Dark, I'd suggest this is an area where 0 sum thinking is the wrong approach. Should the program be run well, and not as a boondoggle? Of course. But absent evidence that such is the case (and my understanding is that it's pretty successful), this is the kind of pittance out of the federal budget that is pretty easy to justify. It is a globalized world and the last thing we need is more people contracting or dying from AIDs and if we can prevent that by distributing cheap antiretroviral drugs to developing countries we should.
My understanding of USAID has always been that it is strongly suspected to be at least to some degree a front for espionage or other clandestine activities.
However I would say the way to eliminate something like that is through lawful means (i.e. probably Congress), not sending an unelected bazillionare consigliere of the president and his bufoonish henchman to bust it up.
U.S. tariffs on Mexico delayed as country agrees to rush 10,000 troops to border
The subline is:
The order to send Mexican national guard troops to the border is meant to strengthen efforts to block the flow of drugs, especially fentanyl, coming into the United States.
I am open to the possibility that when drilling down on the details it is more stunt than substance. However as it is being reported from non-Fox News type outlets it not immediately obvious that such is the case.
Yea the real measure is whether 10,000 Mexican national guard troops on the other side actually changes anything in terms of illegal immigration and drug smuggling. If 'no' or 'not by much/not with an ROI that makes sense' then it was a stunt.
If 'yes' the honest reaction would have to be 'wait it was that easy all along?'
I'm going to bow out of these exchanges because I think it's all been beaten to death and we are swiftly approaching point of more heat than light.
However I think what you're saying here is really worth examining and thinking very hard about. Because if it's something like 'If you have concerns about boys playing on the girls field hockey team then you should vote for the Republicans' I think we are truly effed. And I emphasize we, because as much as people here like to treat me otherwise I am in fact a Democrat.
I literally said "The Democrats could bounce back quickly and pretty strongly.." and echoed some of the points you yourself have been making. I'm also not seeing anything that could possibly be read as snark.
So I have to ask.
Why bother replying if you aren't even going to read the comment?
I think we're well into the realm of multiple things being true at once. Biden's failure to identify how far gone he was and step aside saddled the party with a compromise candidate. She did not totally sh*t the bed, and was better than many would have predicted, but failed to transcend her own shortcomings or those of her party, particularly in the face of strong anti incumbent winds.
Biden has ruined his entire political legacy and may fairly be considered the worst president in decades ("you only had one job.."). Now that he's gone the Democrats need a big overhaul and to rebrand themselves. They're too old, too focus grouped, and too bad at making a comprehensible case for themselves to the voters on whom elections turn.
At the same time Trump had no coattails and it isn't like MAGA is super popular. The GOP in its current form also seems to have a pretty low ceiling at the national level and the incoming tariffs aren't going to help once they start hitting food and energy in the next few weeks. That means that the Democrats could bounce back pretty quickly and pretty strongly if (and I stress IF) they play their cards well.
You brought this topic up. These agencies are referring to pregnancy, which is a real, observable, measurable, physical, biological function, that we know happens to one sex and not the other. It is not some legal fiction about categorizing humans or bananas or whatever other random thing.
So stop playing language games. I'm a man. I am not a woman. Can I get pregnant or not? What do you think?
Anyway if I don't want to get pregnant should I, a man, start on birth control pills? Would they not do something now, today, but then start doing something, if tomorrow I told people I identified as a woman? How would that work? Is there a way I could become pregnant?
Cards on the table, I don't think there is and no doctor I have seen has ever suggested that was possible, but I'm curious if you think I could, and if so, how it might happen.
You're right that it's a good example but it's a good example because no man has ever been pregnant. We are sexually reproducing primates. One sex produces lots of small gametes and is incapable of becoming pregnant, the other produces a single larger gamete and is. We all know this.
Now in America people are still free to believe or to profess 'male or non-binary' people can get pregnant, the same way they can believe that dinosaurs coexisted with cavemen, that the Earth is flat, or that crystals have healing properties science is unable to detect. Due to the pluralism and religious diversity of our society, Americans also tend to try to be polite and indulgent about this sort of thing in interpersonal interactions. But when a politician professes something like this, that something all people understand to be false, or maybe a kind of social pretense, and advocates for its implementation as official policy, people think that politician is (i) stupid, (ii) a liar, or (iii) pandering and disingenuous to a degree that is absurd even for a politician. I think (iii) is the most likely read but ymmv.
