how we got here
— Lora Kolodny (@lorak.bsky.social) February 14, 2026 at 2:23 PM
The deal was: they demagogue about “illegal aliens,” they militarize the border, they deport people who get reported by their bosses… but they don’t actually go looking for undocumented workers at farms, in kitchens, or on job sites. It was there to discipline labor, not create a shortage of it.
— Emma the Sewer Socialist (@mayorseidel.bsky.social) February 14, 2026 at 2:15 PM
The Money Bidniz wing of the GOP is starting to feud with its Crazed Racist faction:
… Construction executives have held multiple meetings over the last month with the White House and Congress to discuss how immigration busts on job sites and in communities are scaring away employees, making it more expensive to build homes in a market desperate for new supply. Beyond the affordability issue, the executives made an electability argument, raising concerns to GOP leaders that support among Hispanic voters is eroding, particularly in regions that swung to Trump in 2024.
Hill Republicans have held separate meetings with White House officials to share their own electoral concerns…
The construction industry is one of the latest and clearest examples of how the president’s mass deportation agenda continues to clash with his economic goals of bringing down prices and political aims of keeping control of Congress. Even the president’s allies fear disruptions to labor-heavy industries will undermine the gains with Latino voters Republicans have made in recent years, in large part because of Trump’s economic agenda.These concerns were the central focus of a White House meeting this week between chief of staff Susie Wiles, Speaker Mike Johnson, and a group of Republican lawmakers, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting, granted anonymity to discuss it. The group talked about growing concerns that Hispanic voters are abandoning the Republican Party in droves, as well as the policies driving these losses — immigration and affordability concerns…
The White House meeting with lawmakers followed others with builders and trade groups this month. A number of industry representatives met at the White House in early February, and the South Texas Builders Association traveled to Washington last week for meetings with lawmakers, including Reps. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), Andy Harris (R-Md.) and Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and an ICE official. All three sit on the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, with Amodei and Cuellar the top Republican and Democrat on the panel.
“They started off with, ‘hey, we were all Trump supporters, and we thought he was going to secure the border and then kick out criminals, we just never thought that they were going to be coming after our folks, our workers, on that,’” Cuellar said, recounting the message the builders shared the first time he met with them. “They’re builders, contractors, lumber companies, cement companies, in the finance part of it. That type of ripple effect has hurt their economy. Not only individuals, but their economy.”
Cuellar also said that he has asked acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to set up a business liaison to work with the builders, an idea he said the director was receptive to but stalled amid immigration-related clashes in Minnesota…
Business conservatives liked the old way because it gave them the best of both worlds. They could always threaten a worker with a call to ICE, but ICE wasn’t just showing up on its own all the time to reduce their head count unexpectedly. They probably thought Trump was going to do more of that.
— Emma the Sewer Socialist (@mayorseidel.bsky.social) February 14, 2026 at 2:15 PM
Continuing the theme, Politico adds “In South Texas, the GOP immigration hard line is now political kryptonite”:
Backlash to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is putting vulnerable Republicans in a tough spot, forcing them to shift their tone to appease frustrated Hispanic voters — or risk losing key battleground seats…
Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, representing a majority-Hispanic district, has gone from calling for mass deportations to focusing on the “worst of the worst.” In lieu of expediting removals, she wants to create new visa categories for undocumented workers to fill jobs in construction and agriculture. And instead of slamming the Biden White House for its “border failure,” she’s setting up private meetings at the Trump White House to plead for temperance in immigration enforcement.
Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose district shares hundreds of miles with Mexico, wants his party to talk more about the border, and said he plans to “continue to advocate that the Republican Party needs to focus on convicted criminal illegal aliens” amid broad outrage over deportations of undocumented people with no proven risk to public safety.
Like other Republicans, they are trying to slowly distance themselves from the massive immigration crackdown that has quickly become political kryptonite for the GOP — but without being seen as disloyal to the president or undercutting their previous positions…
Republicans’ efforts to change the conversation will test their ability to maintain, or even extend, Trump’s 2024 gains with Hispanic voters — and play a pivotal role in the fight for control of Congress in November. A slew of polls in recent weeks has shown many Hispanic voters across the country, repulsed by the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, are souring on the Republican president they supported to a historic degree in 2024…
Flipping De La Cruz’s district is a top objective for House Democrats this cycle, who are salivating at the prospect of winning back Latino voters. She’ll face either Bobby Pulido, a Tejano music star with widespread name ID recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or Ana Cuellar, an ER doctor who has an impressive penchant for fundraising…
Baud
Looking forward to them voting en masse for Crockett or Talarico.
hitchhiker
So they thought trump would close the border, send violent criminals out, and call it a day?
They really thought that?
