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"Breakfast of Champions"?

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Rothman, 400 years ago: "The slaves are better off here than they were in Africa. If you think about it, we're doing them a favor!"

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

There are plenty of modern-day, very-much-alive conservatives who are making this exact argument TODAY!

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Don't forget that if even one of them should accept Christ as a consequence of being enslaved, as a group their pain has been reduced by an infinite amount, thereby completely compensating and more for _all_ the pain of slavery.

(The same arithmetic works with 'slavery' replaced by 'strapped to jagged slabs and starved as rotating knives were slowly lowered onto them'. Hell is an incredibly useful invention.)

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But the most important thing is that the Africans didn't want to come here, that's what made it OK for them to come here. If they had wanted to come, we'd need to keep them out. Any questions?

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I may be totally off on this one, but I'm guessing a lot of conservatives would be similarly outraged by the slave trade, too, if it were happening now, but not because these are people being harmed, but They're Stealing Our Jobs and Making Us The Minority. They wouldn't lift a finger to stop it though.

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"But on the other hand... there is all that cotton needing to be picked..."

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Also known as "why the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in Confederate-held territory". Because there were *loyal* slave owners, plus the example of border states like Kentucky and Delaware.

"I hope to have God on my side, but I *must* have Kentucky." Lincoln

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

Don’t get me started...

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

Where's that 'start' button...

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

Lol

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I start at loud noises,and sometimes with them.

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

All of this is undeniably true. But what I find most fascinating about the most recent Abbott/DeSantis ploy is how this one single event checks *ALL* the boxes of the post-Trump conservative mindset and modus operandi, throwing it into bold relief.

1. The Cruelty is the Point? Check.

2. The biggest cheerleaders are self-proclaimed conservative Christians who hide their authoritarianism behind religion? Check.

3. Politics isn’t about proposing solutions or governing, but is about the performance of resentments to own the Libs? Check.

4. The Libs are hypocrites because they are secretly cruel and racist too, so they will be unmasked by this gambit? Check.

5. When Libs welcomed the refugees conservatives reported it as if #4 had happened instead, ignoring reality itself to reinforce their own false narrative? Check.

There is no compromise, no middle ground, no reasoning with these people. All we can do is defeat them.

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"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

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This, but in a malicious way.

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

There Are No Non-White Libs. Check And Mate.

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

MAGAts: they aren't the *real* Libs, they are just part of the unruly rabble in need of a firm hand, who are being spoon-fed a plantation mentality by the white Libs.

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See: 'Our Nigras are _happy_, and anyway too child-like to plan this movement: theyʼre being deceived by the Jew Communists who arrange everything.'.

(Hey, he thought he was the acme of reasonable tolerance by saying 'Nigras'.) (In what ways do _I_ think myself the acme of reasonable tolerance?)

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Likewise with the Working Class. White as the Fruit of the Loom t-shirts they wear to work, pack of Luckys rolled up in the sleeve.

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I know white people who say there are no non-white conservatives, only tokens. Which, having watched them for a while, a case could be made but not by my pale ass, and I think it ignores a lot of people who just really like low taxes and no social services and controlling others.

So when I see this, the argument is usually "those non-white liberals are just being used as stalking horses to destroy the republic and kill babies", and "liberal plantation" stuff, and I can see their point, kind of.

If I were non-white, I would not be delighted with liberalism, but it might seem like the closest I could practically get to the kinds of policies that will help my community. I see that in disabled people and in other minorities too. I call myself a liberal, but that too is a compromise.

This obviously happens with all these labels. Log Cabin Republicans and TERFs make common cause with reactionaries who would strip them of their rights too, in the hopes of neutralizing them once they've stopped being useful--and then Republicans proper are doing the same thing with them. They'll use radfems to destroy trans peoples' rights, and then turn on them before they can advance gay or women's rights.

