stevenkesslar

The other thing that's genius is the sort of good cop/bad cop strategy that is emerging. Biden will let the prosecutors, and even the Never Trump Republicans, be the heavies on indictments. And on Trump's general criminality, pathological lies, and contempt for democracy. Or, you could actually call it a good news/bad news strategy. Trump embodies the bad news. While Biden simply states what the good news is. Here's a sneak peek of election 2024.

Then again, getting NATO directly involved after Vlad bombs NATO ships could lead to World War III. Oops! Russian wheat exports were up 36 % last year. So part of the reason the rumors of the demise of Vlad's Russia were premature is he is making lots of money on food and energy exports. He's helping to create and sustain inflation in both commodities, and profiting from it., too. Clever guy! African Union calls on Russia to reinstate Ukrainian grain deal A recent study projected a famine in the Horn of Africa that will impact tens of millions in three African nations alone. They are suffering from a combination of drought and Putin's war. For what it's worth, I think Russia and China suck at soft power. I've read countless stories about how Europeans think Vlad wants them to freeze to death. And Africans have good reason to think Vlad wants them to starve to death. This can't be helping Russia, and indirectly China, in the long run. That said, desperate people do desperate things. in the short term, it is funding Vlad's war and crippling Ukraine. Given the declining Republican support for simply sending weapons to Ukraine - which US corporations make a lot of money on and which employs US workers - it's a no brainer that Biden won't be looking for ways to get NATO directly involved in the run up to an election. Trump will argue Biden essentially started the war. And he'll work it out with Vlad in no time at all. Probably a day or so. 🤫 If you want to watch something really depressing, watch this YouTube video that's a little over an hour: John Mearsheimer Ukraine Salon Mearsheimer thinks Putin has the upper hand, for three reasons. It's a war of attrition. He has more soldiers. More artillery. And more capacity to strangle Ukraine economically, as we are seeing. Mearsheimer is an awesome strategic thinker who has been saying some things for decades that have aged well. First, he's a hawk on China, arguing it would not rise peacefully. Because that's not what great powers do. Second, he's a dove on most other US wars: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. He argued democracies suck as occupying forces. Third, he was the odd man out arguing decades ago that Ukraine should keep their nukes as deterrence. Then, like George Kennan and Clinton's Defense Secretary, among others, he argued we really were poking the bear. In his case he says this all really started with our post-2008 NATO expansion plans. He preferred Bernie in 2020 (because of his focus on income inequality) and thinks Trump is a blundering disaster. But he also clearly sees this war as Biden's folly. The best counter argument I've heard, from Edward Luttwak recently for example, is that both Putin and Biden have strategic interests to settle this. While Putin has juggled the Russian war economy well, and it has shrunk way less than was promised, that can't last forever. Meanwhile, Biden (and The Blob) want to focus on China. Implicit in this thinking is the idea that there are alternatives to driving Xi and Vlad into each other's arms. Even though they are two of the nicest guys around, of course. 😉 I also think Mearsheimer underestimates Vlad's problems. He thinks Vlad will double down and go for four more Ukrainian oblasts eventually - meaning all eight ones that primarily speak Russian. Including Odesa and all the ones along the Black Sea. And that Vlad will have to spend a decade or two absorbing that before he can think about moving on to Kyiv, the Baltic states, or Poland. Maybe. But over 80 % of every oblast except Crimea voted NOT to be part of Russia. So I suspect Vlad knows that he could have a new Afghanistan on his hand. And what's left of Ukraine would be the equivalent of Pakistan. Where it is all too easy to cross a border to go find Russians to kill. Then again, it worked in Chechnya. Vlad may find the prospect irresistible. If anyone wants to watch an hour of Mearsheimer I'm curious if others think he is right or wrong.

Conversely, if the Republican Party doesn't want to be seen as racist, sexist, or homophobic, they should elect leaders who makes laws that are NOT sexist, racist, or homophobic. This is off topic from Third Party and Manchin. But since we're talking about the election, generally, that's one of the interesting things about the GOP these days. We're seeing both the worst of the MAGA Trump Party, and the best of a multi-racial post-Trump Republican Party all at once. Now that former RNC Chair Michael Steele has gone full on MSNBC, he talks about things like the Tim Scot/Nikki Haley project. Steele himself was elevated by the Republicans as a reaction to Obama. And facilitating South Carolina electing an Indian American female conservative Governor, and a Black male conservative House member and then Senator, was part of Steele's vision of a new GOP in Obama's America. I give Kevin McCarthy credit for continuing that. He says he's the guy who made it a priority to recruit conservatives who were not all White men to run for the House in 2020 and 2022. It worked. As a Democrat, I think it helps depolarize race and makes both parties pay more attention to what non-Whites want. Of course, it has now come to my attention that it's "racist" for Democrats to study or care about what Blacks want, since we don't have that racism stuff anymore. It was only a few years ago that Tim Scott would show up on Trevor Noah and say, convincingly, one thing he won't do is hold back on calling out racism when he sees it. And he did, in a very funny way, when Trump had his 2020 Proud Boys moment. Now that he is running for POTUS, he calls out Obama because Democrats use race as a political weapon to control Blacks. Huh? Nikki is not campaigning on how she took down the Confederate flag to unify and heal. Why am I not surprised ? Trump always manages to throw any debate and anyone involved in it into the gutter. My hope has been that Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are two of the leaders who help build the post-Trump Republican Party in 2028. So I suspend disbelief and think even good people just say dumb shit like that during campaigns. Chicago and South Carolina have historically been two of the most racist places in America. So one litmus test I have is that if America can elect a Black Democrat from Illinois and a Black Republican from South Carolina POTUS based on the content of their character, we're making good progress. The Democrats nominated Obama, despite the fact that he was a nobody running against the Clinton machine. Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are way back in the dust behind the two White guys moaning about critical race theory. It's early days, of course. But the GOP has not persuaded me that America is done with that whole racism thing. There is good news. As I promised, another White guy has arrived to save America. Woo hoo! Shucks. Thanks, Joe. You're swell.

