Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[bloocow2]

I watched the finale of Spartacus: House of Ashur just now. Oh my God I am so hyped for a Season 2, praying to all the TV gods to make it happen.

I don't really have any political things to say today. I hope Pam Bondi keeps her job, though.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

I am Spartacus.

[Dr. Ed 2]

ICE tactics are no different from those routinely used by police officers throughout the country, and one nice thing about this is that it will raise questions about the use of such tactics. Hopefully.

[Martinned]

Yes. A common reaction to these outrages has been "this is how black people in the US get treated every day, but white people are only outraged when it happens to them". Obviously the answer to that is that it shouldn't be happening to black people either.

[Michael P]

We already know you don't live here and fundamentally misunderstand our country. You don't need to demonstrate it further.

[Frank Drackman]

I’ve got a crazy suggestion. Don’t do Illegal Shit and the Po-Po(is that how the Coloreds say it? “Po-Po”?) will leave you alone.
Drive recklessly with no license, expired tag, in a Car with more Marriage-Juan-A Smoke than Cheech & Chong’s Van, you know like UGA Foo-bawl players do every weekend, don’t be surprised if the State Trooper(who in Georgia’s likely to be Black) doesn’t take you to Taco Bell.

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, a common reaction to blacks suffering outrages is to pretend that whites don't.

Another one is to pretend that there's one "how black people in the US get treated every day", and another "how white people in the US get treated every day".

Like a black RN living in a low crime neighborhood gets hassled by the police daily, and the police ignore a white gang member in the inner city. Yes, some people actually seem to believe such absurd things.

They're related misconceptions, they both hinge on studiously avoiding controlling for confounding variables.

You are not, of course, going to be mistreated by police if you don't interact with police in the first place, and police don't actually interact with people much in low crime areas. Why would they?

What's going on here is that blacks disproportionately live in high crime areas, disproportionately offend and are offended against, and so disproportionately interact with police. This does not mean that whites living in the same areas get treated differently.

[Sarcastr0]

Have you ever talked to a middle class black person?

Or bothered to check the stats for driving while black? It’s not just a neighborhood based effect.

[Mr. Bumble]

Piss off Douche.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Have you ever talked to a middle class black person?"

That is such a stupid question I feel I should just blow it off. But, yes, the RN in my example is my neighbor across the street. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that I live in a mixed race neighborhood.

Driving while black: a comparison of the beliefs, concerns, and behaviors of black and white Maryland drivers

"Abstract
Objective: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests that given the changing demographics of the United States it is important to examine motor vehicle statistics by race and ethnicity. The current study sought to explore differences in traffic safety concerns and driving behaviors between black and white drivers.

Methods: An annual, anonymous, random-digit-dial telephone survey was used to collect data between 2003 and 2009 from Maryland drivers. Drivers (N = 5503) were assessed regarding their driving behaviors and perceived risk of receiving a traffic violation.

Results: Results showed that black drivers perceived [My emphasis.] a greater likelihood of being stopped for driving under the influence (DUI), for not wearing a seat belt and for speeding than white drivers. These differences were found among drivers with or without a history of being ticketed. Black drivers were also more likely to report a variety of risky driving behaviors than white drivers. However, black drivers were not more likely to report receiving a ticket or citation in the last month after controlling for demographic factors, risky driving behaviors, and geographic region of the state, where traffic enforcement may vary.

Conclusions: Findings indicate that black drivers are not more likely to be ticketed, despite perceptual biases that may exist among some drivers. These differences appear to be explained by demographic as well as regional factors. These results highlight the need for more research to understand the potential differences in driving behaviors between racial and ethnic groups. More research is also needed to develop countermeasures for racial and ethnic groups most at risk for motor vehicle violations and crashes."

[Michael P]

I wish abstracts like that would summarize which "demographic factors" they control for. I assume race isn't one of them, but between other demographic factors and region, one could likely construct a pretty good proxy for race.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, you know, if abstracts included all the information in the paper, they'd be the paper, not an abstract...

