of Homeland Security) haven't documented them somehow - which is also often not true. Let's take a look at the suspect in this case for example - and I'll just refer to the Wikipedia article on the matter:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that Ibarra is not a U.S. citizen and was caught crossing the border but was released into the United States.

José Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan, had entered the United States illegally in September 2022, crossing the US's southern border with Mexico near El Paso, Texas. According to Jeffrey Clark, the chief of UGA police, Ibarra lived in an apartment complex about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the wooded area where Riley's body was found. Ibarra had been previously arrested by both federal and state officials in multiple jurisdictions. He had a bench warrant issued for his arrest in December 2023 after failing to appear in court in a shoplifting case in Georgia.

So in his case (and many others), he was caught trying to cross the border, processed (documented), and released into the US anyways. He's had multiple arrests, both state and federal, and was processed/documented. He had a bench warrant issued for his arrest in late 2023 for shoplifting - we knew exactly who he was, we knew where he was from, we knew where lived - he wasn't 'undocumented' - his immigration status here was simply illegal.

But it goes to show that there probably isn't one term that could accurately encompass all the different kinds of scenarios of being in the country illegally. For example, someone is here to work on a work VISA. They stay past the timeframe the VISA allows them to - are they an 'illegal immigrant'? Well, not really - their presence in the US might now be illegal, but they didn't immigrate here - they were here to work on a work VISA. Are they an 'undocumented person'? No - because they went through proper channels to be here, we've documented them - they have their own documentation - they just exceeded the length of time they were supposed to be here. Perhaps 'Fraudulent Traveler' would be a better term in this case, not sure.

But there are multitudes of ways/circumstances someone could be in the country illegally - a catch-all term might be 'Individual Unlawfully Present in the US' - but that doesn't have any zip to it, and it's too long for politicians/TV pundits. Neither 'undocumented person' or 'illegal immigrant' convey every case accurately.

I agree with you though, the terminology used should be done responsibly by politicians and those in the media (yeah, I know, keep dreaming). It's irresponsible when Trump uses the term 'illegal immigrants' and then says 'they're poisoning the blood of our nation' - it's not necessarily the term itself that's irresponsible, but the context language it's couched in.

And my criticism for Biden isn't that he wants to double back and use a different term, it's that he did it with an (alleged) murderer. The messaging and optics are just poor. I could be wrong, but I highly doubt a swing voter saw Joe Biden's SOTU speech where he referred to the (alleged) murderer as an 'illegal immigrant' and thought: "He really should be calling them 'undocumented persons', this language is just irresponsible" and was happy to see his retraction. Immigration is a big issue going into the election with the majority of Americans, and Biden had an opportunity to appear strong on that issue; when asked, he could've said: "No, I don't regret calling him an 'illegal immigrant' - he was in this country illegally and what he did was illegal". Instead, he looked weak and provided Trump with free ammunition.

[Lisnaholic]

Nice to see Joe's got his priorities in order.

Biden's SOTU speech lasted over an hour, coherent and on-topic throughout. With three posts and a link focusing on one word in the speech, perhaps you should be checking your own priorities, SGR: are they, by any chance, Biden-bashing at any opportunity ?

Correcting an outdated term applicable to a murderer who shouldn't have been in the country in the first place should be the priority over expressing remorse for a dead, murdered American and explaining and addressing how policy changes will be enacted to mitigate this from happening in the future?

^ In fact, he did both of those things in the speech that I heard, clearly laying out how a bi-partisan proposal to provide extra staffing levels, facilities etc at the border is there, waiting for implementation, but speaker Johnson is blocking even a discussion about it on the House floor.

This is the shortest summary of Biden's speech that I could find on YouTube, if anyone wants to check the overall impression that it left on these Fox commentators:-

EDIT: just read your long post about the sad case of this woman being killed by J A Ibarra, and you make a lotof good points, SGR. You are obviously well-informed on the details, and I can understand the sense of outrage about a guy who just slips through the system without being stopped by the authorities. Same thing often happens in the UK too, with violent criminals "known to the police" who still end up committing some atrocity or other.
(How many are home-grown violent types and how many are immigrants I couldn't say.)

[SGR]

Biden's SOTU speech lasted over an hour, coherent and on-topic throughout. With three posts and a link focusing on one word in the speech, perhaps you should be checking your own priorities, SGR: are they, by any chance, Biden-bashing at any opportunity ?

To be fair Lisna, you're right, I'm not Biden's biggest fan. But the three posts are because I'm having a discussion with DJ about it, and in doing so, I've learned more (until I started digging deeper, I didn't realize just how many different ways someone could be in the country illegally), so it hasn't just been about bashing Biden, the initial criticism opened up a wider discussion that, ideally, would help us all learn a little bit more than we currently do. And to be fair, it wasn't just one word (term) in a speech, it was from one of the more memorable moments in the speech that ended up getting talked about widely. To Biden's credit, he did much better in the speech than I thought he would.

^ In fact, he did both of those things in the speech that I heard, clearly laying out how a bi-partisan proposal to provide extra staffing levels, facilities etc at the border is there, waiting for implementation, but speaker Johnson is blocking even a discussion about it on the House floor.