I'm not gonna disagree with a word you said. But I ain't gonna disagree with Jim Carville when he says "It's the economy, stupid," either. The fact that the economy was still recovering from a 1991 recession in 1992 is widely credited with helping Clinton's win. And dare I mention many, including many Democrats, see Bill as a predator? None of the other adjectives apply. Although I know some purist Gays who view Clinton's actions in the 90's as essentially anti-LGBTQ. I'm obviously hoping 2024 is more like 1984. By election day, the economy and stock market were widely perceived as in rapid recovery. Even if we have a mild recession (Europe is technically in the most mild of recessions right now) I'm also hoping that given the choice between 10 % inflation and a mild recession that is deflationary, Americans might not be so sour about a brief and shallow recession. If it makes the pain in their pocketbook stop. By my count the last time a POTUS was re-elected during a recession was 1948. It perhaps mattered that by that point the even more painful post-WWII inflation had been tamed. Biden is compared to Truman a lot. This could be one more similarity. Since it's been suggested I rely too much on polls and should get around more, I'll add some anecdotal things about how this plays out in my family. It actually fits very well with the national picture about the college educated versus the "poorly educated," to quote Trump. My Dad was a mainstream Republican. Before he died he told one of my brothers he regretted voting for Trump. Who he basically viewed as less bad than Hillary. Of his six kids, three consistently lean left and three lean right. Of the three on the left, the only really interesting thing is how emphatic my brother who I'd call a Bloomberg moderate Democrat was about how Trump needed to be shot by somebody in 2020. I'm usually the outspoken liberal. And even I would never say something like that. But I think it accurately reflected just how much moderate educated professionals despised Trump by the time COVID broke out. The three right of center voters were interesting. One, who I'd call a McCain Republican, voted for Trump in 2016 based on his conservative economic views. By 2020 he was also outspoken about what a "megalomaniac" Trump was. He made a point of letting me know he voted for Biden in 2020. I asked him if he had only voted on the economy, who would he have supported? He immediately answered Trump. I asked why. He immediately said, "My retirement account." I asked why he voted for Biden, then. He said, "Because Trump's a megalomaniac." He's also a college educated White professional. So he fits right into the broad national political pattern. He's a poster child for your argument. He despises Trump. A second brother who is essentially the same voted for Trump in 2016. I'm guessing he voted for Trump again in 2020, but I haven't asked. If he did, it would have been a reluctant vote. Since he doesn't like Trump's anti-democracy antics, either. And he lives in a solid red state, anyway. The interesting conversation I had with him during Trump's Presidency is I asked him what he thought about the idea that Trump voters are racist. He pointed out something I of course knew. Which is that he has a Black son-in-law and a grandchild most people would call Black. Like me, he likes Tim Scott. So he does not consider himself racist. He's also college educated. My one sister, who is not college educated, also followed the national pattern. She does not recall voting in 2016. But she definitely recalls voting for Trump in 2020. My two right of center brothers can clearly articulate conservative economic policy as why they voted for Trump in either 2016 or 2020, despite their misgivings about his personality. When I asked my sister why she voted for Trump, she basically went into a long anti-Black Lives Matter rant. She obviously saw those ads Trump ran with fires and scary images of Black protestors. Non-college educated White women were a real source of strength for Trump in 2020. I pushed back a little about why I like BLM, but she was politely not buying. Here's how I view where my sister fits in to America 2023. My first real political experience was the six months I spent as a volunteer helping to get Chicago's first Black Mayor elected back in the 80's. That was basically a race war. I was assaulted once handing out flyers by some White guy. The even more sinister thing is some nice looking White woman came up to me and whispered in my ear, "You are a traitor to your race." That shit actually happened back then. At the 2020 RNC Tim Scott eloquently spoke about how he could get elected because of a "change in the Southern heart." He was almost 100 % right. But he could have mentioned the "Northern heart" as well. Happily, after redistricting, my sister's US Rep is Lauren Underwood, one of my favorite Democrats. Having grown up in the Chicago suburbs, there is no way in hell a soft-spoken Black nurse like Underwood could have been elected in predominantly White Chicago suburbs when I was a kid. Or for most of my adult life. My sister won't even know who she is, if she votes in 2024. If she does read up about Underwood, she probably wouldn't vote for her, anyway. But Underwood will probably win her third term, easily. So mostly I view this as progress. Even if it is two steps forward, one step back. The one I have the hardest time with is one of my sister's daughter, who I really enjoy traveling with. And I learned pretty quickly that there's no upside to talking politics at all. She's college educated, very successful, a true Republican (no RINO's, please), loves her Gay uncle, and is not a racist. If I ask her what she thinks about Tim Scott, she responds with, "What do you think of Candace Owens?" I'm blunt. So I say I think she's a divisive Black conservative flamethrower. Whereas Scott actually wants to unify people, be POTUS, and could win. That's pretty much where the discussion ends. So it's not just older voters who didn't go to college. To me, Owens is a perfect example of someone who gives my niece permission to believe what she reads in far right wing media. Democrats want to let murderers run free, basically. I don't want to ask, because I don't want to hear the answer. But I'm pretty sure she'd argue that things like CRT are basically about indoctrinating as many White kids as possible, and psychologically damaging any child with the audacity to disagree. It's a very long way from The Audacity Of Hope, sadly. She'll vote for Trump. But she lives in Kentucky. Until a year ago, she did live in Ohio. In late 2022 she told me her Republican Governor was a RINO, so she was glad his term had ended. Call me an asshole. But I pointed out that Mike DeWine was actually re-elected, by a roughly 2 to 1 margin. Like John Kasich, I said, he barely won the first time around. But he worked hard enough at compromising that he managed to pick up lots of Democrats to win re-election in a landslide. This is not information she knew, or particularly wanted to hear. Better to stick to the margaritas. There's one other thing about willful ignorance I'll underline, because it goes to your point about "over-extending the use of their brain cell." Point taken. But we're talking about the wrong organ, I believe. To me, it's an example of the point I've beaten to death in other threads about how The Gays won by using our hearts, not heads. And fostering empathy over common values - like love and commitment. My niece complains bitterly and sincerely that she can't openly discuss her views among Gay and liberal friends. A few of whom I've met. But if you're going to call Mike DeWine a RINO, not have a clue why he wins, ignore Tim Scott, and mostly focus on whatever Candace Owens and all the other flame throwers say to divide, you really can't be too surprised or bitter about that. It's willful ignorance, disguised as knowledge. I'll end where I started. I'm not going to disagree with a word you said. My point, using my family as a compass, is that Trump would of course win in a landslide if it were just older White women and men without college degrees. And I understand how they resent being seen as racists or homophobes. Most of them are a lost cause. And from talking to some in my own family I know why. I'm glad within my family we can actually talk about these things, mostly respectfully. I'm hoping the economy is good enough, and Democrats' messaging about the economy is good enough, to offset my brothers' impulses to vote for Trump simply because they vote Republican. And he's a Republican. Although it doesn't matter, really. Since none of us live in a swing state. To wind it back into the topic of the thread, putting Manchin on the ticket would give my two right of center brothers an easy reason to NOT vote for Biden. One will vote for Biden for sure, unless he has the option to vote for someone like Manchin. The other was so turned off by Jan. 6th that he probably won't vote for Trump again. But Manchin on the ballot gives him a good reason to not even think about Biden. So they're both good examples of how Manchin could split the anti-Trump vote. With my sister probably the best outcome for Biden and Democrats is if she just doesn't vote at all.

