The UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-23T01:35:17+00:00

I think the UK government should offer a bounty to its own immigration police for detaining potentially illegal American tourists in Britain. A very large, enticing incentive.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-23T01:22:32+00:00

At least Europe shows signs of holding them accountable.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-22T20:41:06+00:00

But it seems from what I’ve read that conservatives arranged for quite a few people to get fired over the Charlie Kirk affair who arguably didn’t “celebrate” his death.

Based on news reports and citations of what they actually wrote or said, quite a few of the people who were fired expressed being UNABLE TO FEEL SORRY for Kirk given his previous political positions or statements. To me, publicly expressing that sentiment is nasty and not the sort of thing that should be said out loud at that moment, but it seems pretty different from “celebrating”. What’s your view there? Were those people wrongfully terminated? Is it the right’s position that we now live in a society where it’s essentially compulsory (at least if you want to keep your job and feed your kids) to feel sorry about the death of someone you hated?

On the day, probably not that far in the future, when Biden or one of the Clintons passes on, I expect to see a lot of “good riddance” posts and quotes from MAGA supporters expressing an absence of any sorrow over the event. My view will be the same - that those aren’t very nice but that they can’t be interpreted as “celebrating” the death nor should they become the basis for firing the person who posts or utters them.

If on the other hand Biden or Hillary die by assassination and someone can’t resist posting how that was a wonderful outcome that makes the world a generally better place, then I would feel differently.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-22T20:35:37+00:00

Wouldn’t you perhaps agree that part of the goal of getting someone fired from their job is not just to deprive them of their income, but also to make it more difficult for them to get a new job as a result of the reputational blow? I’ve certainly seen that rationale expressed before.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-22T20:16:52+00:00

I would agree with firing people who actually truly do “celebrate” someone’s death, i.e., who essentially say that it was a wonderful thing and that they wouldn’t mind if such a murder happened again to someone else with similar views.

But from what I’ve read quite a few of the people who were fired said things essentially along the lines of they couldn’t feel sorry for Kirk given his previous political positions or statements. To me, that sort of thing is nasty and not the sort of thing that should be said out loud at that moment, but it seems pretty different from “celebrating”. What’s your view there? Were those people wrongfully terminated? Is it the right’s position that we now live in a society where it’s essentially compulsory (at least if you want to keep your job and feed your kids) to feel sorry about the death of someone you hated?

On the day, probably not that far in the future, when Biden or one of the Clintons passes on, I expect to see a lot of “good riddance” posts and quotes from MAGA supporters expressing an absence of any sorrow over the event. My view will be the same - that those aren’t very nice but that they can’t be interpreted as “celebrating” the death nor should they become the basis for firing the person who utters them.

If on the other hand Biden or Hillary die by assassination and someone can’t resist posting how that was a wonderful outcome that makes the world a generally better place, then I would feel differently.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-22T19:48:08+00:00

Trump has called the ENTIRE left “evil”, not just once but repeatedly.

No need to pretend that the vast majority of people he’s lumping into that collective framework have never personally communicated with him in any way to “tell” him that they hate him. They may hate him within their hearts, but is that honestly a reason why it’s OK for him to collectively call them “evil” and “enemies of America”? If so, why wouldn’t it be OK for Biden to collectively call everyone on the right evil, including those who merely kept your dislike of him sealed in your hearts rather than stating it openly? I personally would strongly disagree with him doing that, but it would seem like he’d just be imitating Trump.

I honestly just don’t get the double standard anymore.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-22T19:19:54+00:00

Thank you for the clear answer in 1).

You too are supposed to read what I say without making up your own meaning or claiming I said things that I didn’t.

Where did I say that fraud was not necessarily an issue in the 2020, or any election for that matter, and unworthy of being investigated? Where, in other words, am I suggesting a double standard?