Does it in itself change a vote? Often enough probably not. I've continued to generally vote Democrat in spite of it. People vote for lots of reasons and vibes and amalgamations of different feelings (or are voting against another candidate more than for the candidate for whom they cast their ballot). But it does create cynicism and skepticism about what that politician's priorities are, and whether they can be trusted to approach other matters that might turn a vote with sufficient seriousness or principle.
Absolutely. But let me put my chaos theory cap on for a minute.
There are some very interesting comments in the Tracing Woodgrains substack. Among them are those that note that affirmative action, or DEI hiring, tend to be sold as something like 'when presented with roughly equal candidates, we give the minority (or female, or whatever) candidate the tiebreaker.'
One could still debate whether that's good policy, but it's really misleading in terms of what actually goes on. And indeed, when the tiebreaker approach fails to create the desired demographic representation, behind the scenes, all kinds of crazy things up being implemented, encouraged, and tolerated that never would be in any other context. Apparently that can include strangling the pipeline of candidates for critical in demand jobs with huge public safety risks and economic ramifications arising from under staffing.
Anyway I am not ready to trade the chaos theory cap for the MAGA hat, not remotely. But I am starting to be convinced that the only way to secure the motte is to destroy the bailey, if you get my meaning.
Like Philip said there are multiple military bases nearby. They don't use DCA.
However there have been fears about something like this periodically bubbling up for the last couple of years. DCA is a very small airport for the volume it does and that volume has only grown. I'm not totally sure why this is but the location is also... strange. Even as a passenger the descent seems noticeably more harrowing than other airports I've gone through, including the other two that serve the area (BWI and Dulles). The drop is noticeably precipitous (though the view is incredible).
The airport itself is in Arlington, VA and there's also an ongoing battle between residents and the airport due to the noise and low flying aircraft in what has become a much denser, more highly populated area over the last couple dozen years.
Sure, and it's since been eliminated. But if people can't defend it on the merits then what's the point? Even though it seems to have been eliminated we're still apparently dealing with the pipeline constriction it caused, plus we probably have a bunch of less than competent personnel in ATC that were hired when the test was in effect.
Agree that early indicators are that the US Army and/or DOD are at fault not ATC.
But yea, the documents seem to show that you have a black aviator trade association lobby convincing the government to put a non skill based personality test designed to weed out white applicants in front of the objective merit test and on top of it a representative of that lobby group instructing black applicants how to navigate the otherwise nearly 'unpassable' personality test. Meanwhile the pipeline from the traditional programs starts to collapse.
If there isn't more to this story it really is outrageous. Peoples' lives are at stake with this kind of thing yet we're supposed to believe that the narrow question of demographic representation is more important? Give me a break.
For sure and I could be convinced it's a 'bad take.' However if you take a look he actually includes a bunch of the primary resources.
It also made me squirm when I saw WaPo's headline this morning. Apparently the tower at DCA was understaffed when this happened with 2 trying to do the job of 4.
There's been an ongoing local debate about whether the local airports and DCA in particular are above capacity. I had a hell of an experience a little over a year ago with an aborted landing coming into Dulles from Frankfurt. This combined with the litigation paint it in a terrifying new light.
I don't think a lot or votes turn on this specific issue. What I think it does, along with a series of other issues around identity that fairly or unfairly have been associated with the Democratic party, is create a credibility problem. Or maybe a larger perception that Democrats are not focused on things regular people and/or the ones that turn elections care about. In aggregate it tends to muffle the more appealing parts of the Democrat's message and alienate people from the politicians themselves. Most people aren't sick political junkies like those of us that comment at OT. They hear very little and if what they hear is strange or confusing it will eventually show up in the polls.
Admittedly I lack the expertise to quantify that view but I think it explains a lot of whats going on. The Democrats aren't the only party impacted by this, and I think we can expect a lot of headscratching at things the GOP does over the next few years, as some of the more online parts of the administration lash out about faux controversies that no one that isn't highly engaged on TwitterX has ever heard of.