That certainly seemed to be the case in 2022. Biden got endless grief for his idea that "it's the democracy, stupid." But it sure seems like lots of people felt it was the democracy, stupid. Most non-Trumpy conservative Republicans did well. Almost every Trump election denying MAGA Republican blew themselves up. I'd single out Brian Kemp in Georgia as a telling example. He's a conservative Republican who made his re-election about the shitty Democrat economy, stupid. Even as he distanced himself from Trump's lies. He did better against Stacey Abrams than he had four years prior. Even as Trump's ass kissing election denying Senate candidate lost. That sent a pretty clear message about what works and what doesn't in what is now a swing state. Republican strategist Whit Ayres in that interview I posted above seems pretty confident that if Trump is nominated, it makes 2024 a referendum on Trump. Meaning the GOP loses, he says. Hope he's right. Clintonista Democratic strategist Doug Sostik said a similar thing to Bill Kristol recently in an interesting way. He said the 2022 election was a referendum on "crazy." And that helped Democrats. If Trump makes 2024 about the shitty Biden economy, he's says, Democrats will have a difficult time - as of now, at least. If Biden makes the 2024 election about "crazy," Biden wins. Asked which he thinks is more likely, Sostik says the latter. Biden will make it about "crazy." Hope he's right. I think the answer is hiding in plain sight. I'm not a huge fan of Rasmussen polls. But I can't help noticing that before inflation really took off in Fall 2021, even Rasmussen shows voters clearly approved of Biden more than Trump. Then from about Fall 2021 to Fall 2022, when inflation was at its worst, voters clearly approved of Trump more than Biden. Since then it's more or less been a toss up. Even if you believe Rasmussen polls are skewed, which I do, the trend seems real. It will be a battle between it's the economy, stupid, and it's the crazy people, stupid. The sweet spot for Biden is being able to argue he's not crazy, and the economy is good. We'll see. The problem right now is clear majorities of voters feel Trump personifies crazy, but the Biden economy sucks.

