Hodad

Like Reagan said about democracy... Social science is truly the worst way to understand social trends--except for all the others.

Indeed, they are. MAGA=RINO. They are trying to claim the name, without any of the longstanding principle and policy that it used to stand for.

Suuuuuuure, the "Reagan Revolution" guy who has been a Republican senator for almost 40 years--and in Republican leadership for 20 years--is a RINO, while Trump, who decided he would identify as a "Republican" for the first time a hot minute ago--and just to run for office--is the real Republican. You cultists are too funny! Climb out of his ass from time to time. Get some fresh air and check out reality. It'd be good for you.

Eh, I suspect anyone who has followed the issue at all, in any way. It's literally what happened. A month ago Mitch McConnell said that they probably couldn't get a bill this good if they had a Republican President, Senate and House. It had broad bipartisan support. Then Trump told his goons to spike it and suddenly it's DOA. Nothing to do with the content of the bill. It's just more cynical, selfish politics from Team Trump. And it's literally true, BTW. Republicans absolutely failed to achieve immigration reform when they controlled the WH, the senate and the house. They didn't make any progress. And, now, with a chance to make DRAMATIC progress with a Republican-led bill that has bipartisan support, they'd rather campaign on the issue than solve the issue.

Yep. Murdered by Donald Trump, Hostess Cupcakke. Deal with that next time you start b!tching and moaning about border law on a border that's not even yours.

No, Hostess Cupcakke, we don't have a king in this country, or a dictator. This president is bound by the same laws as his predecessors. Meanwhile, there is a reasonable--and previously popular--bipartisan immigration reform bill languishing because Trump and his lapdogs would rather campaign on the issue than have it solved.

Nothing will make them stop following the law? Well, no, probably not. That's why everyone has agreed that the law needs to change. Except for Trump, who would hate to see a good campaign issue spoiled.

Whaaaaaat?😉

Your understanding of the proposed law is factually incorrect (probably because you get your "facts" directly out of Trump's ass) but I'm more interested that you think this Republican-led deal is "pure insanity" and "anti-American." It's not. It's actually a really reasonable revision of the law that would end release of asylum seekers into the US, saving other things. That's why Republicans supported it--before Trump started lying about it and told Republicans to sabotage their own deal. It's great that you CAN read, but if you only read garbage it's not really helping you. Try real news--or original sources.

They work so hard at doing the wrong thing that I'm always a bit surprised when a few of them get something right. This impeachment argument--again, without a crime--was just unbelievably stupid.

Ack! Another one still alive!

You're right, but I don't think even this court would go that crazy. No one wants their legacy to be elevating the office of POTUS entirely above all law.

No, but I do involuntarily recoil a bit when I see a Maga/Trump hat. I'm always caught by surprise that they're really real and still among us. Figured most of the mouth breathers had drowned from looking up when it rains.

I'm going to ask you to put on your thinking cap and concentrate very hard. Take in and process this information. There was normal border law under Obama and Trump. Title 42 was an "emergency" state triggered by the pandemic under Trump. Biden kept Title 42 in place until it was struck down by federal courts. Now we are back to normal border law. Get it? Biden didn't open the border. The border law under Biden is the same as it was under Trump. Title 42 was the same under Trump and under Biden. The only thing that's changed is the volume. If we want to change the border situation, we have to change the law. There was a bipartisan senate deal that most of the body and the Republican leadership were pretty excited about. Trump told them to scrap it to boost his campaign, so they did. That's where we are in America. Republicans either don't actually believe we have an immigration problem, or they are more interested in playing politics than actually finding solutions. And I think we know that answer. As always, they put party before country.

Again, the "Brandon border" is the same as every other US border. Actually it's slightly more effective at repatriating border crossers and releases a lower percentage of border crossers into the US than the "Trump border." The only thing that's changed is the volume of people trying to cross. This accelerated under Trump as well, as conditions in Central and South America have deteriorated. The "open border" is a myth and a lie. Our laws aren't equipped to deal with this volume of migrants. If we want to change the situation, we'll need to change the underlying fundamentals or the law. And Trumpublicans are actively working to sabotage changes to the law. If you want to blame somebody, that's a reasonable start. Also, it's not your border or your country, so bugger off with the fanboy indignation.

On July 16, 1945 the US acquired all the power it would have needed to conquer the world. Yet, here we are, in basically the same configuration. I don't think anyone has cause to fear American expansion.

Yeah, sure. Of course you believe that any country who flirts with NATO deserves to be invaded by Russia. Just as you believe that any woman who flirts with Trump deserves to be raped. It's really just a whole theme with you, isn't it?

Disagree. He has not gone down the conspiracy rabbit hole. He actually lives down there, near the bottom, and occasionally pops UP high enough to get wifi and post through the use of some sort of periscope device.

You're right. Huge, huge implications on the next generation. Huge implications for parenting. The good is amplified, the bad even moreso. We have to talk to kids--even before puberty--about sex and sexualized imagery and language. About bullying. About suicide. Like, that has to just be woven into the fabric of childhood now before kids even hit double digits. A young girl from a family my family is close with was, essentially, bullied to death on social media a couple of years ago, and it's not a rare story. With that volume of negative input, it's very easy for young people to literally feel like the entire world is against them and would be better off without them. And the harm is done so easily and casually it probably doesn't even feel like a big deal to the bullies. And all of it is made many times worse by platforms that deregulate. Twitter/X is a good example. The "free speech" ethos is all well and good until you end up with terrible, tragic real-world outcomes. That's when the ideology is tested against reality. And very quickly, like generations before, we can see that not everyone deserves or should have access to a megaphone. Not every flavor of speech is fit for the public square and not all of it is healthy for society. Maybe those standards were there for a reason. ^^Not even touching on disinformation here, which is a giant topic on its own. Maria Ressa won the Nobel Peace Prize a couple of years ago for her work teasing out the effects of disinformation on social media and how platform policies can make it better--or worse. Totally worth checking out her work.

I'm only watching if Swift makes it back from Japan.

Eh, you're always posting crazy conspiracy shit. There's no way to add to it until it becomes something of quality. At best, it just dilutes the shit. Better to step over it and flag it for others.

Chilton guide! I made friends with a couple of those. Eh, information asymmetry is a real problem. It's easy to SAY that everybody is responsible for their own decisions, and at some level that's true, but there's a long, long history in western civilization of assigning proportional blame/responsibility based on knowledge and agency and regulating to level the playing field.

I can't speak for Zeitgeist, but I think if you strip all of that stuff away, he'd be waaaay less popular. If you just put together a blinded list (no name) of the things that Trump has done--the policy, the lies, the corruption--nobody would say "Yeah that's all fine." Nobody on either side of the aisle would choose that resume. He's beloved by the MAGA base specifically because he causes chaos and outrage. Because he provokes, through boorish behavior, both establishment conservatives and liberals. They love him like they love a professional wrestling heel (also on Trump's resume). They revel in spite and chaos. If they can't have it their way (and their way isn't very popular) they'd rather burn it all down.

Yep, that's the in-house financing business model, which is almost always predatory. Sell a fully-depreciated asset in whatever stage of near-failure they can achieve, collect as much down payment and as many high-interest payments as possible, and then either the loan is completed or they repo the junker, restore it to minimal running condition and sell it again for the same price. Not to say that they're sabotaging the car. Just that they are indifferent to how well or long it functions. And it's almost always the case that the buyer needs the car to keep the job to make the money to make the payments, but the house doesn't care because they'll win either way. And they very often don't report to the credit agencies anyway, so buyers who survive the experience financially often don't even get credit for repaying the loan. That whole seedy sub-industry is problematic.