Just an absolutely lovely day here, and I spent the bulk of the day on the zero turn cutting the mansion, the historic society, and the cemetery grass. Really noticing the absence of all my bird friends out there. Very few still around and it feels so early into the fall. Had lots of time to think, but my thoughts were mostly on the perilous state of the nation. It’s very hard spending the last few days watching the media and half the nation lionize some guy who in my book was a not good person (I know, he loved his wife and kids!). It’s just so weird. Just as a marker, I don’t think this is civil debate:
“Q: should black people be allowed to fly planes”
“Q: Are all mexicans murderers or are only some murderers and the rest rapist?”
Q: “Should we stone gay and trans people or just deport them to where they do?”
And the desperate attempts to blame transgender people and trying to fit this hodgepodge of terminally online groyper image board madness into tidy left or right wing ideologies is madness. And just all the hate for transgender people. Like the hate for gay people, I just do not get it. You know what else I don’t get- being transgender? And so fucking what? I don’t have to. The world is filled with people and animals and things that exist in the world and do so without need for my or anyone else’s justification. And I am not up to date on all the issues, or all the jargon and what is appropriate and what is not and you know what? I don’t fucking need to be. I don’t need to debate this. Transgender people are people. Gay people are people. Lesbians are people. So they have, by essence of being human, the same fucking human rights you and I do. They are citizens and deserve the same rights everyone else has. They don’t need to justify their existence or debate why they should have every right to do the same shit I do. No one gets to say who has a right to exist and who doesn’t. So stop complicating all this bullshit (which is done intentionally).
The Korean press is brutal right now:
It is going to take decades to undo the damage.
I am really much more tired than I realized when I started to write this post. Maybe sitting down let it catch up to me. But I gotta get some stuff done before the Emmy’s (if I can find it streaming), otherwise, and episode or two of the Sopranos will have to do.
Be good.
Jackie
Speaking of the Emmys, President Obama is receiving his third Emmy Award tonight.
HinTN
And if we can’t be good we can at least be careful. Cheers
Josie
I had no idea that Korean workers were treated like this. It’s just obscene.
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie: For what?
iKropoclast
Our view of what civil debate is has so degraded that it amounts solely to calmly explaining your position.
Doesn’t matter if you’re calmly lying, calmly insulting others to their face, calmly spreading bigotry. But if you become a little emotional while defending the rights of others, you are degrading debate. You are not respecting the other point of view.
Respectability nonsense argued from a position of power, all of it.
hueyplong
@Josie: Me either. The arrogance it takes to do that to people knowing they (or at least some of them) will live to tell the tale to others, and being totally undeterred. It’s beyond evil.
mrmoshpotato
@Josie: It’s absolutely disgusting.
Suzanne
@HinTN:
Denis Morton would approve.
In all seriousness…. my anxiety level took a big ratchet up last week. I have never owned or used a firearm, and I very much planned for that to hold true for my whole lifetime. I want no part of any fight. But I’m increasingly convinced that the fight will find me.
iKropoclast
I’ve only learned about the status of one, but that one had a valid work visa.
Chetan Murthy
@iKropoclast: Apparently they all had “business visitor” visas — that don’t permit them to do … -work-. Just meetings. Thing is, US companies send their workers overseas on just such visas all the time. B/c the alternative is an H1, and if you send someone for a few weeks/months, that’s way way overkill bureaucratically. Not to mention much tougher to get.
A link: yna.co.kr/view/AKR20250914010400004?section=society/all&site=topnews01
[you’ll have to hit translate]
Realy shocks the conscience, and I say this as someone who is aware that
Venezuelan Mexican Guatemalan Indianpretty Canadian lady detainees are treated this way routinely by ICE. I worked in tech, and these people are as close as it gets to me without being Indian. So it really hits home.brendancalling
I’m about to upload the latest episode of the podcast I do with Marty. We touched on the hatred for—and fear of, the latter including some well-meaning people—the transgendered. Like, people I know—who totally accept my kid as she is—will say things like “Is it difficult for you?” and “Wow that must have been an adjustment,” etc. And I always respond “not really.”