Rasmussen is the only polling company with daily tracking. In June 2022, when inflation peaked, Biden's worst daily approval rating was 38 approve/60 disapproval In the July 2023 daily polls, his single best day was 46 approve/52 disapprove. A lot better. If you go backward from June 2022, Biden's approval rating kept getting worse as inflation climbed. So that's not proof. But it strongly suggests that, like with Ford and Carter, a higher "misery index" would hurt Biden in 2024. Conversely, if inflation stabilizes at 3 % or even goes down to the 2 % target rate or lower, it suggests Biden's approval rating will improve. Same thing happened to Reagan after the 1982 bloodbath: his approval rating gradually climbed from horrific to landslide territory as the economy improved. This also strongly suggests that voters will blame a recession on Biden, fair or not. Using the chart below, the three candidates since 1984 who ran representing the party in power while the economy was working against them all lost: Bush 41 in 1992, McCain in 2008, Trump in 2020. Recent history strongly suggests that "it's the economy, stupid," is true. The thing I like about polling, in general, is that while it is far from perfect it is usually better than just making a wild ass guess. Same with Alan Lichtman, who on this particular point is extremely interesting. He's correctly predicted the winner of every Presidential race since 1984 in advance. So while that's not the same as 2 + 2 = 4 every time, it's a pretty solid record that merits attention. That's basically Lichtman's scorecard for every Presidential race he has correctly predicted, and why. Part of what makes common sense about this, and is flattering if you actually believe in democracy, is it's based on the idea that voters predictably decide based on important things. Like the economy, recessions, war and peace, impeachment. Try as they might, cynical pollsters and messaging gurus just aren't able to convince people that a pig with lipstick is not really a pig. One of the things Lichtman argues that is going to be controversial in 2024 is that an incumbent party is always better off running the incumbent President, and avoiding a party fight. I buy that. Others don't. I might feel differently if everyone agreed that Gavin Newsom was our guy, or Kamala Harris was our girl. But they don't. Even if we had a Democratic primary and every big name in the polls ran, the polls suggest Biden would win. Probably for the same reason Trump will be nominated: there is no alternative Republican everyone can agree to rally around yet. So this is where Lichtman's theory gets very interesting. Maybe there could still be some big foreign policy game changer. But probably not. The Republicans are sure working the scandal thing hard, without much success. So Biden's re-election basically comes down to a recession and a third party. Unless you completely dismiss Lichtman's track record and theories, his analysis of 1992 and Bush 41 is probably the closest to now. Bush had one thing Biden doesn't: a clear foreign policy win. Biden has one thing Bush didn't: several clear domestic policy wins to run on. ("Finish the job.") So Lichtman's theory is that in every election since the Civil War it consistently takes six of these keys to nail your political coffin shut. Neither Biden nor Bush could change the fact that they lacked charisma, and they lost seats in the midterm (the party mandate key). The main variables that are still up for grabs that killed Bush 41 and could kill Biden is running in a recession with someone like Manchin catching fire as a third party candidate. That could be fatal for Biden. The other interesting historical question is whether this is really in anyone's control. Part of what appeals to me about this theory, other than it's perfect ability to predict results so far, is that Lichtman's partner in crime back in the early 1980's was a global expert on predicting earthquakes. So the idea is that when you have vibrant third party wildfires like Anderson in 1980 or Perot in 1992 and 1996 who get lots of votes, it's a political tremor that indicates a political earthquake may be coming. It's only one variable. Which is why it helped take out Bush in 1992 but not Clinton in 1996, who was running during an economic boom. But nature abhors a vacuum. It could be that the Democratic messaging and managers can't stop this. They can probably stop Manchin. Maybe he's just using it to get something else he wants. But if not Manchin, it could be lots of other people. And not necessarily through No Labels. In the worst case scenario, like we have the hard landing that everyone fears, it's easy for me to imagine that some populist billionaire like Perot (Elon Musk?) decides they'll save America and jump in the race. Lichtman's keys and all the polls are basically saying the same thing right now: it's going to be close, if the election were held today. You can dismiss all this as some ivory tower academic theory, of course. Even though it's worked pretty well in predicting elections in advance. What's harder to dismiss is that when you just count votes third party Nader is almost certainly why Gore lost in Florida. And third party Stein at the very least contributed to Clinton's loss in 2020. There's no doubt of that. I'm glad Democrats are freaking out and ringing alarms. A strong third party run will divide the anti-Trump vote. And help Trump and his devoted base win.

True. But you could also say Trump's worst thing is that he is Trump. Republican strategist Whit Ayres nailed this No Labels drama in a roughly three minute segment- from 1:04:00 to 1:07:00 - in the interview Bill Kristol just did with him below. He pointed out 2 in 3 Americans don't really want a Biden/Trump rematch. He called No Labels a "fruitless endeavor with a positive motivation to offer an alternative to Trump/Biden." His logic is flawless, I think. In 1992 Perot got 19 % of the vote but 0 % of the electoral college vote. So even if he gets that much, which is unlikely, Manchin can't win. If Trump is the nominee, it will be a referendum on Trump. So all Manchin or West or any third party candidate can do is split the anti-Trump vote and put Trump in the White House again. Ayres is right. Ayres didn't say it quite the way I will. The No Labels people want less division. But what they will get is a Divider In Chief focused on four year of retribution. Whit Ayres: Is Trump Inevitable? Do Any of the Other Republicans Have a Chance? That whole interview is great if you have an hour. I'll add one thing neither Kristol nor Ayres say. It's the recession, stupid. That's the "biggest unknown" to me. Right now inflation is 3 % and unemployment is 3.6 %. If it stays that way or gets better, and the election is a referendum on Trump, Trump loses. Maybe Biden wins even if Manchin gets in, like Perot did in 1996 when Clinton's economy was on a roll. But if the economy is shaky like it was in 1992, a third party candidate could help the incumbent lose. Like Perot did. Trump's best hope is to make 2024 a referendum on the recession. If there is one. In that case, Manchin could easily peel off enough anti-Trump votes in Arizona and Georgia and Wisconsin for Trump to win.

Religious right gets blindsided by angry parents in a Southern California school district This is somewhat encouraging news. It would be nicer if the culture wars just went away. But let's be realistic. If we are going to fight culture wars, I'd rather be winning them. At least in blue states like California, it seems like whoever starts the culture war loses. Try banning LGBTQ curriculum and saying Harvey Milk was a pedophile, and it won't go well. Not even with moderate Republicans, like the one quoted in that article. Not so much because they revere Harvey Milk. They just are sick of culture wars, I bet. Same reason Ron-O-Rama lost 10 % of his approval rating in Florida, and arguably a shot at the Presidency, when he shifted from cleaning up after hurricanes to culture wars. In red states, on the other hand, there is no evidence of life-threatening political backlash against the deluge of laws banning CRT or "gender-affirming care" or talking about Harvey Milk. Meaning the Republican Governors and legislatures who passed those laws got re-elected in 2022 by big margins. But, as I just noted, if the Ron-O-Rama show flops nationally because people aren't clamoring for culture war, that will help The Gays. That area described, Temecula, used to be in the 41st US House District of California I think. When they redistricted I think they moved it so that Temecula is out, and Gayish Palm Springs is in. It matters because Gay lawyer Will Rollins came within a few points of defeating Republican Ken Calvert is that district in 2022, and is up for a rematch in 2024. I could actually see this helping Rollins. His pitch is sort of, "I'm a lawyer who worked with the government to fight terrorists. I just want everyone to have common sense rights." If school board members are pissing parents off by fighting culture wars over Harvey Milk, it probably helps guys like Rollins in blue states.

