It definitely is on my mind.

Nope. Big home builder and had a realtor. Assume everything was good.

So just because I am against illegal immigration, I should check all the products I buy and companies I use for their use of illegal labor?

Haven't seen anything on any of the MSM or reddit that I follow. Don't keep us in suspense, what happened?

Reportedly someone arrested in California had false id badges for a Trump rally and weapons.
Third Trump assassination attempt thwarted when armed man arrested outside Coachella rally, sheriff says

Headline:

Man in possession of firearms arrested outside of Trump rally in Coachella Valley

Vem Miller, 49, was found to be illegally in possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun, and a high-capacity magazine

Reportedly a right wing anti-government guy.

Thanks.

You found the family of your workers living in your basement while the house was being built? You said that, right? As in your builder, who is already probably not paying taxes on its employees to build your house, is also not paying enough of a wage for its workers to have housing?

That's a little different than checking all the products that you buy and companies that you use, isn't it? It would seem a little harder to ignore, but again you paid less on the house and the builder made money.

I think you are a hypocrite for being okay with what sounds damn near like slave labor when it very directly benefits you and then coming on here to complain about what a problem it is. Based on your deflections and goal post moving, I don't think you have the capacity to self reflect on that. Period. And I don't really care what else you have to say about it. Enjoy your day.

Yes, I said that

On the first clause, why would I assume they are not paying taxes on the workers I found? Big home builder, it'd be normal for me to assume they are doing things above board. Maybe it was a subcontractor they used, who knows?

On the second clause, yes probably true. But so? Because I'm against illegal immigration, I now not only have to check for their legal status but also make sure they are paid enough?

Why is it different? I bought a product from a company (house). You seem to say I should have checked to make sure the company wasn't using illegal labor. Hence, you want me to (and also added wages) ...

Quote:

So just because I am against illegal immigration, I should check all the products I buy and companies I use for their use of illegal labor?

Tell me why it's different because I'm honestly not tracking your logic, there must be a nuance I'm missing.

No problem.

Actually, yes you should, otherwise you're a hypocrite who is happy to benefit from illegal immigrants as long as you're ignorant to the fact.

I have a friend who is a hard core vegan and animal rights activist. She won't buy anything unless she does her research and knows the product aligns with her cause.

Unless I am the business owner that is hiring the illegals or a homeowner hiring an illegal domestic help, I see no obligation to check if companies or products I buy are done with/by illegal immigrants. The example of me buying a house, using a big home builder, and being responsible for their use of (possibly, not confirmed) illegal labor is not practical.

How many degrees of separation is enough?

Happy to continue this discussion with you but suggest we move to another thread. Post your response and I'll copy it over.

Every Republican commercial is about trans people. It is obvious what polling has shown them works.

I t looks like the guy was a right-wing activist, and the guns were just the ones he always travels with.

NEW: Sources close to the Trump campaign tell @FoxNews there was no assassination attempt against Trump at his Coachella, CA rally yesterday. We’re told a man with a gun was arrested at the perimeter of the event without incident.

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 13, 2024

No interest. You're a flaming hypocrite and I've zero interest to get sucked in to your black hole. Enjoy your home built on the back of immigrant labor.

Okay, no problem.

The I hate illegal immigration but don’t care about all the benefits it may afford me. And on top of that I care about this subject so much that I won’t even be bothered to look into it how I benefit from the thing I hate so much is quite a shtick.

I would say don’t be an idiot. How was she the most qualified person to be VP?

More of Trump's beautiful mind:

Yes, that’s fair that she wasn’t the first, but she was the first out of the major candidates to drop out. Saying she was a two time senator is misleading as she was a senator for less than three years before she ran for President.

On this kind of thing; virtually every American, and that's being conservative about it, uses products daily produced in sweatshop or worse conditions overseas. We're doing nothing about it, we have no plans to do anything about it, and the only way we could do anything about it would basically be to collapse our economy and revert our standard of living decades. Neither major party wants that, or any but the most vanishingly small group of radicals in the electorate.

All of which makes me wholly unconvinced by this kind of argument. When you put up that kind of standard, we all fail.

When you want to allow guns everywhere you can't be shocked when they show up everywhere.

Sounds like the guy was a Sovereign Citizen fan

there is a pretty big fucking difference between a t-shirt made in Bangladesh and the house you sleep in every night.

And I would ask on what basis is she an “idiot.”

