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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Why Bother Trying to Understand?

Why Bother Trying to Understand?

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From a Reuters article on Kamala Harris’ visit to Mexico, where she made a good impression on President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO):

Lopez Obrador, a leftist, likened the Trump administration to Nazi Germany for its migration policies while he was in opposition, but acceded to the American president’s demands to tighten the border after taking charge of Mexico in December 2018.

I am by no means an expert on Mexican politics, but I know enough to know that calling AMLO a “leftist” isn’t right. The similarly meaningless term “populist” is probably better since it’s generally used to describe the kind of incoherent moron that AMLO seems to be. For example, his COVID response, which was terrible, was widely thought to be a bit better than Brazil’s, so it didn’t get the same attention as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s self-induced tragedy. Still, in March, Mexico re-adjusted their death toll to about the same as Brazil’s (which was almost certainly an under-report): 321,000, for a country that is a little more than half the size of Brazil.

AMLO and his Morena party held on to power (though with a smaller majority) in Sunday’s mid-term elections because the alternatives are worse.

“He’s leading a very capricious government,” said Pilar Hurtado, 52, who voted in a well-to-do Mexico City neighbourhood and accused Amlo of being “against the middle class”.

Still, she opted for Morena, saying: “All the other parties are trash.”

That last sentence pretty much sums up current Mexican politics. Also, “capricious” is better than “populist” or “leftist”.

In addition to screwing the pooch on COVID, AMLO has been unable to curb cartel violence that has gripped the country: for example, at least 34 of the candidates in the midterm election were killed, with basically a zero solve rate on those killings.

Still, I have to defend the guy from Reuters’ facile gloss on his immigration policies. I can certainly understand why he would compare the Trump Administration’s immigration policies to Nazi Germany, while then agreeing to tighten border restrictions. Much of the immigration is from citizens of Central American countries that impacts Mexico (especially considering the COVID situation) on their way to the US/Mexican border. Plus, as is obvious to anyone studying the situation, border controls don’t work when the alternative is death for you and your family. AMLO’s immigration “restrictions” are the sleeves of a vest, and if you were Mexico and faced with Trump, you’d appease him, too.

Anyway, it’s good to see VP Harris visiting Mexico and treating them like an ally instead of a scapegoat. And, for what it’s worth, even though the international coverage of the Times gets endless fawning hand jobs from the rest of the US media complex, the Guardian is every bit as good or better. Here’s their Mexico feed.

Reader Interactions

135Comments

  1. 1.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Speaking of Latin America, I was watching a video on Brazil and  Bolsonaro can reasonably be described someone who is honestly trying to help the poor, but has some really twisted reactionary ideas. But he seems to madenly unable to understand it’s his own constituents that the Virus is killing and crippling.  Sure,  Bolsonaro is in good shape so the virus is a little cold him, but it’s a serious problem to someone who is malnourished.  I don’t know, maybe these guys are trying for the Bubonic Plague solution to poverty were enough of the poor die it raises the standard of living of the survivors.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    but I know enough to know that calling AMLO a “leftist” isn’t right

    I don’t follow Mexico enough to know one way or the other how things are now, but when he was elected, Obrador was commonly thought of as left.

    BBC

    Mexico’s López Obrador sworn in as first leftist president in decades

    The Guardian

    Mexico election: historic landslide victory for leftist Amlo

    NY Mag

    Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador Wins Mexican Presidential Election

    Reuters

    Mexican Lopez Obrador wins historic election landslide for left

    Maybe he didn’t govern as a leftist, or maybe he’s both leftist and bad at governing (not impossible), but I’m wary of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Also, too, I’m happy to see MVP focus on doing the hard work instead of chasing GOP talking points repeated by the media or trying to generate memes for social media.

  4. 4.

    Matt McIrvin

    Harris is getting a lot of crap from liberals for the immigration speech in Guatemala. I think it’s a case where the only moral positions and the only politically possible ones just have no overlap at all.

  8. 8.

    Ken

    @Baud: When the press began asking why MVP wasn’t “doing something” about the border, my reaction would have been to release a cheap-looking photoshop (or even animation) with her head on a camo-costumed body, on a boat in the Rio Grande.