This is the shortest summary of Biden's speech that I could find on YouTube, if anyone wants to check the overall impression that it left on these Fox commentators:-

Admittedly, I haven't watched the video yet, but I assumed (when I was watching the speech) that this was in reference to the previous border bill that the Republicans blocked - is that not the case?

[SGR]

EDIT: just read your long post about the sad case of this woman being killed by J A Ibarra, and you make a lotof good points, SGR. You are obviously well-informed on the details, and I can understand the sense of outrage about a guy who just slips through the system without being stopped by the authorities. Same thing often happens in the UK too, with violent criminals "known to the police" who still end up committing some atrocity or other.
(How many are home-grown violent types and how many are immigrants I couldn't say.)

Thanks Lisna, yeah, like I said, I don't care if people want to use the term 'undocumented persons', but in my opinion, Biden caving to the left and making that correction about an alleged murderer just doesn't look good optically (imo).

Yeah, believe me, we've got a lot of criminals who get arrested, and let off on bail, only to commit some worse crime shortly after - and I'd bet money that most aren't illegal immigrants - it's a different problem than that of illegal immigration.

[Lisnaholic]

To be fair Lisna, you're right, I'm not Biden's biggest fan. But the three posts are because I'm having a discussion with DJ about it, and in doing so, I've learned more (until I started digging deeper, I didn't realize just how many different ways someone could be in the country illegally), so it hasn't just been about bashing Biden, the initial criticism opened up a wider discussion that, ideally, would help us all learn a little bit more than we currently do. And to be fair, it wasn't just one word (term) in a speech, it was from one of the more memorable moments in the speech that ended up getting talked about widely. To Biden's credit, he did much better in the speech than I thought he would.

^ Yeah, that's a really good answer, SGR, and I must admit I was rather over-stating my comment about your posts: perfectly natural that you would respond to DJ's comment. That's how these discussions usually advance.

Admittedly, I haven't watched the video yet, but I assumed (when I was watching the speech) that this was in reference to the previous border bill that the Republicans blocked - is that not the case?

^ Yes, that's my understanding too: the border bill that's been so much in the news lately, defended by Republican Senator Langford. I think.

[Lisnaholic]

Biden's SOTU speech lasted over an hour, coherent and on-topic throughout.

... in stark contrast to the Republican's reply: a speech that has not only turned Sen Katie Britt into a laughing-stock, but that also contained a completely non-relevent story about a Mexican woman raped in Mexico 20 years ago. By injecting that story into comments about border issues, KB led America to think that there was a connection between the two topics, when there is none. That is very dishonest, as this news clip makes clear:- 

Rape victim, Karla Jacinto Romero: "No one reached out to me for permission to use my story as part of a political speech. Someone using my story and distorting it  for political purposes is not fair at all."

So Katie Britt, in her see-through pose as an outraged mom in her all-American kitchen, exploits a Mexican woman who's tradgedy is not relevant. It's not much of a rebuttal of the points made in Biden's speech, but without a platform other than loyalty to Trump, the GOP don't have much to work with these days.

[SGR]

... in stark contrast to the Republican's reply: a speech that has not only turned Sen Katie Britt into a laughing-stock, but that also contained a completely non-relevent story about a Mexican woman raped in Mexico 20 years ago. By injecting that story into comments about border issues, KB led America to think that there was a connection between the two topics, when there is none. That is very dishonest, as this news clip makes clear:- 

Rape victim, Karla Jacinto Romero: "No one reached out to me for permission to use my story as part of a political speech. Someone using my story and distorting it  for political purposes is not fair at all."

So Katie Britt, in her see-through pose as an outraged mom in her all-American kitchen, exploits a Mexican woman who's tradgedy is not relevant. It's not much of a rebuttal of the points made in Biden's speech, but without a platform other than loyalty to Trump, the GOP don't have much to work with these days.

Katie Britt's speech was horrible (I watched it the day after the fact), without even getting into the details and distortions of what she said. She's an awful public speaker (not persuasive at all). It felt so stilted and awkward - at times it felt like she was being held hostage/at gunpoint off-camera to give this 'rebuttal'. If she has any kind of big future in the GOP, then the GOP is in big trouble.

[Psy-Fi]

Briahna Joy Gray & Glenn Greenwald Lament the State of the Union

[DJChameleon]

... in stark contrast to the Republican's reply: a speech that has not only turned Sen Katie Britt into a laughing-stock, but that also contained a completely non-relevent story about a Mexican woman raped in Mexico 20 years ago. By injecting that story into comments about border issues, KB led America to think that there was a connection between the two topics, when there is none. That is very dishonest, as this news clip makes clear:- 

Rape victim, Karla Jacinto Romero: "No one reached out to me for permission to use my story as part of a political speech. Someone using my story and distorting it  for political purposes is not fair at all."

So Katie Britt, in her see-through pose as an outraged mom in her all-American kitchen, exploits a Mexican woman who's tradgedy is not relevant. It's not much of a rebuttal of the points made in Biden's speech, but without a platform other than loyalty to Trump, the GOP don't have much to work with these days.

They write these speeches ahead of time and film them so it's not going to ever be a direct rebuttal to what the president says during the SOTU.