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Modi plays a blinder every time. India is establishing colonies in every western country without a shot fired. Fair play

Let's see if it's as well received as the Irish diaspora. Frankly there are worse people you could have living next door than Indians. Very smart, civil people with a good hard work ethic. They'll add value to wherever they end up.

Could blue states opt out of being part of the USA? If they are tired of the way the place is being run could they be self sufficient. I know California could be but the rest I'm not sure of

I understand not. There is no mechanism for a state to leave the US. Could you imagine what Trump would do if a state declared independence?

At the crux of this latest crisis is states rights. As in the right of Minnesota to decline the offer of Federal assistance in 'fighting crime'. This is clearly another centralisation of power to DC without oversight or agreement.

So we are back to the core problem. Where are the classic conservatives in all this? State rights (and free trade) and the general constitution are supposed to be sacred. We await the pushback.

The conservatives have always been quite selective about states rights and the rule of law.

• Gun control? "Government tyranny. Shouldn't be enforced and we will not comply."
• Immigration laws? "Sacrosanct. Must be enforced. We are a nation of laws."
• Open carry for white people? "A sacred right, and even a duty."
• Open carry for black people or liberals? "Punishable by death. Shoot on sight."
• Abortion? "Let the states decide."
• Integration? "States have a right to do it in their own time, if ever. Washington needs to stop pushing us around down here where our negroes are content with what they've got."
• Weed? "Federal law trumps state law. Ban the stuff nationwide. States should comply."

The conservatives only want the states to decide on matters where the states are likely to agree with the conservative point of view. For now, the federal government's word is law. But as soon as the Dems take back over the federal government, the conservatives will revert back to states-rights absolutists in a nanosecond.

There was a chap on CNN saying ICE arent putting people into ovens....yet.

One of the folks who lives in the real world and not an alternative fantasy world allergic to reason.

One chap on CNN? Well that settles it then.

I stopped reading at "Remoaners."

The Brexiteers (and their predecessors, the Eurosceptics) spent 43 years railing against their continental partners. We should have come up with a catchier nickname for them.

They live in this alternative world where the truth cannot penetrate. There are so many of them that they form their own communities. They walk around agreeing with each other that climate change isn't real, that Biden lost the 2020 election, that the red states subsidize the blue ones, that gun control doesn't work, and it makes them feel comfortable talking out loud with such nonsense. It's quite jarring to those of us who live in the real world.

[quietly]

I take no delight in bringing this back. But RedHand88, and Wobbler (Forget about Whitey)... Why do you think I said what I said? This been in the works since 2016.


Paraphrasing a response to a former Renoite how now lives in London in a mixed race famnily....

While it does stress me out, it's deeper than that currently. I'm numb. I've been numb since long before Uvalde. It's a feeling of helplessness and not knowing where to go next. I've lived this shit in Northern Ireland before. The fractured society, them vs us; government collusion into the murders of citizens. I yelled it from the roof tops during trumps first run and first term and all I got was exited from friend groups I didn't really care for. The truth is white Christian Americans, particularly those with money - love this horrible bastard. And they quietly cheer on ICE. It's disgusting. Like I said, I'm numb. I'm tired of all the questions I get from people
Back home, like I'm somehow responsible for it because I live here. It's horrible. Thanks for listening to my rant.

Quietly? Some are pretty open about it. They're the social media equivalent of the Klansmen walking about with the hoods open and their faces exposed. They're not confessing. They're bragging.

I donMt think Vance would get elected, unless the Democratics pull out Hillary Clinton or someone like that to run.

Unbelievably, the betting markets have Vance as the favourite followed by Newsom followed by Rubio.

My fear would be that whoever comes next (Vance?) will be worse.

Can't see that happening, how could anyone be worse than him? Beyond vile

The only thing worse than a MAGA who doesn't know what he's doing is a MAGA who does know what he's doing. The only saving graces of Trump are that he doesn't understand how things work, and he's easily distracted. Macron figured out how to play Trump like a Stradivarius years ago. Vance is still an idiot, but he would not be so easy to play. I doubt if he'd come out with hare-brained schemes like annexing Greenland, but he'd think nothing of kicking millions of people off their health insurance in the name of conservative ideology. His presidency could potentially produce a bigger death toll than Trump's. Plus he's younger, so we don't have the safety valve of inevitable-death-from-old-age-in-the-next-few-years that we have with Trump.

As has been said many times, the first part of solving the problem is for people to look at themselves about their health, be that their diet their exercise their lifestyle approach.

Other than mass killings for those hitting the 80 mark, what ya going to do?

Unfortunately unless you have some income to cover future ailments in America then you are goosed. Here at least you can get nursing home with basic cover, some are good and some are poor btw..

Lives have changed also, the youngest in the house, used to get the house and they took on board the looking after of their parents, they ended up with the house as a result of that in most occasions. Now no one can be bother or is in a position to do that, both in most families are working now and the working age for retirement is older for both.

So Gen x wants to spend their money and time on holidays lol.

The reason why I asked is their a solution to all this was because, is because I can't think of one

Have you read Abundance? It's got some good solutions in there, but none of them are going to work overnight. It'll take a generation to fix this mess.