Because, I guess, he’s shown himself to be so reasonable and measured when it comes to brown people.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I like to peruse the Leopards eating faces subReddit and boy have the leopards been eating a lot of faces.
May it continue and with gusto! Feast away, spotted kitties!
piratedan
the money guys made on crucial mistake, they gave the racists the guns and forgot that Stephen Miller gives nary a fuckall to their concerns. They should consider themselves lucky they weren’t marched into a detention center when the complained.
Chetan Murthy
@hitchhiker: they thought he had no problems with the Spanish, only with those Messicans!
Suzanne
I know that people are dumb and delusional, but it still sometimes really manages to shock me. Monica de la Cruz doesn’t seem too smart.
MattF
There’s a lot of name-dropping in those reports… except for the person named ‘Stephen Miller’. However, I do not believe that Mr. Miller has disappeared or is hiding behind his desk. I also don’t believe that anything is changing without some actual evidence of change.
Another Scott
In the first blockquote above:
(Emphasis added.)
The normalization of 47 continues…
POSIWID – The purpose of a system is what it does.
47’s administration’s purpose is to make 47 happy. That means more money and power to him, punching down on his enemies, We’ve known this for years.
The idea that he has some “economic goals to bring down prices” is a category error. He doesn’t care. He thinks he can gaslight everyone into believing whatever he wants them to believe…
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
laura
Paging Professor BigFoot, please proceed to the mezzanine, wyt courtesy phone located at the customer service kiosk: xcancel.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/2024243966103998936#m
hells littlest angel
The president’s economic goals.
Ell oh fucking ell.
Baud
@hells littlest angel:
AKA, Self-enrichment.
Baud
HopefullyNotCassandra
@laura: consider who may be spreading this. CBS is invested in bashing Colbert and in this president. This president is invested in dividing us. Colbert interviewed Jasmine Crockett before. Last night he said CBS was straight up lying.
All of that said, I like both candidates, but I am not from Texas. Polls suggest Rep. Crockett will win.
Peke Daddy
End game? Detention without trial for dissenters, who will be leased out for slave labor to replace those immigrants who are not the worst of the worst.
A Ghost to Most
Texas Motto: We gotta stay ahead of Florida!
Professor Bigfoot
@laura: I’ve been doing my best to ignore the Texas two-step; fortunately for me I’m not a Texan (though I did throw a few ducats Jasmine’s way in honor of “bleach blond bad built butch body”).
I’m hearing people saying that Mr. Talarico is yet another Great White Hope; and I saw another of my Black mutuals mention Talarico’s “low key racism” (I have no idea- like I said, I’m ignoring that place right now).
What I’m seeing/hearing is more Black voters being distrustful of Mr. Talarico; and much as Black voters were suspicious of Mr. Fetterman but pulled the lever for him as the nominee, I’m sure Black Texans will pull the lever for whoever wins the Dem primary.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: “Paleo Confederate.”
Heh.
Now at the Pentagon.
cain
Saw this last week I think or maybe earlier this week. These people had a great scam going and then Miller came in as a true believer wanting to boot out all immigrants legal and otherwise. This entire thing is his baby. Even Trump doesn’t know what the fuck is happening.
Since Miller is sociopath, he’s not going to budge. He wants to see millions deported. That means small businesses like roofing and plumbing and what not are going to tank and tank hard. I hope he manages to damage the car dealerships which have been a huge source of money for the GOP.
This is when we provide the alternative but on our terms.
Meanwhile with a war in Iran looming, AI about to break and cause probably a gigantic need to bailout, and ICE busy going after everyone, building concentration camps to likely grab protesters something that is way outside what they are supposed to do.
It’s gonna be a hell bunch of months. Meanwhile, Trump is gonna keep talking like nothing is wrong. lol. The media continues to sane wash him while doing whatever it is they do with Dem opponents but looking more foolish.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
Has everyone forgotten how Republicans love to cry wolf? I’ll bet they’re actually more afraid of Crocket, because of all the buzz around them fearing Talarico. But I am not a Texan; I don’t get to vote in their primaries. I’ll root for whoever wins the primary.
bbleh
Oh never mind all this “economics” stuff — who believes all those eggheads and their “statistics” anyway? We’re gonna BOMB THE FK OUTTA IRAN WHOOOO!!! YOU ESS AY! YOU ESS AY!
(Now playing on ALL network stations AND national print media! Don’t miss a second of the LIVE ACTION!)
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
@bbleh: Problem: we war gamed this, and Iran crippled our Navy with RC boats loaded with explosives in the first days. The General who was strategizing the Iranian side actually suffered some career repercussions, because that wasn’t the answer the Bush administration was looking for.
Timill
@bbleh:
No need for you to miss a minute
Of the agonizing holocaust…
Timill
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno):
Millennium Challenge 2002
Old School
Trump’s economic goal is to make us all rich. To have so much winning we’ll be tired of the winning. To drop prescription drug prices by 700%.