I think a lot of it is an Extremely Online phenomena. The DC burb I live in ain't San Fran or Brooklyn (or even DC itself) but it's in the same ballpark politically. I know that the public schools reinforce the bullsh*t but dammed if I can find anyone outside of a handful of whackadoo academic types or who work in the arts that seem to actually believe in any of it. And even among a lot of them I find that talking things through for 5 minutes walks them back to a much more reasonable position.
So it should be live and let live. People believe in a lot of weird stuff. I'm a practicing Catholic which plenty of people probably find pretty weird. But I don't think the schools or the state or whatever public services have some duty to endorse my spiritual beliefs.
All that has to happen is for people to stop walking on egg shells. Bostock v. Clayton confirmed people calling themselves trans have the same rights as everyone else, and they do. They just aren't due some special accommodation or endorsement of their gender metaphysics, not only because they're obviously silly, but because the state isn't supposed to be endorsing that sort of thing for anyone.
My dude, don't call me a 'cis' as if there's any such thing. It's just another nonsense word used to obscure and misdirect, and there's no call for insulting my intelligence with that.
Homelessness is a problem for social services. Murder is for the police and the courts. None of it is justification for schools being able to lie to parents or mislead them, nor frankly is it cause for incorporating bizarre nonsense about gender identity into the pedagogy for young children.
Anyway I understand some things may have slipped through over the years. It may surprise you but I still don't support all out bans on hormones or surgeries (serious medical gatekeeping on experimental treatments is another matter). But now that we've got record numbers of minors, many of whom clearly have a lot of other things going on, demanding major and at times irreversible medical interventions it's time to dump the gender identity stuff and revert back to sex, which has always been the objective and appropriate categorization of most of these matters to begin with.
And look, this is America. It's a free country and everyone is on their own journey. If William wants to change his name to Leah, have some cosmetic surgeries, and wear sun dresses on the boulevard well I'd say the first amendment means he can do just that. But he doesn't get to swim on the womens team or show his penis to a bunch of coeds in the locker room, nor does he get to be incarcerated in a womens' facility just because he feels more comfortable with the girls. This really isn't that difficult and never has been.
Yea, I mean, I'm still basically in alignment with where the Obama admin was but you really have to ask yourself how people like this are being convicted of serious crimes (presumably in American courts?) and being allowed to stay in the country. As long as that can be put on the front page of what Trump is doing I don't see how he pays a political price for it.
I don't think anyone should be curb stomped either. I've been trying to avoid delving back into this topic but I think it's worth remembering that adults were having surgeries and hormone treatments to try to resemble the opposite sex for decades without it being a serious political issue. I'm also not going to pretend that empathy is the strong suit of our species but all kinds of unusual and avante-garde appearances and self expressive behavior have been broadly tolerated in this country for a long time. No, not everyone is going to celebrate whatever any particular person is doing but that's just life in a big pluralistic society. When I was in high school in the 90s enforcement of rigid gender roles was already history. There were goth kids who would cross dress or gender bend and I can't imagine anyone ever denying that information to their parents, much less thinking it was part of some permanent identity in need of "validation."
The fight got picked by a certain brand of activist pushing hard for medical interventions in minors, introduction of some pretty questionable, metaphysical stuff and dangerous policies into public school curricula, and the sudden appearance of men in womens sports and a handful of other places where women are vulnerable, like prisons and rape shelters. That's what this is, and now predictably there is a backlash. I think it is a very open question as to whether pushing all of these things has shaken out to the benefit of those that identify themselves as trans. I for one am not sure that it has.
But if you really want to start somewhere it would be rejecting the kind of thing David is posting in the comment with all of the links. I read something like that and think I'd vote to abolish the public schools before I'd concede to them treating parents like criminals or telling lies to the tax payers they serve. It is not acceptable for reasons I think are quite clear, and it will never work.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
The secrets have been known for years and are all summarized in the video below:
https://youtu.be/K7y2xPucnAo?si=Jot7nTUvvtwqKjkK
"
Dark, I'd suggest this is an area where 0 sum thinking is the wrong approach. Should the program be run well, and not as a boondoggle? Of course. But absent evidence that such is the case (and my understanding is that it's pretty successful), this is the kind of pittance out of the federal budget that is pretty easy to justify. It is a globalized world and the last thing we need is more people contracting or dying from AIDs and if we can prevent that by distributing cheap antiretroviral drugs to developing countries we should.