I think this happens more on the authoritarian parts of the spectrum, because I can't imagine what would cause me to join forces with Matt Walsh. Even if he came out as pro-universal single payer healthcare for all US residents, I wouldn't trust him and I wouldn't be interested in helping to amplify his voice and his policy desires. If the cruelty is the point, though, collateral damage probably isn't something you're thinking about that much.

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Yep. I know a couple of Black people who identify as politically conservative. But they aren't Republicans, because they easily recognize the GOP is the party of white supremacy and does not wish them well, to put it mildly. So they vote Democratic but basically consider themselves politically homeless.

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

This is a depressingly helpful précis of the conservative playbook.

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On one hand I find it reassuring they are all obviously souless lumps of shit incapable of feeling joy or happiness. I have no problem wishing that on my enemies. I'm just really tired of having to deal with their souless shitdom.

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

I'm on record (even here at this stack) that I do not hate the Swamp Thang – he's broken mentally and emotionally in ways that are too monumental to ascribe to asshole-itude alone. His minions, flunkies and adoring multitudes tho...I blame them AND their parents equally.

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Don't worry, I'm hating him enough for the both of us.

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Thanks, 'ppreciate it.

I'll return the favor sometime. Maybe Bill Barr? Or Sam Alito, now that Scalia's met his mooker...?

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Lately, I've been finding that I haven't been hating Liz Cheney as much as I probably should, so if you can make up for my slacking in that department, thanks.

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If ever there was a prototype parent to blame...

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And now I see there's a message in the junk feed entitled: "Liz Cheney Needs You"

Pound.

Sand.

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I am *on it*.

Fuck Liz Cheney. I'm still mad at Rick Wilson.

(I fucked up his name so I deleted. Pretend you didn't see that.)

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Slide over for me, Steve —

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Molly Ivins: Fish gotta swim, hearts gotta bleed.

You're probably right, but I balance that, as with abusers in my own life who had been abused, with the harm they are doing now. I'm pretty fucking broken, but I'm taking it out on myself, not people with no choices.

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

"Morton Downey Jr.! He made Joe Pyne look like James Burnham"

Oh, yeah – old Mort the Mouth. I always forget him when trying to dredge up the spawn of Pyne.

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There's a documentary about him ("Evocateur") on "Documentary" stream available via PlutoTV and, likely, other stream aggregators, e.g. Philo and FreeTV.

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Sep 16, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso

Funny how these people worship rich conservatives -- to the point of insisting they get tax breaks and impunity for crimes -- but despise rich liberals. And the special hatred for all the money the Obamas have made amuses me. Because they made it by writing and selling books. Pure free market, crime-free capitalism. You don't have to buy one! The market decides! Everything they claim to love has led to the Obamas having a big beachfront place on a swank island and they're jealous as hell. (Bonus: reading is for eggheads and f-gg-ts.)

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Like I said on the electric Twitter, they'll even accept rich conservative elites like Trump and Tucker Carlson as "populist champions of the workers" without ever saying "Hey, wait a minute..."

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Sep 16, 2022·edited Sep 16, 2022

I'm sure that a lot of the fury directed at rich liberals is from the notion that it's all virtue signaling, that liberals (rich and not-rich) just pretend to care about other people because they think it makes them look good, and stunts like the one DeSantis just pulled are aimed at ripping off the mask and revealing that liberals really don't care about anyone except themselves.

And what does it say about people that they simply can't imagine that a thing like basic human empathy is real? No, it MUST be for show, because I don't give a shit about anyone else, anybody who claims they do must be faking it.

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Totally agree.

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'I'm fine with these criminals, rapists, drug dealers, shoplifters, what-have-you being treated like cattle and their human rights being completely negated. Now, if they were white, it would be human trafficking, and I am completely against that as my record will show.'

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author

The QAnon folks who are always on about trafficking aren't saying squat about this

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Word -- this, & the whole "loading-you-onto-transport-for-destination-unknown" reads to me like the train car "deportation" tactics used in the You-Know-What.