I maybe get the fear/uncertainty part. I remember being an outlier in the 1980s in that I had openly gay friends when I was in high school. There was a time when “homophobe” wasn’t necessarily a synonym for “you are an asshole”—although it sure is now—and I expect the same to happen with our transgender friends and family.
Anyway, I spent the whole damned day editing that podcast. Then I went to Aldi to buy some supplies for tonight’s meal prep, and because I’m a dipshit I left my phone on the roof of my car, and pulled out. I need a new screen. I’m lucky I don’t need a whole new phone. We don’t have wi-fi where I live (I rent from my housemate, and he’s never had it installed), so I’m at my local bar drinking an NA beer, and hoping Marty gets back to me before 7:00. Otherwise I’m uploading as is.
Then it’s gumbo time.
NotMax
Poisoning the well of good relations,
Jackie
@mrmoshpotato:
Outstanding Narrator for his work on Netflix docuseries, the latest being Our Oceans.
ExPatExDem
I don’t think the damage is going to be undone. We’re watching the end of the American empire.
iKropoclast
@Chetan Murthy: So they arrange all this, had a business sponsor, and it was the wrong type of paperwork. So they go after the workers instead of management?
Deferring to authority is a whole way of life.
Scout211
Random O/T PSA:
If you are paying quarterly estimated taxes for 2025, surprise! The IRS changed the address for estimated taxes last month. Where to file addresses for taxpayers and tax professionals filing Form 1040-ES
Mine took two weeks instead of 5 days priority mail but they did forward the payment to the correct address instead of sending it back. They only have two addresses now, Louisville and Charlotte.
The mysteries of our “new, improved” federal agencies.
Chetan Murthy
I guess it’s debatable whether that’s the right way to view it. But what’s not debatable, is that this is what multinational corps do the world over — use this sort of visa — and everybody knows it. My bet is the reason they went after the workers instead of mgmt is simple: the story is they went there to arrest 4 workers, and saw 330: surely some ICE agent-in-charge saw bonus dollar-signs in his eyes, and said “scoop ’em all up, boys!”
You don’t get your bonus by talking to management and arranging that when you come back in a week, every worker will have their visa paperwork in order now, do you? You get your bonus by charging in like a bull in a china shop.
Princess
I don’t understand everything about being transgender either and it doesn’t matter one bit. I see young people I’ve known since childhood — babyhood even — who’ve been able to fully transition and the joy and comfort they now feel living in their bodies is palpable. The negative effect on my own life from them living their lives is zero.
iKropoclast
Depends what the system is meant to incentivize. If the system incentivized order and honored workers’ good faith attempts to come here and build a livelihood, those very things you described would have bonuses attached. If bonuses were to be had at all.
If bonuses are tied to quotas and values numbers over actually improving the immigration process, they’re an incentive to abuse and violence.
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie: Ah. Gonna have to add it to my list.
Geoduck
Saw an interesting post on Bluesky about how Kirk evidently had this whole other gig going where he’d give bog-standard Christian-life-selfempowerment talks with none of the horror-show content, and that side was all that some people ever saw of him.
Citizen Alan
Assumes facts not in evidence. The mofo openly said he would compel his daughter (currently 3) to carry a fetus to term if she were raped and impregnated, regardless of any potential health risks. He is exactly the kind of person who would kick one of his children out of the home for being gay and would probably rather they be dead than trans. And I have absolutely no reason to believe that this misogynistic cult leader would remain faithful to his wife if some pretty young thing came along. Indeed, had he lived, I’d expect him to be divorced and ready to move on to some younger woman before any of his kids was old enough to drive.
Jay
Google translate does an okay job.
More fall out:
cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/us-outdoor-group-licence-application-1.7632942
National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), has been running these “educational” trips, since 2006 in BC, and runs similar trips globally, it’s a non-profit, caters to mostly youth, like Outward Bound.