I heard him say so myself.
Marc
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno): They weren’t gaming radio control boats, they were anticipating small missile-armed speedboats, of which they currently have hundreds if not thousands. Given that they’re already producing aerial drones in the hundreds of thousands, I’d imagine there has been some investment in autonomous submersible/mine drones as well.
bbleh
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno): was playing in that space a long time ago too, and it ain’t just asymmetric warfare. ANY kind of naval engagement means the Straits are likely to be closed, either as a precaution or if Iran manages to sink a tanker or two. What happens to oil prices then, and to the economies that are sensitive to them (eg ours)? And even if we successfully control the Gulf, what are we gonna do? Invade and occupy Iranian port cities, ie commit land forces for an extended period? How’s that gonna play? Or if we merely shell and bomb and create widespread death and destruction … then what? Are we expecting some kind of pro-US faction to seize power and do as we bid? Who exactly are they, and who’s gonna support them? (See above re land forces, and see also Iraq.)
I really don’t think they have a plan beyond creating a lot of explosions for TV.
Chetan Murthy
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno): General Paul Van Riper. Too on-the-nose. Writers, try to be more subtle.
Kirklin
@Professor Bigfoot:
So, I got a push poll a few days ago.
The BIG thing to me was that in the middle of it all, the pollster’s question was: would the following statement make you more or less likely to vote for [candidate], who is [race]. That was followed, for each, by a very republican position and then by a very liberal position. The very republican against Crockett were … not directly racial, but had several buzzwords that weren’t in the Talarico section.
It made me wonder just who had purchased the poll.
Chief Oshkosh
@laura: Crockett has come straight out about this very question and said that CBS is 100% the bad guy here, not Colbert or Talarico. I think the person you cite on X is just a shit-stirrer.
I know Crockett has been interviewed twice by Colbert, but the most recent one was May of last year. I hope he does interview her again, and soon. But similar to the Prof, I ain’t a Texan so I don’t much about any of this wrt to who is a better (= winning) candidate. I’m confident that every person of color who will vote for Crockett in the primary will vote for Talarico if he wins the primary. I HOPE, but am not confidant, that the same will be the case for Talarico primary voters if Crockett instead wins the primary and is the Democratic candidate.
RevRick
@Baud: Democrats are turning out en masse in Tarrant County, smashing all prior records for the first day … and besting the GOP for the first time ever.
TONYG
I remain convinced that the ultimate goal of President Stephen Miller is to fill the concentration camps with untermenschen, and then to lend them out to private businesses as literal slave labor. That would make those business owners happy. Miller’s goal may come to pass, if nobody stops him.
schrodingers_cat
@laura: All said and done Colbert has shown himself to be a Bernie bro. His non-stop, did you know Biden is old non jokes and now this. Disappointed but not surprised
Leftist bros are attacking Crockett, unsurprising. Don’t call them sexist and/or racist, that will make them sad.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kirklin: Yeah, this is why I’m grateful not to be in Texas- I love JC; and I got no reason not to like JT— but I got every reason to suspect there’s some serious ratfucking being put to that race.
Texas Democrats are going to be inundated.
Librarian
For those who don’t know, Pierre Poujade was a French politician who led a populist movement in the 1950s, Poujadism, the main position of which was hatred of taxes and of the elites.
MagdaInBlack
@TONYG: I was thinking that same thing.
Chetan Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: I’ve been a Colbert fan for a long time (since TDS, but definitely since The Colbert Report). And …. and …. and …. I cannot find the fault in your reasoning. I am -sad- that I cannot find the fault in your reasoning.
Kristine
Saw the OT tag, and wanted to say that today’s featured photo is simply gorgeous. Thanks, @Beckya57!
Professor Bigfoot
@TONYG: Unfortunately for that RBSOB, they can’t imprison ALL of us; and there will always be abolitionists and “abolitionist sentiment” out there.
Minnesotans are just the tip of that iceberg.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@cain:
Got a roofing crew across the street today. Five white guys on a small house roof. All morning to rip old roof off and prep roof for new stuff. Got water barrier half installed and shingles piled up on top of roof peak, called it a day just before 3 PM. Left sheet of water barrier flapping in the wind, not completely tacked down. Wood sheets under old shingles were wet, just installing barrier over wet wood.
Lots of vaping and bullshitting. I’ve saw three Hispanics tear off and replace the roof of the house next to this one (same design/size) in one day…lol!
MAGA roofers are on the job! Well, kinda…
ETA: And the Hispanics had better music!
TONYG
@TONYG: The original Nazis cemented their alliance with German businesses this way. It’s a win-win arrangement!