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Also, Desantis did this to some Venezuelan immigrants to whom he had promised asylum because of OMG HUGO CHAVEZ. Oops. Bad look. I’m sure the south Florida Cubans still seething about their lost sugar plantations will be standing in solidarity… right?

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No voy a aguantar la respiración

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Okay, that was clever. And yes, I had to look it up, because my Spanish is mostly about things you would find in a hotel. I am embarrassingly unilingual, and frankly I'm not doing too well on my native tongue lately either.

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I hear there will be work there! And it will make us free, somehow!

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Sure they'll get right on it, once they're done matching the names of missing children with the names of cabinets for sale on WayFair.

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Sorry, they've been derailed into an investigation into whether the Marines standing behind Biden during his Philadelphia speech were green-screened in, so it may be a while before they get the time to look into this latest case of human trafficking. But your call is important to us, please stay on the line and you will be helped by the next available lunatic.

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Of course they don't give a shit. I said they wouldn't. Watched someone get yelled at for expressing that trafficking of adults across the border by organized groups was, you know, trafficking, because these are invaders, not victims.

Me: blocks both. Fuck them.

The rest of them really do seem to think trafficking means "stealing a white girl child from her suburban bedroom in the dark of night and throwing her into prostitution in the developed world". These are, incidentally, the same people who think abortion should be illegal because medical complications requiring it are "statistically insignificant".

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I should note the first person, who called it trafficking, accepted the correction. They weren't concerned about the migrants, they just used "the wrong word because we're trying to change the definition". Optics.

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What amuses me I guess is that DeSantis looked at Texas & said "I need to be the bigger asshole, but can't think of anything on my own -- I know I'll do what Abbot's doing but waste MORE money doing it!"

This is sort of the Goatse theory of political strategy...

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I'm confused by this aspect of it, some reports have said the migrants were from Texas, but somehow being sent by Florida? How does that work? "Hey, you got a batch of illegals I can borrow, doin' some Lib-trollin' next week..."

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I had to Google “Goatse” to understand your reference. Eeww! But it fits right in with Roy’s theme of the essence of Regressive MAGAt Conservatives.

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So some of us are old, and you probably don't want to google our jokes with safe search off. The internet has always been a wild place, and I feel like there's enough current nasty shit out there that you don't need to spelunk for it.

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That many of our fellow citizens are just no goddamned good has always been true.

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It’s just jarring and depressing that so many no longer feel any social pressure to disguise it, so now we have to witness it constantly, every day—like a shitty American version of Guernica as the backdrop while we all play the hapless protagonists in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

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This. I wish it was radicalizing people against the cruelty, but I feel like it's just desensitizing most.

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"treat human beings like cargo"

I wish, this is more like treating human beings as toxic waste.

Anyway, good on the people of Martha's for behaving decently, nice to know some people still remember how.

Also, last time you wrote about this you posted a donation link to the D.C. migrant support network, could you put that up again?

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Here's an article with lots of leads:

https://dcist.com/story/22/05/24/local-mutual-aid-effort-migrants-bused-to-dc/

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Thanks! Nothing opens my wallet like Ron DeSantis.

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"Ron DeSantis is here??!!" (grabs pockets just to be sure everything is still there)

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Scott Walker used to be my chief wallet-opener, but haven't heard much from him lately.

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Another link from today:

"Mutual aid is resilient and the community is strong"

https://dcist.com/story/22/09/15/migrants-buses-vice-president-residence-greg-abbott/

Contrary to previous busings (where even the off-Mall destinations were pre-announced), this latest DC destination was kept secret from the responders. The drivers of these buses must be some really...interesting...folx. Apparently so desperate for money that they will do literally ANYTHING for a client.

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Sep 16, 2022·edited Sep 16, 2022

Thanks, really needing these stories about mutual aid as an antidote to the "people suck" feelings I get from watching DeSantis and his admirers.