Now, local residents and the First Nations don’t want them there anymore.
JaySinWa
Regrets, Christopher Landau has a few, and yet too few to mention. Bygones. No hard feelings. Y’all come back now, you hear.
bsky.app/profile/maxkennerly.bsky.social/post/3lyt234sjfs2f
Jay
@iKropoclast:
To do actual “expert work” including hands on training of workers, you need, to dot all the I’s and Cross all the T’s, an L1A1 work visa.
Back in the late 80’s, it took the Fortune 100 Company I worked for, a year and a half and 5 lawyers, to get me one. One.
And all I was doing was dragging an existing Factory we had, back into the black, by doing one specific job until we could find an American who was qualified, and training up staff on the “right way” to do things and systems they did not know.
Unlike the Koreans, I was not building a factory from scratch, installing complex systems and machinery and training up 1500 US staff on how to do the job, in Buttfuck, Georgia. I was working with people who already had most of the skills.
The State of Georgia, Homeland Security, the INS and CBP were fine with the state of their visa’s, (some were even US Citizens).
One Reich Wing blogger was not. “They were taking jobs from “Merkins”.
No, they were not, they were creating 1500 jobs for Americans.
So she complained to ICE and Temu Himmler’s ICE did what they do.
Princess
So evidently Stephan Miller plays with porcelain dolls. It’s in the Rolling Stone profile of him.
TS
@Josie: I would assume all people arrested as “illegals” whether they are citizens or not are being treated this way. They are either too scared to speak up or shipped off to a country not interested in what happened to them.
iKropoclast
Sounds like a problem the Republicans who spend so much time complaining about red tape might seem to fix. Y’know, if the racism weren’t more important to them
You mean to tell me that the end product of others’ work, even work done by immigrants, is new resources and new associated work for everyone?
Shocking.
If only more people could think through a full series of consequences or could think of solutions to problem that didn’t rely on guns and monetary coercion.
gene108
@Josie:
This is how everybody ICE detains is treated. The conditions in ICE detention are deliberately awful. The cruelty is the point.
JaySinWa
@Scout211: I pay quarterlies via EFTPS that I set up back when I had a business. It has worked correctly, I believe, but just looking for the proper term for this post, I see other electronic fund payments are having problems.
irs.gov/payments/direct-pay-with-bank-account
Direct Pay appears to be broken.
The statement:
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: To my fellow Yanks, Crown Land is like our national forests and BLM lands.
gene108
@Chetan Murthy:
Business visas do allow site inspections, training, as well as meetings.
uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-visitors-for-business/b-1-temporary-business-visito…
Betty
@HinTN: Aw. That brings back memories. One of my deceased brother-in-law’s favorite sayings. He was a very kind man and is much missed.
Anyway
@gene108: pre-Covid I traveled to customer sites in Europe on my US passport and used the visa waiver. Usually the trips were of short duration. – a week or so, mostly KT, troubleshooting, meetings etc. We always had to get okays from our legal department before boarding the flight. I was told it was all legit.
cain
@Princess: I’m sure one of our transgendered commentators can explain better than I.
But it’s essentially, the brain thinks it is one gender, and the body is another. The two aren’t in sync. You’re never fully whole so you live your entire life in a lie.
Human sexuality is super complex with all kinds of things that don’t fit in the binary of male and female. Honestly, when in life has ever fit in a binary anything?
hueyplong
If Trump had been given the assignment of driving away all our allies/business partners and isolating the USA, what would he have done measurably differently so far?
Kathleen
@Princess: I’ll bet they come with armbands and shiny black jack boots. Uniforms sold separately.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Charlie loved his kids but that’s no reason to think he cared for kids. The kids of the people he attacked didn’t matter to him. There is damn little that Charlie has done that could be called good. I say damned little but I really know of absolutely nothing he did to contribute to society in a positive way.