    I realize this probably torpedoes my chances of becoming Press Secretary in the Baud! 20XX administration.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @Ken: Only if by “torpedoes” you mean “guarantees”.

    Although I think a better photo would be me leading a posse of migrants to capture Ted Cruz.

  14. 14.

    BruceFromOhio

    I can certainly understand why he would compare the Trump Administration’s immigration policies to Nazi Germany, while then agreeing to tighten border restrictions.

    I’ll distinguish between “let’s work together to figure out and address root causes and keep people safe” from “let’s rip babies from their mothers’ arms and throw everyone in cages.” May be a stretch for some.

    Reuters and Guardian over FTFNYT any day, every day.

  16. 16.

    cain

    I have no idea how one would fix all the shit going on south of the border. Mexico has an incredible amount of potential but corruption and cartels are really holding it back – but I can’t help but also feel that we’ve fucked them repeatedly.

    I’m hoping that when the U.S. legalizes weed and become more progressive in its drug policy that cartels start losing money – of course there is still human trafficking and a host of other things.

  18. 18.

    ian

    The PRI is the traditional ‘leftist’ party in Mexico, and as the article notes, they do indeed do a terrible job when they govern Mexican states.  They haven’t had power nationally since the late 90s.  Morena is a new leftist party,  it and the 4th party whose name I cant remember are splinters of PRI.  PAN is Mexico’s conservative party.

  19. 19.

    Doug R

    Not sure what kind of blog y’all want to be running here, but the sidebar just had an ad for “The 20 most gorgeous redheads in Hollywood”. With a picture of a redhead wearing nothing but high heels. Not that I mind pictures, it’s just that sort of click bait can have all kinds of shady links.

  21. 21.

    schrodingers_cat

    @BruceFromOhio: Uber lefties, for whom USA is the greatest evil in the history of evil. Twitter is overflowing with them. Many are not even American and have little knowledge of our politics or polity but love Magic Grandpa and the squad and hate Biden, Harris and other Ds.

    Wikipedia

  23. 23.

    taumaturgo

    Surprise. A well-to-do middle-class member upset because AMLO’s government has taken on the gargantuan task of eliminating the rampant corruption that historically has harmed the country while benefiting the middle and upper class at the expense of the mainly indigenous population. The conservatives long for the corrupted days of the previous administrations, in which bribes, favoritism, privatization, judicial negligence, and disdain for the poor were the order of the day. As conservatives defenders of the status quo, they are upset that AMLO has focused on helping the olvidados, the forgotten, and in his daily reports to the country, he highlights the criminality of past administration that believed that taking care of the well to do by privatization and the open stealing of the public treasure was their main function. In his two years plus in power, AMLO has diligently worked to fix the disastrous state of the country’s infrastructure, including healthcare, while facing an avalanche of resistance from the neoliberal press and well-to-do corporate opponents. Mexico is a clear example in which the disastrous embraced of a corrupt neoliberal economic governance has been laid bare. Thankfully, the voters soundly rejected the return to a neoliberal regime except of course for the conservative defenders of the status quo.

  26. 26.

    BBA

    AMLO = the Mexican Bill de Blasio. Or maybe Wilmer if he could win an election with more voters than live on my block.

  27. 27.

    Ken

    @Baud: At the least, we should thank them for the occasional semi-humorous misfire. I’m currently getting an add for a travel company, and I’ve never used one. Maybe because of all the exotic destinations in this post and comments?

  30. 30.

    BruceFromOhio

    @schrodingers_cat:  That is fascinating! Thank you. I happen to be somewhat enamored by The Squad, admittedly for reasons that differ greatly from tankies and purity ponies.

    It is interesting to examine the fascist RWNJ’s in America that have expressed a desire to kill liberals in the same light as the pro-Soviets defending the use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring. Old wine, new skins, it would seem.

  31. 31.

    L85NJGT

    This will cause no end of issues in an already tight US labor market.

    AMLO wants to restore the PRI glory days. Cronyism, corruption and making Pemex pay for it all. This is like your idiot cousin insisting a ‘69 Thunderbird will make a great everyday driver, but I guess as long as he doesn’t stir up shit with the cartels….