This is somewhat related to 'disparate impact'. Sure, if the races were similarly situated on average, disparate statistics would indicate discrimination. But in the real world, the races are not actually similarly situated, and often the only way you'd NOT get disparate statistics is if there was some kind of racial quota in place.

[Michael P]

Sure, but the paper is behind a paywall, so I can't see the actual methodology.

It's a difficult balance: one wants to identify the actual contributions due to factor A, but when factor A correlates well with factors B and C, the experiment design has to be really careful not to let that correlation taint the estimates of relative contributions. This is especially true when A is one of the less critical factors, because it's hard to be exact when removing the contributions of any factor, and A's signal can be swamped by noise.

[Sarcastr0]

You often cite a single countervailing survey as though it's the last word on the matter.
You didn't even provide an outlier study, you just asked the wrong question.
You faff about with perceptions of black people, which is a hard question, but don't just ask about statewide traffic stops, which is an easy question.

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/05/veil-darkness-reduces-racial-bias-traffic-stops
https://illinoistrafficstops.com/
http://trafficstops.ctdata.org/reports/html/story3.html
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-024-09585-4

White man irrationally believes racism is solved: News at 11.

[Brett Bellmore]

As I remarked to Michael P, if the races were similarly situated in terms of relevant factors like crime rates, disparate racial statistics would be evidence of discrimination. But we know that the races are NOT similarly situated in terms or relevant factors.

[Sarcastr0]

If only they controlled for that, or looked at highways.

I swear, it's like you took the most racist hot takes of the 1990s about black culture and IQ and swore an oath never to learn anything since then.

Shades of Breitbart's 'black crime' tag.

At least you're not as racist as Musk is...yet. That's more Kaz's side of the street for now.

[Stella Link's Ghost]

"That is such a stupid question I feel I should just blow it off. But, yes, the RN in my example is my neighbor across the street. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that I live in a mixed race neighborhood."

Of course, the only reason that the RN lin your neighborhood has the job is because of DEI. That should be some white person's job, according to Saint Charlie, anyway.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bullshit.

Some people are actually competent and qualified and get hired on that basis.

[hobie]

I learned yesterday that the largest municipality in the Cleveland area - Parma (which is just 3 miles from me) - was a 'sundown town' all the way until 1991. That was the year they were forced to allow blacks to live in integrated housing, so they went ahead and gave up on all the sundown stuff too.

Any places you and your family couldn't live in 1991, Brett? If so, it might have had a negative impact on young Brett Bellmore's prospects.

[Mr. Bumble]

Not mentioned in this list of sundown towns by state, from Wiki.
Ohio

Fairborn, Ohio, was described as a sundown town "up until recent years" in 1968.[137]
Greenhills, Ohio, was a place where "blacks were excluded" by restrictive covenants sometime before 1978.[138]
Marion, Ohio, hometown of United States President Warren G. Harding, enacted ethnic cleansing to remove its Black population in 1920.[139]
Reading, Ohio, was described in 1912 as a place where "negroes are not allowed to live[...]or stay there after dark".[140]
Utica, Ohio, a town that was 97 percent White as of 2017, once had a sundown town ordinance, according to a local historian.[141]
Waverly, Ohio, was described in 1900 as a place where "Negroes are not allowed to live".[142]

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not arguing that there's no history of past racism in this country. (1991 is 35 years ago! "Past" is the word.) I'm arguing that, given relative crime rates, confirmed by victimization surveys, it's quite normal, to be expected, and even appropriate, that blacks on average interact with police more often than whites, and so are going to get mistreated by police more often than whites even if police mistreat people without regard to race.

It would actually require racial discrimination for blacks to NOT be interacting with police more often than whites, given crime statistics!