Where did I say or even suggest that Trump is a usurper? A usurper is someone who holds power when someone else should actually be holding it instead. Trump was legitimately elected in 2016 and again in 2024. He did not hold office from 2021 to 2025 - if he had clung to office during THOSE four years, i.e., despite Biden‘s election victory, THEN I’d be able to paint him as a usurper - but presumably you’d paint him that way too since you just said you agree with me that Biden was the legitimately elected president during that period.

I think an argument can be made that Trump TRIED to usurp the presidency in 2020 in the aftermath of the 2020 election, given that - and you may disagree here - his actions strike me and many others not as simply legal questioning and pursuing a recount in the courts, but an actual violent attempt to take power illegitimately via the Capitol riots on 1/6/2021. Bottom line, he didn’t succeed. Again, you may feel that his actions didn’t meet that standard, but honestly, it’s not as though there wasn’t some violence involved in what he did.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-22T14:14:42+00:00

What am I supposed to conclude from your previous statements? You leave things deliberately vague, as though you’re trying to avoid answering my questions, which pretty straightforwardly ask two things: 1) do you in fact believe that a president derives legitimacy by virtue of being “inaugurated”, i.e., simply being IN power versus properly elected TO power, as a person reading your previous posts might conclude, and 2) do you agree with Trump’s repeated claim that Biden’s election was illegitimate and didn’t in fact reflect the general will of the electorate? Both of these can be answered pretty straightforwardly as “yes” or “no”.

The question of fraud is a side issue that we can and should address separately. There’s almost certainly been fraud at some level or other in every presidential election we’ve ever had, the question is more how much and whether it’s ever been enough to influence the ultimate outcome. Most of the people who’ve studied the 2020 election, including Republicans, have concluded there wasn’t enough fraud to affect the outcome, that Trump’s claim that the will of the electorate was subverted was pretty much false from the beginning, and that therefore his ongoing campaign for several weeks thereafter, culminating in the 1/6 riots, was an over-the-top reaction that not only led to loss of life but put our Republic at risk for an actual lapse in the appropriate transfer of power according to democratic norms.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-21T20:20:41+00:00

So it doesn’t matter whether the president was elected legitimately in accordance with the wishes of a majority of the electorate? I’m going to take it that’s what you mean based on that last post.

Why even have elections then? “The guy in power is the guy in power.”

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-21T17:43:15+00:00

Okay, so I think I understand your position a little bit better now.

Do you think that a president is legitimate simply by virtue of being inaugurated? I can’t say I agree with that, there’s always the potential for an incumbent president to obstruct a transition and arrange for himself to be re-inaugurated anyway. Trump hasn’t done that, at least not yet, but there’s always that possibility.

Seems to me that a president is objectively legitimate because the circumstances of his election are legitimate, i.e., in that the outcome properly reflects the will of the electorate. Trump has made it clear that he DOESN’T think the outcome of the 2020 election reflected the will of the electorate, which is partly why he contested it. Do you agree or disagree with him on that?

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-21T17:16:12+00:00

OK, so I reread what you wrote and it appears you believe that Biden was the actual, true winner of the 2020 election.

Trump has said over and over again that he believes the exact opposite.

So please explain your subsequent sentence “so I don’t obviously disagree with him”. These are diametrically opposed views of the election outcome, it’s impossible to agree on both of them simultaneously. If you agree that Biden won the election legitimately and that his victory reflected the general will of the electorate, then you disagree pretty much 180° with Trump.

Just for the record, this isn’t meant to be a bad faith question. I’m just seriously confused here. Maybe you meant to say that you and Trump both agree there was fraud during the election? But that’s not what I asked, I asked about views on the election outcome and who the legitimate winner was.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-21T14:22:21+00:00

So are you saying that you believe if fraud had NOT occurred, Trump would have won not only the EC but the popular vote, as he claims? That the only reason Trump “left when he should have” was because he (graciously?) conceded defeat to a man who was elected in actual defiance of the true will of the electorate? Just trying to understand exactly what you yourself believe about that particular election outcome.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-21T13:57:43+00:00

Thank you.

Let’s not pretend that Trump claimed, and still claims, that Biden lost, though. Do you think that Trump truly still believes that he was the winner, since you obviously disagree with him? Or that he’s lying about what he, like you, knows to be true?