Matt McIrvin
@TONYG: There’s an interesting wrinkle there: Prison labor is an actual legal loophole in the 13th Amendment banning slavery. But detention-camp labor from people who have not been convicted of crimes is NOT. It’s illegal to enslave them. The 13th is actually pretty explicit and clear about that, and it will be interesting to see the contortions they do to try to get around that if they try.
TheScarletPimpernel
@schrodingers_cat: A Bernie bro? Get serious.
Sister Golden Bear
@bbleh: As Fishbone sang in the ’80s:
Party at ground zero
A B-movie starring you
And the world will turn to flowing pink vapor stew
TONYG
@Professor Bigfoot: These are not the smartest guys on the planet.
rikyrah
@hitchhiker:
Like you, I can’t believe that. He has Stephen Miller on his team. As a Black American, it’s just not plausible to me that they didn’t hear everything that he said. That they truly believed that there were MILLIONS OF CRIMINAL UNDOCUMENTED running around. Will never make any sense to me.
TONYG
@Matt McIrvin: We’ll see what the corrupt Supreme Court majority has to say about that.
rikyrah
The Construction guys can go bankrupt along with the farmers.
They knew who their worker base was…and still voted and supported the man.
jonas
Another one who thought they could ride the white supremacist tiger and figure out a way to handle it. Yeah, no. The MAGA base is literally genocidal towards immigrants now. Good luck putting that genie back in the bottle.
rikyrah
@TONYG:
Don’t forget the Red States that were passing laws declaring that the undocumented were criminals just because they were undocumented, which had always been a CIVIL procedure.
Matt McIrvin
@TONYG: Yes, well, given a test case, the Supreme Court COULD say that the First Amendment means I have to suck Donald Trump’s dick, and by stare decisis or Marbury v. Madison or something I guess it would then be true. But these legal objections are good ways to slow things down, and given really egregious violations, they haven’t taken the appeals and ruled his way 100% of the time; the administration loses a lot of cases.
rikyrah
No….I think the phuck not.
You’re going to get EXACTLY what you voted for.
And, if that means, you go bankrupt….oh well.
rikyrah
@Baud:
uh huh
uh huh
lips so pursed.
jonas
@rikyrah: IANAL, but I believe being undocumented as a result of overstaying a visa or something is a civil offense, but entering the country illegally (e.g. by sneaking over the border) is in fact a federal crime. That was a change made in the wake of 9/11, iirc.
cain
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
They are very efficient. Meanwhile the white boys are very entitled and do poor quality work.
Chetan Murthy
@jonas: two things:
(1) I think it’s a misdemeanor (in the circumstances you describe — the second set, not the overstay)
BUT (2) the treaties to which we are signatory guarantee that asylum-seekers DO NOT have to enter only at official ports of entry: they can enter anywhere and then, once on US soil, request asylum.
Also (3) I’m pretty sure that once the US has decided to expel someone, for that person to -later- attempt entry, is indeed a felony.
cain
@rikyrah: did you see that tweet where he blames his mom for not taking him to Disneyland. I think AL posted it.
What a dork
rikyrah
@jonas:
they believe all of the undocumented are CRIMINALS.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS DOING IT THE RIGHT WAY.
IF THERE WAS, THEY WOULDN’T BE SNATCHING UP PEOPLE AT THEIR LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.
Once again, not a surprise to me, because I knew that they meant EVERYONE NOT WHITE.
It was obvious to my Black American eyes.
lowtechcyclist
@TONYG:
The problem is, even ‘unskilled’ labor requires a certain level of skill acquired through practice to do well.
There was some deal back in the 1960s sometime where volunteers were recruited to help out with harvesting, and they did a much poorer job at it than the migrant workers they were substituting for.
Same thing would happen with the distinctly unmotivated slave laborers from the camps: they’d do a shitty job, and their work would barely be worth whatever pittance the businesses paid. They would seriously need overseers with whips or maybe tasers to have even a remote chance of making it work.
Chetan Murthy
@lowtechcyclist: The Nazis had two kinds of camps:
(1) death camps, where the -goal- was the death of inmates, and labor was a freebie
(2) labor camps, where the -goal- was to extract as much labor for as low cost as possible.
In the latter category, Gellately’s _Backing Hitler_ describes them as incurring a prodigious death rate, b/c “for as low cost as possible”. He recounts an instance where workers in the area of Flossenburg were falling faint at their work stations at the factory they’d been rented-out to, for lack of food. One imagines given what we’ve already learned about the conditions under which -children- are kept (insufficient food, riven thru with worms, etc) that ICE will be taking a page out of the Nazis’ book.
It’s not so tough to get people to work, when the alternative is starvation. And yeah, torture.
mappy!
They thought?
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
If they weren’t paying much attention to what Trump was saying about what he’d do to their labor supply, well, sucks to be them.