[hobie]

Well, 1991 is not very 'past' in my book. That was the year the blacks in the area could finally compete with the Bretts, didn't have to commute so far, could finally get lucrative overtime at the giant Chevy plant etc. You expect the blacks in the area to have magically achieved parity immediately in 1991 where the Bellmores had been enjoying it for centuries. These people were kept artificially poor until 1991 and beyond, and, as you know, its the poverty that begets the crime, not the skin color.

[Mr. Bumble]

"I learned yesterday that the largest municipality in the Cleveland area - Parma (which is just 3 miles from me) - was a 'sundown town' all the way until 1991."
Cite.

[LexAquilia]

Clearly what they need are White Saviors to gentrify their neighborhoods and explain to them how they are too stupid to get Voter ID, while also mandating they show their ID at the local weed store.

[Stella Link's Ghost]

What an idiot you are. Anybody in this country with the money can be as much weed as desired without the necessity of ID. Just go hang around any school yard. Of course, you probably already do.

[LexAquilia]

I wonder why weed stores exist and Democrats force POCs to show their IDs at them then?

[Brett Bellmore]

" as you know, its the poverty that begets the crime, not the skin color."

Well, not just poverty, it's a bit more complicated than that, but I do indeed know that. But the crime still has consequences, no?

You can't demand that the crime be ignored, just because there are historical reasons for it, and it correlates with race, producing statistics that look bad. That would actually be racist itself, against the victims of the crime, who are also black.

[hobie]

I'll be the first to admit, black culture is fucked up. They don't care. They'll dress ridiculously, they'll drop their trash from their hands while walking, they don't take education seriously, they ignore traffic laws like crazy, they don't vote, they don't form 'normal' family dynamics. They simply don't care. Nothing ever really changes for them. They're still considered animals by most of the world. They know this, so they don't care.

The Bretts: "Well, all they have to do is care like the rest of us and they'll be fine."

Well, yes and no. It's not that simple.

[Stella Link's Ghost]

I grew up in a town listed as one of those towns. In Wisconsin's lower Fox River Valley from Lake Winnebago to Green Bay, just about every identifiable city is listed as one. The only black people in Green Bay played for the Packers. To the best of my knowledge, there were no black people living in the valley, a heavily industrialized area dominated by the paper industry. There were rumors that some ived in Oshkosh, but that's open to question.

Why, among those thousands of industrial workers were there no blacks? Well, we were too far north and they didn't like the cold and they were too lazy to do the work, etc.

In the entire Valley, unemployment was extremely low. The only people I knew of who were unemployed were chronic alcoholics and only the worst as not hiring any alcoholics in the area woud have resulted in a severe labor shortage. The town I grew up in was once described as gas stations on every corner with bars in between.

[LexAquilia]

Meanwhile foreign invaders are raping your women and kids and getting special treatment from their colonized government.

[Frank Drackman]

What tactics are the those? Defending yourself against Miscreants(look it up, I’m using it correctly) trying to kill you? This from the guy who recommended “Nuking” Minneapolis and paying Bounties for Illegals Scalps.

Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

Because everyone needs a three day weekend, Happy Washington's Birthday.

[Martinned]

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow is Carnaval this year. So many of my compatriots have the day off today because they're busy with costumes, floats, and lots of beer.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and to round out the holiday calendar tomorrow is Chinese New Year (the year of the horse).

[Martinned]

...and the start of Ramadan on Thursday.

[Mr. Bumble]

Will that mean Iran will stop killing its citizens or only during the day?

[Martinned]

I very much doubt it.

[hobie]

...and tomorrow is 'Shrove Tuesday'. Not being in Portugal anymore, I won't be getting my pancakes with my English friends tomorrow.

[Mr. Bumble]

the coloreds don't like pancakes?

[hobie]

Well, shrove 'pancakes' are more like crepes. And, no, blacks don't have crepes in the hood.

[Mr. Bumble]

Be a good neighbor and show them what they're missing.