  32. 32.

    Major Major Major Major

    I can certainly understand why he would compare the Trump Administration’s immigration policies to Nazi Germany, while then agreeing to tighten border restrictions. Much of the immigration is from citizens of Central American countries that impacts Mexico (especially considering the COVID situation) on their way to the US/Mexican border. Plus, as is obvious to anyone studying the situation, border controls don’t work when the alternative is death for you and your family. AMLO’s immigration “restrictions” are the sleeves of a vest, and if you were Mexico and faced with Trump, you’d appease him, too.

    Gotta make noise for the cameras, but at the end of the day Mexico has never wanted to be anything more for than a pit stop, for migrants heading further north.

  37. 37.

    catclub

    @Ken: ​
    &nbsp

    ;I realize this probably torpedoes my chances of becoming Press Secretary in the Baud! 20XX administration.

    No, it improves your chances.

  39. 39.

    Old Man Shadow

     at least 34 of the candidates in the midterm election were killed, with basically a zero solve rate on those killings.

    I’m sure they know exactly who did most of them, but don’t feel like ending up dead over it.

  40. 40.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Baud:

    One bill under consideration would prohibit online platforms such as Amazon from giving their own products or services an advantage over those of rivals who depend on the same platforms to reach consumers. A similar draft bill would make it illegal for a platform company like Google to operate multiple lines of business that create “conflicts of interest.”

    Another bill would require platforms to be interoperable, so that users could migrate their data and switch services more easily. And two more bills target mergers and acquisitions, giving antitrust enforcers more resources, prohibiting tech giants like Facebook from gobbling up nascent competitors, and in some cases making it costlier for companies to file merger paperwork.

    Some good and some bad here. I’ll write it up when things are firmer. I’m especially curious about an interoperability/portability requirement. Depending on how it’s written, this could bring us to halcyon days or be horrible.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Right.  It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.  In general, I’m skeptical of telling companies they can’t promote their own products.  It’s hard to draw up rules than will satisfy anyone and be administrable.

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Tankies … are unhappy.

    Happiness is the morally bankrupt sleep of corrupt bougies

    (“tankies” are what some of us used to call “purity ponies” and such like, right?)

  45. 45.

    J R in WV

    The last time I was on B-J on my tablet (which has no ad blocker, since I mostly read ad-free fiction on it) I was getting ads for nice big mowers, as if I was a lawn care company, as opposed to having no lawn whatsoever. And they were in Spanish, totally.

    Kind of strange, how far off center that was. Couldn’t be further from my interests. I only mow on the tractor, using a brush-hog around the farm.

  47. 47.

    Ken

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m especially curious about an interoperability/portability requirement. Depending on how it’s written, this could bring us to halcyon days or be horrible.

    Even if the law looks great, it still has to be implemented. I suspect we won’t know the results for quite a while.  The work of the standards committee alone may take a decade.

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    If one weren’t 100% convinced that both Bidens have forgiven Harris for the “that little girl was me” incident, the VP’s portfolio — immigration and voting rights — could raise eyebrows. Talk about a pair of Sisyphean tasks!

  49. 49.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: They are an even more extreme version of the purity ponies. They unironically think that Communism is going to be the next best thing. Young, privileged and as I said many are not even American but think of the United States as the big bad on the global scen

    The reason they like the squad and magic Grandpa is the same reason many are Chomsky fans.

  53. 53.

    Cameron

    @Betty Cracker: I agree.  I have no idea how either of those issues get fixed, especially with the Republicans rejecting anything and everything the Democrats propose.  She’s been handed enough for ten people.

  55. 55.

    zhena gogolia

    On another topic,

    Yesterday I sat down w a remarkable a Capitol Police officer who was in some of the most intense combat zones in the US Capitol on Jan 6. He trusted us @NewsHour w his story, thoughts on where we are.Here’s the full interview. https://t.co/CC0aluy4yPAnd here’s a thread.— Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) June 10, 2021

  58. 58.

    Old School

    @Abnormal Hiker: Beat me to it. If Jared could handle the Middle East Peace Process, Veterans Affairs, the opioid crisis, and whatever else he was in charge of, surely Kamala can handle two tasks.

