domain:kvetch.substack.com
curious_straight_ca
6d ago
Remember how many times progressives on social media were wrong about Russia, and about Trump's legal woes in general? I think you're doing the same thing in reverse here. What the government's alleged to have done is very minor, but a lot of the words look like the words you'd use in a major situation, so it's blown up into a big deal.
SlowBoy
6d ago
Dems don't need new laws to stop illegal immigration. They aren't enforcing the laws that already exist. Why would passing more laws make Dems enforce them?
The politicians who created the problem, who could stop the problem at any time, are saying they need new powers to stop the problem. The politicians who want to solve the problem say that it's a bad bill. Trump wants to run on the border? But Biden could solve it today.
SlowBoy
6d ago
Read the Trump comments in the piece Ben linked. They were all Trump remarks clearly about illegals. Ben claims Trump was too mean to immigrants, eliding the difference.
SlowBoy
6d ago
Well, the same people who orchestrated Russiagate are now running the government. The parallel runs toward more scam prosecutions. Why do you think they lied about the cover sheets?
Rov_Scam
6d ago
Calling Cliff Asness a "lifelong Democrat" is disingenuous at the very least. I used to keep CNBC on as background noise when I was in law school and his name rings a bell as the guy who was complaining that one or another of Obama's bailouts was too friendly to workers and not friendly enough to hedge fund billionaires such as himself. Some further internet research shows he was a Rubio supporter in 2016 and a Haley supporter more recently. I don't know what the details of his voter registration are, but he definitely comes across more as one of those never Trump conservatives who Republicans spent the last 8 years assuring us were electorally irrelevant.
2rafa
6d ago
Biden can deport 15 million people today? The law mitigates some percentage of the legal challenges by pro-migrant groups that would be inevitable (and will be) in any executive-led effort.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
I agree with most of what you said, but aren't you an American expat living in London? There seems something a bit off about someone in your position saying that immigration restrictions are the only thing that matters.
yellowgreenred
6d ago
It's only a "black pill" if one is overly concerned about the ethnic composition of the United States. Most Republicans don't have a problem with what they commonly understand "legal immigration" to be. More importantly, they don't view this issue from the racialist perspective you outline. There is not going to be a "European-style nationalist policy platform" because there is no demand for it. It's commonly understood among the citizenry, white and non-white, that the US is a country of immigrants. We can debate whether this is some massive psyop (I don't think it is), but that doesn't change that even most Republicans are sympathetic to this statement. This is really the kind of issue where one needs to touch grass. White Americans get on plenty fine with non-white immigrants within their own social class.
Barring mass deportations of citizens, the US is going to remain "diverse". A number of large states already have or are very near no single racial group being a majority.
Even a minor shift in the right direction, even something that delays demographic destiny by a few more years buys the right more time.
I don't understand this. Buys the right more time to do what exactly?
SomethingMusic
6d ago
Maybe people are feeling well?
ace
6d ago
No, I just think you're not very astute.
This was unnecessary to your otherwise very good points.
SlowBoy
6d ago
It's in the name: Public Relations. Your argument is that Trump's PR was too mean, and damaged the cause of immigration restriction. But when pushed on this you fall back to claiming that Trump hated illegal immigrants. What's the point of blaming his PR then? If Trump hates immigrants, it doesn't matter what his PR is, because by your logic he would still have hurt the cause just by being Trump.
2rafa
6d ago
I’ve never argued against all immigration. Only against unnecessary and troublesome immigration with deleterious long term consequences. For example, half of London’s social housing stock is occupied by people born outside the UK. By contrast I have almost never used public services and pay three times the country’s median income (at least) in taxes every year. Even then, I would think it reasonable if I and every other immigrant had no right to citizenship, ever.
So there isn’t really any hypocrisy. I’ve even advocated for affluent, high-skilled immigration from other Western countries to the US to do things like break down the AMA’s cartel on physician pay, which is currently like 4x what it is in most other developed countries. It’s disingenuous to suggest that that’s the issue people have with mass immigration.
shamgar
6d ago
Previously I would maybe catch 0-2 colds a winter, never get too ill due to it and recover quickly, but in the past year I have gotten a cold/flu maybe like 4 or 5 times and I think I am getting worse symptoms (e.g. having a mild fever one or two days when I catch a cold, which I never used to) and taking longer to recover than I would previously. This has led me to wonder whether something might be affecting my immune system, but I am pretty sure that I did not make any significant changes in obvious factors like sleep, diet, activity level, stress, etc. Does theMotte have any other ideas what might cause one to get ill more often and more severely and what can be done about it?
hanikrummihundursvin
6d ago
I mean, all pathologizing talk about 'vibes' and 'direct self interest' should come with some self reflection. The 'Alt Right' hadn't cheered for Trump on immigration since he caved on the Government shutdown in 2018.
In reality, I’m just someone who actually wants to get immigration under control.
I don't think you want to get immigration under control any more than someone in the 'Alt Right'. What you do want is to appear like a concerned and reasonable person as judged by 'the respectable people' representing the mainstream media morality. The 'Alt Right' is a great strawman to stand next to when making such a case, but boy is it transparent when you step outside the mainstream bubble.