“Most qualified” has been used as a criteria for running mate when, exactly? (Why is Vance on the ticket and not McConnell or Grassley? They certainly have more experience.) And what is wrong with her resume? How exactly does someone in California get experience as a Senator for a quarter century if your name isn’t Boxer or Feinstein?

I'm not sure what that difference is, but it's not as if t-shirts are the only thing we get in the described manner. Let's just take one example, cobalt. 70% of it comes from central Africa, and is produced in distressing conditions to say the least, highly hazardous to those working the mines, who earn roughly the equivalent for a dollar or two a day. They're there for the same reason expendable labor has always been there; when you have no other alternative, you'll do whatever it takes to survive.


It's illegal, but it still happens, because well ... the rest of the world needs that cobalt, and just as importantly needs it to be cheap. What do we lose if we shut off the supply?

- Lithium-Ion Batteries. Bye-bye EVs, cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc.
- Alloys. A number of metallurgical applications rely on it, including some turbines, aircraft engines, alloys that are corrosion-resistant which have a variety of applications, and so on.
- Catalyst. Particularly in the petroleum industry, but for a variety of chemical processes.
- Magnets. Cobalt is useful in producing particularly powerful magnets, some forms of media use those properties as well as a number of industrial concerns.

I'm sure everyone in this thread would be ok giving up all of these things tomorrow and/or having them become far more scarce and expensive in order to prevent the indefensible treatment of those mining it in the Democratic Republic of Congo ... right? The US doesn't buy the cobalt directly ... we get what we need on that score from other nations. But ... the great majority is bought by China, where it is refined and sold for various purposes in a complex supply chain like most materials. Make no mistake though, a lot of it ends up here, and we're thrilled to have it.

Of course when we're done there, we can multiply this for many other products, because cobalt is far from the only material/product this is true for. This happens to satisfy our greed and comfortable way of life. The more things change, the more they ... don't really change at all. There's just often more distance between the oppressor and oppressed than there used to be.

I was very doubtful of the story that someone with multiple passports under different names and fully-loaded guns who got inside the first cordon of the Trump rally, WASN'T there to harm him.. until it came out that he was a well-known sovereign citizen believer.

Yes, based off the white-nationalist "gold fringe on the flag makes this an illegal admiralty court" view.

So, a white-nationalist, gun-loving person who doesn't believe that laws apply to him because REASONS?

Trump's their hero.

It comes down to degrees of separation.

How many "steps in the supply chain" before someone somewhere is being taken advantage of. Take enough steps and no one has a clear conscience (including vegans).

Bring it closer to home. Illegal immigrants work on farms, process chickens, etc. Are Kroger shoppers supposed to check if Kroger and its suppliers used illegal workers? Are they supposed to check if the illegal workers were paid fair wages? Countless other examples.

How many are you separated if you catch a group of them living in your crawl space....or in this example...taking breaks in your basement? How many degrees is that exactly?

Me --> Subcontractors --> Subdivision Office Manager --> Builder Corporate Office

So, my guess is 3

How many between you and the fruits/vegetables?

Apparently enough to be cool with it as long as home prices are low.

Edward is the guy screaming about homosexuality being a sin while spending his weekends in the village getting hummers in the bathroom.

I'm thinking sounds more like your hardcore vegan friend ...

https://www.agdaily.com/lifestyle/fa...hing-as-vegan/

Good one, Adolf64.

I don't buy this at all. This demonstrates how messed up humanity continues to be, it's not in any way a justification. There's no moral difference between one degree of separation and five of them. We're either ok with oppressing and abusing people to maintain our way of life, or we're not.

It's like the people in the North who had no problem whatsoever buying up textiles made with Southern cotton prior to the US Civil War, and then tried to the claim the moral high ground later. Doesn't work that way. I don't care if you weren't personally working the plantations, there are only two possibilities:

- You knew where it was coming from, or
- You didn't care where it was coming from.

Edit: to bring it back to the original question, yes I'm definitely aware it's impossible to engage in the modern world without some of this going on. It's a thorny thing to try to unravel or even minimize. The point though is, hard pass on the moralizing of people who seize on one relatively small part of to throw stones at others. We are all participating in this broken system, and as long as that's the case, we all bear one heck of a lot of guilt for the fact that it is perpetuated.

Home prices are low? Maybe you live in a world where you see it that way? I never have, and I don't know anyone else who has either.