I do have to give him credit for learning to troll college campuses and build what looks like a large crowd of people who seemed to be there because they liked what he had to say when in reality many of them were there to point out how wrong he was. Just like the person who was challenging him on shooting deaths and number of “trans shootings” that paled in comparison to straight male shooters.
The numbers of supporters and detractors in photos at his events made him look more popular than he actually was. Boss troll move…lol! All I will give Charlie at the end of his life is a “Sorry, Charlie.”
sukabi
@Princess: got that Norman Bates vibe…
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Suzanne: Im going to disagree. Bear with me for a minute.
the groypers & the right-wing feud that just led to Kirk’s assassination is just the work of a group of crazies not too dissimilar to the cult vegan Zizians: bbc.com/news/articles/cy83958r2d0. The huge difference is that while the Democratic Party has nothing to do with those idiots, the Republican Party is completely beholden to its crazies because racist rural Americans needs to believe lies and someone somewhere needs to make those lies up. They’re eating their own. They’re not coming after anyone except brown and black people, and even then only where it looks like an easy target (whole factory full of illegals! Let’s get ‘em, boys!). Right now the only thing even holding up the economy is the AI stock bubble and the fact that our Fed governors are actually as unimpeachable as we expect.
@ExPatExDem: with this, however, I completely agree. Cicero, watching Caesar’s triumph, wrote that all that was left of Rome were the houses. The American empire, like the Roman Empire, can go on appearing to function for a while, though.
mrmoshpotato
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Facts not in evidence.
Credit for being a racist, misogynistic troll?
Fuck ’em!
iKropoclast
That’s because colleges and universities are committed to actual civil discourse by and large. Have a leftist try to pull that move in, where do MAGA meet, an Ohio diner for example. Do we have confidence this will be safe and civil for him anymore?
Even when someone came from him, it was from outside at a distance. Charlie Kirk took advantage of the safe spaces universities provided by making money denouncing them.
prostratedragon
Scott Horton:
iKropoclast
Or refuse to tell us.
Jackie
I can believe… But I can’t believe FFOTUS is using the Kennedy Center for Kirk’s Memorial Service.
That’s just disgusting and wrong on so many levels. And, it’s probably the first time since FFOTUS took control over the Kennedy Center, it’s more than 50% full. Of MAGAts.🤮
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie: I saw reports that the Arizona Cardinals’ football stadium was rented for this not-Nazi-enough shitstain’s funeral.
Is this an additional abomination?
Jay
@Jackie:
@mrmoshpotato:
This might explain it,
Marc
The man is dead, let them have their memorials, remember what they did to Paul Wellstone. Opinion: it would be good to think about 1) how we can do our part to encourage right wing internecine warfare, and b) how to start extricating ourselves from this morass. The continuing focus on this dude is exactly what Trump wants and needs.
Jackie
@mrmoshpotato:
Apparently so. I read about the planned memorial service at the Cardinal’s stadium for sometime this coming week. I caught a headline on RawStory about Kari Lake speaking about Kirk’s death at a service happening today… that’s when I learned about the defiling of the Kennedy Center.
Jackie
Oh, and get this:
I didn’t bother clicking on the Hill link. WTH is the Vice Couch Potato Humper doing filling in for a podcast? Doesn’t he supposedly have a JOB?
WTF is happening to our country?!?
Jackie
@Marc:
Since WHEN did the narcissistic FFOTUS ever want attention to focus on anyone but HIM?
Jay
@Jackie:
It’s not Dolt47, doing the Kirkoganda, it’s Temu Himmler and others surrounding Dolt47 still trying to make their “RoHoWa” (Race War) on.
Jackie
@Jay: Exactly. Blah blah blah Kirk, BUT! This Majestic Ballroom! The Greatest and Biggliest Ballroom ever!
Kirk’s expiration date has reached the Use By date.
Paul in KY
@Princess: Beautiful white porcelain…
Miss Bianca
@Jackie: And where are all the NYT think pieces about “who is VP Vance and what does he spend his time doing? It’s a mystery!”