State of the Discussion

My biggest ask would be to make “Oldest” the default sort order. I (personally) find it confusing to go bottom-up to follow the chronological sequence of posts.

I fully concur.

For the length, I'd say 4 weeks/1 month.
Since I delete cookies before closing the browser, subscribing would not save time for me.
I'd love to get rid of the current avatar images though.
I usually use a photo of this old bronze head in other places.

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.

1) My opinion is that three links are okay, more are not. Something with more than three links generally deserves to be a top-level post with its own discussion, not a comment.

2) 14 days seems too short. 30? I believe that long open periods don't stimulate additional discussion because very late comments are almost invisible. The post has long-since scrolled off the front page, and the comment will quickly scroll off the recent-comments list.

3) The most useful feature is probably not having to type your name or e-mail each time, with possible mistyped e-mail address. Avoiding the wrong address benefits people who use an address registered at Gravatar.com. There are a handful of people on the internet who actually recognize my stupid picture of a transistor as a sort-of credential. That feature doesn't benefit me personally; I have code running in my browser that auto-fills the name and e-mail fields at the few sites where I comment regularly.

Someone should write a post about the pros and cons of concealing your identity.

I maintain a piece of code at another site that provides a comment-centric view of what's going on. One of the features is a paged, time-ordered list of all the comments associated with a particular name, either for a single post, or across all posts. While I am seldom interested in looking at a history of my own comments, it is occasionally useful to look at part of the history of a specific user's comments. Eg, if I know GftNC made a comment I've been thinking about, but I don't remember exactly which post it was attached to.

Thank you lj - since bc's going into spam with 3 seems to show that ATM only 2 is safe, perhaps a limit of 6, which means 5 would be safe? That's my vote.

On duration, how about 21 days or 28?

On subscribers, I can't really see the advantage (although being able to see one's past comments could be useful). On editing one's profile, would that be like when I changed to GftNC from the full version for weird Typepad cause? Perhaps not necessary here?

Upvote/downvote: IMO totally unnecessary, and an unwelcome development from what is our normal way of dealing with each other.

1. I'm amazed that bc got sent to spam with 3 links. I don't even think 10 is too many.
2. IMO 14 days may be too short. I never counted, but my impression is that some of our best threads at the old site went on for longer than that.
3. I'm not sure what this means, unless the sentence on Limited Capabilities means "Only a user with the subscriber role can generally:", although frankly I'm not sure what it all means even then! How would any of our information be "in the wild" anyway? Does it mean that all subscribers would be able to see each other's contact details etc? Don't underestimate quite how clueless some of us ancient non-tech types are!

There again - editing your already posted comment may end up getting that comment marked as potential spam, so we may have extra motivation not to abuse the edits.

Hello bc -

Thank you for your thoughtful response! I'll try to reply briefly.

I think you are correct as regards the law. The severity of the offense depends on whether someone came through a federal entry point vs. just walking across the border somewhere, and also whether someone is trying to re-enter illegally after having been deported.

Thank you for the clarification and correction, I appreciate it.

First, we are on the same page as regards people with criminal histories or demonstrable gang affiliation. I would except folks whose "criminal history" is a moving violation, but certainly crimes against persons or property are legitimate grounds for deportation or refusal of entry.

I don't actually prefer the folks who are here without legal status to the 5 million waiting in line. If I understand the estimates of the size of the "no legal status" numbers, they actually include many of those 5 million - people waiting for an asylum ruling, people here under TPS, basically anyone who has not yet been granted permanent legal residency.

For folks who did straight-up sneak in or overstay their visa - people who are *not* in the pipeline - it's legitimate to deport them, or at least require them to justify their presence here on some legitimate basis (fear of being killed if they return, frex). But I also think we need to be realistic about what we can do without turning the country into a police state. Reagan offered amnesty, we've since had Dreamers, those are both programs intended to deal with the situation humanely and realistically. Don't know if they are appropriate to the current situation.

I personally would be fine with defining a structured path to residency for folks who have been here for some time - 5 years? pick a number - and who have no criminal record. Especially folks who are in families of mixed immigration status - right now we are deporting people who have kids here, and who have been here for years and years. That doesn't seem right, to me.