What makes you think he got a better price on the home? Wouldn't the builder charge whatever the market would support no matter who worked on the house? If the builder is using illegal immigrants I don't think he's doing it to pass on the savings, is he? If he's hiring low priced workers, it's to put the money in his pocket along with the building inspectors that "can't see" what's going on, not discount the houses to sell. That or it could be a subcontractor doing the same, but he's also pocketing the money. Maybe I'm wrong? I'm not a real estate expert but the "he let it go to get a better price" argument doesn't sound right to me.

Both my kids live in new additions to mid-west cities. Home prices are not low and the houses sell almost as fast as they are built. The only difference in price where they built compared to any other site is usually how close said neighborhood is to the golf course, schools, entertainment, shopping (close but not too close), etc. etc..

Yes, E64 says a lot of things I don't agree with as do many others here. He may say more than others and drag it on and on while moving the goal post, but calling him out on his house? IDK, I'm in the "we all use products that come to us on the cheap due to cheap labor" camp. The degree of separation argument in the end just means "it's ok if I do it, but you should be ashamed".

Regardless of industry unionized American workers will always cost more and that cost will be passed on to the consumer. Same goes for trumps idiotic tariff plan.

You don’t find it the least bit hypocritical he wants to deport the same people who literally built his home.

I guess you win the debate on the merits.

I think you are getting too emotional and have misunderstood my POV regarding the non-felon illegal immigrants

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - POTUS 2024 - Harris vs Trump - General Election Discussion

Or in other words ...

I will respectfully disagree with you here. I do believe there are "degrees" of blame (aka degrees of separation)

As a general example ...

Person A can be blamed more if he organizes/implements bad thing X. Person B can be blamed less if X-3. Person C can be blamed much less if he is X-10.

The stock market continues to crash upwards.

"....why this bad for Harris" -NYT

Pretty funny how the saving Western civ guys are going to have to come to terms with the new world was colonized by a Jew.

Yes I saw that-pretty soon they are going to find out he was black too.

FEMA having to remove all their responders from a county in NC because there is an armed militia out there hunting them.

I fucking hate MAGA so much right now.

They arrested the guy

People can pretty much post anything on the internet and people will run with it. Already seen this reposted a couple of times on FB SMH. I would 100% think/hope it has no shred of truth to it, but if there is the Harris campaign will deserve what they get for their stellar job of vetting.

Big October surprise rocks Kamala campaign, Tim Walz accused of 'inappropriate' relations with a minor - Hindustan Times

This story is coming from the same guy that made up the debate whistleblower story. This is complete fiction as well, but he seems to know the right levers to start making things spread through the right wing media.

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https://x.com/annamerlan/status/1845...ISQiHRh2g&s=19

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IF (and that's my doubt about it leading to the all-caps) the stories about FEMA confiscating/otherwise interfering with private relief efforts are accurate then I'm actually surprised this wasn't an immediate reaction in the first place.

The absence of this sort of story is the primary reason I've doubted the veracity of the confiscation/interference on the ground claims ... although I will say that I've seen several one-degree-of-separation accounts in the past 48-72 hours that have actually caused me to have doubts about my doubts.

Was not familiar with him, but 100% right there, MAGAs are devouring it.

We're going to end up with some sort of crypto bailout and it's going to piss me off so much.

I clicked on one of the two twitter "sources" in that article and it's a satire shitposter.

I'd bet I'd be even more pissed than you.

It has to be a mess if you and I agree.

Today, it was confirmed that Kamala Harris is doing to do a sit down with Brett Baier on Fox, and now it is also confirmed she is working on going on the Joe Rogan podcast.

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If Trump wins I'm convinced he's going to screw over RFK Jr. I don't think he wants RFK Jr. taking camera time and I don't think he gives a damn about all of the anti-corporate stuff.

Trump's ton hall tonight was apparently one of the odder things to happen at a campaign event.

It was in a poorly ventilated space and people were overheated. At least two passed out and received medical treatment. Trump said that he wasn't going to take more questions and they'll all just listen to music instead. Music played, with Trump bobbing slightly, for 20 minutes or so and then Trump said the townhall was over.

I agree with both of you also. Strongly.

This is scary.

Along with Brian, Jon, & JPhillips, I will also be pissed if there's a crypto bailout.

So you would say then that a proverbial mob boss is less guilty than the hit man they hire/order to eliminate someone?

Has to be a good sign for Harris

Early Voting: Large turnout on first day of early voting in Georgia – WSB-TV Channel 2 - Atlanta

35 to 38 minutes from what I've seen. They played all of November Rain so you know it had to be a long time.

My wife and son both voted today. In and out no problem. I should be able to this week myself.