[LexAquilia]

"Since you're too stupid to get an ID to vote, you're definitely too stupid to understand White people crepes!" --- The Hobes circa 2026

[Michael P]

In a pattern that will surprise no one who pays attention to comments here, abortion activists grossly distort fact patterns to try to instill fear that killing unborn children has been over-criminalized.

https://thedismissive.substack.com/p/no-women-arent-being-arrested-for

[Malika la Maize]

“Some of these claims don’t bear scrutiny, as we’ll soon see, while others *no woman planning or hoping for a child would see as acceptable ways to dispose of a miscarriage*.”

[Brett Bellmore]

I've never quite understood this "refute by repeating" rhetorical tactic. I think it depends on the assumption that everybody already agrees with you?

Yes, the guy literally tracked down the cases cited by abortion activists as women being arrested for miscarrying, and found that in every case he could find, you'd expect and hope that the police would suspect a crime, because laws concerning disposal of human remains were violated, and the circumstances of the dead baby being found suggested that infanticide might have taken place.

Here's a pointer: If you miscarry, don't throw the dead baby in a dumpster.

[Malika la Maize]

Well, if you’re going to focus on the part I *didn’t* add emphasis to of course you’re not going to get it.

[Brett Bellmore]

I didn't focus on that because, frankly, it wasn't so much beside the point as getting the point exactly inverted.

There are acceptable ways of disposing of a miscarriage, and unacceptable ways, and not wanting to have been pregnant doesn't shift the latter into the former category.

It literally does not matter if you didn't want to be pregnant in the first place: Don't toss the baby into a dumpster if you don't want a visit from the police.

[Malika la Maize]

A woman who has miscarried is often not going to be in a good state and conflicted feelings about the pregnancy in a state that you know engages in government forced births those states are likely complicated, dudes pre-judging their motives from their actions then are engaging in some obtuse “mansplaining.”

Also, the “planned” part is interesting given these people’s opposition to increased contraceptive access.

[Michael P]

NEJM published study on how vaccines cause clotting. And some people insisted the "clot shot" was not a thing. It turns out to have racially disproportionate effects, too.

Vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT) is a rare prothrombotic complication that occurs after adenoviral vector–based vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019; in rare cases, it can also occur after natural adenovirus infection. VITT is mediated by platelet-activating antibodies against the highly cationic protein platelet factor 4 (PF4). The underlying inciting antigen trigger and immunopathogenesis remain unknown.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2514824

[Sebastian Cremmington]

The Trumpcine was very safe and more than effective enough…if Trump wasn’t senile he would fire RFK jr and tell his supporters they were idiots for not getting vaccinated. As it is Biden gets the credit for the increase in life expectancy and decrease in violent crime and decrease in fentanyl ODs and the decrease in military hostile action deaths and the increase in GDP growth and decrease in deficit.

[Brett Bellmore]

Harping on one of my pet peeves, I note that it wasn't terribly long before Covid that injection protocols changed. At one time, when giving an intramuscular injection, the training was to insert the needle, and draw back on the plunger. If nothing happened, proceed to inject. If you drew blood, you were in a vein or artery, and needed to relocate the needle.

Now they just stick the needle in and inject. Less of a pain when everything goes right, to be sure, but what happens when an injection meant to be into solid tissue, that typically causes localized inflammation, raises a 'goose egg', accidentally gets injected into the bloodstream instead?

Yeah, you get inflammation, that "goose egg", distributed along the lining of the circulatory system and heart, instead. Not good!

Bolus theory

[Stella Link's Ghost]

That's terrible. So, how many cases of ViTT have been caused by the C19 vaccines? Best I can tell, according to NIH, the frequency is about 3 to 15 cases per million. "Fewer than 50 patients with VITT have been reported from Asia, Africa and Latin America combined."

How about infection- induced immune thrombocytopenia? About 10 to 60 cases per million per year.