  62. 62.

    clay

    OT, but guess who snagged tickets for Springsteen on Broadway in September?!!

    (It was my wife, actually. We both tried but she was the one who got through.)

  66. 66.

    BruceFromOhio

    @schrodingers_cat: This white guy wanted so badly to vote for her in the primaries, and was disappointed when she had to drop out, ecstatic when Biden picked her as VP, and over the moon when they won. Betty called it, Harris was assigned the big rocks to push up the hill, and I expect took them on willingly. When grooming a future president, the worst thing that can happen is giving that future president the easy tasks.

  75. 75.

    James E Powell

    A little help, please. I can’t find a definition of tankie that seems relevant to anything going on right now. Who are you all talking about?

  86. 86.

    sdhays

    @Abnormal Hiker: I know you were joking, but another way of looking at it is that, yes, she IS Biden’s Jared. She’s who Biden trusts the most to tackle the thorniest issues facing the country. The comparison breaks down because Jared is and was such a pathetic joke of a man, who’s only real qualification is being married to the daughter of TFG. And TFG didn’t really give a shit about any of the issues he assigned to Jared, other than thinking it would be nice to get some credit for solving them.

    Of course, it also breaks down because our VP isn’t going to fix all of this herself – she’s leading the administration’s response on all of these issues, because that’s what serious-minded, effective leaders do. With Jared, it really pretty much was all him, and the results speak to that.

  88. 88.

    Another Scott

    @sdhays: +1

    She’s not going to solve these problems.  Nobody sensible thinks that she will.

    What she will do, being VP and being the last person in the room with Biden, is make sure that agencies and people who are tasked with working on the problems actually do work on the problems and propose and implement sensible plans, propose legislation, direct resources, etc., to tackle them.

    She’s the first officer on the bridge, not the team of hundreds in the engine room, etc.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  89. 89.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    LOL, no I meant I’d call Blue Lives Matters morons “tankies”

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    True. They’re not the brightest bulbs. I guess maybe something more literal? “You people are no different than the tankies who defended the Soviets sending in tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution in 1956”.

    Wordy, but makes it clear what I think of them. I’m sure being compared to communists would offend them

  90. 90.

    StringOnAStick

    @sdhays: It seems that issues that have their profile raised by, say, having your VP tackle them publicity and with vigor, have a better chance of at least getting the ball moved further downfield.  I don’t envy MVP’s assignments but I can’t think of a better person to set to the task.  The huge increase in real R and bot attacks on her suggests the opposition thinks that too.

  92. 92.

    germy

    For so long now we've lived under the rules of the Patriot Act, told to not even joke about violence, watch ourselves and others, stay hyper-vigilant. If you see something say something. Well I see a political party plotting a coup. Who do I tell?

    — ?Rev Magdalen (@revmagdalen) June 10, 2021

    You could create an AI to sift through every message on the whole internet, but you can't create one that can make white people in power take white domestic terrorist threats seriously.

    — ?Rev Magdalen (@revmagdalen) June 10, 2021

    All those times breaking news alerts would cut in, to show us some random flashlight or backpack being examined by a robot. The constant fear that another 9/11 could happen.

    And then these fascists get to just smash the windows and invade the Capitol.

    — ?Rev Magdalen (@revmagdalen) June 10, 2021

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    They want MVP to do a Performative Cosplay Bullshyt performance at the border like the GQP did…so that they BOTH SIDES the issue.

    They don’t give a shyt about the solutions that MVP is working on for the issue.

    Just like they didn’t give two shyts about the Border when Dolt45 and his Administration were doing their horrors at the border.

    Oh, there were a handful of journalists actually interested in the issue during Dolt45’s term, but the rest of those muthaphuckas spent their time trying to normalize, and make excuses for the nightmares done on behalf of Dolt45 and his evil crew.

  95. 95.

    Elizabelle

    Ms. Cat’s wiki article on tankies had some interesting links.  The two to Vice won’t work at all.  Trying vice.com brings an error message.

    That happening to anyone else??

