I can't totally agree with your message, but it is well written. I suppose the middle is where you find it. My opinion is that Trump's biggest problem is he often runs his mouth without thinking and doesn't know when to shut up. He might also be a heathen. I don't know. I think bold immediate actions are needed. We'll know in a few years whether his policies are improvements over the decades of inaction characterized by politicians who have re-election as a primary goal. I hope I'm among those around to find out.
By the way, the ICE raid was at a battery plant under construction in Ellabelle GA which is a lot closer to Savannah than the West Point facility on I-85 near the Alabama line.
I didn’t realize from the reporting I saw it was West Point. I am aware of the battery plant however and that makes more sense. It was a keystone cops operation to be sure.
Because according to what I saw, ICE wasn’t there for the Koreans. They were there for other immigrants but somehow rounded the Koreans who I believe were in the country legally and it caused an international incident.
According to Georgia immigration attorney, Woon Kim, 80 to 90 of the 475 South Koreans detained should have been able to do their work legally under an E-2 visa. There were delays in getting the E-2 visas, so they worked illegally under another type of visa - probably as tourists. In my opinion there should have been no delays in issuing critical expertise visas for such a huge industrial development project. But ICE was doing its job. Other bureaucrats were to blame for the delays.
There are items that were not public knowledge, like the purported loaded clip with "ANTI-ICE" written on it. Kash Patel basically live-blogging the investigation is just nuts.
An apt metaphor (and timely one as I spend time studying for my ham radio license).
Speaking of polarization - I was reminded yesterday that as an electromagnetic wave travels, the electric wave is polarized in one direction, and the corresponding magnetic wave is polarized 90 degrees off of the electric wave's plane. In our reactionary politics, it seems like something similar is happening.
I know that not all Christians are conservatives and vice versa, and make efforts to keep them separate. But: who's responsible for the conflation of Christians and conservatives? To my recollection, that was a willing partnership between at least *some* subsets of both groups.
For example, Charlie Kirk stated “If you vote Democrat as a Christian, I think you can no longer call yourself a Christian. You have to call yourself something else. I do not think you can be a Christian and vote Democrat.” You can also look at polls where most members of the GOP support declaring the US to be a Christian Nation.
And it's not just GOP operatives: you also have Christian pastors/ministers saying the same thing.
To get to a more general issue that affects both sides - though perhaps not symmetrically - is demonization and dehumanization. When we stop seeing the humanity in each other, we make it too easy to use violence against each other.
That also gets to an important point about America - and democracy - from a fundamental point: we have to view each other as individuals, each with our own rights. We must support each other's rights, even when we disagree with how we use them. Example: one's religious belief is as valid as anyone else's, and the only way for one to be free to exercise their religious belief for themselves is to support other's rights to do so for themselves. And thus our laws/policies must be approached with the same mindset.
How? I can’t remove my memory of the sustained attack on my civil liberties. Since Luigi, formerly normie Dem friends support violence. Your understanding of how deep the corruption goes, from when Trump won his first term and the uniparty went about waging war not on the other party, but conservative Americans ourselves. Obama sold out the working class, they join the GOP, and now actual conservatives are told they are more violent than hawt Luigi celebrating far left nihilists. The issues stem from Dems NOT condemning Antifa for actual behavior. No GOP event welcomes radical and true far right to mainstream events.
Meanwhile Dems support Omar who credibly defrauded us by marrying her brother, who was safe in the UK, so he could get US handouts and free degrees.
I still treat my Dem friends well. I never posted a political word, I kept their hateful ones on my feed over a decade to avoid their echo chamber.
Tell me again that I am responsible to fix this amongst them? I’ve tried. They won’t even open a news article or video evidence if they think it is right coded or adjacent. I’m literally trying in my own way. These people WANT their bias because they feel superior. I can’t overcome narcissism.
What civil liberty has actually been attacked? Has the government shut down your right to say what you want, or believe what you want?
Luigi Mangione has people both left and right liking him: it ain't partisan.
The issue is you're talking about random individuals, not elected Democrats or even media figures when it gets down to it. Contrast that to GOP electeds and media figures that use violent rhetoric quite often. Heck, think of the difference in how many GOP candidates/electeds pose with guns for campaign materials and Christmas cards; or how some even used guns to "kill Biden" in effigy - can you honestly say that's done by Democratic candidates or electeds? And compare the messages from Democrats and the GOP after Hortman and Kirk were killed: there's no similarity.