If you’re in business, you’ve got to pay attention to shit like that.
different-church-lady
These are not very bright guys, and things… [checks notes] …went pretty much as everyone else though they would.
Chetan Murthy
@TONYG: Sarah Taber has described the “rent-a-farm-worker” model that some companies pioneered where they hire on a bunch of H2A farmworkers from overseas, and then rent them to farmers for short gigs. The companies take a big slice, and the workers have zero agency, zero ability to control the conditions of their labor. It’s not -that- far from slavery.
This is another and different model that could be what Miller/ICE are aiming for.
But honestly, I think they haven’t thought that far: they want to mistreat and brutalize these immigrant workers and their families until they all leave and no more come. The insanity of this doesn’t bother them. Neither (haha, of course not!) does the inhumanity.
Frankly, they want us all to leave. I wrote -us- and I meant -us-. I’m brown, and even though I’m a US citizen, I know that the G(r)OP and MAGA wants me -gone-.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I believe that a fair number of congress folks think that they are the world. They aren’t. They seem to forget that it takes a lot of humans to make any kind of government of a lot of people to actually function. Food, shelter, transportation, etc. All of the day to day things take a fair number of humans to grow/make, deliver. And the process of that path takes materials, often skilled people, likely more often workers to farm, ship, process, ship, and then it takes companies to purchase stuff, manufacture the processed foods and have humans to stock the supermarkets, clean up every day, restock the shelves, etc. And that’s just the food segment. What about telephone manufacturing and service? Who puts gas in the tanks at your local gas station so that you can go to the store? Who makes the parts for your car and who puts that car together? Who builds the phone that you can now carry in your pocket or purse? Who fixes your car when/if something brakes/wears out, changes the oil? Who builds the car you want to buy so you can service it, most often by whom? Many things are made out of plastic these days, who makes the tools that manufacture them, who runs the machines that make them? Who drives the street sweeper or digs up a broken pipe or services electric stuff? And replaces it? Who makes the clothes you buy and wear? Etcetera, etcetera.
It takes a lot of humans to provide all that creates the current normal life for most people. There are almost 350 million people in this country. The population of the US has grown just a bit less than 200 million people in the last 75 years. And even if most of us create only 2 or 3 kids there will still be more in the years to come.
But one thing should be obvious now, after shitforbrains has shown how little he actually knows about anything but counting his money, which he doesn’t do well either. And how some people who vote seem to think he’s great. Sometimes one wonders how some humans can even breathe.
laura
@HopefullyNotCassandra: already considered and try as folks might to minimize the avoidable shit-baggery, the fact remains that Colbert used his privilege to benefit this candidate over the other, and that candidate received a metric shit-ton of free benefit as well as a big financial contribution as a result of the free benefit. Maybe consider that the need to give Johnny Unbeatable the velvet rope treatment is why we remain a deeply racist and misogynistic country, and as such, we can’t rid our nation of it’s original sin.
BlueGuitarist
@Sister Golden Bear:
was just listening to Fishbone’s recent:
”Racist Piece of Shit”
youtu.be/P9F4YnZS_qQ?si=vrjm-COzVeXW-wnF
lowtechcyclist
@Chetan Murthy:
Oh, you can get them to work. But you can’t magically make them capable and efficient overnight at tasks they’re unfamiliar with.
JoyceH
@lowtechcyclist: well, exactly – but I don’t like the term “unskilled labor”. Manual labor is manual labor, but it sure ain’t unskilled! You watch undocumented workers installing a floor or harvesting a crop, and they’re just zooming among! They do it right and do it fast. You can’t just replace them with Some Dude.
Chetan Murthy
It’s a fair cop. And IIRC, the Nazis had the same problem: both in the occupied lands, and in the factories staffed with “guest” (slave) workers in The Reich, productivity was for shit. I have a vague memory that even in the first year after the war ended, productivity in France leaped, just -leaped-.
A fair cop.
PatD
It’s good that the TX Dem primary will be over soon and we won’t have to see it get much nastier than it has gotten. I’m a little tired of the insinuations that Talarico is running a racist campaign or that Crocket is just a “media star”. Whoever wins is going to get the benefit of a major backlash so I hope they take the general seriously.
different-church-lady
@Chetan Murthy: Still seems like it would be easier to pay them.
lowtechcyclist
@JoyceH:
Tru dat, and I’m not keen on the term ‘unskilled labor’ myself, which is why I put the scare quotes around ‘unskilled’ because like you say, it’s often far from it.
JoyceH
1965 the A-TEAM pilot program. Stood for Athletes Temporarily Employed As Agricultural Manpower. LOL. Google it – it was a fiasco!