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so at the Economic Forum of Chicago, the stable genius told the roomful of economists that they didn't understand tariffs.

test

Ok, things refuse to embed. Anyway, this is good too:

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1846242042785288257

Was going to vote but heard it was busy. Definitely going to vote early, so sometime this week or early next.

When I drove back from swimming, the 2 lights on either side of the GA-400 exit had Kamala supporters on one side and Trump supporters the other. Just read Trump is holding a townhall in Forsyth county.

Local election officials in Georgia must certify results, judge rules

I only bring this up because the judge invoked Lord of the Rings in his ruling.

I sent my absentee ballot in today too

No, not less guilty. My full quote is below


Therefore, the mob boss "organized" and the "hit man" implemented. So, in my mind, pretty much the same.

But Stephen Miller said it was the greatest ever interview any political candidate has ever given.

If I ever find a Genie, one wish will be put me in a room with Miller so I can punch him in the face. Hell, why not use all three wishes so I could give him a jab, cross, hook combo.

GOP friendly pollsters getting lazy.

9% undecided. That gets you to the proverbial 110%. Duh.

It is all the illegals voting

Ok. Next question then; how is that different from buying something made under horrifying conditions in some other country? Isn't that 'organizing'? If people weren't buying it (aka giving the order), then you don't have the situation. They're rendering a service to us, same as the mines in my example, the sweatshops making t-shirts/sneakers/whatever you want to pick on are; hitman is rendering a service to the mob boss.

Trump is planning to work a fry station at McDonalds on Sunday in Pennsylvania.

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you can use my wishes so you can punch him some more. Almost more than I want to see Trump go to jail for what he has done, Miller would be a close second.

he's just doing it for the free fries...

This interview is an example of why he's being hidden from major networks and mainstream media. He can't articulate any position and can't stay on topic. Then when pushed to answer the question he gets angry and lashes out.

No, a regular consumer buying an iPhone (which cobalt is used in) is definitely not "organizing" (or at least not in the definition I would use). Organizing to me indicates there is someone in authority coordinating/paying to get X done.

The regular consumer is several degrees of separation away from that and certainly after Apple (which has more culpability/blame than the consumer). If the cobalt miner only sells to Apple, then I would consider Apple the organizer. But I'm pretty sure the cobalt miner sells to a bunch of different other companies/entities so I'd say cobalt miner is X and Apple is X-1 or X-2.

Using the example of mob boss ... does Meadow/Anothony bear the same/equal responsibility of all the killings that Tony did/organized? They benefited, they may not have known all the specifics but they knew Tony did bad things. Would a court of law view them as equally culpable? I doubt it, too many degrees of separation. Isn't this the reason why there are different levels of murder/killing in the court of law?

I was wondering why Kamala didn't do more with "weird". The answer below ...

[url="https://www.natesilver.net/p/kamala-harris-needs-weird-voters"[/url]

Serious question - at this point, is there any single label (or thing, really) that is going to have better than a minimal impact?This is about scrounging in the seat cushions for loose change. Any positive impact is good, especially if there's no "major" impact item to replace a series of minimal impact things they could keep using (maybe not hammer/over-use, but continue messaging with now and then).

At this point, it is all about get out to the vote/suppress the vote at this point. As much attention as "undecided voters" gets, this election will be about, just like all elections are, turn out. So if there is a "motto" or a tag-line that will work right now, it would be whatever you need to motivate your voters to show up.

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I'm looking forward to Kamala's interview with Bret Baier tonight. Say what you will about Fox News, but Bret Baier asks tough questions regardless of who he's interviewing. This isn't the Hannity/Watters/Ingraham entertainment sector of Fox News. Baier's interview style reminds me of the late great Tim Russert.

I hope she can find a way to bring up the disinformation about election results and other areas that this channel continues to promote-mention the settled lawsuit and ongoing suits for lying about the last election.

First and foremost, she needs to articulate the Biden administration's border policy over the past term, instead of letting that be defined by Trump's disinformation. There is no such thing as a "border Czar", that was invented by Trump. She was sent on a fact finding mission by Biden to try and determine the root causes of migration and then work in a bipartisan way to find a solution, which they did until Trump ordered the Republicans to kill the bill, because actually getting something done on the border would hurt his chances in the election.

A firm stance against Israel's war crimes and the discontinued support of Israel could help them win a lot of votes from the left... until they come up with a new reason to not support them, I guess.

I can't imagine the GOP will ever have difficulty turning out its voters. Climate change will bring more and more refugees from equatorial countries, which will lead to more and more yelling about "illegals". It's already a broken record at this point, but it's only going to get worse.