Actual corruption is something that we can agree on needs to be dealt with from a bipartisan manner. I really don't know how you can look at the Trump administration and think it's less corrupt than a Democratic one: look at the Democrats that were charged and tried under Biden (Menendez, Hunter Biden, etc...) - and the lack of charges that are due under Trump's. Look at his use of crypto currency as bribes, and his cronyism.
You talk about biases, but I'm pretty sure you're showing your own.
And no, there's no uniparty: America is based on small-l liberalism, which of course means that there's certain things that we (typically) agree on. But to look at the GOP and Democrats as being anywhere near the same at this time is delusional.
Well I’m glad you’ve got it all figured out. This is such a biased account that it sums up where we are. I see black and you see red. No hope of finding common ground.
Of course, everyone has to be of good faith to debate and you are probably not. But I’ll stream of consciousness a retort.
No Republican likes Luigi. I can’t explain working class MAGA, former Dems, I only understand the libertarians and conservatives. I’m not MAGA or partisan in that way, but watching Russiagate, Covid lockdowns which were Fauci, his mandates, his paper masks and forced me to take an experimental medicine when I had natural immunity from a few weeks before or I would have lost my private industry job. I can’t begin to share the advertising industry colluding with global agencies, corporations and the US/EU government to de platform conservative US voices.
This is how Fox News with the highest cable ratings, including more democrat viewers than CNN or MSNBC, has reverse mortgages and pillow commercials while Joy Reid and Rachel spread provable propaganda yet get mainstream advertisers. I could not read about Hunter laptop. I can’t read Pravda. My country used to trust me to gather information and as a patriot to process it accordingly.
This is a moderate country, Dems are taking the 20% of every issue so I believe I can find comfort that it will take another generation before DNC can claw back that authoritarian power. Young men will vote Republican until I’m dead.
And the fact I am not allowed to read certain newspapers, certain pundits, certain studies, especially 2020-2023 is a massive violation of my civil liberties. Until Musk bought Twitter, it looked like only DNC voices would ever get covered again. Republicans have been smeared for half my 50 plus years on earth. Emory graduate with a political science degree and a journalism masters. I can’t help you overcome your own bias. You wrote a novel clearly designed to stay in your bubble. The feeling that you’ve chosen the good feeds a narcissist in all of us. I remember what it felt like to fall for Bush and Cheney lies. I watched them invade more countries. As a Republican I felt responsible and said never again. They were dead to politics, the Kamala marched our Dick Cheney, a war profiteer that lied us into forever wars. The DNC essentially declared themselves the neocon war party.
Hilary as Secretary of State destabilized the world. She did real damage. Obama killed a US citizen. He dropped more bombs than any US president in history. He is a figurehead. I loathe her. She’s a swamp creature of deep corruption. She wants nothing but power, when she lost to her patsy they installed at the head of GOP ticket, her ego was rightly devastated. Her maniacal ego then set about destabilizing the country. I don’t know this, I have no money or power. But it clearly appears her psy op blew up. We got redpilled and see it’s all theatre. So Trump is a battering ram that I find callous and morally wanting. But I like many of his cabinet and I want the DNC spanked and prosecuted so they stop lawfare and corruption. My psy op might blow up in my face, but I couldn’t vote to allow Dems to install another empty vessel into the WH. Trump compulsively says everything, less scary than someone that refuses to tell me her beliefs or ideology.
Watching her this week proves we would have collapsed under her nonexistent leadership.
"Working class MAGA" is the GOP: haven't you noticed? And yes, some of them do like Luigi because they also hate health insurance companies.
None of the shutdowns were driven by the federal government: each state/county handled those on their own - and recall that it was 2020, during Trump's administration. Not Biden. And no, the federal government did not force you to take any vaccine: your job required you to do so because they want to protect your co-workers. That's private industry setting requirements for employment.
Whether it was appropriate for the government to request social media companies enforce their terms of service - recall that Trump also did so, but solely about things like insulting him. At least when it was Biden it was about public health, which is moderatley legitimate - and did not have the threat of government force behind it because the government ultimately has no control of said companies (unlike the FCC and broadcast television).
