Thought for the Day

[Stavros]

It is a disgraceful situation, and not so different from the mess being made of 'illegal immigration'/asylum seekers in the UK. In bith cases, there is it seems to me either no policy, or policies that clearly don't work. In the UK we still await a definitive legal decision on whether or not the Govt has the right to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing, a policy so daft when I first read about it I thought it was a joke. Only it ain't.

I agree it sounds morally fine to declare New York or anywhere else a 'Sanctuary city' but that is only half the cake, the rest being the reality of housing people, processing their claims and doing so in a fair way.

I think in the US you have a paralysis of decision making, overlaid by a degree of racism on the part of Republicans; it doesn't look like in practical terms there is a single coherent policy, largely because State and Federal governments are divided and bickering with each other.

What should the policy be? When there is a labour shortage, it is obvious, but allowing free movement of people seems to have become transformed from a key component of freedom itself, to a toxic social issue, as it was used by Nigel Farage in the Brexit debate to demonize immigrants.

Again: why is the US so different from Canada? And does Canada have solutions the US could try?

What Is Canada’s Immigration Policy? | Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org)

Immigration: US vs. Canada (grcglobalgroup.com)

Even the Cato Institute can produce this-
15 Myths About Immigration Debunked | Immigration | Carnegie Corporation of New York

[Stavros]

Isn't this a gift for the Democrats? Republicans at war with America's women; Republican's winning in 2024 determined to trash the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency; re-write all the history books to tell the next generation of children Slavery Was Fun; defunding Law Enforcement to be replaced with Posse Patrol...and coming sooner than they realise-the dissolution of the Sacred Military....

"The Alabama Republican senator Tommy Tuberville is “prepared to burn the military down” with his block on promotions in protest of Pentagon policy on abortion, the Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Murphy said."

"“We do not have a chief of staff of the army for a first time in 200 years,” [Nikki] Haley told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “More than 300 vacancies. It’s a mess.”"
Republican senator will ‘burn the military down’ over abortion policy, says Democrat | US military | The Guardian

-And who is responsible for it, Ms Haley? You are.

Come on, ye Democrats, and cry 'burn, baby burn' just like in the old days. Only this time make it the GOP....

Or can't they be bothered?

[Fitzcarraldo]

It should be a gift, but partisan voters are firmly entrenched. They will support their party no matter what. So it depends on independents.

[Stavros]

Hmmmm...so partisan Republican voters will not compromise on an issue like Abortion which they can see loses them votes....they won't compromise on gun control with no regard to the multiple victims of gun crime, without ever offering a coherent explanation why. They bark about inflation as if it were not under control and declining, or 'open borders' where the average flow of illegal migrants has fallen, not risen. They clearly don't know enough of their own history to object to the De Santis School of History, written by frauds who can't even define slavery, let alone describe it. They want self-government while insisting Govt do this, that, whatever without paying taxes to fund it.

Then, into this soup of bewildered nonsense, comes the actual or potential threat of Independents not voting for either Biden or, if he is the one, Trump, though one hopes that were the latter to happen even Independents would go Democrat. For one of the emerging claims to the Independent vote is Cornel 'I Am a Crank' West, though in his case he is so plain daft I am not sure even the most rigid Independent would endorse him....or would they? Has the US really sunk so low?

Cornel West Should Not Be Running for President | The Nation

[Stavros]

This is quite interesting, not least because it has nothing to say about the so-called 'music', even though the mystery of rap from my perspective, is how people shouting or mumbling into a microphone can become millionaires. As for the relentless beat, well haven't Steve Reich and John Adams being writing this for years, and doing a better job of repetition than the drivel called rap?

Why are Black rappers aligning themselves with the right? | Tayo Bero | The Guardian

Try this-

[Stavros]

I came across this long article on Hunter Biden and his 'laptop' -the laptop that doesn't exist, so really the 'hard drive' of which there are now multiple copies, some of them 'edited' by people with, shall we say, 'an agenda'. As the article states

"And for all the time they have spent scrutinizing his emails and his dick pics, Maxey and others have yet to find any incontrovertible evidence of criminality."
The Sordid Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop (nymag.com)

Can it be proven that Joe Biden benefited financially from his son's business deals in China and the Ukraine? I doubt it, but that is because of the demands of the law. Does the material exposed leave Hunter Biden with the image of a depressed man doing things with drugs and porn? Yes. Is that illegal? I don't think so.

For years, Trump couldn't get a licence to operate in China. Then he became President, and got his licence -how did that happen? And what about HIS sons, and their management of the 'Trump Organization' -which now doesn't exist, we are told. Double standards?

More pertinent, when is the contents of your hard drive legitimate public knowledge? If someone is a drug dealer, trading illegal porn, ie, breaking the law, then I guess the Courts have the right to take action -but the New York Post, or the Daily Mail?

Do Republicans want to get to the 'sordid truth' of Hunter Biden's less than perfect life, or just convict without the hassle of proof, a trial and all that messy stuff?

I guess Hunter Biden isn't the most talented person in that family but I vaguely recall Jimmy Carter's brother was an occasional embarrassment though these days he would be made more of by the Murdoch media.

Republicans Are Mad They Got The Hunter Biden Special Counsel They Asked For (yahoo.com)

[Stavros]

Another step into the abyss, the moral collapse of the USA. Or, if voters get their way, a step forward in the extermination of the putrid Republican Party, whose leader fantasises about having sex with his daughter, whose Congressional representatives scream about corruption in the White House without being able to provide a shred of evidence for it, whose not-so-flimsy relations with American Nazis makes one wonder if the Jews will be the first minority to be expelled from the US when 'they' are back in the White House...
Girl, 13, gives birth after she was raped and denied abortion in Mississippi | Abortion | The Guardian

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Indictment # 4 came last night againist the MAGA King Donald Trump,and there will be plenty more.

[Luke Warm]

Scumbag behind the "Rep. Ilhan Omar married her brother" rumor was sentenced to 21 years in prison for sex trafficking minors.

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/ne...-tony-lazzaro/

[filghy2]

Trump's latest big lie. No only does he have the weight-to-height ratio of a champion athlete, but he also plays like one, apparently.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/sport/golf...12fa2023&ei=15

If it wasn't for the fact that millions of Americans have decided this guy is the messiah, we could all laugh him off as a ridiculously delusional narcissist.