Hodad

Historically, immigrants don't represent a drain on resources, but rather a boost in human resources. Obviously there are (evolving) levels of maximum ability to take advantage of human resources, and capacity constraints, but I think most economists agree we're not close to either limit. With oodles of space, appetite for industry and a falling birth rate, I suspect we'll be able to make good use of new arrivals.

Secure against legal immigrants. The slogan for his plan to employ aging porn stars. With a straw. Sluuuurp.

That's really, really gross. Indefensible. I think DeSantis is wrong on almost everything, but good on him for putting a stop to this nonsense.

No, Trump didn't "dictate" a withdrawal from Afghanistan. He made the deal to give the country back to the Taliban AND withdrew almost all the troops. There were just 2500 left when Biden took office as the Taliban was re-taking the country. There was no scenario in which that final extraction was going to go well for Biden. There weren't enough troops left to check the Taliban. Perhaps it could have gone better, but it was never going to go well. Not for either president.

Oh, Jeebus. I didn't see that post--and there is a reason some people deserve to be on ignore. Just more dishonest trolling. It should go without saying that Joe Biden, sworn in on Jan 20, 2021, is not responsible for the deficits in 2020. And, as always, the larger timeline shows pretty clearly that of the two parties to choose from, the Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility, forced time and again to dig out of the hole left by Republican predecessors. Back to the point the other day, these MAGA kooks cannot read and decipher basic charts and graphs. Hard to debate facts with people who have never met one. Yes, as always, that's very true. I think it's just a little funny to skewer the MAGA boasting points.

Okay, so the most generous interpretation here is that you're 100% committed to playing dumb. Meanwhile, those of us not invested in this solipsistic charade will continue to infer meaning and intent from plain statements. That is the point of communication after all: to be understood. When you get over the weasly bullshit and have the courage to talk plainly about plain talk, just say so.

Jeebus. Going on a homophobic -- or transphobic -- rant does NOT make one a "stand up man." He said something that was dumb and cruel. People should let him know that's not acceptable behavior. The people calling him out on it are the people exhibiting courage, not the bully picking on already marginalized and vulnerable groups.

There is ample evidence Trump campaign colluded with Russia. It's part of the congressional record. The Republican majority in the Senate chose not to hold him accountable, but it doesn't change the facts. I love that in conspiracy kook land one guy at the FBI taking an improper (and it turns out inaccurate) shortcut on his paperwork constitutes a "string of crimes." The perp got a smack on the hand in court (probation) and that's the sole outcome of the Durham investigation--aside from the acknowledgement that the initial facts to support collusion indeed merited an initial investigation. -- Meanwhile, a kid in Cleveland shoplifted a pack of gum. Or what you'd refer to as a crime spree.🙄 The FBI had no power to "ban" discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop files. So that's crap. What actually happened is that the media didn't want to tilt a second election in a row by giving a megaphone to another spurious October surprise. So they exercised a modicum of caution and restraint regarding a wildly improbably story that was so sketchy the original author at the NY Post refused to put their name on it. And while you may need a dictionary most people already know the meaning of the word "shred." As in, if he had been able to produce a shred of evidence that the election was stolen through fraud, Trump wouldn't have been laughed out of court 60+ times. You know, because courts deal in facts and evidence, not bruised egos and bluster. You. on the other hand, simply believe without question it because your orange messiah told you. I'm all for freedom of religion, but as a favor to the rest of us, please keep the candles around your Trump shrine to no more than 6. We're dealing with a warming planet here. And besides, any more than that and it starts to look gaudy.

Nah, I'm 100% certain that the guys who tried to stage a coup are the enemies of America. They did try to end the Republic.

Biden's deficits are about half of what he inherited from Trump. Bankruptcies are up because you can now include student loan debt in some circumstances. Inflation has dropped but it's still above target. But again, by almost every metric the Biden economy is better than pre-pandemic Trump and dramatically recovered from what he inherited. That's just numbers being numbers. They don't listen to Trump or Fox

Dictionary, hm. What could be in here? What?!? And all this time I just thought it was a paddle boat in Cleveland.

🤣The projection here is off the goddamn charts. You buffoons have spent the last 3+ years whining about fictional viewer fraud and a stolen election without a shred of evidence. You're orange Messiah simply made it up, and you swallowed it down. But to mention your made up claims about the economy, energy, ludicrous conspiracy theories that the world doctors and scientists are all tricking you and only your asshat politicians know the real truth.