Democrats can really only win from the bottom, I think, when they can point out how bad Republican rule is. When they are in power, don't care to vote for them.

So I'm guessing this "Illegal Immigration" and "Threat to Democracy" theme this election isn't going away.

Literally the best case scenario. The worst is obviously full on fascism, civil war, fragmentation, etc.


If folks are tuned in to the bots and social media strategy from the GOP, it is interesting to note that in 2020, their strategy was "Democrats are burning down the cities! They are radical communists!" and this time it is "Cities are in decay, businesses are closing, look how dirty the streets are!". It is painful, and I am constantly seeing my neighborhood referred to as "horrible" online, among other neighborhoods that I enjoy spending time in. These happen to be the neighborhoods with improved public transits and large minority populations.

The ideological battles happening are out of step with reality. Climate change is happening. The equators are becoming uninhabitable. Most of the world's population lives in poverty. Many of them near the equator. American and European populations are in decline. Put 2 and 2 together. Nobody with any kind of voice in politics is willing to say that the future of USA and Europe are as predominantly nonwhite nations, that immigration is good, and that we need to be building and preparing.

Instead it's the same old "keep them out" nonsense that has been going on for decades. Why can't an adult in the room actually explain the obvious? Is it because white Americans and Europeans are too racist to accept the fact that the days of white imperialist domination are over?


Amazingly, these people talk about how the "founding fathers" wanted us to have the "right to bare arms", but don't talk about how this country had no restrictions on immigration until after the Civil War, and its origins were in complete xenophobia.


Republicans live in a complete alternative reality. They ignore anything taught in a university outside of Econ 101/102. That's not going away. So where does that leave us?

But people will openly vote for fascists if they think it will lower the price of eggs. The Democrats want to lose, so they can fundraise more next time, so they don't bother explaining to people that inflation is a part of life.

We're on a rough track. So no... I don't think a catchy "Get out the vote" catchphrase can save us.


On the bright side, I do think there is a bit of a movement among younger evangelical Christians to take a slightly more liberal view of social issues, as more and more biblical scholarship comes out that tells them that it's ok to believe in God but take a liberal interpretation of scripture that allows them to believe that God wants to smite "gays" or "vanquish iniquity" or "destroy the enemies" or whatever insanity they talk about as if it's real life.

Still, it's moving too slow.

The GOP solution to population decline is forcing 12 year old rape and incest victims to have their attackers baby.

And to keep them uneducated so they go directly to the farms or factories.

I fully agree with you. I think there's a much bigger reason than racism though. Humans suck at planning for the long-term future. Democratic elections always shift dramatically based on current events, and things that are even a few years out have an impact very close to zero. Asking people to choose intelligently based on things that are measure in decades is asking for a level of citizenship several orders of magnitude better than what they are willing to give.

If we want a government that does that, we have to give up democracy. Simple as.

I don't think we suck at long term planning. If the boomers have shown us anything it is that most people have a "fuck you I got mine" attitude.

Filings show Musk gave a Trump super PAC 75 million dollars last night. I'm sure he won't want anything in return though.

I think it's very evident. When economic conditions are bad, we don't care who is actually responsible, we blame the guy in office and vote em out, aka the 'fierce urgency of now'. When they're good, we support that guy and don't care what else they do. Take the response to COVID. When it showed up in China, and then horrific stories came out of Italy and they warned us to repeatedly get ready, we stuck our heads in the sand - I'm talking the average person here, not the national political leadership. Panic buying began when it showed up in the US. The number of people saying 'oh, that's definitely coming here eventually, let me stock up now' was virtually nil. The number of people interested in more aggressive steps against it skyrocketed precisely as soon as it was largely too late. The history of 1918 pandemic is the same. It's just how humans have always operated. We are the Ostrich Brigade.

Jesus Bret, let her talk...

oof- showing the mom of the girl who was killed by a migrant was rough

there is gonna be a lot of stream of conscious from me

I truly do not understand why a tax payer funded agency is endorsing a candidate.

I thought Harris did a really good job on that interview.

Baier is coming across like a bully. He has to stop cutting her off and trying to generate an obvious got ya moment.

I actually like him. I think he is one of the few legit journalists on that dumpster fire of a network. I expected better from him.

He wants to keep his job, though.

I really don't like how he keeps saying "your administration." I get why she can't push back, and I get what FOX is doing it, but it is just flat out not true and makes them seem unserious ( which in general they are)