"Relinquishing" as opposed to "being stripped of".
I'm put in mind of the executives who get offered the choice of resign or get fired. Or the occasional enlisted military methodology (for undesirable, but not actually dangerous, tasks): "I want 3 volunteers. You, you, and you."
Colleges and universities have an issue with silos. The mindset is that everything ought to fit into one of them.
They will (depending on the particular college) accept a double major. But the mindset is that, whatever the two majors, they must have some kind of synergy. Thus someone may have an undergraduate double major in chemistry and biology, and the faculty will nod sagely and say "aiming for biochemistry in grad school" (there being no undergraduate program in biochemistry). They can wrap their heads around that.
But I had a double major in Mechanical Engineering (fluid mechanics) and in Cultural Anthropology. Drove the professors in both majors nuts. In their minds, there must be some synergy there somewhere. They were seriously frustrated that, apparently, I could see it but they could not. The idea that I just found two disparate subjects which both interested me? Simply inconceivable, apparently.
It seems like the assumption of a shared language base actually rests on two factors: race, and a largely shared script. Neither of which really impact language.
For race, only consider Swedish, Hungarian, Spanish, and Ukranian. The Europeans who are native speakers of those languages are all the same race. But the languages are not related.
As for a shared script, note that the Latin script is used not only for all of the languages of Western and Northern Europe, but for the hundreds of languages of pretty much all of Sub-Saharan Africa, not to mention Vietnamese. The linguistic overlap is basically nonexistant (barring loan words, of course).
Sure, it would be convenient if learning Japanese was relevant to learning Korean or Chinese (either Mandarin or Cantonese, or one of the other "dialects" -- actually distinct languages rather than real dialects). But while all use related scripts, the spoken languages, as you discovered, are quite different. Just to state the obvious, Chinese is a tonal** language, which Japanese is definitely not. (I'm not familiar enough with Korean to know which, if either, it resembles.)
** In case anyone here is unfamiliar with the term, the only example in English is the use a rising tone in the last syllable of a sentence to indicate a question. The meaning of the word isn't changed. In contrast, Chinese uses 5 (IIRC) different tones to differentiate unrelated words. See the chart here for examples.
russell, the critical phrase there was "by comparison.". I don't think that, in any absolute sense, it will be quick or easy. I just think that the foreign relations impact will be harder and slower to repair. In part because they can decline to join us in anything, whereas we are basically stuck with each other. (The dreams of Steven Miller, et al. notwithstanding.)
There are times when it's a great coping mechanism to be a compulsive optimist. Although that should probably be a *relative* optimist.
I expect the nation will take a lot (more) damage in the near term. But I think it is, eventually, recoverable damage. Not without a lot of work. And in a lot of cases, it will probably take a couple of generations for the memories to fade. Definitely, in the case of our foreign relations.
But consider our relations (pre-Trump!) with Germany and Japan. Economic competitors to some degree, sure. But even the oldest of us are only the children of the folks who fought World War II, and it's never had the same emotional impact that it did for them. For us, it's just history; for our children it's mostly ancient history.
The rebuilding at home will be, by comparison with the destruction of trust, be quick and easy. Relatively. Lots and lots of people hurt in the meantime. But horrible as that is, overall it's a long way from "permanent".
And (see compulsive optimist) I could see us getting to something resembling the Progressive Era that followed the previous Gilded Age. Not just fixing the trashed stuff, by completely new improvements.
Thank you all for the information and suggestions.
I suppose you could say I'm at least somewhat into this stuff. Since I'm undertaking to produce a scroll which is in that mode, albeit with very different content. I've done such in the past, but I'm seriously out of practice. Like three decades out of practice. So I need all the help I can get.
Just for something completely different, I'm in Dublin, Ireland this week (conference). So I wandered over to Trinity College to check out The Book of Kells Experience.
A nicely done exhibition. I was particularly pleased to be able to see the Book itself. In a darkened room, and only the page it happened to be turned to. But still beautiful. And lots of other stuff from the book and about it. Way cool!
Off topic
Ya know, it was really handy to be able to preview comments. Just to keep control over italics. So far, I haven't grasped what I'm doing wrong. But sometimes I get the bar with a choice of such things, and sometimes I don't.
The writer’s thesis was that the US would get better quality presidents if we had a powerless monarchy to be the focus for the people who are attracted by shiny object, which would make a president’s role more that of a policy wonk.