I'm curious to understand your point about the folks "waiting in line" a little more clearly. Are they "waiting in line" here in this country, i.e., their status is in process but not yet granted? Are they waiting in some other country for a request to immigrate to be granted? I want to understand how the presence of an undocumented person here harms them, or is unfair to them in some tangible way.

Purely from a practical point of view, the focus should be on people who are here with no legal status and who are making trouble. Criminals, gang members. And I agree that the DHS numbers are BS. My understanding, based on cites of ICE's own statistics, is that 80% of the people being held in the Burlington facility near me have no criminal record.

Lastly, I agree that if ICE folks didn't wear masks, they would be at risk of being doxed, and that there is potential for harm there. I would counter that *if they weren't acting as they are acting*, that risk would be significantly reduced. Cops, FBI, etc. generally don't find it necessary to wear masks. ICE's own behavior - their violence and total disregard for due process - is what creates, or at least exacerbates, that risk. They are lawless.

I agree that it's a hard problem, and that there is no perfect solution. But what we are doing right now is nuts. Not "nuts" as in "silly and amusing", but "nuts" as in harmful and destructive, not just to immigrants, but to all of us.

Due process applies to everyone, or else we are all at risk of losing it.

Pro Bono - What we are doing to the planet really matters. What the US is doing matters a lot, because why should poorer countries restrain themselves if the US won’t.

There is that, and also the data suggests that the top 1% of the world are responsible for 2/3 of the warming measured since 1990, and we have over 900 billionaires in our country. China is next closest with 516, and only 3 other nation states have more than 100.

But then here is another shocker - to be in the top 1% worldwide, you need only to make $60,000 a year*, so I'd guess that most of us writing here are in that 1%.

*If we are talking income rather than wealth. Wealth is probably a better measure, but it's also a harder measure to come by.

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).

bc: Doxing produced masks, which engender fear and are then criticized as fascist.

I'd like to know more about this "doxing". I do not trust Kristi Noem's statements about it any more than I trust her DHS 70% statistic. Let's hear about a few actual cases.

I am quite prepared to believe that there have been instances of people being publicly identified as ICE "agents", and I can easily believe those people were annoyed and embarrassed. But what else happened?

--TP

I've just read hsh's link about the Young Republicans. Surprise, surprise. And also to see that J D Vance continues to distinguish himself. Jesus F Christ.

the group texts of Young Republicans.

You'd think Hitler would be a bright line. Wouldn't you? What the hell is funny about gas chambers?

My father, step-father, father-in-law, and uncle, all fought in WWII. Uncle didn't make it back. They would freaking puke to see this.

They think this crap is funny. "Edgy". It's all a joke, right? Owning the libs for fun and lols.

And now they're all gonna whine because they've been outed and some of them are losing their jobs.

I affirm the idea that we don't want to dehumanize other folks. That said, these folks dehumanize themselves.

And I understand that there are Good And Reasonable Conservatives, but there are a hell of a lot of folks like this. These are not "fringe" characters, they are leaders in the Young Republican movement. Leaders.

Good And Reasonable Conservatives, if you want to engage in civil and constructive dialog with your counterparties, you need to get people like this the hell out of your party and your movement. I know I sure as hell have nothing to say to them, and am not interested in anything they might want to say to me.

To borrow wonkie's language, they can fuck right off.

I can't make them go away. You - reasonable conservatives, wherever you are - can. Or at least you can try. They do not deserve a place in governance, in political leadership, or in public conversation.

If you want people to stop calling MAGAs and conservatives in general Nazis, STOP INDULGING THE NAZIS IN YOUR COMMUNITY. If you can't do that, the rest of us can't believe you when you say they "have no part" of your world. They do have a part of it, they are right there in plain sight.

Ha, that's what comes of not looking at the papers (or anything else) till 6.30 pm*! Thanks hsh.

Now from me: on the issue of Biden's v Trump's records, I was going to snarkily ask bc what, as a lawyer, s/he thought about Trump's annexation of the entire (as near as he can) legal system and DOJ to go after his "enemies". I was going to contrast it with the prosecutions and convictions of Trump while Biden was POTUS, but lo, I don't have to. Here (from the Atlantic) is something today:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/10/trump-political-prosecution-democrats/684556/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCThgNr42oHPKHeuYkIOS1gc&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

I haven't actually read it yet*, but from a brief skim it looks like they do a decent job....