Sure beats me! 😉 (But seriously satire or not parasites and cancer is serious shit so being a helpful and solid guy you should probably consult with professionals who have an established record of successful pest control and disease prevention.)

Adding extensive quotes that provide additional useful facts and perspective: The first citation is from AIDS United dated December 2021,, and then several quotes from the June 2021 GAO report AIDS United cites to reach its conclusions FOSTA-SESTA and its impact on sex workers And from the GAO report on the implementation and effectiveness of FOSTA: Gosh. Who'd have ever guessed that a law that drove these platforms overseas would make prosecution in the US more difficult? 😉

Appeals court upholds but narrows sex-trafficking statute Activists claimed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act violated the First Amendment. I take that to be good news ............ kinda, sorta, maybe? At least it clarifies that the broad and expansive way to interpret the law is NOT what Congress meant. Which was clear, if you read the Congressional Record of the floor debate. Yup, I did. But really? Who does that? Chuck Schumer, among others, was very clear that he didn't want to impair "harm reduction" organizations that work with sex workers, or free speech. This was about going after abusive sex traffickers. That said, it would be better still if they simply decriminalized prostitution. But don't hold your breath. This is a little bit like clarifying after the prisoner has been executed that "punishment" meant a slap on the wrist, not a firing squad. One of the plaintiffs was a massage therapist who says he lost business after Craig's List pulled many categories of ads. Whatever harm was done, for years, is done. The basic goal of FOSTA was to reduce sex trafficking in the US. The Congressional Record of the floor debate included pages and pages of real horror stories of victims, some children, who were sold and abused and even murdered. Has FOSTA helped? From a 2019 FBI report on all human trafficking: From the most recent federal report I could find, dated October 22: One other data base I could find comes from the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which says they have "one of the most extensive data sets on trafficking in the United States." They measure "signals," meaning anything from phone calls to texts to online tips received by the hotline. Here are the number of signals received starting from the year before FOSTA passed: 2017: 36.068 signals 2018: 43,751 signals 2019: 51,921 signals 2020: 56,127 signals 2021: 51,073 signals If anyone has actually followed this closely - I haven't - a more thorough analysis would be welcome. But it seems like a decent one word answer is NO, FOSTA did not help reduce sex trafficking. Incidents reported went up in the year after FOSTA became law on April 11, 2018. That 2022 report's time frame is a decade, during which trafficking has gone way up. The Hot Line reports substantial increases in trafficking signals in each of the two years after FOSTA was passed, although there was a definite decline in 2021. I'm guessing COVID was somehow a factor, for good or bad. If FOSTA helped identify and prosecute and ultimately reduce sex trafficking, that would be significant. But the argument against it was that at best it would be a game of Whack A Whore with lots of collateral damage. At worst it would make trafficking harder to identify and prosecute by driving it further into the dark. If the goal in 2018 was to substantially reduce US sex trafficking, that simply has not happened.

Linguist, read thyself. You are truly funny. Correct or not, I'm just reading this as satire now. It's just too over the top.

You're a hoot. This is so over the top I have to wonder. Is this actually some weird form of satire? Like let's see just how over the top we can be? It's quite imaginative. You seem to be saying I lie, and distort, and pivot, so I'm going to rebut that. In fairness to you, the first mention of "Israel" was on the second page of the thread, by another poster. The second was by you, when you stated Israelis always provide hospital care to hateful Muslims who still hate them. That invited comment both about your prejudices, and about Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Don't blame me for your pivots, or your prejudices. In terms of lies, other than using the word, you haven't identified any actual lies anyone told. Knock yourself out. Although we have actually beaten this to death. You've stated Muslims are "vandals, looters, and arsonists." Which given the circumstances sounds factually correct, assuming you mean some particular rioters. You then called all Muslims "savages" six times. Which sounds very distorted and very prejudiced. And also obviously untruthful. And you called Muslims "ungrateful vermin" once. Definitely distorted, and extremely prejudiced. Also a lie in that Muslims are clearly human, not insects. But if Goebbels were here, he'd be pleased with your creativity. It was his favorite way of demeaning Jews, and rationalizing the need for their extermination. You then helpfully advised us that anyone who disagrees with you, which is to say almost everyone, is "unable to engage in a dialogue without debasing yourself." True or false, that's actually very funny. I like talking about my balls. Clients actually wrote about them in several of my escort reviews. "Low hangers" usually. I suppose I should be concerned, in that they'd be easier to chop off. But I don't recall any Muslim I had sex with every trying that. Or even biting them while in their mouth, actually. But now I'm debasing myself. Anyway, if you don't like pivots, perhaps it's best not to change the subject to how Muslims treat my testicles. 😉

Nice try, buddy. I guess that means you don't really have a factual or logical response. And I certainly don't expect you to say, "Yes, my statements ooze raw and blind prejudice." Just dismiss it all as propaganda. It's so 2023. Then again, it's so 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, too. Proving my point, I'd argue. It is always easier to incite prejudice and hate than it is to incite peace. I don't think you need a newspaper to know that, though. Since you are modeling introspection, I should try to be a little bit more fair and balanced. Team Trump did get to the bottom of what's going on with Islam and hate. It only cost the Saudis a $2 billion investment in Jared. No crime family or corruption there, though. Maybe just repentance for the evil of Islam, from the country that brought us 9/11. And, in fairness, Trump has now found stuff that is far worse than Islam. The FBI. And the rule of law. So we're making progress.