Perhaps a better, i.e. less contentious, way to put this is: There are advantages to separating the job of head of state from the job of head of government. One spends most of his time on ceremonial functions. The other spends most of his time managing the executive branch of the (typically national) government. (Not to say that there might be something to be said for taking the same principle down to the state/province/region level.)
The first question someone proposing such a system needs to answer is: How do you pick those two people? In Britain, for example, the chief of state, the monarch, is a hereditary position, while the head of government is (indirectly**) elected. My impression is that the other (nominal) monarchies in Europe do something similar. There are doubtless other approaches, but I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable in the field to know of examples.
And this leads to the question for Britain, if they decide to abolish their monarchy: How do you choose a new chief of state going forward? I mean, you could just dump the necessary tasks in the PM. But have recent ones really demonstrated that they have the bandwidth to take in the additional work?
** It would be rude for someone from outside to describe the method as a kludge. Which is why I resisted the temptation.
My impression was that British support for the monarchy has been based, for most of her lifetime, on support for Queen Elizabeth herself. King Charles simply doesn't have that lifetime establishment of support. So he is forced (I have no idea if he recognizes it or not) to act in ways, and in circumstances, that his mother never had to worry about.
In the specific case of Andrew, it looks (from across the pond and across a continent in addition) like the Crown is going to have to throw him under the bus -- whatever that amounts to in detail. Which is probably what he deserves, but isn't going to be easy for his brother. And, if Andrew's past behavior ends up taking down the monarchy, the fiddling details will likely take years, if not decades, to sort out.
It's true that there are undoubtedly a lot of other people, especially but not exclusively in the US, who interacted with Epstein and who deserve the same. Whether they, too, will get what they deserve depends on how many names get named, and with what kind of details.
The contortions that our House Speaker is going thru, and the amount of damage he (or Trump) is willing accept, in order to avoid making the "Epstein Files" public suggest that there is a whole lot of there there. We live in interesting times.
I live in north central Texas, and I never see anything like that [Confederate flag flying off the back of a pickup].
Would that suggest that the whole point of flying those Confederate flags isn't about the Confederacy? Rather it's about "owning the libs". Thus there is no point to doing it in north central Texas -- there aren't enough liberals there to make it worth the effort.
Oh, a benevolent monarchy (or a benevolent dictatorship of any sort) actually has the potential to work pretty well. The problem is, there's no way to assure that the monarch will always be benevolent. Not to mention competent to do the job.
Which is why, after experiencing one, the population tends to develop a strong preference for some other form of government. Assuming they have heard of one, and can imagine living under it. Sometimes they deal with that by emigrating to somewhere that provides that alternative. Other times, they rise up, eliminate the monarch (and his supporting cast), and try to set up something better. It can take a few iterations to get the necessary, but not always obvious, checks and balances in place.
The extent to which these folks seem to have mush for brains (to phrase it politely) is astounding. In this particular instance, it makes me think that all that's required to get thru law school and pass the bar exam is a good memory. No actual cognitive ability necessary.
That wasn't previously my view, for all that I have a somewhat jaundiced view of some lawyers. But the ones who work for Trump, personally or as his appointees in the Department of Justice, are not only ethically challenged but, in the evidence, dumb as rocks besides. No offense intended to any rocks in the audience.
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They’ll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they’ll win some. And over time, they’ll win more.
I wonder if part if the problem is that, every 4 years, the party sees a Presidential candidate upending ongoing programs in order to do things their way. And it works for them, because they end up outspending the DNC by a substantial amount.
To get something like this in place is going to require changing where (organizationally) money gets raised and allocated. From candidate-centeic to party-centric. That, in turn, will require changing the incentives for donors. Not sure how you do that.
I notice that Trump is now demanding that the Chinese resume buying soybeans from the US. One suspects that he discovered that Midwestern farmers are seriously upset to have a major market snatched out from under them. (Especially those who didn't see it coming, and so failedto plant something else this year. Too late now to do anything but plow the crop under as fertalizer for next year.)
He seems oblivious to the fact that the Chinese have found alternative suppliers. Which is to say, they don't need to buy from us. As opposed to, say, refined rare earths, for which we (and, for that matter the rest of the world) have no alternative sources of supply.
We could develop them, of course -- "rare earths" aren't particularly rare; just challenging to separate from each other. It would just take 5-10 years, even assuming zero regulatory constraints (i.e. no environmental impact reports, no planning permissions, etc.). Can't expect Trump to grasp that, of course.
