Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
Yes, but one would think that this is the kind of thing that would be discussed in those “nonpublic, sensitive, high-stakes” negotiations.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
What caught my eye in recent filings is the accusation that the Salvadorian Government refused to accept female deportees, even going so far as making the US Government return female inmates to the United States.
I can sort of see how this could happen. The original Alien Enemies Act of 1798 only applied to males aged 14 and up. The amended version currently on the books was updated during WWI to include all persons aged 14 and up. Maybe they accidentally cited the 1798 version during negotiations with Bukele. That would only be the second most embarrassing foreign policy blunder this week.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
This really drives home why the Republican Party has been making inroads with blue-collar workers. These guys aren't acting. They talk about bombing the Middle East like it's the group-chat for subcontractors installing a new HVAC unit.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
My completely baseless speculation based only on reading the OP and skimming the Wikipedia page:
The series isn’t actually about violence, at least not thematically. The series is about sexualization, and the violence of the framing narrative serves as a grand metaphor. The series is cathartic because it validates the “ick” that women feel at unwanted sexual attention as being homoousian with physical violence.
Quantumfreakonomics
8d ago
In areas near the border they have border patrol checkpoints where you have to stop the car and roll-down the window to talk to someone. I’ve never had any issues whatsoever, but I’ve also never been through one with somebody who has a strong Mexican accent.
Quantumfreakonomics
8d ago
There is a quirk in United States immigration law. It is illegal to enter the United States without authorization, however, anyone physically present in the United States can apply for asylum. The fact that somebody applied for asylum does not retroactively make their unauthorized entry into the US legal. Even if they do have some level of protection from removal, they are still an illegal immigrant.
Quantumfreakonomics
8d ago
One thing I noticed while reading through the immigration laws is that since Tren De Aragua has been designated as a terrorist organization, all noncitizen members of Tren De Aragua are deportable under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(4)(b). All the Trump administration has to do is prove by clear and convincing evidence (which is a lower standard than beyond a reasonable doubt) that these aliens, legal or not, are members of TDA and they can be deported.
Quantumfreakonomics
8d ago
Because the state’s citizens pay federal income tax that funds these grant programs regardless, so turning down the money is functionally equivalent to funding other states’ education systems at the expense of one’s own
Quantumfreakonomics
9d ago
Likewise, they were all being held on at least probable cause for a crime.
Do we know this? I looked into the court documents and found this in an affidavit:
”While it is true that many of the TdA members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their association with TdA, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
If they are held on probable cause for a first offense, does that count as not having a criminal record?
Quantumfreakonomics
9d ago
The same session of congress that passed the Alien Enemies Act also passed the Alien Friends Act (which expired and is no longer on the books) which authorized the President to deport any alien that “he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations against the government thereof”, so it seems like they contemplated a difference between insidious conduct that just happens to be committed by an alien, and an alien hailing from a hostile foreign nation.
Quantumfreakonomics
9d ago
The court order is a red herring. Trump using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans is illegal because the predicate condition of the act, “whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government,” is not satisfied. Is the assertion that the Venezuelan government is behind the Aurora apartment takeovers?
Quantumfreakonomics
10d ago
The series is worth it alone for the part where Darryl describes his experience with woke counterintelligence training.
That said, I kept waiting for another shoe to drop, and it never did. “Powerful people use their power to have sex with teenage girls,” isn’t exactly the jaw-dropping beyond-the-pale perversion it’s presented as.
Quantumfreakonomics
10d ago
The presumption in the West ever since Augustine is that acts of official power derive their efficacy ex opere operato. The official acts of the president derive their authority not from the president personally, but from the constitution.
Quantumfreakonomics
10d ago
Three possibilities stand out:
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Actually, there are no Epstein files. We already know everything that there is to know (or at least everything that it is possible at this point to know). This is the null hypothesis.
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Epstein was an Israeli intelligence asset, and thus releasing the files would damage US-Israeli relations (I’m sure some of our less-plilosemitic users will gladly explain how exactly this translates into leverage over the Trump Administration).