TONYG
@rikyrah:
@rikyrah: Speaking as a white guy (who tries not to be a bigot), I think that it’s necessary to evaluate Trump supporters not on the basis of normal logic, but on the basis of “Racist White Guy Logic”. In that system of “reasoning” the existence of even a single non-white person is viewed as an existential threat. So, for these dumb-asses, even a single non-white person is so scary that any means of violence is legitimate. The fact some of these white dumb-asses rely on non-white immigrants for their businesses presents a dilemma that they are too stupid to understand.
Chetan R Murthy
@different-church-lady: Now where’s the psychic wage in that!
But seriously, your argument is a variation on one made by Sarah C.M. Paine: that rather than conquering peoples, it’s much better to -trade- with them: everybody is better-off, everybody keeps their freedom. And conquering people, by contrast, makes enemies: people who will hate you until the heat death of the universe; it causes wars, and those are negative-sum, whereas trade is positive-sum.
Obviously, I agree with you. But when a man’s got a shriveled [member] and he needs it to stand up and pay attention …..
narya
@rikyrah: they thought it would make it easier to “control” (I.e. exploit) their workers, not lose them.
wjca
A few of them, probably. But with most, it’s a combination blindness and being very, very careful not to even start to think things thru.
They could understand, but they work hard at not doing so. Which, to my mind, is much worse than merely being stupid.
Fair Economist
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno): Actual polling shows Crockett doing infinitesimally less well in the general – about half a point, which is meaningless considering the error margins.
Chetan R Murthy
In _On Bullshit_, Harry Frankfurt explains that because an excellent argument to convince somebody B to believe a proposition X, is that the arguer A sincerely believes it, it follows that if you (A) want to successfully convince someone (B) of some proposition X, then sincerely believing it is an important step. So you’re going to do what it takes, to sincerely believe it.
Separately, salesmen have a saying: “A good salesman doesn’t learn too much about the product; it gets in the way of being sincere with the customer”. I worked with -excellent- salesmen in my time in enterprise IT (I was the guy cleaning up the dumpster fire caused by my company’s products, so the salesmen were very kind to me) and I remember very well, hearing a salesman colleague say to his teammate on the phone:
“M., it’s so hard seeing all these warts and problems with [product name elided]: it makes it so hard to be sincere with the customer.”
I shit you not.
The upshot: these people have an -interest- in not thinking things thru, and hence they do not. It is -precisely- as you say: they’re worse than stupid, they’re -gaslighters-.
p.a.
@wjca: No, they understand very well that a population with fewer, or no, rights compared to the general population, whether de jure or de facto, is a very desirable group to employ. Control is the ultimate issue.
p.a.
@Chetan R Murthy: May be apocryphal: Sir Laurence Olivier on acting: “Sincerity is the key to acting. Once you can fake that, you can have it all.” (paraphrase)
Chetan R Murthy
@p.a.: it’s got at least a thousand fathers.
George Burns — ‘The key to success is sincerity. If you can fake that you‘ve got it made.’
“The most important quality for success in this business is sincerity. As soon as you can fake that, you‘ve got it made.” In 1982 Stanley Fish
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you‘ve got it made. Jean Giraudoux French diplomat, dramatist, & novelist (1882 – 1944)
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you‘ve got it made.” Groucho Mar
ETA: Giradoux in French: Le secret du succès, c’est la sincérité. Une fois que vous pouvez la simuler, vous avez réussi
Old School
@laura:
As the second guest on a Monday night show. Let’s not overstate this.
CBS had more to do with that than Colbert himself.
frosty
@Chetan Murthy: There’s the maybe apocryphal story of B-17 hit by flak which didn’t explode. When they removed the shell, there was a note from a slaveworker saying he couldn’t fight the war, but he could sabotage the munitions.
smike
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno): I early voted today in Tx. Very red area near Austin. The deal in Tx. is, never vote for a republican, even if you think they are nice. Even if they are unopposed. Just. Don’t. And always vote. I will vote D this fall, as well.
Chetan R Murthy
@frosty: First, thank you for this. Second, I googled your text, and found a -number- of hits from places as diverse as HushKit, HistoryNet, and a few other places. So I wonder if maybe the story is true (though, haha, it could be they’re all taking the story from the same false source).
Nikkoboy
Just want to point out a small error in the quoted article. The article says “Ana” Cuellar is running in the 15th Congressional district primary as a Democrat. Her name is Ada Cuellar, no relation to Henry. She graduated from UT med school, interned at Temple University Hospital and earned a law degree for Syracuse University.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
Notice the framing. They’re concerned their labor force will turn against their party. There seems to be no recognition whatever that their party has become – recently if not decades ago – antithetical to their businesses, and that it caused this particular atmosphere. There is also no recognition that these business segments operate by flouting employment law, and their labor force is become disenchanted with their party and possibly with them.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno): That was some time ago. The Ukraine conflict has shown how to apply new tech on the battlefield; some of that tech came from Iran. Iran has built what seems best described as a drone carrier, among its other weapons; this puts them on a far less uneven footing when facing US CVNs. It is no longer at all certain that any conventionally-armed power can defeat a military using these new weapons. Russia’s military machinery may have been pillaged by its various “suppliers” and “custodians,” but its failure in Ukraine comes as much from evolving drone tech as from deficient conventional equipment and stale, predictable tactics. Engagement with Iran is likely to be a bloody, unfortunate affair, whose primary result will almost certainly be further diminution of US global influence.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@laura: Colbert didn’t create any of that. CBS did.