Obviously, something needs to be done to eliminate this vaccine induced scourge.

[Malika la Maize]

The passage says rare twice.

[Stella Link's Ghost]

I don't think that anybody of any intelligence or knowledge has ever denied that there may be some rare cases in which people suffer from some reaction to some vaccine. In a few cases of some vaccines, early polio vaccines I believe is an example, bad results are not so rare, but the overwhelming history is against the histrionic claims of the anti-vaxers.

[Malika la Maize]

I agree, I was pointing out that even Mikie Q’s “gotcha” repeatedly emphasized the rarity.

[hobie]

"And some people insisted the "clot shot" was not a thing"

Jeebus, you're dumb, MichaelP. I mean, really really dumb. This study is about vaccines being delivered using the live adeno virus vector. All the mRNA COVID vaccines used no live viruses to deliver the payload. Instead, they used the novel lipid nanoparticle coating.

You appear to be confused or misled in just about everything you deal with. I don't know how you make it through a single day on this earth.

[Sarcastr0]

The anti-vaccination shit seems to be on it's way down now. Only the dumber cohort among true believers tries to push this transparent nonsense these days.

But it's too late.

RFK Jr. is one of those dumber true believers, and he's got the NIH doing terrible things with vaccinations, and children will die.

But hey, I'll bet it's not Michael's children, so he can fuck around all he wants because he'll never find out.
The comfort to be a fuckwit tends to be the MAGA flavor around here.

[Martinned]

That's OK. He used to do coke off a toilet seat.

[Stella Link's Ghost]

I guess when you've survived being a coked-out junkie with a worm in your brain you might consider the rare complications resulting from a vaccine as being way more risky than a little thing like a debilitating respiratory infection that very well might land you in the hospital on a ventilator.

[hobie]

Cheer up, Sarcastr0. RFK is doing a public good. The only people dumb enough to not vaccinate themselves and their children are the hayseeds. And Darwinating MAGA brats to reduce the surplus population is good for America.

[Malika la Maize]

The “brats” aren’t and quite likely won’t grow up to be MAGA.

[Mr. Bumble]

The best legal system money can buy.
(The Center Square) -

"U.S. Senate Republicans have introduced a bill targeting companies that invest in lawsuits, proposing rules that would force them to identify themselves and refrain from interfering with settlements.

Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, John Kennedy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas filed the Litigation Funding Transparency Act. The businesses that would be affected are called third-party litigation funders (TPLF) and provide money up-front to plaintiffs lawyers in exchange for a percentage of whatever is recovered in court."
https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/senate-gop-wants-companies-funding-lawsuits-be-revealed#article

[Martinned]

Interesting legal question in case you're in the mood for something that's not remotely constitutional law:

11 At the end of 2016, ED was involved in a road traffic accident while driving a minibus, belonging to a football club, that was carrying a former coach of that club and two members of the club. While the minibus was travelling at a speed of approximately 70 km/h, the former coach, who was sitting behind and to the right of the driver, suddenly pulled the handbrake. The minibus skidded and hit several pillars. ED and the team mate sitting in the front passenger seat were ejected from the vehicle. The team mate died as a result of his injuries. ED was seriously injured and suffers permanent and very serious lasting effects from the accident. The former coach and the other member of the club suffered minor injuries.

12 The football club that owned the minibus had taken out insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles (...) The club had also taken out passenger and driver indemnity insurance (...).

13 In respect of the damage he suffered as a result of the accident, ED, (...), applied to Nationale Nederlanden for cover under that indemnity insurance. In January 2020, Stichting Koskea’s lawyer informed ED that he was not covered by that indemnity insurance since the police report on the circumstances of the accident established that he had sat at the wheel of the minibus after consuming alcohol and while under its influence. The lawyer also stated that he was not covered under the compulsory civil liability insurance provided for by the WAM, as it did not cover damage suffered by the driver.