I could easily see the Chinese playing hardball on this. If only to show the wannabe his place. Hey, it keeps working for Putin, so why not?
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West? They all have significant rural populations, too.
For serious animism, one of my favorite memories is still Faith healing for computers:
Operations called Systems Programming because a (mainframe) disk drive was misbehaving. Walked in to the machine room and over to it. Laid my hands on top of the box.
Problem solved. Never did anything else to it. But Ops said that the problem had gone away.
Laying on of hands. Don't see how it could work on inanimate objects, so ...
I don't know about other professions, but I suspect everybody in IT spends some work time cursing when, inevitably, things don't go smoothly.
Whether they are talking to the software, or maybe the hardware. Or if they are appealing to a higher power for help. (Or maybe retribution on said recalcitrant software.). Hard to say. Possibly it varies from one individual to another.
Actual, you know, convictions for assault might be persuasive. But just getting charged? Not so much, considering how often the charges get dropped. Not to mention that even those that get to court don't have the kind of high success rate other kinds of cases routinely have.
And to be picky, I don’t think there is anything to support Noem’s claim that there has been a 700% increase in these incidents.
I doubt that she has the wit for this herself, but there might be someone on staff who does. Percentages are a great way to exagerate an increase from, for example, 1 incident nationwide last year to 7 this year. Both numbers are small enough, given the total numbers of people involved, that the variation might well be nothing more than statistical noise. But it makes for great scare headlines this way.
People should be able to do their jobs without having their home addresses published.
The challenge today is this. If someone can capture your face, they can probably find some facial recognition software to get your name. I don't know how readily available such software is, but it's definitely nor restricted to police departments. And, once someone has your name, getting your home address is difficult only if the name is common enough that there are multiple possibilities. With a name like mine**, it's trivial.
Someday we may work out ways to provide a little more privacy. But for the moment, we are in stalker heaven. (And I'm wondering, now that I think about it, how the Witness Protection Program deals with this.)
** Both the other people in the country with the same first and last names are 1st cousins. No prize for guessing our grandfather's name.
I'd be fine with boosting the link limit to something like 5. 10 definitely seems excessive -- if you have a burning need to share more, putting in multiple comments doesn't seem that much of a burden.
As for closing comments, I incline to something like 21 days. Anything over a month is just way too long. But 14 is a bit short.
No question that climate change is criticality important. What it is not is an issue which will move votes. At this point, political campaigns simply cannot be about educating voters about things that the ought to care about. It has to be about getting them in side for the next election.
God willing, we will get back to a place where we can focus on educating voters. Rather than having to focus on saving the country. But we aren't there now.
if one genuinely wanted to attack the problem one would go after the employers, who have much more to lose than the illegal immigrants.
Fact is, nobody has done it. It's now peculiar to Trunp & Co., so it's not just about Trump being a big empliyer of illehals.
The law has been in place forever. But when I.C.E. (or its predecessors) make a raid on a workplace, somehow the employer never faces legal consequences. Even in cases where the employees really are illegally here (and not merely of the "wrong" racial or ethnic group).
"what justification is there for its presence anyway?"
At this point: inertia.
Half a century ago, when we were a big oil importer and the Saudis essentially controlled the price of oil worldwide, there were obvious economic reasons to be involved there. Plus, at that time, some humanitarian reasons to defend the only democracy in the region (Israel).
But now, we're a net oil exporter. We still import a lot, but on balance. And these days (yes, gradually over the intervening decades) Israel has ceased to be a shining example compared to its neighbors. Even though said neighbors are still pretty appalling.
In fact, from a domestic political perspective, the majority of American Jews are no longer solid Israel supporters. Netanyahu has made manifest for them just where Israel has descended to. All we need is a generation of politicians who don't personally remember the situation from 50-60 years ago.
"There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it."
First, there was? Care to share how it might have been done safely?
Second, Biden didn't have a date in mind. Trump (before he left) had established the date. Biden was stuck either totally reworking the pullout, or trying to execute what he was handed. In retrospect, he should have abrogated the pullout agreement Trump had made, and created a viable plan. And just accepted the fact that he would be totally trashed for doing so.
Did it go badly? No question. But from where I sit, Trump owns it. Or would, if he ever accepted responsibility for anything.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Monarchy in the UK”
"Relinquishing" as opposed to "being stripped of".
I'm put in mind of the executives who get offered the choice of resign or get fired. Or the occasional enlisted military methodology (for undesirable, but not actually dangerous, tasks): "I want 3 volunteers. You, you, and you."
