The Frankish Reich

Why does Quinyon Mitchell look 34 and JJ McCarthy looks 14?

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

She’s smart and seems to have an occasional pragmatic streak. Alito just seems angry and bitter now, becoming more and more doctrinaire as the years go by. Usually the opposite happens with some experience.

Does it matter whether it was solely as a bargaining chip? That's how they used her to extract something they wanted.

On a serious note - I can't find the underlying poll questions/data. If you dig into what Axios did give us, yes, the majority favor "mass deportations." But what does that mean? Does it mean rounding up people and sending them home without due process? Maybe not: 58% favor "increased pathways" for legal immigration. Would that include the spouse of a U.S. citizen who's here illegally? 65% say we should create new mechanisms for legal immigration so people don't have to enter illegally (not sure in what way this is different than the "legal pathways" question). 46% want to make sure people with legitimate asylum claims are protected, but how do we separate legitimate from illegitimate without due process (court hearings, etc)? My takeaway: Americans largely agree that the current situation is chaotic and unsustainable. I agree too. But they are also fundamentally decent people who see a role for immigrants - an increased legal role - and protections for people claiming asylum. So that's how we got here. "Mass deportations while assessing each case on its merits" is really a contradiction in terms. EDIT: I think I'd interpret it this way - "American people believe that those who are subject to deportation under the law should be expeditiously deported." Which is an indictment of Biden's policies, which by their own terms allow a lot of people who are here illegally and have no means of legalizing their status to stay here anyway.

Thanks - I've said before that one reason I still hang out here is once in a while someone has actual knowledge/experience that helps me learn something or understand something better. So with that in mind: privatize air traffic control? Have privately-owned airports on the European model? Completely deregulate airline pricing and go with an open competition on fares and perks is the best way to ensure the passenger gets what he pays for? What about new models like JSX (a great customer experience, by the way), ostensibly operating charter flights and avoiding major airports and TSA?

I get your point on the border crisis. Most of the reporting is really poor. But some of the mainstream media reporting is superb, and that's not because it's pro-Biden. For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/us/us-border-arizona-migrant-crossings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/31/us/us-immigration-asylum-border.html From the second one, on the pull of loose asylum laws and the overwhelmed system: The United States is trying to run an immigration system with a fraction of the judges, asylum officers, interpreters and other personnel that it needs to handle the hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing the border and flocking to cities around the country each year. That dysfunction has made it impossible for the nation to expeditiously decide who can remain in the country and who should be sent back to their homeland. “I don’t know anyone who has been deported,” Carolina Ortiz, a migrant from Colombia, said in an interview in late December at an encampment outside Jacumba Hot Springs, about 60 miles southeast of San Diego and a stone’s throw from the hulking rust-colored barrier that separates the United States from Mexico. Or this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/masses-of-migrants-overwhelm-panamas-darien-gap-73d032d7 There is a good depth of reporting out there. Yes, in the Opinion sections the liberal approach dominates. But there is also actual reporting - sending a reporter to Panama, to the SW border, talking to people, analyzing statistics. I'll give some credit to Fox's Bill Melugin too for actually being there and asking some hard questions, but I guess now even Fox counts as "mainstream." Thank goodness that this type of actual reporting still happens in the mainstream media. The Alt Media is all hot takes and sloganeering. It's ok I guess for what it is, but for many people that kind of thing is their sole source of news. That's a bad thing.

Well it's not the same as being held by Russia as a bargaining chip, which we all know was the case with Griner even though she did apparently violate Russian law. And yes, the State Department is no doubt involved, and they will advocate for the detained American. That's one of the things they do, even for the idiot Americans who get arrested engaging in some high-spirited drunken revelry in someone else's country. Turks and Caicos will want to assert its right to control what comes into their country, but ultimately they have an interest in American tourism and this will likely be resolved quickly. Without the need for a T&C spy to be exchanged for him ...

There it is, another suburban basement revolutionary.

I do get it. I grew up in an airline family. It is a highly regulated business. So I heard all the arguments: overbooking is essential to an airline's survival. An airline seat is the ultimate perishable good. If overbooking (and bumping passengers) isn't allowed, then airlines will have to eat the cost of no-shows, endangering their very survival. The market was skewed ridiculously in favor of the airlines and against the passenger. So we corrected that. We are now trying to correct some other practices that also give the airlines too much leeway. One of the provisions of the new regs: I didn't even get a refund of my checked bag fee unless my bag was delayed by over 12 hours. Really? The airline failed to get the bag onto my connecting flight and they're still gonna charge me when I arrive at 9:00 pm and my bag follows the next morning at 8:00 am? Go ahead, keep your various fees, etc. But let's make sure they're clearly disclosed, and that the customer understands what he's being upsold on. It won't kill the airlines any more than deregulation did under Carter, or that The airline passenger bill of rights thing did more recently. It simply restores some order, certainty, and fairness to the process.

Because his army sucks?

