"Trump's escapades in the ME aren't helping things but it's definitely not the only elephant in the living room."

Let's be honest with each other. Trump is the problem. He is a disaster.

"Bread ($5000) and Circuses (live-streamed executions)."

Exactly this.

It's an easy way to distract from the fact that the US can't win a war. Against Iran.

They're not even trying anymore. Just theatrics.

Russia needs another war like the US needs another war.

To be perfectly fair, the Russian performance in Ukraine has been superb when compared to the US performance in Iran.

Do we wanna talk Operation Enduring -------?

I don't know a single military soul who, time now, supports Trump. Granted, I work with CGOs and FGOs. Maybe the really junior guys and really senior guys like Trump. But at my level, he is just an embarrassment. The Iran stuff is pure theatrics.

"Whatever you say, German Trumper."

That's Oberstleutnant to you, Champ.

Led Zep, The Beatles, name any other old people music. Bluh.

Pink Floyd has stood the test of time. I think A Momentary Lapse of Reason and the Division Bell were both exceptional albums. Maybe a little too new for you old farts.

#40

I'm hoping you are drunk right now. Otherwise, you might be the most unhinged person in this group.

Meth bender, maybe?

"You see those situations to be comparable, do you?"

Yup.

Totally.

In fact, out of all of them, Babbitt was the only one killed who didn't threaten officers.

She still FAFO'd, but didn't try and run anyone over. I don't blame the cops who smoked her ass. She should have been smarter than that. I would have likely done the same if I were the cops.

"They should deport her to a maximum security prison in El Salvador."

I KNEW you were MAGA!!!

"You provide nothing but excuses for cruelty and hate."

Quite the contrary.

I want you to tell me your position. My daughter has spent about half her life in Germany. In less than 18 months, her legal status to stay in this country will expire.

What should Germany do? Expel her, which I would imagine you would view as being cruel and hateful, or grant her some sort of residency status because she has been here.

Technically, she has been in the country legally since 2019, so she does have a history of legal residency. Does that make it more or less cruel to deport her?

"You're the type who believes Renee Good and Alex Pretti deserved to be murdered."

FAFO.

Remember Ashli Babbitt?

Did she deserve to be killed?

In my mind, just another example of FAFO.

"They were in the country illegally...Said the European colonizer."

So would Germany be cruel if they deported my daughter, with her German roots, back to the US because she doesn't meet the conditions to stay in the country legally?

#28

You failed to provide a cogent answer.

Do you have a solution, or would you simply prefer to bleat.

To be fair, I don't see you capable of much more than bleating...

"Should people who were trafficked to the US against their will when they were young be treated the same way as violent criminals and people who made a conscious decision to immigrate illegally? I don't think so."

Good question.

I'm still not quite clear on whether the anti-ICE crowd is against deportations, or against the perception of cruelty towards those who will be deported. I'm all for deportation, but cruelty is an emotional response unrelated to the fact that someone is in the country illegally.

I don't know why a CBP guy would act cruelly to someone who showed up in the US without valid entry credentials. You just send them home and that's that.

"How is being deported into a country you've never been in before NOT cruel and unusual?"

In the case of the eight people sent to South Sudan, their own countries refused to accept them. They were all criminals.

Not saying it's right or wrong, but what should be done with them? Just keep them in prison in the US forever? They were in the country illegally, so to me that would seem the only logical option...unless you wanted to somehow offer residency or citizenship to illegals with criminal records, just because no one else wanted them. Including their own countries of origin.

"Is this attitude privledge?"

Quite the contrary. Privilege would be thinking that, being from country A, country B had an obligation to allow you to stay, even if you lacked the prerequisites to be in country B.

I am in Germany because they allow me to be here. If they elected to boot me, would you think them as being cruel?

"the deportees don't have the resources the country(ies) that they would be a more natural fit are dangerous to them the cruelty is the point."

I'm intrigued by your notion of a country being a "natural fit" for someone. Can you define that further?

If my unemployed, dirt-poor daughter was to be deported from Germany back to the US, would that constitute cruelty on the part of the German government? From my vantage point, I don't think so. Even though the US is vastly more dangerous than Germany.

So ... I don't totally understand this. If someone is under threat of being deported, what is not compelling them to go to a country of their own choosing.

I don't know for sure, but if Germany wanted to deport me, I'm pretty sure they just care about me leaving Germany. They don't care where I go, so long as I go.

Is that not true with regards to US deportation policy?

So ... I used to be a big Sisters of Mercy fan back in the 1990s. My daughter told be about a concert they were having in Frankfurt on October 4th. She likes them as well

It would have been 375 EUR for two tickets. Standing room only.

In my mind, SoM was band that was hardly famous, even when it would have been considered famous. Now? I'm just baffled.

"America will never have a European-style welfare state without a VAT

The federal government has some scope to raise more money from high earners. But the idea that the main problem with the existing system that tax rates are too flat is wrong. In 2018 the lowest fifth of earners on average paid no net federal taxes at all. The top 1% paid a total rate (ie, after all deductions) of 30%, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Include state and local levies, and high earners face a marginal tax rate on each extra dollar they take home"the rate that matters for work incentives"which is middling by rich-country standards. Tax refunds for poor families are exceptionally generous. In 2019 a single parent of two children earning two-thirds of average pay faced total net labour taxes of only 10%, according to analysis by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. In egalitarian Sweden the rate was nearly 33%."

Can a country get too rich?

"NORWAY'S TRIBUTE to Edvard Munch, Scandinavia's most famous painter, is an impressive 13-storey slab of recycled aluminium and glass built on the harbour front in Oslo. Completed in 2021 at a cost of $350m, it was even more impressively late (by a decade) and over budget (by a scream-worthy $200m). Looming above thick mist blanketing the sea on a winter's afternoon, the museum encapsulates the country that paid for it: sophisticated and so loaded that money is no object.

Norwegian oil has built an economy that is the envy of other rich countries, not to mention poor ones. GDP per person is a cool $90,000, behind only city-states, tax havens and Switzerland. Since 1991 the government has amassed a sovereign-wealth fund worth $2.2trn, or $400,000 for every one of Norway's 5.6m people. Proceeds sustain one of the world's most generous welfare states."

"Economic disparity makes socialism popular."

Rich people bitching about richer people...

"So why does your party cut taxes for the super rich and make it harder for the government to operate?"

So why does your party want to exclude most of the population from having to pay taxes?

The bottom 50% of income earners have an average tax rate of 3.73%, and cover 3.26% of the total federal income tax burden.

It seems to me that they are not paying their fair share, considering that the top 50% of income earners is paying for 96.24% of the burden.

"That one is easy. Those who support this DSA nonsense expect the rich people to pay for everything."

Yep. That's what I think to.

And at one point, one of more progressive posters on this site said they would not be in favor of expanded government programs if it meant poor people paying more in taxes. Which leads me to believe they are not so much concerned about helping the poors as much as they are harming the richies.

"Of course, billionaires would werk against it, and myopic libertarians who think that sidewalks are communism, drivers licences are fascism, and the Invisible Hand of the Market is the Holy Grail, would still be living in their manly self-built forts."

Why would the billionaires care? I mean, everyone would care, but adopting a Nordic model would affect lower income earners in the US the most.

Frankly, I'm a fan of the European model. And one of the most, if not the most successful characteristic of Norway is its Sovereign Wealth Fund, which has accumulated just around $200k for each Norwegian citizen. Mostly by investing in US companies.

Thanks, Capitalism.

"Would that even be possible? Wouldn't every state have to agree with it?"

I don't think so. Do the states have a say in federal tax policy right now? Other than through the elected representatives?