On “Ramsayer, Korea and me”
Colleges and universities have an issue with silos. The mindset is that everything ought to fit into one of them.
They will (depending on the particular college) accept a double major. But the mindset is that, whatever the two majors, they must have some kind of synergy. Thus someone may have an undergraduate double major in chemistry and biology, and the faculty will nod sagely and say "aiming for biochemistry in grad school" (there being no undergraduate program in biochemistry). They can wrap their heads around that.
But I had a double major in Mechanical Engineering (fluid mechanics) and in Cultural Anthropology. Drove the professors in both majors nuts. In their minds, there must be some synergy there somewhere. They were seriously frustrated that, apparently, I could see it but they could not. The idea that I just found two disparate subjects which both interested me? Simply inconceivable, apparently.
"
It seems like the assumption of a shared language base actually rests on two factors: race, and a largely shared script. Neither of which really impact language.
For race, only consider Swedish, Hungarian, Spanish, and Ukranian. The Europeans who are native speakers of those languages are all the same race. But the languages are not related.
As for a shared script, note that the Latin script is used not only for all of the languages of Western and Northern Europe, but for the hundreds of languages of pretty much all of Sub-Saharan Africa, not to mention Vietnamese. The linguistic overlap is basically nonexistant (barring loan words, of course).
Sure, it would be convenient if learning Japanese was relevant to learning Korean or Chinese (either Mandarin or Cantonese, or one of the other "dialects" -- actually distinct languages rather than real dialects). But while all use related scripts, the spoken languages, as you discovered, are quite different. Just to state the obvious, Chinese is a tonal** language, which Japanese is definitely not. (I'm not familiar enough with Korean to know which, if either, it resembles.)
** In case anyone here is unfamiliar with the term, the only example in English is the use a rising tone in the last syllable of a sentence to indicate a question. The meaning of the word isn't changed. In contrast, Chinese uses 5 (IIRC) different tones to differentiate unrelated words. See the chart here for examples.
On “I got depressed so I bought hydrangeas”
russell, the critical phrase there was "by comparison.". I don't think that, in any absolute sense, it will be quick or easy. I just think that the foreign relations impact will be harder and slower to repair. In part because they can decline to join us in anything, whereas we are basically stuck with each other. (The dreams of Steven Miller, et al. notwithstanding.)
"
There are times when it's a great coping mechanism to be a compulsive optimist. Although that should probably be a *relative* optimist.
I expect the nation will take a lot (more) damage in the near term. But I think it is, eventually, recoverable damage. Not without a lot of work. And in a lot of cases, it will probably take a couple of generations for the memories to fade. Definitely, in the case of our foreign relations.
But consider our relations (pre-Trump!) with Germany and Japan. Economic competitors to some degree, sure. But even the oldest of us are only the children of the folks who fought World War II, and it's never had the same emotional impact that it did for them. For us, it's just history; for our children it's mostly ancient history.
The rebuilding at home will be, by comparison with the destruction of trust, be quick and easy. Relatively. Lots and lots of people hurt in the meantime. But horrible as that is, overall it's a long way from "permanent".
And (see compulsive optimist) I could see us getting to something resembling the Progressive Era that followed the previous Gilded Age. Not just fixing the trashed stuff, by completely new improvements.
On “Something Different”
Thank you all for the information and suggestions.
I suppose you could say I'm at least somewhat into this stuff. Since I'm undertaking to produce a scroll which is in that mode, albeit with very different content. I've done such in the past, but I'm seriously out of practice. Like three decades out of practice. So I need all the help I can get.
"
Just for something completely different, I'm in Dublin, Ireland this week (conference). So I wandered over to Trinity College to check out The Book of Kells Experience.
A nicely done exhibition. I was particularly pleased to be able to see the Book itself. In a darkened room, and only the page it happened to be turned to. But still beautiful. And lots of other stuff from the book and about it. Way cool!
On “Monarchy in the UK”
Off topic
Ya know, it was really handy to be able to preview comments. Just to keep control over italics. So far, I haven't grasped what I'm doing wrong. But sometimes I get the bar with a choice of such things, and sometimes I don't.
"
The writer’s thesis was that the US would get better quality presidents if we had a powerless monarchy to be the focus for the people who are attracted by shiny object, which would make a president’s role more that of a policy wonk.