You could read about Hunter's laptop, on places where they decided to run that store: those that didn't chose not to because they deemed it not credible. A similar instance was John Edward's affair: everyone else deemed it not credible, National Enquirer ran with it - and it ended up being true. So: it happens.
Who's stopping you from reading any particular newspaper or publication, though? I don't get why you'd want to read Russian BS, but if you want to read Pravda - go online and read it. But: international media doesn't have a right to be published in the US, so you'll have to go online to do so.
I don't get your complaint about Fox News's advertisers: that's private companies deciding where to spend advertising dollars for the audiences that they want to advertise to. If they choose not to advertise on Fox News, then they don't have to - just as the advertisers on Fox/OANN/etc... don't have to advertise elsewhere.
There are some issues where Dems take the 20%, and some where the GOP does. It's not so cut and dry as you make it.
You seem to be complaining mostly about what private companies choose to do with their platforms/algorithms.
Your original post was ~1200 characters, my reply was ~1500. You consider that a novel, but reply with ~3400? That's funny.
There is common ground, if you want it - did you not notice where I noted there is? But you gotta be honest about yourself and your preferred "side", or it ain't gonna happen. And that includes how you react to someone countering your statements: are you going to actually think about it, or just react?
You want lawfare against the DNC, yes. So you don't hate it, you just want it used against those you view as your enemies. Not exactly a principled position.
What I can see about you is that you are like many other Americans: deeply disillusioned and ultimately will back whomever attacks the status quo (or perhaps it's status quo ante at this point) - hence your use of the term "uniparty". Frankly, I think a lot of this is driven by anti-American forces that want to destabilize us, that want to make it impossible for us to talk to or work with each other - because that creates openings for them to take power.
The nuance here is important. Yes, Biden is represented as an auto pen. But Trump is twice represented as a criminal (his mugshot serving as his presidential portrait). Make of it what you will…
I can't totally agree with your message, but it is well written. I suppose the middle is where you find it. My opinion is that Trump's biggest problem is he often runs his mouth without thinking and doesn't know when to shut up. He might also be a heathen. I don't know. I think bold immediate actions are needed. We'll know in a few years whether his policies are improvements over the decades of inaction characterized by politicians who have re-election as a primary goal. I hope I'm among those around to find out.
By the way, the ICE raid was at a battery plant under construction in Ellabelle GA which is a lot closer to Savannah than the West Point facility on I-85 near the Alabama line.
I didn’t realize from the reporting I saw it was West Point. I am aware of the battery plant however and that makes more sense. It was a keystone cops operation to be sure.
Why do you call it a keystone cops operation instead of a successful law enforcement mission?
Because according to what I saw, ICE wasn’t there for the Koreans. They were there for other immigrants but somehow rounded the Koreans who I believe were in the country legally and it caused an international incident.
According to Georgia immigration attorney, Woon Kim, 80 to 90 of the 475 South Koreans detained should have been able to do their work legally under an E-2 visa. There were delays in getting the E-2 visas, so they worked illegally under another type of visa - probably as tourists. In my opinion there should have been no delays in issuing critical expertise visas for such a huge industrial development project. But ICE was doing its job. Other bureaucrats were to blame for the delays.
'cause you don't post info during an active investigation?
BS. It was public knowledge and in the news.
There are items that were not public knowledge, like the purported loaded clip with "ANTI-ICE" written on it. Kash Patel basically live-blogging the investigation is just nuts.
Sorry man, we are talking about two different stories mentioned in Steve's post.
Good piece, sir.
An apt metaphor (and timely one as I spend time studying for my ham radio license).
Speaking of polarization - I was reminded yesterday that as an electromagnetic wave travels, the electric wave is polarized in one direction, and the corresponding magnetic wave is polarized 90 degrees off of the electric wave's plane. In our reactionary politics, it seems like something similar is happening.
KD4YLB 73’s to you.
I know that not all Christians are conservatives and vice versa, and make efforts to keep them separate. But: who's responsible for the conflation of Christians and conservatives? To my recollection, that was a willing partnership between at least *some* subsets of both groups.
For example, Charlie Kirk stated “If you vote Democrat as a Christian, I think you can no longer call yourself a Christian. You have to call yourself something else. I do not think you can be a Christian and vote Democrat.” You can also look at polls where most members of the GOP support declaring the US to be a Christian Nation.