This seems like the best thread to mention the group texts of Young Republicans. In the spirit of wonkie's original subject, high-profile Democrats should be pointing this out to the non-MAGA electorate. This is the progeny of the beknighted Charlie Kirk, who was demonstrably a white Christian nationalist despite his superficial "civility."

This is who they are - by choice. Saying so is not othering. It is truth.

But it’s about 3% of the population.

I think that should be 0.3% (1 million per 340 million).

Well, still better than the billions of illegals and illegal votes in California alone that His Orangeness used to rant about. ;-)

Indeed.

Mostly I stepped on them. For the ones that got away, I watched where they ran to, and am gonna follow up with a heavy treatment of boric acid.

But yeah, they take a licking and keep on ticking. 6' 2", 215 lbs, jumped on those little bastards with my full weight, and some of them still walked away.

I'm glad they aren't bigger.

We have had an on again / off again water issue in the basement - for years - that finally got bad enough that we decided to do something about it. Did some looking around, figured out it was coming from the bulkhead, called a basement guy. A crew will be here second week of November to do the french drain / sump pump thing.

To get ready, we moved a bunch of stuff out of that part of the basement. And... found a bunch of black mold. Yecch!

Tore out some sheetrock, tore out a workbench that had some rotten moldy MDF, pulled up some vinyl tile. Off to the dump with all of that.

But in the process of tearing out the workbench, we discovered that it had been the favorite hiding space for critters. Centipedes (my wife HATES HATES HATES HATES HATES them) and spiders (my spirit animal, according to Facebook).

I tried to work around the spiders, with mixed success. There was no mercy for the centipedes. They're not bad critters, more or less apex predators in the creepy crawly world, but they freak my wife the hell out, so they had to go.

Got all the mold either physically removed from the house or treated thoroughly (vinegar + borax + dish soap + water + a scrub brush). Now I get to put everything back together again - new sheetrock and insulation, build a new workbench, replace vinyl tile, skim coat the new rock, prime and paint everything in sight. But the "putting back together" stuff is very enjoyable for me. My wife is heading out to Ohio tomorrow for a crafting class, so I'll be down in the basement making the world a better place for everything other than centipedes.

The joys of home ownership. :)

A final thought, or comment, about immigration.

A lot of places in the world are stressed, for a lot of different reasons. Poverty, environmental issues caused by climate change, war and general anarchic violence.

We're very lucky to live where we do.

All of the above is going to result in people wanting to emigrate. To go somewhere else where they will not be subject to violence, not be desparately poor. Not be miserable in any of a thousand ways.

All of that is not necessarily new, but the scale of it is likely to change. Is, in fact, changing. And there are a lot more ways to get from one place to another now.

We need an intelligent immigration policy. One that recognizes the realities named above. One that recognizes the value of immigrants to this country. One that isn't rooted in the mythology of white supremacy - that recognizes that "real Americans" come, and have always come, in all colors creeds and nationalities.

One that is sane and humane. One that is enforceable without descending into a police state, which is where we are, right now.

It's where we are, right now.

People are gonna try to come here. The overwhelmingly vast majority of them - overwhelmingly - want to come, work, and make a decent life.

That is how most of us ended up here.

We let a bit more than a million folks a year into this country as lawful permanent residents. That's generous! A lot! Especially by international standards.

But it's about 3% of the population. We could increase that significantly and not get close to "they're gonna replace us" levels.

It's an issue that IS NOT going to go away. Folks are going to migrate, because if the alternative is getting killed or starving, you will take your chances.

So we need to find a constructive way to deal with that. One that does not require masked anonymous agents in full military kit breaking into homes and smashing car windows to grab random people because they are brown.

Which is what we do now.

Do we really want to live like this?

The church I attend locks the doors during services because ICE is perfectly likely to march in and start grabbing people. It's not an overreaction, it's a realistic assessment of where we are right now.

Is this how we want to live?

Washington Examiner had an article today about an imaginary group supposedly teaching people how to use vandalism against ICe in Chicago. There is a Facebook page put up by someone with people making suggestions along those lines ( an ICE operation? Is anyone actually dumb enough to advocate crime on FB?) but the actual groups doing training are very scrupulous about document only--do nothing that could justify an arrest. Kid Twat is quoted in another article bemoaning unAmerican youth. There was another Kirk-deification piece about those mean Dems who aren't being sufficiently worshipful of Saint Charlie of Free Speech for Conservatives. This is Goebbels-style propaganda and it is a multiple times a day occurrence every fucking day and has been for decades.