14 (...). In support of that action, [ED] argued, inter alia, that the exclusion from cover, by compulsory insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles, of damage suffered by the driver of the vehicle, provided for in Article 4(1) of the WAM, did not apply in the present case since, although ED was at the wheel of the vehicle at the time of the accident, he could no longer be regarded as being the driver, within the meaning of that provision, because, by pulling the hand brake, the former coach had acted as the driver.

What do you think?

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:62024CJ0490

[Mr. Bumble]

What is the half life of a "martyr"?
Does anyone remember Renee Notsogood and Pretti Boy Alex?
Who will the next "martyr" be?
Asking for a friend.

[Malika la Maize]

I like how he’s asking this *during* the DHS shutdown. Aptly named is that Bumble!

[hobie]

You notice how no one here is Ashli Babbitting these two anymore? Our Lib obsessions are healthy and normal.

[David Nieporent]

Is your friend a retard who believes that making up dumb nicknames for people substitutes for facts or logic? (Because if so, this "friend" sounds a lot like you.)

[Michael P]

Mr. Bumble's friend comments here as "not guilty"? That's a surprise.

[Moderation4ever]

Using the Trump/Bondi tactic to avoid dealing with reality.

[Malika la Maize]

After a year back in the White House, Mr. Trump’s efforts to promote himself as the singularly dominant figure in the world have become so commonplace that they no longer seem surprising. He regularly depicts himself in a heroic, almost godly fashion, as a monarch, as a Superman, as a Jedi knight, as a military hero, even as a pope in a white cassock…

His picture has been splashed all over the White House, on multistory banners on the side of federal buildings, on annual passesto national parks and maybe even soon on a one-dollar coin. His name has been etched on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, on the U.S. Institute of Peace, on federal investment accounts, special visas and a discount drug programand, if he has his way, on Washington Dulles International Airport, Penn Stationin New York and the future stadium of the Washington Commanders….

Personality-driven politics serve to bind followers of a movement to their leader more than to any particular policy prescription, making his success or failure their own. Veneration and loyalty are central and ideology secondary. The leader is presented as infallible, uniquely qualified, even divinely delivered for this moment in history.

Mr. Trump has played to these themes since taking the national political stage. “I alone can fix it,” he declared when running in 2016. “I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said on being inaugurated again last year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/15/us/politics/trumps-american-cult-of-personality.html

[Moderation4ever]

George Will in a recent podcast noted that Donald Trump is not unlike other authoritarians in decline. Men like Stalin and Saddam Hussein attempted to build monuments and splash their names on everything in their final years. The name and monuments came down as fast as they went up once these men were gone.

[LexAquilia]

Facts:
- Trump is building up military assets against Iran
- Bibi just said Israel is going to decouple militarily from the US.

Prediction;
- USS Liberty gets attacked by Iran
- US invades Iran in response

You heard it here first, folks and folx.

[Moderation4ever]

TACO

[Malika la Maize]

David Greene had never heard of NotebookLM, Google’s buzzy artificial intelligence tool that spins up podcasts on demand, until a former colleague emailed him to ask if he’d lent it his voice…

As emails and texts rolled in from friends, family members and co-workers, asking if the AI podcast voice was his, Greene became convinced he’d been ripped off. Now he’s suing Google, alleging that it violated his rights by building a product that replicated his voice without payment or permission, giving users the power to make it say things Greene would never say…

Greene’s lawsuit, filed last month in Santa Clara County Superior Court, alleges but does not offer proof that Google trained NotebookLM on his voice. The complaint cites an unnamed AI forensic firm that used its software to compare the artificial voice to Greene’s. The tool gave a confidence rating of 53 percent to 60 percent that Greene’s voice was used to train the model, which it considers “relatively high” confidence for a comparison between a real person’s voice and an artificial one…

Bills introduced in several states and in Congress have sought to regulate the use of people’s voices in AI tools. Greene, however, is relying on long-standing state laws that give public figures certain rights to control how their own likenesses are monetized.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/02/15/david-greene-google-ai-podcast/

[hobie]

Could put impressionists out of business. How is AI impersonating someone different from a person impersonating someone?