"
My understanding of USAID has always been that it is strongly suspected to be at least to some degree a front for espionage or other clandestine activities.
However I would say the way to eliminate something like that is through lawful means (i.e. probably Congress), not sending an unelected bazillionare consigliere of the president and his bufoonish henchman to bust it up.
"
Says the guy who'd sell the Chinese the ropes they use to hang us.
"
Like I said above to March, depends on what happens. If nothing then I think we can feel pretty confident in the stunt hypothesis.
"
The headline at WaPo is:
U.S. tariffs on Mexico delayed as country agrees to rush 10,000 troops to border
The subline is:
The order to send Mexican national guard troops to the border is meant to strengthen efforts to block the flow of drugs, especially fentanyl, coming into the United States.
I am open to the possibility that when drilling down on the details it is more stunt than substance. However as it is being reported from non-Fox News type outlets it not immediately obvious that such is the case.
"
Yea the real measure is whether 10,000 Mexican national guard troops on the other side actually changes anything in terms of illegal immigration and drug smuggling. If 'no' or 'not by much/not with an ROI that makes sense' then it was a stunt.
If 'yes' the honest reaction would have to be 'wait it was that easy all along?'
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
I'm going to bow out of these exchanges because I think it's all been beaten to death and we are swiftly approaching point of more heat than light.
However I think what you're saying here is really worth examining and thinking very hard about. Because if it's something like 'If you have concerns about boys playing on the girls field hockey team then you should vote for the Republicans' I think we are truly effed. And I emphasize we, because as much as people here like to treat me otherwise I am in fact a Democrat.
"
I literally said "The Democrats could bounce back quickly and pretty strongly.." and echoed some of the points you yourself have been making. I'm also not seeing anything that could possibly be read as snark.
So I have to ask.
Why bother replying if you aren't even going to read the comment?
"
I think we're well into the realm of multiple things being true at once. Biden's failure to identify how far gone he was and step aside saddled the party with a compromise candidate. She did not totally sh*t the bed, and was better than many would have predicted, but failed to transcend her own shortcomings or those of her party, particularly in the face of strong anti incumbent winds.
Biden has ruined his entire political legacy and may fairly be considered the worst president in decades ("you only had one job.."). Now that he's gone the Democrats need a big overhaul and to rebrand themselves. They're too old, too focus grouped, and too bad at making a comprehensible case for themselves to the voters on whom elections turn.
At the same time Trump had no coattails and it isn't like MAGA is super popular. The GOP in its current form also seems to have a pretty low ceiling at the national level and the incoming tariffs aren't going to help once they start hitting food and energy in the next few weeks. That means that the Democrats could bounce back pretty quickly and pretty strongly if (and I stress IF) they play their cards well.
"
You brought this topic up. These agencies are referring to pregnancy, which is a real, observable, measurable, physical, biological function, that we know happens to one sex and not the other. It is not some legal fiction about categorizing humans or bananas or whatever other random thing.
So stop playing language games. I'm a man. I am not a woman. Can I get pregnant or not? What do you think?
"
Do you think I can get pregnant?
If it's possible I need to tell my wife yesterday.
"
Heh this is well known, well studied biology.
Anyway if I don't want to get pregnant should I, a man, start on birth control pills? Would they not do something now, today, but then start doing something, if tomorrow I told people I identified as a woman? How would that work? Is there a way I could become pregnant?
Cards on the table, I don't think there is and no doctor I have seen has ever suggested that was possible, but I'm curious if you think I could, and if so, how it might happen.
"
You're right that it's a good example but it's a good example because no man has ever been pregnant. We are sexually reproducing primates. One sex produces lots of small gametes and is incapable of becoming pregnant, the other produces a single larger gamete and is. We all know this.
Now in America people are still free to believe or to profess 'male or non-binary' people can get pregnant, the same way they can believe that dinosaurs coexisted with cavemen, that the Earth is flat, or that crystals have healing properties science is unable to detect. Due to the pluralism and religious diversity of our society, Americans also tend to try to be polite and indulgent about this sort of thing in interpersonal interactions. But when a politician professes something like this, that something all people understand to be false, or maybe a kind of social pretense, and advocates for its implementation as official policy, people think that politician is (i) stupid, (ii) a liar, or (iii) pandering and disingenuous to a degree that is absurd even for a politician. I think (iii) is the most likely read but ymmv.