Without CBS’s interference, nobody is talking about any of this.
What else has CBS done lately? Hmmm… fire Colbert
Hire Bari Weiss of Twitter files fame
Ax a story about CECOT
Gut 60 minutes
Texans will take care of themselves I certainly hope. Some of my dearest beloveds call that state home. Paxton as a Senator would be a Lone Star state corruption. Any Democrat running would be an infinitely superior choice.
jonas
@rikyrah: I understand that right now, ICE is basically treating anyone who has claimed asylum over the past couple of years, as well as anyone with TPS, or just whoever looks to be too Hispanic or dark or whatever, as criminals, which is of course outrageous. My point was that there *are* actual laws governing immigration and what constitutes illegal entry and so forth, and that in a normal world, those distinctions would matter.
prostratedragon
@lowtechcyclist:
United Farm Workers (@ufw.bsky.social) posts one or more vignettes every day featuring individual farmworkers describing their jobs or current activities. There is no such thing as unskilled labor.
Chetan R Murthy
@jonas: Also treating anyone who ever committed any infraction, howsoever tiny, whether it was expunged or not, as a criminal and subject to deportation, even if they have a totally legit visa.
jonas
George Costanza: “Jerry? Just remember: It’s not a lie…if you believe it.”
Chetan R Murthy
@jonas: a lovely catch, I had forgotten that.
Balconesfault
@smike: voted first day in Austin.
I keep reminding my Republican brethren that the Republican Party in Texas is out to destroy the public school system. So much so that Abbott went out and primaried everybody who wouldn’t support his voucher program, and as a result we have a voucher program where the State is reimbursing vouchers at a significantly higher rate than they’re paying public school systems to educate kids.
Since they can see the way that Abbott is trying to kill the public school system by a thousand cuts, this is a pathway to get them to realize that a vote for any Republican is going to be a vote to hurt public schools.
For what it’s worth, I voted for Talarico. He entered the race early and has been talking to every outlet that’ll give him time, and he speaks in a way that doesn’t turn off a big chunk of the voters that any Democrat is going to need to win.
Crockett entered the race late, and only after she decided that the gerrymandering was going to make it too difficult to hold on to her House seat.
To which I ask, if a candidate has so little confidence that they can get enough Republicans to cross over to vote for them in the current conditions in their District – or motivate enough people who haven’t been voting to get off their asses – in what world should we expect that candidate to be able to win at the state level?
If Crockett wins the primary of course I will contribute to and work for her in the general. And I don’t know any other Talarico supporter on the Democratic side who won’t do the same.
And I’ll be glad knowing that she will do a much better job of campaigning than Allred did in 2024 – he really was mediocre once he was on the campaign trail, hardly showing up anywhere while just constantly asking for more money. He likes to tout that he did better than Harris in Texas .. but Harris wasn’t running against Ted Cruz, who is universally loathed even by most Republicans I know.
Jay
@laura:
Jasmine Crockett says it’s all fine and good.
bsky.app/profile/cwebbonline.com/post/3mf5f62mxi22d
Balconesfault
As for Colbert, I like him a lot, but he seems to feel some kind of compulsion that he has to snipe at Democratic candidates to maintain his cool or something.
He did it in 2016, constantly talking about how Hillary was just soooo unlikeable, and you know what if somebody keeps shooting that message out to the general public that aren’t hardcore political watchers, it’s going to convince a lot of people that there’s something there.
I think he picked on Hillary that way because there really wasn’t anything about her policies that he found objectionable, and similarly with Biden – so to prove he had some level of street cred he had to hammer on the “old” jokes.
Got to do something to earn that 15 million a year I guess. And therein lies one of the big problems I see across all media these days… The star system paying way too much for the top end, starving off other parts of the media ecosystem.
jonas
@Chetan Murthy: Taber is absolutely correct. This is the Catch-22: Big Ag and building trades desperately need immigrant labor, but their business model is based on those workers being cheap and, esp., exploitable, based on their immigration status. Now, that can mean that they’re undocumented, so you can always threaten them with calling ICE, or they’re legal, but you make sure their visas restrict their employment, they’re more or less at the mercy of their employer if they want to work legally. If workers were given visas or work permits that allowed a certain degree of employment freedom — for example if you don’t like the construction site or packing house you’re working at, you can leave and go apply for a job at WalMart or whatever. But then the “system” breaks down and ag employers will pitch a fit.