[Martinned]

AI does it by infringing copyrights.

[hobie]

What copyrights?

[Malika la Maize]

I would guess the NPR broadcasts are copyrighted.

Impressionists are likely protected by parody.

[Malika la Maize]

Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez was released on parole from California state prison on Sunday, after spending the last 11 months in custody, his longtime agent Mike Fonseca confirmed to ESPN.

Velasquez was sentenced to five years in prison in March 2025, after pleading no contest to charges related to a shooting that took place in February 2022. At the time of the sentencing, Velasquez was credited for 1,283 days served.

The charges stemmed from an incident in which Velasquez, 43, chased after and repeatedly shot at the vehicle of Harry Goularte, a man accused of molesting his 4-year-old son. Goularte's father, who was with him in the vehicle, was shot and injured during the 11-mile chase. Velasquez was granted $1 million bail and placed on house arrest in November 2022.

Goularte continues to face a felony charge of lewd acts with a minor. Velasquez has also filed a civil case against him.

https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/47940244/former-ufc-champ-cain-velasquez-released-prison-parole

[LexAquilia]

Illegal Noticing:

The intersection of the Epstein Network and influential AIPAC donors is virtually the whole set.

[David Nieporent]

Have you considered going to school and then getting a job? Maybe then you'd stop being an incel and wouldn't have to fill your lonely nights with fictional Jewish conspiracies.

[Moderation4ever]

Madisonian Noel Quintana has been detained by ICE and is threatened with deportation. He is the operator of a small business, married with children, a documented green card holder who has been in his country for over 20 years. Why is he being held ? Because of a non violent drug conviction that is 20 years old. Mr. Quintana has done exactly what we ask of people with convictions, served his time and moved on to a productive life. He is an example of the stupid immigration policy of the Trump administration. A policy driven by number and not good sense.

[Malika la Maize]

Home builders are warning President Donald Trump that his aggressive immigration enforcement efforts are hurting their industry. They’re cautioning that Republican candidates could soon be hurt, too.

Construction executives have held multiple meetings over the last month with the White House and Congress to discuss how immigration busts on job sites and in communities are scaring away employees, making it more expensive to build homes in a market desperate for new supply. Beyond the affordability issue, the executives made an electability argument, raising concerns to GOP leaders that support among Hispanic voters is eroding, particularly in regions that swung to Trump in 2024.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/14/south-texas-will-never-be-red-again-builders-warn-gop-over-trumps-immigration-raids-00781374

[Sarcastr0]

This was posted previously, and the comfy MAGA around here confidently stated that Latino citizens can't really be mad about ICE's tactics.

[Sarcastr0]

Congrats ICE, your mania for rolling up Latinos even if they have legal status is doing one good thing:
Armando Fernández Larios, former Pinochet agent arrested by ICE

An iconic former agent of the DINA, Augusto Pinochet’s secret police (1973-1990), with five extradition requests from Chilean courts for human rights violations during the dictatorship

“He was one of the agents favored and promoted by the DINA. He was young at the time of the coup [23 years old], but he immediately joined the security teams and was part of the Caravan of Death. He deserted the DINA and entered the United States’ witness protection program, which I understand is for life. That’s why his arrest is so strange.”

Now fucking deport him already.
https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-02-09/the-secrets-kept-by-armando-fernandez-larios-former-pinochet-agent-arrested-by-ice.html

[Michael P]

Matt Yglesias continues his slide into crank territory.

But to go even bigger and bolder, the entire presidential system of government that’s in use in the United States is, unfortunately, a pretty bad idea.

(That's not out of context: see the headline embedded in the URL below.)

https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewyglesias/p/presidential-democracy-was-a-mistake