Perhaps a better, i.e. less contentious, way to put this is: There are advantages to separating the job of head of state from the job of head of government. One spends most of his time on ceremonial functions. The other spends most of his time managing the executive branch of the (typically national) government. (Not to say that there might be something to be said for taking the same principle down to the state/province/region level.)
The first question someone proposing such a system needs to answer is: How do you pick those two people? In Britain, for example, the chief of state, the monarch, is a hereditary position, while the head of government is (indirectly**) elected. My impression is that the other (nominal) monarchies in Europe do something similar. There are doubtless other approaches, but I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable in the field to know of examples.
And this leads to the question for Britain, if they decide to abolish their monarchy: How do you choose a new chief of state going forward? I mean, you could just dump the necessary tasks in the PM. But have recent ones really demonstrated that they have the bandwidth to take in the additional work?
** It would be rude for someone from outside to describe the method as a kludge. Which is why I resisted the temptation.
"
My impression was that British support for the monarchy has been based, for most of her lifetime, on support for Queen Elizabeth herself. King Charles simply doesn't have that lifetime establishment of support. So he is forced (I have no idea if he recognizes it or not) to act in ways, and in circumstances, that his mother never had to worry about.
In the specific case of Andrew, it looks (from across the pond and across a continent in addition) like the Crown is going to have to throw him under the bus -- whatever that amounts to in detail. Which is probably what he deserves, but isn't going to be easy for his brother. And, if Andrew's past behavior ends up taking down the monarchy, the fiddling details will likely take years, if not decades, to sort out.
It's true that there are undoubtedly a lot of other people, especially but not exclusively in the US, who interacted with Epstein and who deserve the same. Whether they, too, will get what they deserve depends on how many names get named, and with what kind of details.
The contortions that our House Speaker is going thru, and the amount of damage he (or Trump) is willing accept, in order to avoid making the "Epstein Files" public suggest that there is a whole lot of there there. We live in interesting times.
On “The South shall writhe again”
I live in north central Texas, and I never see anything like that [Confederate flag flying off the back of a pickup].
Would that suggest that the whole point of flying those Confederate flags isn't about the Confederacy? Rather it's about "owning the libs". Thus there is no point to doing it in north central Texas -- there aren't enough liberals there to make it worth the effort.
On “Bal des Ardents”
Oh, a benevolent monarchy (or a benevolent dictatorship of any sort) actually has the potential to work pretty well. The problem is, there's no way to assure that the monarch will always be benevolent. Not to mention competent to do the job.
Which is why, after experiencing one, the population tends to develop a strong preference for some other form of government. Assuming they have heard of one, and can imagine living under it. Sometimes they deal with that by emigrating to somewhere that provides that alternative. Other times, they rise up, eliminate the monarch (and his supporting cast), and try to set up something better. It can take a few iterations to get the necessary, but not always obvious, checks and balances in place.
On “There have to be clowns”
The extent to which these folks seem to have mush for brains (to phrase it politely) is astounding. In this particular instance, it makes me think that all that's required to get thru law school and pass the bar exam is a good memory. No actual cognitive ability necessary.
That wasn't previously my view, for all that I have a somewhat jaundiced view of some lawyers. But the ones who work for Trump, personally or as his appointees in the Department of Justice, are not only ethically challenged but, in the evidence, dumb as rocks besides. No offense intended to any rocks in the audience.
On “Politics thread”
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They’ll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they’ll win some. And over time, they’ll win more.
I wonder if part if the problem is that, every 4 years, the party sees a Presidential candidate upending ongoing programs in order to do things their way. And it works for them, because they end up outspending the DNC by a substantial amount.
To get something like this in place is going to require changing where (organizationally) money gets raised and allocated. From candidate-centeic to party-centric. That, in turn, will require changing the incentives for donors. Not sure how you do that.
On “The South shall writhe again”
I notice that Trump is now demanding that the Chinese resume buying soybeans from the US. One suspects that he discovered that Midwestern farmers are seriously upset to have a major market snatched out from under them. (Especially those who didn't see it coming, and so failedto plant something else this year. Too late now to do anything but plow the crop under as fertalizer for next year.)
He seems oblivious to the fact that the Chinese have found alternative suppliers. Which is to say, they don't need to buy from us. As opposed to, say, refined rare earths, for which we (and, for that matter the rest of the world) have no alternative sources of supply.
We could develop them, of course -- "rare earths" aren't particularly rare; just challenging to separate from each other. It would just take 5-10 years, even assuming zero regulatory constraints (i.e. no environmental impact reports, no planning permissions, etc.). Can't expect Trump to grasp that, of course.