And it's not just GOP operatives: you also have Christian pastors/ministers saying the same thing.
To get to a more general issue that affects both sides - though perhaps not symmetrically - is demonization and dehumanization. When we stop seeing the humanity in each other, we make it too easy to use violence against each other.
That also gets to an important point about America - and democracy - from a fundamental point: we have to view each other as individuals, each with our own rights. We must support each other's rights, even when we disagree with how we use them. Example: one's religious belief is as valid as anyone else's, and the only way for one to be free to exercise their religious belief for themselves is to support other's rights to do so for themselves. And thus our laws/policies must be approached with the same mindset.
How? I can’t remove my memory of the sustained attack on my civil liberties. Since Luigi, formerly normie Dem friends support violence. Your understanding of how deep the corruption goes, from when Trump won his first term and the uniparty went about waging war not on the other party, but conservative Americans ourselves. Obama sold out the working class, they join the GOP, and now actual conservatives are told they are more violent than hawt Luigi celebrating far left nihilists. The issues stem from Dems NOT condemning Antifa for actual behavior. No GOP event welcomes radical and true far right to mainstream events.
Meanwhile Dems support Omar who credibly defrauded us by marrying her brother, who was safe in the UK, so he could get US handouts and free degrees.
I still treat my Dem friends well. I never posted a political word, I kept their hateful ones on my feed over a decade to avoid their echo chamber.
Tell me again that I am responsible to fix this amongst them? I’ve tried. They won’t even open a news article or video evidence if they think it is right coded or adjacent. I’m literally trying in my own way. These people WANT their bias because they feel superior. I can’t overcome narcissism.
What civil liberty has actually been attacked? Has the government shut down your right to say what you want, or believe what you want?
Luigi Mangione has people both left and right liking him: it ain't partisan.
The issue is you're talking about random individuals, not elected Democrats or even media figures when it gets down to it. Contrast that to GOP electeds and media figures that use violent rhetoric quite often. Heck, think of the difference in how many GOP candidates/electeds pose with guns for campaign materials and Christmas cards; or how some even used guns to "kill Biden" in effigy - can you honestly say that's done by Democratic candidates or electeds? And compare the messages from Democrats and the GOP after Hortman and Kirk were killed: there's no similarity.
Actual corruption is something that we can agree on needs to be dealt with from a bipartisan manner. I really don't know how you can look at the Trump administration and think it's less corrupt than a Democratic one: look at the Democrats that were charged and tried under Biden (Menendez, Hunter Biden, etc...) - and the lack of charges that are due under Trump's. Look at his use of crypto currency as bribes, and his cronyism.
You talk about biases, but I'm pretty sure you're showing your own.
And no, there's no uniparty: America is based on small-l liberalism, which of course means that there's certain things that we (typically) agree on. But to look at the GOP and Democrats as being anywhere near the same at this time is delusional.
Well I’m glad you’ve got it all figured out. This is such a biased account that it sums up where we are. I see black and you see red. No hope of finding common ground.
Of course, everyone has to be of good faith to debate and you are probably not. But I’ll stream of consciousness a retort.
No Republican likes Luigi. I can’t explain working class MAGA, former Dems, I only understand the libertarians and conservatives. I’m not MAGA or partisan in that way, but watching Russiagate, Covid lockdowns which were Fauci, his mandates, his paper masks and forced me to take an experimental medicine when I had natural immunity from a few weeks before or I would have lost my private industry job. I can’t begin to share the advertising industry colluding with global agencies, corporations and the US/EU government to de platform conservative US voices.
This is how Fox News with the highest cable ratings, including more democrat viewers than CNN or MSNBC, has reverse mortgages and pillow commercials while Joy Reid and Rachel spread provable propaganda yet get mainstream advertisers. I could not read about Hunter laptop. I can’t read Pravda. My country used to trust me to gather information and as a patriot to process it accordingly.
This is a moderate country, Dems are taking the 20% of every issue so I believe I can find comfort that it will take another generation before DNC can claw back that authoritarian power. Young men will vote Republican until I’m dead.