Bleep
6d ago
Because the contents were exhaustively documented after the seizure.
it was discovered because Judge Cannon originally responding to supported accusations to require a special master to review the boxes for privileged information and that special master is the person who documented the state of the boxes which prove the government lied
not because the "contents" were exhaustively documented by the prosecution/fbi who were forced to admit they lied to the court about the documents and their handling post-seizure
also, does it give you any pause the linked politico article relies entirely on the statements of the Smith team which has already admitted to not being truthful with the court or defense counsel on multiple occasions? sure, they're liars, but their newest excuse which would takes tens of thousands of dollars and tons of effort to expose as lies are totally, definitely true now
But it also has no bearing on the facts of the case
whether the documents were ever disturbed from their original state after they were put into banker boxes by the national archives and picked up by Trump speaks directly to willful conduct element under the provisions of the espionage act Trump is charged with
a version of facts whereby the documents are still in chronological order when they were seized by the government does have an significant effect on at least this element
SlowBoy
6d ago
The surge at the border is consequent of Biden's decisions. He can't change those? He could reimplement Remain in Mexico, he could suspend Catch and Release, he could stop granting asylum. He could reimpose the Trump policies he suspended.
In fact, he doesn't need Trump to pass the border bill. If this is a great bill that Democrats are happy to have, they can pass it in the Senate and leave it to the House. They're not even trying this, they don't want to do anything, they just want to run on how Republicans won't do anything. This is maybe the best going scam in American politics: tearily tell the voters that we can't do anything, our hands are tied, unless you vote for me again...
Anything Biden does will be challenged, that's the nature of being president. Why does that mean he can't deport naybody? He could if he wanted to.
The people rallied and there was an extensive campaign by the family. Netanyahu was always opposed to these deals and had written about it. But the mob won out. Even now there are rallies about accepting any price to get hostages back, it’s just that for once more people have a desire for revenge than are willing to help the enemy to do so.
TowardsPanna
6d ago
Are you getting enough D vitamin (gotta supplement)? Sleep? Limiting alcohol? Are you more stressed than before? Have you had covid?
2rafa
6d ago
In fact, he doesn't need Trump to pass the border bill. If this is a great bill that Democrats are happy to have, they can pass it in the Senate and leave it to the House.
Because the left faction of the Democrats hate it and oppose it, which is why they need GOP votes in Congress? I mean this isn’t in any way new. The real question is that if this bill really does nothing and wouldn’t stop any immigration, why did Liz Warren, Bob Menendez, Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey and others vote against it?
…Markey said in a statement released after the vote. "We need meaningful pathways to settlement and citizenship, full and fair processing of protection claims, and safeguards for our DREAMers. But in this package, Republicans instead demanded and secured provisions that are contrary to American values, eviscerating due process protections for countless people seeking a better life in the United States, expanding the use of inhumane detention for asylum seekers, and funneling scores of new arrivals into rushed legal proceedings that cannot adequately or fairly assess their claims. Republicans cynically walked away when Donald Trump admitted he preferred to campaign on a broken immigration system as a political issue. I voted no because I am not only against Donald Trump, but also against hateful Trump policies."
Hmm.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
6d ago
If you’re 30+, that’s just a natural part of getting older, unfortunately.
I had covid, which really knocked me on my ass, and then my next cold after that a few months later was notably more severe than other colds I had had in the past. I wouldn’t be surprised if covid does have longterm impacts on the immune system.
NewCharlesInCharge
6d ago
Or else someone sues and gets found to have no standing.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
6d ago
The use of the classified cover sheets in that photo does many things
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It provides a lot more visual impact than just classified documents with markings.
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It gives the impression that it would be obvious to anyone who casually looked in the box that it had classified documents. This is important because "knowingly" is an element of some of the charges.
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It effectively substitutes the FBI's CLAIM that the documents were classified for the actual evidence of classification.
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Since the classification markings on the pre-printed cover sheets didn't have to match those on the documents, it provided the impression that the documents had perhaps a higher classification level than they did. For instance, the NPR story claimed one of the cover sheets said "UP TO HCS-P/SI/TK", leading them to believe Trump had documents related to HUMINT. I thought at the time this was odd, you don't put "UP TO" on your caveats. But it makes perfect sense for a placeholder that might be used for a wide range of documents you might find. And given that, there might well have been no HUMINT at all; the placeholder is not evidence.
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Since the narrative accompanying the photo in court filings did not reveal that the cover sheets were added by the FBI, it constitutes an attempt to prejudice and/or mislead the court (as well as the public)
zeke5123a
6d ago
That was exactly correct. It wasn’t that Trump marshaled the troops. He just skated to where the puck was going.
Also the bill was awful. It wasn’t just the 5,000 number but really cementing control of immigration in the hands of Art 1 judges that would be heavily predisposed to allowing asylum claims.
Short term pause for long term defeat. It isn’t surprising that democrats are leaning into “Trump prevented the border from being fixed” given that it is clear that (1) Dems made the border much worse and are being harmed electorally, and (2) Dems have a strategy of importing voters. This deflecting helps to try to soften the first prong without harming the second.
The den media space then puts out a bunch of “explainers” going into how “the bill was great” ignoring what we’ve seen for decades and then people start in good faith disseminating those explainers.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
6d ago
I mean he claims he won't leave his red state because he thinks he'll be snatched up for defending his rights...Should I not believe him? That is also objectively an insane belief to operate your life under so I am trying to relatively gently push back against that.
This is a tendentious presentation imo. Politico presents this as:
I think it's reasonable to put cover sheets on the classified documents, given they are classified. The documents would have already had classification markings, so I don't see how this is "willfully misleading" the public "into believing the former president is a criminal and threat to national security".
"Some or all", here, seems unjustified - I don't think anyone (other than perhaps Trump on Twitter) is claiming the accusations are all fake - that's a much stronger claim than "the documents aren't in the same order that they were when we scanned them". Your sources imply this is like "tampering" with evidence, and it may (not sure) be a procedural issue, but things like "adding cover sheets" and "reordering documents" don't undermine the claim that Trump committed a crime.
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