I could easily see the Chinese playing hardball on this. If only to show the wannabe his place. Hey, it keeps working for Putin, so why not?
"
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West? They all have significant rural populations, too.
On “The Return of the Boat Hook”
For serious animism, one of my favorite memories is still Faith healing for computers:
Operations called Systems Programming because a (mainframe) disk drive was misbehaving. Walked in to the machine room and over to it. Laid my hands on top of the box.
Problem solved. Never did anything else to it. But Ops said that the problem had gone away.
Laying on of hands. Don't see how it could work on inanimate objects, so ...
"
I don't know about other professions, but I suspect everybody in IT spends some work time cursing when, inevitably, things don't go smoothly.
Whether they are talking to the software, or maybe the hardware. Or if they are appealing to a higher power for help. (Or maybe retribution on said recalcitrant software.). Hard to say. Possibly it varies from one individual to another.
On “What’s up, doxx?”
Actual, you know, convictions for assault might be persuasive. But just getting charged? Not so much, considering how often the charges get dropped. Not to mention that even those that get to court don't have the kind of high success rate other kinds of cases routinely have.
"
And to be picky, I don’t think there is anything to support Noem’s claim that there has been a 700% increase in these incidents.
I doubt that she has the wit for this herself, but there might be someone on staff who does. Percentages are a great way to exagerate an increase from, for example, 1 incident nationwide last year to 7 this year. Both numbers are small enough, given the total numbers of people involved, that the variation might well be nothing more than statistical noise. But it makes for great scare headlines this way.
People should be able to do their jobs without having their home addresses published.
The challenge today is this. If someone can capture your face, they can probably find some facial recognition software to get your name. I don't know how readily available such software is, but it's definitely nor restricted to police departments. And, once someone has your name, getting your home address is difficult only if the name is common enough that there are multiple possibilities. With a name like mine**, it's trivial.
Someday we may work out ways to provide a little more privacy. But for the moment, we are in stalker heaven. (And I'm wondering, now that I think about it, how the Witness Protection Program deals with this.)
** Both the other people in the country with the same first and last names are 1st cousins. No prize for guessing our grandfather's name.
On “Opinions on settings”
I'd be fine with boosting the link limit to something like 5. 10 definitely seems excessive -- if you have a burning need to share more, putting in multiple comments doesn't seem that much of a burden.
As for closing comments, I incline to something like 21 days. Anything over a month is just way too long. But 14 is a bit short.
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
No question that climate change is criticality important. What it is not is an issue which will move votes. At this point, political campaigns simply cannot be about educating voters about things that the ought to care about. It has to be about getting them in side for the next election.
God willing, we will get back to a place where we can focus on educating voters. Rather than having to focus on saving the country. But we aren't there now.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
if one genuinely wanted to attack the problem one would go after the employers, who have much more to lose than the illegal immigrants.
Fact is, nobody has done it. It's now peculiar to Trunp & Co., so it's not just about Trump being a big empliyer of illehals.
The law has been in place forever. But when I.C.E. (or its predecessors) make a raid on a workplace, somehow the employer never faces legal consequences. Even in cases where the employees really are illegally here (and not merely of the "wrong" racial or ethnic group).
On “The Qatar that plays like butter”
"what justification is there for its presence anyway?"
At this point: inertia.
Half a century ago, when we were a big oil importer and the Saudis essentially controlled the price of oil worldwide, there were obvious economic reasons to be involved there. Plus, at that time, some humanitarian reasons to defend the only democracy in the region (Israel).
But now, we're a net oil exporter. We still import a lot, but on balance. And these days (yes, gradually over the intervening decades) Israel has ceased to be a shining example compared to its neighbors. Even though said neighbors are still pretty appalling.
In fact, from a domestic political perspective, the majority of American Jews are no longer solid Israel supporters. Netanyahu has made manifest for them just where Israel has descended to. All we need is a generation of politicians who don't personally remember the situation from 50-60 years ago.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
"There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it."
First, there was? Care to share how it might have been done safely?
Second, Biden didn't have a date in mind. Trump (before he left) had established the date. Biden was stuck either totally reworking the pullout, or trying to execute what he was handed. In retrospect, he should have abrogated the pullout agreement Trump had made, and created a viable plan. And just accepted the fact that he would be totally trashed for doing so.
Did it go badly? No question. But from where I sit, Trump owns it. Or would, if he ever accepted responsibility for anything.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.