Does it in itself change a vote? Often enough probably not. I've continued to generally vote Democrat in spite of it. People vote for lots of reasons and vibes and amalgamations of different feelings (or are voting against another candidate more than for the candidate for whom they cast their ballot). But it does create cynicism and skepticism about what that politician's priorities are, and whether they can be trusted to approach other matters that might turn a vote with sufficient seriousness or principle.
"
Absolutely. But let me put my chaos theory cap on for a minute.
There are some very interesting comments in the Tracing Woodgrains substack. Among them are those that note that affirmative action, or DEI hiring, tend to be sold as something like 'when presented with roughly equal candidates, we give the minority (or female, or whatever) candidate the tiebreaker.'
One could still debate whether that's good policy, but it's really misleading in terms of what actually goes on. And indeed, when the tiebreaker approach fails to create the desired demographic representation, behind the scenes, all kinds of crazy things up being implemented, encouraged, and tolerated that never would be in any other context. Apparently that can include strangling the pipeline of candidates for critical in demand jobs with huge public safety risks and economic ramifications arising from under staffing.
Anyway I am not ready to trade the chaos theory cap for the MAGA hat, not remotely. But I am starting to be convinced that the only way to secure the motte is to destroy the bailey, if you get my meaning.
On “Terror On The Potomac: The DCA Collision”
Like Philip said there are multiple military bases nearby. They don't use DCA.
However there have been fears about something like this periodically bubbling up for the last couple of years. DCA is a very small airport for the volume it does and that volume has only grown. I'm not totally sure why this is but the location is also... strange. Even as a passenger the descent seems noticeably more harrowing than other airports I've gone through, including the other two that serve the area (BWI and Dulles). The drop is noticeably precipitous (though the view is incredible).
The airport itself is in Arlington, VA and there's also an ongoing battle between residents and the airport due to the noise and low flying aircraft in what has become a much denser, more highly populated area over the last couple dozen years.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
Sure, and it's since been eliminated. But if people can't defend it on the merits then what's the point? Even though it seems to have been eliminated we're still apparently dealing with the pipeline constriction it caused, plus we probably have a bunch of less than competent personnel in ATC that were hired when the test was in effect.
"
Agree that early indicators are that the US Army and/or DOD are at fault not ATC.
But yea, the documents seem to show that you have a black aviator trade association lobby convincing the government to put a non skill based personality test designed to weed out white applicants in front of the objective merit test and on top of it a representative of that lobby group instructing black applicants how to navigate the otherwise nearly 'unpassable' personality test. Meanwhile the pipeline from the traditional programs starts to collapse.
If there isn't more to this story it really is outrageous. Peoples' lives are at stake with this kind of thing yet we're supposed to believe that the narrow question of demographic representation is more important? Give me a break.
"
For sure and I could be convinced it's a 'bad take.' However if you take a look he actually includes a bunch of the primary resources.
It also made me squirm when I saw WaPo's headline this morning. Apparently the tower at DCA was understaffed when this happened with 2 trying to do the job of 4.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/01/30/dc-plane-crash-helicopter-recovery-no-survivors-potomac-river/
There's been an ongoing local debate about whether the local airports and DCA in particular are above capacity. I had a hell of an experience a little over a year ago with an aborted landing coming into Dulles from Frankfurt. This combined with the litigation paint it in a terrifying new light.
"
I had never heard about this case and it's actually quite fascinating.
If the stuff in this summary is an accurate characterization it's really pretty damning.
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-a-quick-overview
"
I don't think a lot or votes turn on this specific issue. What I think it does, along with a series of other issues around identity that fairly or unfairly have been associated with the Democratic party, is create a credibility problem. Or maybe a larger perception that Democrats are not focused on things regular people and/or the ones that turn elections care about. In aggregate it tends to muffle the more appealing parts of the Democrat's message and alienate people from the politicians themselves. Most people aren't sick political junkies like those of us that comment at OT. They hear very little and if what they hear is strange or confusing it will eventually show up in the polls.
