The Frankish Reich

These are my convictions, and apparently they would constitute a hate crime for these MAGAs: 1. The October 7 attack on Israel and Israelis was horrific. It was organized by Hamas, the de facto government of Gaza. Israel's goal to eliminate Hamas was part of its inherent right to self-defense. 2. While many IDF attachs in Gaza are therefore justified, Israel has engaged in targeting of civilian sites without clear links to Hamas militants or leadership, and these attacks violate the rules of war.

Bad choice of photos since Melania no doubt has serious heels on and Barron is, well, freakishly tall

Standing next to Danny DeVito and Michael J. Fox will do that for you.

Yes, the Biden DEI/LGBTQ initiatives were an overreach. It would be perfectly acceptable for the new administration to rescind them (they did). But it is at least as bad - I'd say worse - to now attempt to mandate that universities ensure "viewpoint diversity" (read: conservative) in their faculties/students. That is precisely one of the demands the Trump Administration is making. Do we need "viewpoint diversity" on the faculty of a Catholic college? Are they required to hire/recruit, for example, pro-abortion rights scholars? This is obviously a bridge too far, and a serious infringement on 1st Amendment rights. Harvard is quite correct to do what their lily-livered Ivy sisters (including the barely-Ivy Penn) refused to do: fight on the merits.

And again, even underwater by a couple points in polling by the most favorable pollster, Rasmussen.

I get the confusion, because media reports - largely stemming from interest group/White House spin - have been so poor. We need to separate this guy, Abrego-Garcia, from all the other cases. There is a critical distinction in his case: Trump's Department of Justice, acting through the appointed officials, decided that Abrego-Garcia cannot be deported to El Salvador because he would likely face persecution there. That order remains intact. I'm not sure if Trump's DHS sought further review of that decision, but at any rate, that was a final order of his Attorney General at the time. That's why the new Trump Administration has admitted that he was removed to El Salvador by administrative error. It's not like he has a right to be free from custody in the USA. If he was released from custody (under Trump or Biden or both), well, that was likely a discretionary decision. And the new Trump Administration can go back to the court to ask them to "reopen" and change that decision based on major changes in El Salvador in the last few years, arguing that he no longer has any reason to fear being there. We can also ship him off to any other country that will take him, just not El Salvador unless/until that final order is overturned. But ignoring the court orders and throwing up your hands and saying "sorry, nothing we can do" is shameful. He is in prison in El Salvador based on a program in which the U.S. pays El Salvador to house people deported from the United States. We need to make our best efforts to "facilitate" his return, not pretend that we are suddenly powerless to do anything.

From a poster on the Know-Nothing thread: So ... are universities require to comply with any administration's interpretations of civil rights laws? It strikes me that this is exactly the point Biden's opponents were making: that there is freedom of choice/expression that cannot/should not be controlled by whatever a particular president decides.

Even Rasmussen's tracker has Trump underwater now. And 43% say the country is heading in the right direction. To ask that question is to answer it.

Don't feed the troll. A real conversation will be found in the Fight Fiercely, Harvard thread. Thanks.

Way to bury the lede ... https://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/story/news/2025/04/15/trump-approval-rating-2025-latest-us-polls/83095426007/

Unless you're Evander Holyfield. Sorry, China is winning. Trump will be reduced to eat biting soon.

Finally, an institution with huevos.

Well well well, look who suddenly bought a bunch of tech stocks just before “the pause” https://www.businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-purchased-stock-trump-tariff-pause-2025-4

Looks like a really reliable source you found there. (Except you didn't "find" it; it was pushed out to you by some algorithm that has identified you as an eager consumer of garbage.) NCRI? I can find either National Council of Resistance in Iran or a sketchy National Contagion Research Institute. Never hear of either one. Take your pick.

That too. And I'm pretty sure you can rearrange the letters in his name to spell V-O-L-D-E-M-O-R-T (I have kids, I've read/watched way too much Harry Potter)

Or the inverse, which seems more on point here: Trumpists want to lower corporate taxes and substitute regressive consumer taxes in the form of tariffs. All economists except Peter Retarrdo have already told them, over and over again.

What nonsense. Trump is either telling him not to cooperate or broadly signaling it, including in the briefs he's having DOJ file. He would be returned the way he left - in U.S. custody.

It's not. It's sadly the truth. Unwanted children don't have a great chance in life.

The whole thing is worth reading: https://www.molsonhart.com/blog/america-underestimates-the-difficulty-of-bringing-manufacturing-back Here's just one part about the American worker, a little reality check: Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better. In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do. Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills. And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that. Think about that when we talk about moving high-tech manufacturing to a place like JD Vance's Ohio or Kentucky.

Wait 20 years and he won't be so cute when he's on meth.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-vietnam-sign-agreements-supply-chains-railway-cooperation-2025-04-14/ well that’s working out well….

Setting fire to Teslas in an unoccupied commercial space: bad Setting fire to Governor’s official residence while occupied by Gov and his family on Passover: really, really bad. Was that difficult? Moral distinctions do exist.

Did it list any HBP meds that would lower his heart rate rate? Incidentally, recall that Trump believes we are each given a certain number of heart beats in a lifetime, such that aerobic exercise uses them up early …

He may have ostensibly lost weight since the start of his first term, but remember: he's gained at least 10 lbs since that famous booking photo self-reported weight. And seriously: I find that resting heart rate of 61 to be total bs. Overweight 78 year old who does not aerobic exercise of any type with a 61 heart rate?

I would say it is a purely regional/Trump base concern, but then again it's not like some Kamala Harris is suddenly going to win Kentucky. So I've wondered the same thing. My best guesses now? 1. Reaction to the renewable energy agenda - a reflexive "own the libs" like the pickup trucks rigged to spout black smoke. 2. Simple nostalgia. Manufacturing jobs were big when coal-fired plants were big, thus coal = when America was great.