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The contents of the Epstein files personally implicate Donald Trump.
Quantumfreakonomics
10d ago
Well yeah, omniscient AI will end war by taking over the world, leaving no possible adversaries.
Quantumfreakonomics
11d ago
The Law Courts
That’s a cool-looking building, but I can’t take it seriously as a courthouse
Quantumfreakonomics
14d ago
"But who will till the soil?"
"The slaves"
- Aristophanes, Women in Parliament (391 BC)
Quantumfreakonomics
15d ago
WHAT!?
I knew the franchise had gone downhill, but I didn’t know it had gotten this bad. Apologies to Canada I guess.
Quantumfreakonomics
15d ago
but no one can provide a coherent explanation as to why
I don’t know if they teach about “manifest destiny” in Canadian public schools, but did you ever wonder why the US never went ‘up’ like it did West?
Let’s face it, nobody would ever in a million years make Canada it’s own faction in Civilization games. Really, the logical thing would have been for the United States to annex Canada in the 60s when the British Empire was falling apart. No strong, self-respecting America would allow an independent Canada to exist, just as no strong self-respecting Russia would allow an independent Ukraine to exist. Any coherent nationalist ideology demands the annexation of contiguous homoethnic and co-linguistic territory.
Quantumfreakonomics
17d ago
You’d have to be an idiot to believe that Zelenskyy has a 4% approval rating. Has any wartime leader ever had an approval rating that low? I’m pretty sure even Tsar Nicholas in 1917 would break double digits.
Quantumfreakonomics
20d ago
Imagine Israel-Palestine, but with even more salience to the American culture war.
Quantumfreakonomics
21d ago
The core problem is that yeah, the general public is stupid. You can’t build your political ideology around asking the voters what they want. For one, they don’t know how things work. Their opinions are not constrained by the laws of reality. For another, the opinions of the public are ephemeral. The average voter cares little about policy qua policy. They only care about whatever thing is going on in their media sphere. Have you ever once pulled up the most recent edition of the Federal Register to see what newly-promulgated regulations the government is issuing? Have you ever once commented upon — or even just read — a notice of proposed rulemaking on Regulations.gov? Probably not, because you don’t actually care about that stuff, and neither does anyone else in the general public. The average voter has no opinion on (checks today’s edition of the FR) what the proper licensing regime for the 6 gigahertz radio frequency band should be. If tomorrow everyone suddenly had an opinion on that for some reason, it wouldn’t be because of any personal reasoning or thought, it would be because someone they trust told them what to think.
Quantumfreakonomics
21d ago
Scenario 4: EPA gives to San Francisco a permit saying that (1) SF can't discharge untreated sewage into the ocean, because that might cause the ocean to become polluted, and (2), if the ocean becomes polluted, SF will be punished. SF obeys the discharge restriction. If the ocean becomes polluted later on (due to the actions of some entity other than SF, or due to changes in ocean currents), SF can be punished by EPA for that pollution, in the amount of multiple billions of dollars, even though it did nothing wrong.
I don’t think this is the right interpretation of what is happening here. If San Francisco discharges no untreated sewage at all, then they can not be punished for the quality of the water, because they would not be contributing any pollutants to it.
This is sort of nitpicky and pedantic because no city discharges literally zero pollutants, but it makes more sense than you’re giving credit in the regulatory scheme of the Clean Water Act. There is a general prohibition on the discharge of all pollutants (33 U.S.C. 1311(a)) unless specifically exempted or permitted.
Quantumfreakonomics
23d ago
Tactical air strikes on their forward positions and supply convoys. Russia would just lose. The much-feared Russian tank rush has been proven to be a meme.
You left out the most ambitious crossover event since the Avengers
Actually, after browsing Aella’s current timeline, I think it might be finally over for 3D women this time. Sure, real Aella is attractive, but Ghibli Aella is an absolute smoke show.
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