DL Open Thread Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024
The surest sign that Trump is off his termite-infested rocker: The months-long effort to portray Biden as senile, when of course it’s Trump whose feeble mind is splintering. Last night Trump gave a highly technical description of Israel’s anti-missile defense system: “And they calmly walk to us, and ding, ding, ding, ding, boom, whoosh, boom. They’ve only got 17 seconds to figure this whole thing out. Boop. Okay. Missile launch, shee-boom.” This is what you get when a guy who was a moron in the first place starts losing his marbles.
Israel made an offer to Hamas yesterday: Give us all the hostages and we’ll stop killing you for two whole months. Now who would turn down a sweet deal like that? Why don’t you offer them two fives for a twenty while you’re at it?
Birds fly, fish swim, Republicans lie. Ever since Biden’s infrastructure bill passed, the House Republicans who voted against it, which was all but six of them, have tried to take credit for the projects that benefit their districts, a practice known as “vote no and take the dough.” For example, Rep. Pete Stauber of Minnesota voted no, saying, “I will not be complicit in paving a destructive and irreversible path towards socialism.” So when the feds announced yesterday that $1.05 billion in federal money will build a new span to replace an aging bridge in his district on I-535 across the western tip of Lake Superior, Stauber claimed, “I have long fought for these funds.” He was swiftly called out by the state’s Democrats. I suggest they name it the Hail Socialism Bridge.
Tell me it’s not a motherfucking cult. There’s a bill in the Florida legislature that would give $5 million in public money to help pay “billionaire” Donald Trump’s legal fees. Which once again brings up the question, how fucking stupid do people have to be to give money to someone who claims he’s a billionaire?
SCOTUS surprisingly sided with the federal government over Texas in the standoff over killing Mexicans at the southern border, which has, as usual, prompted Texans to demand secession. Being products of Texas schools, many of them misspelled it “succession.” I’m actually in favor of throwing them out of the union whether they want to go or not.
The floor’s yours.
Trump’s got dementia, it will become much more obvious with time, and it will not take that long. The corporate media, eager to serve their billionaire owners have ignored Trump’s decline, it’s becoming impossible even for them to ignore. Like most here I have little faith in America’s electoral system, but I do know there is a limit to denial, even for Trump’s base.
Agreed, but I suspect that the reason the mainstream doesn’t force the point too hard is that it would necessarily draw comparisons to how far along Biden has come on his own sunsetting journey. Trumps dementia is more evident in the personality shifts, the ever increasing grandiosity, while Biden is losing his finer motor skills (most evident in his gait and posture).
That’s partly true, but the media have been covering for Trump from his first campaign. Rather than quoting him directly, reporters typically said what he meant, or what they thought he meant, effectively sanitizing the gaps in thought and logic.
This was obvious early on to anyone who watched longer clips from his rallies, at which he behaved like a standup comic (a lousy one), making his inability to focus or make logical connections harder to discern.
If the MSM can’t (won’t) cover Trump’s decline directly, maybe they’ll start covering the Biden campaign calling out Trump’s decline more aggressively?
Full disclosure, I haven’t heard or seen the Biden campaign calling out Trump’s decline more aggressively, but Morning Joe said that is what’s now happening.
It’s almost impossible to be an illegal immigrant anymore. Everyone who crosses the border now wants to be picked up and become an “asylum applicant” which is 100% legal. (well, technically that’s only legal at official border crossings, but that’s not being enforced now).
So the old days of sneaking over the border hoping to avoid detection and find a sketchy employer to pay you off the books are over.
Asylum applicants can work legally (if they file a form) while they await their asylum hearing. If you really insist on being illegal you can a) skip your asylum hearing, or b) skip filing the form for work authorization.
By “border security,” Republicans mean they want to block, deport, or (preferably) shoot incoming asylum seekers. But still they are correct to complain the Feds aren’t doing enough to help border towns.
So instead, Democrats should offer humanitarian assistance to cope with the presumed “flood” of incoming immigrants. Which assistance of course will be rejected by Republicans.
A lot of the immigrants are coming from Venezuela now, so Democrats are missing a chance to point out Republicans want to turn away people fleeing the horrors of socialism.
At the same time, certain sectors are complaining about worker shortages, and it is a MAGA mantra that “people don’t want to work.” These complainers should make competitive proposals for asylum seekers to settle in their states, and the Feds should help them get there.
All that is well and good until the next recession. When there are worker shortages and rising wages, it is easy to be magnanimous with low-end jobs. But when jobs are tight and wages are stagnant, it will be just as easy to point at the flood of immigrants who were allowed to take those jobs.
You mean like the jobs in meat-packing, where half the labor force of 470,000 is immigrant? Americans won’t take those jobs at the wages employers are willing to pay. The proof is that every time one source dries up, another takes its place at roughly the same pay rate.
Meatpackers started hiring lots of immigrants when the traditional labor force of undereducated Blacks started unionizing in the ’90s. Now that immigrants are harder to find, they’re turning to children, which is why that 16-year-old died in a Mississippi chicken plant recently.
Apparently what’s going on is that the parents might be here illegally but the children are documented, so the minors are earning the family’s living.
You can point at immigrants “allowed” to take meatpacking and crop-picking jobs, but the obvious fact is that native-born Americans won’t do them.
The situation is different, of course, in the STEM fields, where an increasing percentage of the work force is now immigrant.
But all this is moot: The Republicans have been the ones who refuse to enact a compromise solution, and after the Roe fiasco I’m pretty sure this is a car they don’t want to catch. They’d rather use the broken situation to bash Democrats whenever they’re in power.
For some reason I get the monthly rag from Hillsdale College, which normally goes into the recycle bin unread.
But this month the headline caught my eye. “Lessons From The Great Covid Cover-Up,” by Senator Rand Paul. The first few paragraphs were on page 1, with the Greatest Hits of Covid conspiracy theories – China virus, something something Fauci emails, etc.
I turned the page and saw a wall of text – the whole issue was this screed from Rand Paul. That’s when I stopped reading and pitched it into the recycle bin.
I think everybody gets that rag whether they want it or not. Related note: I was in a hotel in the States late last year and they had copies of the Epoch Times in the lobby. Shit peddlers never stop.