I'll give you this. You sure ought to be good at recognizing tropes. Because you are very good at writing tropes that are based on raw and blind prejudice. As a clear point of fact, you were the one that went (arguably) off topic and shifted it to Muslims in Israel. This is the one thing I did not particularly care for over at Company Of Men. Cooper likes to stay on the main highway. And I like to go down interesting side roads. So in a thread that starts with a prejudicial rant about Muslims in France, he might not like shifting to even more prejudicial and one-sided rants about how Israelis are the very milk of human kindness. And Muslims return that favor by hating them. To me, it's basically on topic. Same prejudice, different country. If your job is to help out @Olddaddy, you're actually doing a great job. He is at least being honest. He bases his views on his personal experiences. Which sound very limited and superficial. You sound like you're just repeating some rant you read in some hate rag or saw in a film. You also have an affection for precision in language, compared to perceived childish insults and GIFs. Fair enough. So that line could have been lifted directly from The Wandering Jew, a big Goebbels hit. With a few alterations in nouns and adjectives, of course. Whether you realize it or not. Perhaps we should be more adult about this, and go with the same ideas in the original language. Original anti-Semitic version: Jüdische Horden toben durch Deutschland und zerstören alles Anti-Muslim version: Muslimische Horden toben durch Frankreich und zerstören alles Call me biased. But I think it has a certain ring to it. Same shit, different century. Speaking of which: The Muslims of Auschwitz: tales of tragedy and heroism 75 years on Academics estimate more than 1,000 Muslims could have been imprisoned by the Nazis in the Second World War Again, arguably off topic. Because of when the history was written, it makes sense that public perceptions of The Holocaust focus on Jewish extermination. Nobody much talked about The Gays. And Hitler was smart enough to not specifically target all Muslims. But Muslims were more than a drop in the gas chambers, as well. And they were a big part of the anti-Hitler military bloodbath: Hmmm. Maybe Muslims rampaging through Europe and North Africa ain't such a bad thing, after all.

We obviously have two sides that are speaking past each other here. But to go with the idea of balance, I'll flip and say this. Because I think it does speak to the point that it is so much easier to incite hate and violence than it is to incite peace. Unfortunately. There was a period about a quarter century ago when if you gave me a gun and said I could kill any world leader and get away with it, I would have taken the gun and killed Arafat. And implicit in that is the idea that someone better would have replaced him. The key parts of my equation go like this. You had Clinton. You had the last Labor PM of Israel. And you had Arafat. I'd argue 2 of the 3 wanted a peace deal. There were these moments that conservatives I like reading, like George Will, would argue were just embarrassing. Like Madeline Albright running after Arafat as he storms out of a meeting in Paris. Fair point. Arafat's argument, or implication, was that Palestinians would not have supported the peace deal actually on offer. And maybe some Palestinian nut would have killed him, like some Israel right-wing nut had already killed Rabin on God's orders. The polls available from that period strongly suggest that it was the other way around. A majority of Palestinians wanted a peace deal. Probably because they knew things sucked. Israeli Jews were ambivalent. It's been years since I read those polls, so I'll say maybe that's more theory than fact. But we know for a fact that in 1999 Barak won. And Israelis seemed willing to give peace a chance. By 2001 the moment had passed. Barak looked impotent, Sharon came to power, and it's just been cycles of violence and more violence and deepening trenches and more walls ever since. Bill Clinton himself has also argued that it's the demography, stupid. It's the immigrants to Israel coming not from liberal democracies in Europe but from places where the prejudices against Muslims run much deeper. And democracy is not as well rooted. As you said, it's complex. But I think there was a moment when peace could have worked around that period. And Arafat killed it, in my view. Turns out it didn't work out particularly well for him. As an organizer who knows how hard it is for the have nots to win, I will always feel he fucked his people by not taking the deal he could have had. Whatever the arguments against it were, that deal was better than what we have today. But my main point in the context of Paris burning, or airstrikes in Jenin, is that it really is so much easier to incite hate and violence than it is to incite peace. And this is a great example of how people expressing undeniably prejudiced and contemptuous views about entire groups of people think God, or at least facts and logic, are obviously on their side.

It would be nice if it mostly worked that way. Let people who take extreme views give each other medals. No harm done. Hell, I'd be more generous. Why not give Jared $1 billion in return for policy favors while spreading completely undocumented "facts" about all the bribes senile Joe has managed to cleverly hide. Really no harm done. Even good for a laugh. The problem with this kind of simplistic sheer distortion and hate is that it ends up in metal, not medals. In Rabin's case, all it took was metal in the lung, I think. But Yigal Amir was a textbook example of how the hate and bile works. God told him to kill the Jewish leader of Israel. So he did. No regrets. Had to be done, because you know what Rabin was gonna do with The Muslims. Ugh! The Israeli Jewish artist who drew that mural put it extremely well: Same thing at work right now as we type in both Israel and France. Ugh! It's bile and hate and it ends in bullets and death every single time.

I should congratulate you. I'm a low tech guy. I'm not big on virtual reality goggles. The idea of AI scares the shit out of me. You're demonstrating we can save the money and research. Since we don't need high tech to live in our own virtual and distorted realities. Congratulations. Enjoy the world of contempt you live in. But the conflict in Israel and Palestine is definitely another great example where the hatred and prejudice and contempt for facts, in that case, apartheid runs extremely deep. That said, I have a personal bias about American Jews that is relevant to this discussion. I love them. As an organizer I have worked with so many American Jews who were deeply motivated by social justice that you just can't miss it. It started with my Poli Sci professor, Paul Wellstone, who pretty much inspired my decision to spend decades as a community organizer. His Senate opponent, Rudy Boschwitz, also a Jew, literally attacked him for being a "bad" Jew. While he may not have been the most observant Jew, anyone who knew and loved Paul knew his religion was at the core of his beliefs about social justice. It just reinforces the point that getting to know people is such an antidote to the hate and prejudice being expressed here. Americans Jews are willing to be clear minded about this hate and prejudice and venom and bile. 34 % call Israeli's treatment of Palestinians "racism," 25 % call it "apartheid," and 22 % call it "genocide." As well, 1 in 4 Israeli Jews use the word "apartheid" to describe how Palestinians are treated. While most Israeli Jews don't go that far, that poll seems typical in illustrating that it is a minority filled with the bile and prejudice that believe in ideas that are easy to call apartheid. While 41 % of Israeli Jews in that poll are willing to take Palestinian's rights away, which is at the core of the conflict, 43 % oppose the idea. As we are seeing right now, that condemns both sides to more hate, more death, more violence. In France, we are seeing that it only takes a small minority of haters and bigots throwing around words like "savages" to fuel violence. Blessed are the peace makers. When you embrace the idea of condemning a whole race or religion - "The Muslims still hate them," in your words - it really does put you in bed with assholes like Goebbels. I never understand why people who want to be perceived as just want to play out of Goebbel's bag of tricks. But Goebbels of course thought he was fighting a just cause, too. Your remedies may not be as extreme. But it is driven by exactly the same prejudice and bile. Ugh! It is so ugly, and leads to so much death. Ugh!

