State of the Discussion

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.

Non-partisan discussion of Biden's border policies.

The summary is that Biden went back to policy before Trump, which hadn't much differed between Republican and Democratic administrations. Calling that an "open-border policy" is not factual.

So if you like Trump, yes, you'll think Biden wasn't cruel enough. But you wouldn't switch from your previous support for Democratic candidates because Biden agreed with the presidents you'd previously supported.

Russell:

When is it appropriate for a nation to borrow? What is accomplished with the money that is borrowed?

Totally valid questions. I was simply focusing on "indifference to deficits." And I think Biden was a mixed bag. I don't cast much if any blame on the COVID spending bills themselves, whether by Biden or Trump. But BBB was such a grab bag. I didn't mind the pure infrastructure components. The resulting IRA was anything but its name. That was simply too much given the huge amount of spending on COVID, IMHO. And that's even before one considers the green pork.

"Elite", like "Woke", is a purposefully hazily defined word. Like woke, its used to denigrate a class of people as Them, the Problem. To obscure, rather than enlighten.

Elite does have a real definition, but its so broad as to be pretty useless. Its a sub-group of people with exceptional skill in some endeavor, but the usual meaning is a class of people with some combination of exceptional wealth, privilege, and status. Power is assumed in any combination. In this definition there is no single Elite, but the use of the word always implies it, because the point is to accuse The Elite of abusing their power for their benefit and the detriment of The Rest Of Us, the common clay of the West. Whether its a Harvard professor brainwashing midwestern students, movie stars sticking their noses where they don't belong, or a billionaire doing billionaire things, the Elite are shoving things down our collective throat.

Actual elites have power, whether through politics, wealth, or celebrity, though the 3 naturally go together. The people who can directly affect our lives from a distance, who convince us who we should trust and believe. The people we look up to, because we want to or we have to.

"No one else will lease us enough space for the air base we operate there."

Thank you Michael. That makes sense, and I appreciate your calling it out.

bc:
1) Legal immigration was lower under Biden than Trump. As to the effects of Biden's "open border policy" on illegal immigration: there were none, because there was no such policy.
2) Trump was and is keen on deficit-funded tax cuts. Biden was keen on deficit-funded spending. Biden at least was spending the money to boost an economy which had been depressed by COVID (and it worked). Neither should be attractive to a deficit hawk.
7) Yes, the US is a net exporter of natural gas, a net importer of oil. But the oil imports are not because of reduced domestic production - it reached a record high in 2023 (the last year I've found data for).
6) (I left this out before because I didn't know about it). So far as I know, shoplifting is not a federal matter - it's nothing to do with the president.

I imagine we could get somewhere near a consensus on these things, if we discussed them for long enough. And that at most it would support Ackman's preference for some of Trump's policies where they favour the things Ackman likes, such as burning fossil fuels. And we could go through the whole list similarly.

The one thing I clearly agree with him about is his distaste for the Ds' nomination of Biden in 2024. That's a reason to vote for the obviously dementing Trump rather than Harris?

One more jab: (3) is ridiculous - he voted for Trump because Biden implemented the withdrawal from Afghanistan which Trump had committed to?

It seems weird to me to be discussing whether or not Omelas was in better shape under Biden or under Trump when the part of the story that is being ignored in order to make this response is that Trump has decided that too few children have been tortured in order to make Omelas great, and that Biden was a pussy for having not had the courage to grab more kids to torture in order to launch Omelas into high gear towards greatness.

Oh, and everyone else in the world sucks compared to Omelas and needs to jump on the kid torturing regime ASAP or else their countries are going to sink just like Omelas under Biden.

I have a few questions about blog format that you mentioned bc, so I hope I can ask you later about that, but I did want to point out one thing

I guess it depends on who you read. I do think there is some truth here (Trump being somewhat indifferent in the first term), but I think Biden was far worse than Trump.

I'm guessing that COVID spending could be debited 50/50 to Trump and Biden, but the article doesn't mentions the CHIPs act or the Infrastructure Investment act. Also, I had to look, but another program that significantly increased debt was the PACT act
https://www.va.gov/resources/the-pact-act-and-your-va-benefits/
One has to wonder how all these things are going to fare after the DOGE CF.

So yes, all of these things increased the debt under Biden, but you can't wave your hand and have the underlying issues disappear. That heritage page is pretty disingenuous, imo.

Ben Meiselas pops on on my youtube list quite a lot, while I'm watching chess or cycling videos. I must click on enough of his stuff for it to keep being suggested to me.

But he's not really my cup of tea. Ever since the primaries he's been announcing several times a week that Trump is failing. It's not sufficiently contemplative for me.

Well! I'd barely heard of this Ben Meiselas guy before, but it looks like he may be getting the message across - bigger audiences than Joe Rogan apparently. What do any ObWi people think of him?

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/oct/11/podcaster-ben-meiselas-on-taking-on-the-maga-media-and-winning-the-ratings-battle

Give me a shiny plane and I’ll let you build a base in Idaho.

The request for a training facility was made in 2017, shortly after the Obama administration approved selling current versions of the F-15 Strike Eagle to Qatar. Like most military base construction, there's a ton of hoops to jump through. Not long ago the final environmental impact statement was finished, so they announced the training facility. Badly. Horribly. Using terms that don't describe things accurately.

Singapore already has a training facility at the same air base for their F-15 pilots and mechanics. And a facility at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona for their F-16 pilots and mechanics. Both planes are supersonic; neither Singapore nor Qatar are big enough (in square miles) to support a supersonic practice range. Mountain Home is close to the Utah Test and Training Range, and Luke to the Nevada Test Site, where low-level supersonic flights are allowed. And it's easier to house a few of the exact planes you're buying in the US than try to ferry some in over great distances.