And the fact I am not allowed to read certain newspapers, certain pundits, certain studies, especially 2020-2023 is a massive violation of my civil liberties. Until Musk bought Twitter, it looked like only DNC voices would ever get covered again. Republicans have been smeared for half my 50 plus years on earth. Emory graduate with a political science degree and a journalism masters. I can’t help you overcome your own bias. You wrote a novel clearly designed to stay in your bubble. The feeling that you’ve chosen the good feeds a narcissist in all of us. I remember what it felt like to fall for Bush and Cheney lies. I watched them invade more countries. As a Republican I felt responsible and said never again. They were dead to politics, the Kamala marched our Dick Cheney, a war profiteer that lied us into forever wars. The DNC essentially declared themselves the neocon war party.
Hilary as Secretary of State destabilized the world. She did real damage. Obama killed a US citizen. He dropped more bombs than any US president in history. He is a figurehead. I loathe her. She’s a swamp creature of deep corruption. She wants nothing but power, when she lost to her patsy they installed at the head of GOP ticket, her ego was rightly devastated. Her maniacal ego then set about destabilizing the country. I don’t know this, I have no money or power. But it clearly appears her psy op blew up. We got redpilled and see it’s all theatre. So Trump is a battering ram that I find callous and morally wanting. But I like many of his cabinet and I want the DNC spanked and prosecuted so they stop lawfare and corruption. My psy op might blow up in my face, but I couldn’t vote to allow Dems to install another empty vessel into the WH. Trump compulsively says everything, less scary than someone that refuses to tell me her beliefs or ideology.
Watching her this week proves we would have collapsed under her nonexistent leadership.
"Working class MAGA" is the GOP: haven't you noticed? And yes, some of them do like Luigi because they also hate health insurance companies.
None of the shutdowns were driven by the federal government: each state/county handled those on their own - and recall that it was 2020, during Trump's administration. Not Biden. And no, the federal government did not force you to take any vaccine: your job required you to do so because they want to protect your co-workers. That's private industry setting requirements for employment.
Whether it was appropriate for the government to request social media companies enforce their terms of service - recall that Trump also did so, but solely about things like insulting him. At least when it was Biden it was about public health, which is moderatley legitimate - and did not have the threat of government force behind it because the government ultimately has no control of said companies (unlike the FCC and broadcast television).
You could read about Hunter's laptop, on places where they decided to run that store: those that didn't chose not to because they deemed it not credible. A similar instance was John Edward's affair: everyone else deemed it not credible, National Enquirer ran with it - and it ended up being true. So: it happens.
Who's stopping you from reading any particular newspaper or publication, though? I don't get why you'd want to read Russian BS, but if you want to read Pravda - go online and read it. But: international media doesn't have a right to be published in the US, so you'll have to go online to do so.
I don't get your complaint about Fox News's advertisers: that's private companies deciding where to spend advertising dollars for the audiences that they want to advertise to. If they choose not to advertise on Fox News, then they don't have to - just as the advertisers on Fox/OANN/etc... don't have to advertise elsewhere.
There are some issues where Dems take the 20%, and some where the GOP does. It's not so cut and dry as you make it.
You seem to be complaining mostly about what private companies choose to do with their platforms/algorithms.
Your original post was ~1200 characters, my reply was ~1500. You consider that a novel, but reply with ~3400? That's funny.
There is common ground, if you want it - did you not notice where I noted there is? But you gotta be honest about yourself and your preferred "side", or it ain't gonna happen. And that includes how you react to someone countering your statements: are you going to actually think about it, or just react?
You want lawfare against the DNC, yes. So you don't hate it, you just want it used against those you view as your enemies. Not exactly a principled position.
What I can see about you is that you are like many other Americans: deeply disillusioned and ultimately will back whomever attacks the status quo (or perhaps it's status quo ante at this point) - hence your use of the term "uniparty". Frankly, I think a lot of this is driven by anti-American forces that want to destabilize us, that want to make it impossible for us to talk to or work with each other - because that creates openings for them to take power.
The nuance here is important. Yes, Biden is represented as an auto pen. But Trump is twice represented as a criminal (his mugshot serving as his presidential portrait). Make of it what you will…
The presidential portrait is not the mugshot. He simply made the same facial expression. Doubtless it was intentional.
Again…make of it what you will. The intent matters. As you said, it was intentional.
I still detect ignorance concerning Covid; good piece otherwise.