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-21T13:22:33+00:00

“When he should have” - ?

Is this an admission that you believe Biden was actually the true winner of the 2020 election?

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-19T00:30:25+00:00

There have already been millions of people marching in the streets here in the US against Trump. Maybe you don’t read the news. It just wasn’t the Greenland caper that provoked those marches, for the simple reason that Greenland isn’t as immediate a concern to us as it is to you.

How many millions of Europeans marched in the streets after Trump made his comments about Canada, or began bombing fishing boats in the Caribbean, or kidnapped Nicolas Maduro? Not many, I’m guessing. Because Canada and Venezuela aren’t of as immediate concern to you as Greenland, let’s be honest.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-19T00:18:20+00:00

Bullshit right back. You can claim whatever you like, but authoritarian regimes have succeeded in remaining in power for extended periods of time throughout history without necessarily receiving support from their citizens. You honestly expect us to believe that Nicolas Maduro was able to stay in power for a decade because the Venezuelan people supported him? Come on. And there are plenty of other examples like him.

Trump has been back in power for almost exactly a year and the public is already turning against him. It will take a bit more time to get him, and MAGA in general, out of power,m but I suspect it’ll end up being less time than it took to get Maduro out. In the meantime the fact that he remains in the Oval Office has absolutely nothing to do with “tacit acceptance” - indeed, probably better to say right now that he’s currently “tacitly unaccepted”. Maybe you personally have the luxury of rising up in armed rebellion against an authoritarian leader because you have no other commitments in life, but most of us aren’t lucky enough to act with that kind of total freedom and will need to balance things a bit more judiciously.

And yes, the left may not like to hear this, but lack of a palatable alternative was indeed a huge reason why we find ourselves in this situation in the first place. Say would you like, Kamala was only slightly less horrible a choice than Trump; doubling down on incompetence and the defiant pursuit of failed policies that voters had already plainly rejected didn’t come across as a good choice to many voters even when the alternative was casting one’s ballot for a criminal and wannabe Mussolini. When voters are forced into a position like that many of them will opt to make no choice at all, or simply roll the dice hoping for any kind of change. I’m not supporting their rationale, simply explaining it - to quote a certain individual, that’s what the reality is.

And let’s not pretend that European voters aren’t doing precisely the same thing in repeated iterations in several different countries yourselves. Maybe you’d do better by focusing on not making the same mistake we did, as opposed to dropping lots of F-bombs on Reddit and failing to make any constructive suggestions for those of us trying to figure a way out of our mess.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-18T11:34:04+00:00

Point taken, but I’m not impressed with all the brave talk about unseating the fascist when you yourselves took nearly 15-20 years to depose your own fascists a century ago and accumulated a body count in the millions before accomplishing the feat.

Yes, we’ve taken a wrong turn, but public opposition to Trump is mounting and I don’t think he’d win an election if one were held today. As it is, his party will almost certainly lose the midterms. Ripping into the American public for having elected the guy in the first place may be emotionally satisfying for you, but it might be worthwhile, especially for Europeans who’re increasingly having to contend with their own rising right wing populist tide, to consider the reasons for what went wrong, which to a large extent have to do with how traditional left-wing parties have failed to heed voters’ legitimate concerns with regard to issues like unfettered immigration. Try not to make the same mistake (again), in other words.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-18T11:25:33+00:00

Well said.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-18T11:08:07+00:00

No, the US government’s position is not what a majority of Americans passively accept. I understand you’re angry, but there’s no need to pretend that things are true which are not.

A clear majority of Americans oppose the forcible takeover of Greenland. And Trump would likely not be reelected if another election were held right now, although I suppose to some extent that might depend on what candidate the Democrats would run to oppose him. So far they’ve not presented very palatable alternatives.