Good for you. Glad you made the best of it! Can we have a long talk about prejudice, deep canvassing, and deep cock sucking? The number of assumptions you are making about people you are admitting you don't know is amazing. I'm referring specifically to @Phoenixblue. But also generally to all Muslims, aka "The Savages." Or, The Gay Haters, if you prefer. @Phoenixblue beat me to the punch. But it is worth nothing that Christina Pushaw stood up for her little bitch Ron D on the issue of homophobia. The Log Cabin Republicans said Ron's recent homophobic ad was ............ well ............ homophobic. Christina stood up for her little pouty bitch and said Gay Pride is "unnecessary, divisive, and pandering." One could therefore assume all White conservatives are bigots who hate The Gays. And feel The Gays just create unnecessary misery wherever they go. But thank you for a helpful idea. Once our Top Homophobic Guv completes discrediting himself, and neither the voters of the US nor the voters of Florida will have him anymore, we can send Ron off to Sydney. And all will be well. You can have Pushaw, too. She loves to make assumptions. In fairness, this is actually a struggle The Gays in the US are grappling with. It is easy enough to assume that any White conservative who votes for Ron, or supports Don't Say Gay, or votes against same sex marriage, is a bigot who hates The Gays. Not true. At the risk of sounding repetitive and moralizing - which we all know I am - I will repost the hyperlink of Dave Fleischer I posted in another thread. About what he calls deep canvassing. What we know, for a fact, is that one excellent way to break down prejudice is to speak with the people you feel prejudice toward. Or who feel prejudice toward you. That is how we won same-sex marriage in the US. People in Ireland, including their current PM, literally walked door to door and spoke with the people who may have had prejudiced ideas about The Gays. That is precisely why they have same sex marriage today. As well as a Gay PM. Try it. Of course, you probably should not be starting conversations with rude people who yell "fucking COCKSUCKER" at you. That said, if we're being blunt, I can tell you from actual personal experience that sucking a Muslim cock, or fucking a hot Muslim guy, is an effective way to break down prejudices. Try it. Almost by definition, if you are sucking a Muslim cock, the guy it is attached to does not hate The Gays. In all honesty, though, whether as an escort or fuck buddy or what not, I did not suck Muslim cocks to increase diversity. Or to advance some liberal agenda. I did it to have fun, and to cum. Try it. After all, you clearly are a cock sucker. Now I will make an assumption. Which is that for a guy like you sucking a Muslim cock may be a bridge too far. So since you like anecdotes, and being outdoors, I'll scale this back. I grew up in an overwhelmingly White suburb of Chicago. The first time I actually lived in the city was during a college "urban studies" program. The first day I arrived at my apartment my two White roommates and I went on a very long walk for miles to see Chicago neighborhoods. At one point a Black woman stopped us, and asked us if we knew where we were. We said "no." But by that point we were looking for an "el" rapid transit stop to get home. She said turn around, walk the other way, turn left or right at the corner, and in three or four blocks you'll see an "el" station. What we later figured out is that we were right about to walk into the middle of Cabrini Green, a notoriously unsafe and predominantly minority public housing project. For some reason, some Black woman felt like she wanted to protect us. Bless her heart. I've had multiple experiences like that in Chicago, all in Black neighborhoods. I was never attacked, or robbed. But several times friendly Black strangers approached me to make sure that, as the only White guy around, I knew where I was and I knew what I was doing. The only time I have been physically assaulted by a stranger was while I was a volunteer campaigning for Harold Washington, Chicago's first Black Mayor. I was at an "el" step in a White neighborhood handing out flyers for Harold. Some White guy shoved me and knocked the flyers out of my hand. The more memorable moment, which happened at the same place, was the kind looking White woman who walked up to me and whispered in my ear, "You are a traitor to your race." Not sure what exactly I did wrong. I know for sure I had not actually sucked a Black cock yet. That came later. 😉 This is of course the same Chicago where record numbers of murders happened in 2020, while Trump was President and America went on a gun buying spree. Overwhelmingly, the victims were Black men between 18 and 45. Just out of curiosity, I checked. There were 695 homicides in Chicago in 2022, which is the lowest of the three years since COVID started. So far in 2023 they are down another 10 % or so. By comparison, there were 377 homicides in all of Australia last year. I would suggest that is probably not about The Blacks, or The Muslims. It's probably about the far more sensible gun control laws in Australia. At least, that's what the Black former cop Mayor of New York says. While the homicide rate in New York is way lower than Chicago, he says the huge challenge there now is the "rivers" of illegal guns flowing through gangs into low-income neighborhoods. I know I've taken a trip around the world. But so have you. We're talking about violence in Paris. And your attitudes about Muslims in Australia. And the prejudices that these outcries - like "savages" - are built on. No one is defending rioters, past or present, of any race, in Paris. The relatives of the slain Muslim child are calling for an end to the violence. I hope you go talk to some Muslims. Maybe even suck a Muslim cock or two. You sound like you're good at it. So you at least don't have to worry about those Muslims hating you for doing it. Have fun.