  96. 96.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @cain: Honestly we’ve fucked up much of South and Central America for a century and a half, for example:

    The CIA backed coup to overthrow a democratically elected leader in Guatemala in 1954: US backed coup in Guatemala

    “The United Fruit Company (UFC), whose highly profitable business had been affected by the end to exploitative labor practices in Guatemala, engaged in an influential lobbying campaign to persuade the U.S. to overthrow the Guatemalan government. ”

    There’s also the fact that United Fruit opened fire on striking banana workers in 1928 with the help of the Guatemalan government.

  97. 97.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: Or AOC going to the “border” and crying at the fence. The so called progressives in the Congress crying crocodile tears over Harris being insensitive to immigrants and asylum seekers are the most ardent followers of Vt Jesus who was a favorite guest of Lou Dobbs before he ran for President.

    Biden has always been to the left of the bourgeoise Bernie with a lake front house on immigration

    I find their hypocrisy grating.

  98. 98.

    sdhays

    @rikyrah: They don’t care about the humanitarian crisis happening outside US borders. They don’t care about people fleeing their countries from either violence or a complete lack of economic opportunities. They only care about non-white people coming with their problems into the US at the border.

    It shouldn’t be even be discussed as a problem at the border. Talking about “the border” is what makes “building a wall” seem like a plausible idea. Of course, VP Harris knows all this and knows the real crisis at the border was when TFG was locking babies up in cages.

  100. 100.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: Harris is getting a lot of crap from liberals for the immigration speech in Guatemala. I think it’s a case where the only moral positions and the only politically possible ones just have no overlap at all.

    What do they want her to say ? “C’mon, make that dangerous journey, our border is totally open to everyone no matter their status”? Surely they know she can’t say anything like that. The only moral position to take is to tell people not to make that dangerous journey, and that we’re trying to fix our system.

  101. 101.

    schrodingers_cat

    Biden’s USCIS has started reissuing RFEs instead of outright rejecting many immigration applications like they did under the regime of  the Orange Clown. USCIS still doesn’t have a head IIRC. The agency has been gutted of professionals like many other branches of the federal govt. Things are slowly improving. No matter how much the squad or their Twitter Tankie chorus bleats a sitting VP or the President is never going to sound like the second coming of Chomsky.

  102. 102.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: They want MVP to do a Performative Cosplay Bullshyt performance at the border like the GQP did…so that they BOTH SIDES the issue.

    They don’t give a shyt about the solutions that MVP is working on for the issue.

    Yep, they want a photo op for their news feeds. They want footage of her surrounded by the people who are coming here, so they can “bothsides” it and play it over and over and over. I had a MAGA co-worker ask me why Harris hasn’t gone to the border yet. I asked him why he wanted her to do a photo-op. He claimed he thinks she should see what’s happening there with her own eyes. I said, and then what? He said fix it. I was tempted to ask him why hadn’t TFG fixed it, but I suspect he’d say TFG had fixed it just fine (even though they never stopped coming, to MAGAs “fixing it” means making them stay in Mexico so we aren’t threatened by their “brownness”).  So if she goes there, then the howling will be “why hasn’t she fixed the border crisis yet?”. I wish, every time they ask her the question of why she hasn’t been to the border, that she would ask why they’re repeating a Republican talking point, and then ask if they honestly think she needs to physically go to the border in order to work to solve the problem. I have to say that when I saw that clip from the Holt interview I thought she could have been better prepared for that question, because she had to know it was coming.

  104. 104.

    Steeplejack

    @Elizabelle:

    Both the Vice links (in footnotes 4 and 6) worked for me, as did a trip to Vice.com. Maybe a temporary and/or “local” (to you) problem?

  106. 106.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Major Major Major Major: I dislike the ethnically-based nationalism that a large fraction of the countries in the world (including leading democracies) seem to find unproblematic; while the United States is far from unique in officially disavowing it, one thing I do think puts us in a good tier of countries is that we do officially disavow it. I’d like to see that disavowal extended as far as possible.

    You could probably make a defensible case that full citizenship for immigrants requires some kind of indication of commitment to those values. But the fact that you can be a full citizen just by being born here, no matter who your mommy or daddy were, is great too, but one side effect of that is that any malevolent bozo born here ends up with the franchise. So be it.

  107. 107.