But if I call it out for what it is, supposedly I'm being as bad as or the same as the haters.

Fuck no.

Maybe the Republican party wouldn't have degenerated into the corrupt, fascist, anti-Constitutional front for religious extremists and oligarchs that it is today if the rest of us had spent the last twenty-five years LOUDLY DENOUNCING THEIR FASCIST PROPAGANDA instead of trying to be "reasonable" while politely engaging in discussion of issues.

His administration (Mayorkas) stated that the unlawful presence was not by itself a basis for an enforcement action. 

People LIke Me always make this point when immigration comes up, but since I am a Person LIke Me, I guess I'll make it again.

Being in the United States without some kind of legal status is a civil, not a criminal, violation.

Law enforcement, at all levels, needs to prioritize where they will direct their efforts. Resource are not infinite, so choices have to be made.

Here is a discussion of the policies instituted under Mayorkas:

https://www.valverdelaw.com/unlawful-status-alone-should-not-be-the-basis-for-an-enforcement-action-under-new-guidelines

The purpose of the guidelines is to provide direction to ICE to help them prioritize who they will pursue, and why. The guidelines state that enforcement should be directed toward people who *pose a threat* to the public.

Mayorkas further observes, correctly, that there are 11 million undocumented people in the US. I hope we can all agree that it's not practical to find and deport 11 million people. So choices have to be made.

Go after people who are a threat.

I live very close to large immigrant communities. For a number of years, I lived in the Point neighborhood in Salem MA, which was then and still is a largely Dominican community. I attend a church that has about a 60% Latino congregation. I've volunteered at a local food bank whose clientele includes Dominicans, Brazilians, Haitians, Russians and other Eastern European folks. Also plain old white bread Americans who need access to free or cheap food.

I am aware of the issues around immigration, aware in general of the problems it creates, and also aware of how we benefit from immigrants.

The sticking point for immigration - the place where it is hugely problematic, rather than just one of several issues to deal with - is at the southern border. Because it's closer to the countries that many migrants come from, and because people can basically just walk there.

I absolutely understand that the issues facing someone living in a border area in TX or AZ or CA are different than the issues facing me. I'm surrounded by migrants, but they aren't wandering homeless through my neighborhood in large numbers. Or any numbers.

It's a problem of a different quality.

My understanding is that the Biden policies exacerbated the problem *at the southern border*. Maybe exacerbated it a lot, i don't have numbers. If you want to blame him for that, I will recognize that as a fair point. He did take steps to remedy that, as you point out "because of an election". He recognized he was vulnerable there.

And Trump prevented those changes from taking place. Because of an election.

Politicians' minds are concentrated by elections. Not ideal, but that's the reality.

The approach Trump and Miller are taking right now is creating holy f***ing havoc where I live. People afraid to leave their homes, afraid to send their kids to school, afraid to go to work. Not just illegal people, but literally anybody brown, anyone who speaks Spanish or speaks English with an accent.

People who were born in this country, and who have lived all their lives here. Afraid to go out of the house. Because ICE under Trump and Miller are a freaking terroristic goon squad.

Illegals are seized, citizens are seized, anybody who looks like they might possibly by Latino.

I sometimes attend a standing weekly demonstration at the local ICE facility in Burlington MA. It's basically an office building, with no facilities for holding people. The agreement ICE has with either the leaseholder or the town (not sure which) is that nobody will be held overnight, or at least for more than a day.

People are held there for many days. Weeks in some cases. They sleep on a concrete floor with a Mylar blanket. Many in one big room, with one toilet that offers minimal privacy. No place to shower. No medical facilities. No kitchen.

Undocumented people, people who are not citizens but have legal status, and citizens. All picked up and held in this shithole.

ICE has been unresponsive to requests from the town to inspect the facility. They have refused entry to members of Congress.

They are an unaccountable violent militarized goon squad.

I'm sympathetic to folks who live in southern border areas. I have family that lives in a southern border area, and they often feel that things are out of control.

But what Trump and MIller are doing is not making things any better. It's freaking mayhem.

Long post, sorry for that. Need to get some of this crap off my chest.