Great. So does Macron. Are you saying you agree with him, as he speaks for his nation? And their solidarity with the Muslim victim's family? Empathy doesn't seem very radical to me.

As a clarification, you're specifically referring to Bragg's indictment, right? It is a criminal indictment, correct? If so, could it even be changed at this point? Or are you saying it would have made more sense for Bragg to go the civil route, since there is a lower standard of proof? I'm assuming Smith's indictment, as well as any future indictment from him or Fanni Willis, has to be criminal. Correct? Lying to the FBI about nuclear secrets, starting riots at The Capitol based on lies, and trying to get Georgia officials to steal an election are all big deals. They should overshadow Bragg, If convicted, the issues of pardons and slammer time are separate issues to consider then. While I'm at 20 questions, John Bolton suggested in some interview that "the Feds" should lean on Bragg to give the federal case precedence. I like that idea, if I understood him correctly. But what does that even mean? I think the political and legal strategies mirror each other. By political I mean the Never Trump Republican strategy, like Chris Christie. And I would not make a bet at this point. My view is the more nails used, the more likely Trump's coffin can finally be nailed shut. Or, death by 1,000 cuts. Some are sharp daggers (Smith). Some are plastic knives (Bragg). The flip side is that Trump has proven time and again that that which does not kill us makes us stronger. Like I said, I wouldn't bet. If I had to bet, and got to phone a friend, my question would not be legal. It would be: will there be a recession in 2024? Bragg's indictment will look very different to history depending on whether Trump wins or loses the Presidency.

Come to think of it, maybe that's why I actually have fun by reading long essays and - ugh! - polls. It's safer. But if you find humor value in poking the bear, go ahead and have fun. Just be careful out there. There's some real hate going around these days. And not to ruin the fun or anything. But if it were me, I'd still want some bad ass like Idris Elba along for the ride. 😉

Now there's a thought. Let's have more of that. FACTS. Here's four that matter: Fact 1: Fact 2: Fact 3: Fact 4, just to add a bit of color, and historical perspective: Blessed be the peace makers. By the way, anybody know where Dietrich von Choltitz is these days? We need somebody with a calm head in a situation like this.

Sorry. Late to this discussion. And I won't write a book. But I am confused. Which century are we talking about? Anyhoo, been to Paris and Berlin and Venice and what not, and found all those Europeans very welcoming and civilized. Except for the part where they tried to eradicate The Jews and The Gays, of course. But, hey. Everybody has a bad decade now and then. 😊

From your keyboard to Secretary Pete's lips, @Pete1111. I get the tone of frustration in the comments above. Which is what I feel, too. But I go back to the fact that we have very talented leaders - from POTUS to Veep to Transportation Secretary. So we should let them lead. If Republicans are smart, they'll do the same thing. Speaking of which: I posted Chris Christie because I think Dana Bash set up a great, thoughtful point/counterpoint. I would be happy if the 2024 fall POTUS campaign were between Secretary Pete and Governor Christie. They are both among the most articulate spokespeople and competent leaders of their party. Even if Christie won, I'd much rather have him than either Lying Don or Ron-O-Rama. On the point about the LGBTQ SCOTUS ruling, I agree with almost everything both guys said. More important, I'd argue they agree with each other. Christie is right that the ruling is about, to use my word, tolerance. It's not saying you can put "No Gays Allowed" signs on the doors of Christian bakeries, or churches. If somebody does that, Christie is right. They'll be sued by same Gay lawyer. Pete is right that The Gays are not stampeding to Christian bakeries (or Christian bathhouses 😯) to get what they need. It is a manufactured issue to chip away at The Gays' rights to score political points. Christie basically says the same thing. If we want to talk about kids, why aren't we talking about child poverty and hunger? Why aren't we talking about test scores? What about fentanyl? Here's why I'm confident. Joe and Pete, among others, proved in 2020 you can be a compassionate liberal and win. One is POTUS, and one is Transportation Secretary. My strong guess is Christie will prove that what was true in 2016 and 2020 is still true in 2024. You can't be a compassionate conservative and win. MAGA don't want to talk about whether and how child tax credits will cut Latino poverty in half. Which they did, for part of Biden's Presidency. Even though we Republicans love the Blacks and Browns just as much as we love The Gays. What we really want to talk about is how socialist deranged teachers are forcing our children to have their penises cut off by Disney and Socialized Medicine!!!! That's how you win Republican primaries these days. Sorry, Chris! But thanks for at least trying to be the kamikaze dude who takes Trump out. It might work. Good luck, and God bless. The reason I think Christie and Buttigieg agree is that both are saying, "Don't take the bait." Pete's argument is that this is all a distraction from the economic issues that people care about. He's right. I think that's what's behind those Florida polls above. People in Florida like Ron when he cleans up after a hurricane and makes unemployment low and the economy grow. They don't want culture war and abortion bans and more guns. Pete's giving people in the middle who feel that way a reason to vote Democratic. Christie is giving them reasons to vote Republican. But there is no evidence that's what the "Don or Ron?" MAGA Party wants to do. Again, good luck, Chris. Pete's biggest problem, which he can't say, is that inflation has been killing Biden. If inflation goes away - which it is - and is replaced by a recession, that won't help, either. So the big gamble is that by November 2024 Bidenomics will mean a growing economy, a rising stock market, low unemployment, and new factories and bridges - right here in Kansas in my own back yard! - as far as the eye can see. I think Pete is right. Talking about Christian bakeries is a distraction. So then we should not talk about Christian bakeries. It's the economy, stupid! Let's talk about insulin prices and child tax credits. And building chip factories in Arizona and bridges in Pennsylvania.