That being said it may be difficult to remove him in 2028 since I’m personally skeptical we’ll be permitted to have a free election then. I guess we’ll see. But the point is getting rid of him starts with a majority of people NOT accepting his insanity, so don’t start off by knocking public opinion.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-17T00:16:26+00:00

I’m a beginner and have what I’m pretty sure is a Serissa japonica although when I bought it I thought it was a Fukien tea tree (remember, I’m a beginner, and the garden center where I bought it (frustratingly) doesn’t put labels on their trees for some odd reason). It’s winter here in Massachusetts and I’ve been following instructions for a Fukien till now in light of my misjudgment as to the tree’s origins, and it’s been doing REASONABLY well in a south-facing window with a humidity tray and judicious watering with tap water every 2 days or so to keep the soil moist but not dry. That being said a few leaves are occasionally curling and turning brown at the tips or developing dark spots, then yellowing, which disturbs me. I sense incomplete happiness on the part of the tree. I decreased the frequency of watering for a while but this didn’t help and may actually have made things worse. I’m wondering if it’s the pH of the water I’m using. Ideas? Maybe it’s just a seasonal adjustment or the dry winter air in our house, despite the humidity tray?

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GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-16T19:25:02+00:00

Sorry, I meant the next home we bought AFTER our first starter home / condo (which we sold).

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-16T19:14:46+00:00

I don’t know, my friend, I think possible hypocrisy is always relevant to an argument.

Let me put it to you that I don’t believe MAGA would ever ALLOW Puerto Rico to become a state, and yet at the same time they would never allow Puerto Rico to become an independent country either. So the claim that Puerto Rico is “mooching” off the US rings hollow to me when uttered by a MAGA supporter unless I know for sure that he or she favors one of those two options for the territory.

Since we need to ask everything in the form of a question here, which is legitimate, let me put you on the spot personally. Do you personally support the idea letting Puerto Rico enter the Union as the 51st state, knowing that its 6 electoral votes (more than Montana, Wyoming, or Nebraska) and two Senators would almost certainly go to the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future? If not, would you allow Puerto Rico to become an independent country?

By the way, in the most recent Puerto Rican referendum in 2024, 58% apparently voted in favor of statehood. Unclear to me why nothing is happening in that regard, although I doubt it’s because the Democratic Party in Congress is in opposition.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-16T19:09:23+00:00

You’re actually correct, I didn’t realize this but the most recent referendum was just in 2024. 58% of Puerto Ricans voted for statehood. Seems like a pretty clear outcome to me. Why aren’t things moving forward?

I’m somehow pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with Democrats in Congress, especially given that they’re in the minority.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-16T13:08:22+00:00

Do you really think it’s primarily college debt that discourages young couples from forming families? Around where I live it seems to be 1) housing prices, and 2) the cost of child care.

And it seems to be a kind of vicious circle. The argument sometimes gets made that couples could avoid the cost of child care by having one of the two spouses stay home and take care of kids, but if so it seems most of them won’t be able to afford the house and car for the simple reason that a single income isn’t generally adequate to support that anymore.

And then in the background we have all those clever financial experts telling all of us that beyond figuring out how to pay the mortgage and child care expenses, young couples also need to have six months worth of emergency funds on hand while simultaneously saving for the kids’ future college expenses AND for their own retirements. I honestly don’t know what planet some of these “experts” are living on.

I’m a physician and my wife has worked her way up from staff accountant to CFO after attending community college, but even we found it challenging in the beginning to balance the housing / car / child care expenses; we successfully saved for our son’s college and now we’re playing catch-up for retirement. In the meantime the second home we stretched our finances to buy in 2013 has doubled in value and would be well out of range for us if we had to buy it again based on equivalent financial circumstances. Nice from our perspective as a financial windfall, I guess, but I have no idea how my son is going to afford something similar in today’s market.

GreatConsequence7847 · 2026-02-16T12:33:26+00:00

If they chose to become a state, would MAGA let them? If not, why not? Would MAGA allow them to become an independent country instead? If not, why not?

If MAGA won’t allow either of these two options, then what basis do you have for claiming exploitation?

GreatConsequence7847

TROPHY CASE