Breaking news! Requires a new thread!! Or maybe a recycled 4 year old story that got no traction then (because there was nothing there) and will get no traction now. Other than with the useful morons of Donald's Army. https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/01/22/whistleblower_was_overheard_in_17_discussing_with_ally_how_to_remove_trump_121701.html

New York couldn't even get weed right. https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-illegal-weed-shops-marijuana-kathy-hochul-9f68cbf6?mod=opinion_lead_pos3 Boosters of legal marijuana promised a utopia like something from the sunniest dreams of the 1960s: responsible use, oodles of tax revenue, and upstanding entrepreneurs instead of lawbreaking dealers. But in New York less than two years later, a thicket of illegal stores is crowding out licensees in a genuine fiasco. I live in Colorado. Woo-hoo, first in the nation to legalize weed! I didn't like it when it happened, not because I'm not in favor of legalization (I am) but because I didn't want Colorado to become an even bigger magnet for weed tourism, etc. And guess what happened when Obama said "go ahead?" A bunch of weed stores opened. A bunch of greenhouses growing weed for them started up. A bunch of ancillary services joined them. I recall sitting at a coffee shop overhearing a conversation between some kind of investor group and a guy who was starting up a weed packaging business. (Real quote: "We want the customer to be able to open the package and get that blast of fresh weed, kind of like opening a potato chip bag"). And the black market essentially disappeared. Licensed, generally well-regulated, not an anything goes third worldly bunch of fly-by-night outfits. New York had the model. Just copy Colorado! And still they got it horribly wrong.

Here's the WSJ worrying that things are too good and can't last. It seems that nobody on the right (old or new) can be happy these days. https://www.wsj.com/economy/global/us-economy-strongest-world-imf-projections-8e707514 America’s Economy Is No. 1. That Means Trouble. If you want a single number to capture America’s economic stature, here it is: This year, the U.S. will account for 26.3% of the global gross domestic product, the highest in almost two decades. That’s based on the latest projections from the International Monetary Fund. According to the IMF, Europe’s share of world GDP has dropped 1.4 percentage points since 2018, and Japan’s by 2.1 points. The U.S. share, by contrast, is up 2.3 points. China’s share is up since 2018, too. But instead of overtaking the U.S. as the world’s largest economy, the Chinese economy has slipped in size to 64% of the U.S.’s from 67% in 2018. You sound like my mother. 75 degrees, sunny, gentle breeze. Me: what a fantastic day! Mom: but not for long! The weatherman says it may snow next week.

Because Turks and Caicos is just like that Arctic Circle prison camp where Navalny died while taking an ill-advised stroll.

Different thing. The housing market: for every loser (the young person paying a high price for a home), there's a winner (the old person making a mint and retiring somewhere warm). On the macro economic scale, an overheated economy means inflation. We just had that. The Fed raised rates to try to get things back in balance. So far it seems to be happening. Why is this bad? Inflation was bad, the cure for inflation is bad, everything is bad ...

One man's slowing in growth is another man's soft landing (and associated Fed rate cut). But hey, keep that glass half empty ...

Then why have any consumer protection rules at all? Obviously the airlines do not want to refund in full a passenger's fare if a flight is delayed more than 3 hours. If that were the case they'd be doing it already. Remember the old days? Airlines could overbook and not offer a "bumped" passenger with what he thought was a reservation anything other than rebooking on a later flight. Sometimes much later. This, of course, meant that overbooking was all benefit (there are always no-shows) and no cost to the airlines. Airlines adjusted to the new policies requiring them to offer compensation. And ultimately a better solution emerged: a kind of auction to see how much you have to pay to get someone to agree to take a later flight. In other words, a sensible regulation led to an efficient solution. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem Why should this be different? If the airline cannot deliver on the contract (to fly me from New York to Miami at 3:00 pm, or at least by 6:00 pm), why shouldn't I have a right to a refund so that I can try to take my business to the adjacent ticketing desk? Or simply go home and take that vacation next week?

I didn't hear that explained by Trump's attorney. I have heard lawyers who support immunity claim that the general presidential authority to faithfully execute the laws would allow the president to intervene to try to correct some kind of election fraud, but nothing specific.

Gorsuch is making some good points here. He asks: "For every first term president, can't every action he takes be seen as in service of his own reelection." There is a serious issue here, and it's about what are "official acts" and what aren't. Seems to me the SCt is going to send it back to the trial judge to make a determination on what alleged Trump actions were "official acts" and what were "private acts." The devil will be in the details of that decision - how to decide that issue. For example: "actions should be considered official acts if they arguably fall within the President's powers." That would be a huge Trump win. On the other hand, a decision like "actions that are undertaken for a primarily personal electoral motive should be considered private acts" would be a huge win for the Special Counsel.

The Alt Media nails it again! https://www.wpr.org/news/heated-arguments-at-the-supreme-court-in-newest-abortion-case that one was argued, umm, yesterday. So it is understandable that someone or something called "jazz-shaw" wasn't aware of it when that hotair article was posted two weeks ago. But wait a minute, we've also got this one! https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/03/supreme-court-appears-likely-to-allow-abortion-drug-to-remain-available/ Argued in March, before Mx. Jazz-Shaw started pecking out an incredibly stupid article! And you tell me the Mainstream Media is biased so you have no choice but to trust the Stupid Media.

Ooh, that one's easy. How many times do we see "The IDF Claims ..." Do they say "The Likud Party Claims ..." Seriously, anyone who follows the news - that is, anyone inclined to read such headlines - knows that the Gaza Defense Force is the military wing of the Hamas-run government.

No. Because that was a civil judgment, not a criminal conviction.

He's got nuthin on me. I found two women to marry me (not at the same time)

He didn't do anything wrong. He violated (unwittingly) the laws of another country he was visiting. I've seen stories showing those warnings: "the importation of firearms and ammunition is strictly prohibited in Turks and Caicos." So let the buyer beware. I don't have a ton of sympathy for people stupidly breaking the laws of other countries, but yes, obviously the criminal penalties here are way out of line with the minimal gravity of the offense.