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For a while I was trying to "do good out of spite" less often, but fuck it. It's a motivator. It's not the biggest motivator, but I'm willing to let it sit in the bottom of my toolbox to be brought out as needed.

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I really try not to donate to political campaigns out of spite, otherwise MarcusforGeorgia would be actually getting something from me in return for the five emails he sends me each day. But I'm happy to donate where I know the money is going to the real needs of real people instead of to some fucking ad agency.

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Yeah, that. Most of my donations the last couple years have gone to a couple of orgs we love but generally just mutual aid and people with gofundmes and small abortion funds and stuff like that. I know campaign financing is a systemic problem, but if politicians want donations from anyone other than big donors, they're not acting like it. (emails and texts aside)

If I and the people I care about had our needs met, I'd be happy to throw some into Fair Change's pot. Instead it's going to basic shit. People need food. People need help with medical bills.

I haven't yet worked out how to balance my needs and others', but sorry, pols, I'll write postcards for you and that's it. I just haven't got it. We are spending down savings because of an unmanaged pandemic, and every dollar I spend is less time we can shelter from it. An appeal to the feels will get it out of me, an appeal to fix systemic problems is gonna get a miss. I don't have "fixing gerrymandering" bucks. There's shit I should get taken care of medically, but am ignoring because of the price, and you fuckers think James Carville's gonna get it from me?

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"it’s the ancient 'liberals don’t want to live with non-white people' shtick."

It's funny, because they can't hide that the thing about the Vineyard that really makes them frantic is all the rich and famous Black people who show up there, especially Barack and Michelle, but they have a regular litany. Tucker: "A planeload of highly diverse immigrants arrived on Martha's Vineyard to join the Obamas, but the Obamas didn't welcome them. There was not a word from Barack or Michelle Obama. Barack wasn't waiting at the airport to greet the diversifiers with flowers.... iBill Gates goes to Martha's Vineyard. So does Oprah, James Taylor, Spike Lee, Amy Schumer, and many more and all of them. Every one is a much better person than you are because they support diversity and now for the first time, they're going to have some diversity." https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-why-no-one-marthas-vineyard-obamas-celebrated-migrants

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Yeah, how come Obama wasn't at the airport to welcome the migrants we didn't tell him were coming?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1wEVPqFFCg

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I truly regret those Swanson TV dinners I ate when I was a kid, back in the, um, Jurassic. Wish there was some way to get my money back. Or to bury Cucker Tarlson under an avalanche of them.

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No problem, they ended up in a appropriate tribute to Tucker Carlson the same day you ate them.

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(I don't imagine Jeffrey Toobin was there to welcome them either, for which we can all be thankful.)

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Alan Dershowitz would have been happy to give a talk for them at the Chilmark Public Library if he hadn't been cancelled, dammit!

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As a Floridian, I wonder under what authority DeSantis could use state taxpayer money to charter a plane and pay other expenses to move immigrants residing in another state? It is instructive that he did not play this stunt using refugees living in his own state.

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You don't want to use Florida migrants, you might accidentally catch a Cuban in your net, and then there would be HELL to pay.

Also, DeSantis LOVES it when the courts go after him, so "illegal" is a feature, not a bug. Look at his bullshit "Stop Woke" act, which was just overturned by a court, giving him another chance to play Victim of the Liberal Elites. And even if a court ruled this was an illegal misuse of state funds, nobody ever goes to jail for stuff like that, the worst they get is a stern reprimand and a "Don't do it again, OK?"

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That was my thought about Texas, too. States shouldn’t have any authority to round up people who’ve committed no crime and ship them off to a distant locale. I’m sure the state officials will claim they went voluntarily, but in such cases where the imbalance of power is extremely lopsided, consent is theoretical and evanescent, at most.