I think none of this matters to white supremacists like Miller, though, who have no idea how our economy or anything works. In their minds, they assume strapping young, blue-eyed white lads with Horatio Alger novels in their back pockets will be lining up to prune trees and harvest tomatoes if all the immigrants are gone. Or that somehow they can force Black people back into sharecropping or something. Either way, problem solved, amirite?
Jay
@jonas:
Ever read Grapes of Wrath?
Funny where Cal Ag Labour came from at that time.
Chetan R Murthy
@Jay: “Do Re Mi”
youtube.com/watch?v=uvliRRRuwXM
hotshoe
@Baud:
Slactivist has written convincingly (convincing to me, anyway) that antebellum white christians were not persuaded by biblical arguments that slavery was acceptable to god but rather were invested in locating any fragments of the bible which they believed could relieve them of the sin of wanting to enslave humans.
He quotes Paul Gutacker:
So some people agree — or claim to agree, in order to support their own corrupt desires — that slavery is obviously accepted by god in the bible.
But Slacktivist goes on to write
I am not christian, will never be christian, but even from a distance I can tell the difference between a christian like Slacktivist who works with the whole message of Jesus or a christian-in-name-only like Doug Wilson who is grasping at any biblical-text excuse for his own unrepented sins and unjust actions.
Kathleen
@Balconesfault: I agree. Leftist Kewl Kidism dominates so called “liberal” media especially online. Sometimes – OK, most of the time – I suspect there’s more than that that’s driving their behaviors.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@JoyceH: This reminds me of the term “skill position” in football, usually referring to quarterbacks, wide receivers, and running backs, where linemen and defensive players are considered “unskilled”?!? What utter BS. All positions require skill to be played properly, and as the recent Super Bowl showed, defensive players can utterly dominate a game.
And so, obviously with “unskilled labor”. They’re skilled!! What monumental stupidity to think you can just drop in a warm body into a job and it will be done properly.
Baud
I blame CBS more than Colbert, but if it were Crockett rather than Talarico that got the free extra publicity, I’m confident most of the cool kids on the Internet would be screaming bloody murder.
From what I’ve seen, Crockett and Talarico have both handled this situation like adults.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah in college I worked in an auto parts manufacturer for a summer – light industry mostly plastic parts like headlight and taillights dashboards etc. Mostly I was on my own working a press at my own pace pressing taillights parts together but a couple times they put me on the conveyor belt line and I could not keep up for long. Everyone else on the line would get frustrated.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
wjca
It might be worth mentioning that, routinely, the brightest guys on a football team are . . . the offensive linemen.
Kayla Rudbek
@rikyrah: I should probably ask the chaplain at work if he agrees with Doug Wilson (wouldn’t surprise me, the chaplain absolutely sets my teeth on edge, worse than any Catholic priest I have dealt with in person)
Paul in KY
@hitchhiker: A veritable Solomon he is.
Paul in KY
@piratedan: I wonder if Miller was in that meeting.
Paul in KY
@Another Scott: Well said and true. Grrrrr!!!!
Paul in KY
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno): I think they’re a bit more afraid of Talarico. Now, if you told them the Dem is going to win 100%, which one would you prefer, I think they’d say Talarico.
Ms. Crockett as Sen from Texas would be a complete nightmare, but they seem to think she’s a bit easier to beat in the general election.
Paul in KY
@Chetan Murthy: All the death camps (except for one in Austria) were in the East (Poland). Wonder why that was?
Paul in KY
@Chetan R Murthy: “It’s not a lie if you believe it”. Put it into Latin and that would be on the crests of all marketeers.
And google translate says: ‘Mendacium non est, si credis.’
Paul in KY
@frosty: There were heroic slave workers who fucked things up. Truly heroic, as being found out meant a painful death,
Paul in KY
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): These douchewads are members of the Epstein Class.
taumaturgo
It is said that when capitalists feel their monopolies and chokehold on labor are slipping, fascists and liberals become allies. They understand they could buy half of the workforce to tame the other half demanding justice.
Paul in KY
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Good points. To me, ‘skilled’ position means you handle the football at some point in time and are hopefully ‘skilled’ at not fumbling it.
Miss Bianca
@taumaturgo: It is also said…that facile generalizations about fascists and liberals tend to be so much horseshit.
Bill Arnold
@taumaturgo:
Some socialists do argue that. (If you squint a lot, so did Jonah Goldberg.)
Counterpoint: Beefsteak Nazis
My litmus test is whether or not people are anti-fascist, and to what extent.