What if I were to say to you that you're a useless piece of of human garbage, a mistake of nature, and the world would be better off had your mother's attempted coat hanger abortion been fully successful rather than simply causing brain damage? In that hypothetical, am I giving you valuable constructive criticism? Is there any hidden motivation? Or is it just a shitty, mean thing to say about someone? How about if I say that your skin color is an abomination that makes you sub-human? The game you're playing right now is a dumb game. Sophistry is lazy and boring. If you think there is some hidden motive beyond the blatantly obvious plain reading, show it.

And I hope you enjoy your life as a useless troll. If you haven't got anything else going for you, at least you have that. Now go fark off

^^This is just a sort of stream of consciousness. Bullying is not personal growth, and the primary way in which lessons are learned is through corrective feedback. I really don't care about some meathead who gets paid to fight people, like we live in ancient Rome. If he learns, great. If he refuses to learn and gets cancelled, great. Either way a bad behavior loses it's platform. Go shame, go

Actually, people mention that fact quite often. Just not on Fox. Deportations went down under Trump, and Trump repatriated a lower percentage and released a higher percentage of his border crossers into the US than Biden. Yet somehow Trump and Fox have managed to convince people that Biden's policies are somehow softer. It's almost like there's some sort of anti-reality filter in place.

It's not extremist to follow and enforce the laws as written.

Well, you've been corrected multiple times. At this point, you're just blatantly lying. I have never called for war. If the Ukrainians didn't want to fight for their freedom, that would be fine with me. But they do, and anyone fighting for their freedom has my support. Enjoy giant dildo.

And you pretending the plain language is layered, nuanced or otherwise deserving of deep exploration doesn't make it so. It's just sophistry, meant to defend the indefensible.

1. Social standards change all the time. There is no bright line. Shame is the mechanism of enforcement. If you take up two seats, pay for two tickets. Fair is fair. And there are plenty of emotionally healthy ways to opt out of your relationship with another person for any number of reasons, including the number of partners. 2. Some speech may merit legal action (government) but most does not. Again, you can think of obvious examples that constitute threats or incitement of violence. 3. Hating the individual who is your ex-wife is just that. It's not hate speech to hate the person who has done things to you. It's personal dynamics. You're not terrorizing a marginalized group. I can think of a few horrible-ish things I said as a kid. I grew up. I was a pretty good kid with decent parents who didn't preach hate, so nothing truly awful, but some things I'm ashamed of in retrospect and wouldn't want publicized now. But that's the difference, isn't it. I grew up. I learned right and wrong. I learned the power of words and I learned that casually hurting people is not smart or funny or hip or cool. It's just cruel. Strickland should hear the criticism and grow from it. Chances are, at his age, it's not a lack of knowledge, but a deliberate choice. And in that case people who look up to him should get the message that he's flawed and wrong and perhaps not worthy of their admiration. That's the purpose of shaming.

Great, so we can dispense with any pretense that this is anything other than what it is--a jackass publicly saying awful things--and return to the topic as desired. So this particular jackass is engaging in hate speech, yet is also free to speak, yet is also not free from social consequences--positive or negative. Put a bow on it.

That's not accurate. Trump severely restricted legal immigration in his last term (while illegal immigration increased) and his plans if he is reelected seem to me more extreme. Trump Cuts Legal Immigrants By Half And He’s Not Done Yet

Lol. I don't think there's any mystery there. This is not secretly sophisticated speech which much be teased out and un-puzzled. It's exactly what it appears to be.

Yes, not solely because it hurts people's feelings, but also because it is purely negative. There is no upside. It's not meant to be a helpful hard truth. It's cruel for the sake of being cruel about an attribute which cannot even be controlled or changed. Much like denigrating people because of skin color.

I already did. Was that not sufficient? If someone says that having a gay child equates to failure on the part of the parent/father, that's extremely hurtful to parents of gay children, whom Strickland has denounced as failures and to the children themselves, whose innate quality has resulted in the failure of their parents. It casts being gay as being wrong or bad. And we're talking about an innate attribute that has historically been subjected to a lot of hate, violence and other misery. We're really just coming out of that period, but the history is still raw and ender. From a logic perspective what he's said is about as dumb as saying "If my child has red hair, I will have failed as a man." From an emotional perspective, what he's said is about as awful as "If my child is born a [n-word] I will have failed as a man." The logic is bad, but the deliberate emotional harm is worse.