Admittedly I lack the expertise to quantify that view but I think it explains a lot of whats going on. The Democrats aren't the only party impacted by this, and I think we can expect a lot of headscratching at things the GOP does over the next few years, as some of the more online parts of the administration lash out about faux controversies that no one that isn't highly engaged on TwitterX has ever heard of.
"
I think a lot of it is an Extremely Online phenomena. The DC burb I live in ain't San Fran or Brooklyn (or even DC itself) but it's in the same ballpark politically. I know that the public schools reinforce the bullsh*t but dammed if I can find anyone outside of a handful of whackadoo academic types or who work in the arts that seem to actually believe in any of it. And even among a lot of them I find that talking things through for 5 minutes walks them back to a much more reasonable position.
So it should be live and let live. People believe in a lot of weird stuff. I'm a practicing Catholic which plenty of people probably find pretty weird. But I don't think the schools or the state or whatever public services have some duty to endorse my spiritual beliefs.
All that has to happen is for people to stop walking on egg shells. Bostock v. Clayton confirmed people calling themselves trans have the same rights as everyone else, and they do. They just aren't due some special accommodation or endorsement of their gender metaphysics, not only because they're obviously silly, but because the state isn't supposed to be endorsing that sort of thing for anyone.
"
My dude, don't call me a 'cis' as if there's any such thing. It's just another nonsense word used to obscure and misdirect, and there's no call for insulting my intelligence with that.
Homelessness is a problem for social services. Murder is for the police and the courts. None of it is justification for schools being able to lie to parents or mislead them, nor frankly is it cause for incorporating bizarre nonsense about gender identity into the pedagogy for young children.
Anyway I understand some things may have slipped through over the years. It may surprise you but I still don't support all out bans on hormones or surgeries (serious medical gatekeeping on experimental treatments is another matter). But now that we've got record numbers of minors, many of whom clearly have a lot of other things going on, demanding major and at times irreversible medical interventions it's time to dump the gender identity stuff and revert back to sex, which has always been the objective and appropriate categorization of most of these matters to begin with.
And look, this is America. It's a free country and everyone is on their own journey. If William wants to change his name to Leah, have some cosmetic surgeries, and wear sun dresses on the boulevard well I'd say the first amendment means he can do just that. But he doesn't get to swim on the womens team or show his penis to a bunch of coeds in the locker room, nor does he get to be incarcerated in a womens' facility just because he feels more comfortable with the girls. This really isn't that difficult and never has been.
On “Trump’s Unforced Error”
Yea, I mean, I'm still basically in alignment with where the Obama admin was but you really have to ask yourself how people like this are being convicted of serious crimes (presumably in American courts?) and being allowed to stay in the country. As long as that can be put on the front page of what Trump is doing I don't see how he pays a political price for it.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
I don't think anyone should be curb stomped either. I've been trying to avoid delving back into this topic but I think it's worth remembering that adults were having surgeries and hormone treatments to try to resemble the opposite sex for decades without it being a serious political issue. I'm also not going to pretend that empathy is the strong suit of our species but all kinds of unusual and avante-garde appearances and self expressive behavior have been broadly tolerated in this country for a long time. No, not everyone is going to celebrate whatever any particular person is doing but that's just life in a big pluralistic society. When I was in high school in the 90s enforcement of rigid gender roles was already history. There were goth kids who would cross dress or gender bend and I can't imagine anyone ever denying that information to their parents, much less thinking it was part of some permanent identity in need of "validation."
The fight got picked by a certain brand of activist pushing hard for medical interventions in minors, introduction of some pretty questionable, metaphysical stuff and dangerous policies into public school curricula, and the sudden appearance of men in womens sports and a handful of other places where women are vulnerable, like prisons and rape shelters. That's what this is, and now predictably there is a backlash. I think it is a very open question as to whether pushing all of these things has shaken out to the benefit of those that identify themselves as trans. I for one am not sure that it has.
But if you really want to start somewhere it would be rejecting the kind of thing David is posting in the comment with all of the links. I read something like that and think I'd vote to abolish the public schools before I'd concede to them treating parents like criminals or telling lies to the tax payers they serve. It is not acceptable for reasons I think are quite clear, and it will never work.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.