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Just like Cruelty is the Point, lack of consent is essential to the plan. When they're putting together a shipment to D.C., if one of the migrants lets slip that they actually have family there and would be delighted to go, you can be sure that person gets shifted to any city but.

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Yeah, I thought about that too, when the Martha's stuff came out. "Oh, wait, they helped these people. Let's try shipping them to a poorer liberal area."

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It is also, in some specific cases, fraudulent. We're hearing people who were lied to. That is, literally, human trafficking. But I guess only if you think those are humans.

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Sep 16, 2022·edited Sep 16, 2022

Lost in all the trolling is the fact that many, perhaps most, migrants who come to this country actually have family here who would be willing to help out if we'd let their relatives out of detention. In fact, I believe this is already the policy of the Biden administration, it being composed of normal, functional human beings who are not psychopaths.

So sure, let's not keep everyone bottled up in a shithole state like Texas if they've got family elsewhere. And where should the Venezuelans go? (and the Ukrainians, and the Somalis, and the Syrians?) How 'bout where there's already a Venezuelan/Ukrainian/Somali/Syrian community to help get them settled? But as I said, that's how it's always been done, at least when you don't have your immigration policy run by the reincarnation of Joseph Goebbels.

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Yes. It was the policy for asylum seekers before Trump as well, in what Republicans derided as the "catch and release" policy: get them into communities where there are people they know and set up their court dates there. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and his minion Stephen Miller found an unused provision in immigration law that allowed them to separate families and put people into concentration camps (here or in Mexico) instead.

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Sep 16, 2022·edited Sep 16, 2022

Right, so if the Feds do send migrants from Texas to New York or D.C. where they have family, it's "catch and release" and it's EVIL.

OTOH, if you transport your migrants Texas --> D.C. without asking them where they have family, without even telling them their destination, that's AWESOME.

Got that? Like your average rapist, lack of consent gives 'em a thrill they can't get any other way.

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Since there's not the huge history of immigration from Venezuela that there is from Mexico—both active by moving and less so by staying put when the borders changed—there are likely proportionately far fewer people with family here.

Still, it's not as if Abbott,DeSantis, and everyone else who in a just world would be on their ways to The Hague knew or cared a bit about that, so your point's entirely valid.

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"asshole lagniappe"

That is all.

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The Sultans play Creole.

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I now consider myself fully compensated for my monthly SubStack fees.

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I'm holding out for fee forgiveness. Can we get that in a legislative package this congressional term? Maybe sneak it into Lindsay Graham's abortion bill?

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Okay, but I'd just spend it on a gift sub. I'm the person in our home who buys books first or secondhand depending on how much I want the author to do well. I just like to encourage people who are trying to do good.

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I’ve said for years the biggest problem with this country is that there are too many assholes in it. I can’t be sure but I have to think that on a per capita basis we must lead the world in asshole incidence.

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There's a subculture that unleashes the inner asshole. It begins as a form of reverse charisma, facetious and ironic, lefthanded compliments and such. Next thing you know there's one-upmanship or better, a race to the bottom. Literally. Who can be more assholier? This is likely the only country you can walk into any public gathering place and there will be at least one performance artist on a platform (figuratively) yelling, "Get the hell out! Get away from me!" and throwing his own feces at the milling crowd, and some are eager to get closer. Those are the ones. Whether the woman in a bar who goes home with the jerk or the MAGA crowds lining up for Trump's truly tired schtick still, that's the chosen dysfunctional cross-wired victim. Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh were just the warmup act.

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'cross-wired' gets 2 marks

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Right-wingers just won in the elections in Sweden, and then there's Orban in Hungary, and LePen gets closer every time to winning, so let's not leave Europe out of the "Who's a bigger asshole" competition.

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Oh, no! Not those nice Europeans who brought us pogroms and the Holocaust!

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Sep 16, 2022·edited Sep 16, 2022

Yeah, they're not all kind and generous like the British Royal Family!

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Fair points!

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