    Betty Cracker

    Truth is the Democrats are between a rock and a hard place on immigration in a way Republicans just aren’t anymore. Dems have to balance policies and perceptions to avoid alienating constituents with opposing views (e.g., old-timey labor advocates with protectionist views vs. progressives and liberals who favor taking in more refugees and welcoming more immigrants).

    Repubs used to have a similar dilemma when placating nativist yahoos demanding tougher enforcement vs. the business lobby that wanted to exploit undocumented workers. But Repubs found they could go full yahoo all the time without completely losing the Chamber vote, so they don’t bother with nuance anymore.

  108. 108.

    Fair Economist

    I think Harris is taking on tough controversial issues so Biden can keep playing the Friendly Grandpa Joe role. Keeping Biden’s net positives up will help us in 2022 and 2024. I think this is fully intentional by both of them.

  114. 114.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: being reported as news

    Unlike her predecessor, Dr. Biden was quick to provide an immediate explanation and context for her choice of a jacket and the message she was trying to send. In comments to reporters traveling with the president, she said that the jacket was intended to offer a “sense of hope” to a world gripped by Covid.
    “I think that we’re bringing love from America,” she said. “This is a global conference, and we are trying to bring unity across the globe. And I think it’s needed right now, that people feel a sense of unity from all the countries and feel a sense of hope after this year of the pandemic.”

    I have a tendency to fall for old tweets being recycled, so I checked this time

  119. 119.

    Baud

    @Baud:

    I can’t find better confirmation, but I know I remember it from a while back.

    Anywho, I can’t never get enough Bidens/Trumps comparisons.  Happy to do it again next time Jill wears that jacket.

  120. 120.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: yup, I love that kindly Doc Biden isn’t afraid, or too kind, to remind people just how awful the formers both were.

    They were tacky and vulgar, but we shouldn’t let that over shadow the genuine cruelty underneath the tacky vulgarity

  121. 121.

    Kay

    A big divide among families re in-school mask mandates,
    @RANDCorporation
    researcher Heather Schwartz tells
    @gtoppo
    : 86% of Black parents want masks; just 53% of white parents feel the same way

    They keep making the same mistake with this- they did the same thing with school reopening.

    “Parents wants X, Y or Z!” then they’ll be this huge gaping difference depending on which parents you ask.
    It reminds me of how all “working class people” are white. How many TIMES are they going to make this error? My God, fix it.

  124. 124.

    Ken

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Letters, no, but I assume you know that you should ignore any phone calls supposedly coming from the IRS.  Also those about your car’s warranty expiring.

  126. 126.

    sdhays

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: What?! No!! How do you expect farmers in East Bumfuck, IN to be able to keep their new Ford F-650’s every couple of years?

    California doesn’t count only when it’s convenient for conservatives. I thought that was clear.

  127. 127.

    Another Scott

    Originally I thought there’s no way in hell Eric Adams lives in New Jersey, nobody is that dumb, nobody thinks it won’t get found out, but he may indeed be that dumb. I don’t know if it matters. The outer boros want a New York accent and a billyclub. But my God, it’s dumb.

    — Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) June 10, 2021

    (Adams is Brooklyn Borough president and running for NYC Mayor.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Because masks weren’t that big a deal to kids- understandably, as they deal with school rules every day so adding one didn’t cause them to completely freak out and start waving the Declaration of Independence around.

    It’s just that these people have NEVER worried about the freedom and agency of kids before and kids are subject to all kinds of indignities and searches and such in public schools. They’re not on Team Freedom. They can’t pick and choose which infringements they go nuts over.

  134. 134.

    jonas

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:  Bolsonaro can reasonably be described someone who is honestly trying to help the poor,

    That’s certainly not my take on him. He’s pretty much a Trump-style asshole — his constituency is police/military, ranchers who want to clear-cut the Amazon, and other grifters and business-types who like a government that looks the other way on various kinds of corruption that benefit them. Covid in Brazil has been devastating to poor and indigenous communities and Bolsonaro could not care less.

  135. 135.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    I know I’m late to the party and all that, but just dropped in to say that the NYT and the Times of London are both garbage newspapers now.

    Real shame how far they’ve fallen.

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