[The US has always looked after it's own self interest (And why shouldn't it?). It was never the protector of the poor or downtrodden anywhere in the world, let alone those within it's own borders.]

Rather, the American order is over because the United States has decided that it no longer wishes to play its historically unprecedented role of providing global security. The American might that upheld the world order of the past 80 years will now be used instead to destroy it.

I've taken his excerpt from J70's monologue from the Atlantic and want to put it into the context of Mark Carney's speech to the great and good at Davos.

The US has always looked after it's own self interest (And why shouldn't it?). It was never the protector of the poor or downtrodden anywhere in the world, let alone those within it's own borders.

In my living memory it has been responsible for more deaths around the globe, in the Middle East in particular and I include it's proxy Israel in this statement.

Carney is right to point out that the "middle powers" were more than happy to live under this rules based order, ignoring the difference between rhetoric and reality as it suited them.


longer version of Carneys speech

https://x.com/i/status/2013809774417047673

I forget who said it, but countries don't have friends. They have interests.

Tapper: Those are officers being attacked on Jan 6th? By this standard,  would any of those officers be justified in shooting and killing the people, causing them physical harm?

Noem: When people are physically harming them, they have the authority to arrest those individuals.

Tapper: The president pardoned every single one of them.

Noem: President Trump has been so focused on is making sure that when we're out there, we don't pick and choose which situations are in which laws are enforced and which ones aren'

Tapper: I just showed you video of people attacking law enforcement officers. Undisputed proof, undisputed evidence. And I just said President Trump pardoned all of them. And you said that President Trump is enforcing all the laws equally. It's just not true. There's a different standard for law enforcement officials being attacked. If they're being attacked by trump supporters. We just saw that.

Imagine any poor woman married to Eoin.

https://www.facebook.com/rteradio1/videos/in-the-wake-of-ice-agents-shooting-dead-a-woman-in-the-us-city-of-minneapolis-li/883646034150255/

That's the kind of boy that makes women need to cover their drinks as soon as he walks into the bar.

Former law enforcement officer, Kramer Hammy:

"It is clear that US citizens' ignorance of federal laws and law enforcement duties, procedures, and limits of authority is getting to the point where it is deadly. I spent probably 3 hours watching and re-watching, and finding every single video and angle I could of the situation in Minnesota yesterday and came to one immovable conclusion based off of what I saw and what I know from a professional standpoint. This is long, but please give it a read.

"As a former officer, let me make something clear: ICE agents ARE NOT police officers, deputy sheriffs, or troopers. They are not local/state law enforcement. They are not federal criminal law enforcement. They have an INCREDIBLY limited scope of authority, and that scope of authority exists in detaining and arresting with probable cause and/or SIGNED WARRANTS those investigated and suspected of being in the US illegally.

"They cannot just pull anyone over for a traffic violation or because their car is in a place they don't want it. They have NO authority to pull people over for ANYTHING other than immigration enforcement- and even then that involves probable cause, such as a known vehicle of someone they have been tracking, or a warrant. On very rare occasions they have the legal authority to pull someone over if they are threatening the lives of others, but that was not happening in this case. They do not have the training nor the authority to pull ANYONE else over. They cannot arrest legal citizens. They cannot detain legal citizens without probable cause to believe they might not be legal. They have ZERO authority to be attempting to force entry into a vehicle- without even identifying themselves, without a warrant, without exigent circumstances such as a life being directly threatened- that is trying to drive down the street without probable cause in relation to IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT.

"This ENTIRE situation in Minnesota was outside of the scope of legal authority from the get go. None of it was done within the scope of authority of ICE. Every single behavior those agents made was procedurally incorrect, done without proper authority, and was based off of intimidation and the assumption that people do not understand the law and their rights in regards to interactions with ICE.
"On no planet should an officer, agent, or any human being ever step in front of a car in 'drive' that is actively trying to leave and use their body as a shield to prevent a person from LEGALLY LEAVING a situation in which they are not legally being detained. It takes maybe a week of any kind of actual law enforcement training to understand that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES do you ever place yourself in front of a vehicle in 'drive.' That agent had every single opportunity to simply take two steps to the right and not be standing directly in front of a vehicle attempting to conduct their legal right to drive away.
"You can see the wheels are turned, [Renee] backed up and turned them to the right, moved forward a bit to leave, couldn't because an agent was standing in front of her, and continued to try to leave by TURNING HER WHEELS TO THE RIGHT and moving forward. He continually chose to stand there and not allow her to legally leave as she had every single right to do.

The officer pulling on her door and banging on her window and swearing at her had ZERO authority to order her out of her vehicle or attempt to make entry into her vehicle. NONE. A single day of actual training of the legal scope of authority and the LAW would've prevented that from happening.
"You now have a frightened citizen being blockaded by immigration agents (with another person in her vehicle) who had zero obligation to follow legally invalid orders from that agent, being blocked in and having a fully grown, masked man attempting to make entry into her car. If this were reversed, every single person would immediately feel she had every reasonable expectation to fear for her safety. It doesn't matter if she knew it was ICE because the agents weren't even acting in their scope of authority anyway.

"Whether or not she made the right decision by very CLEARLY- based off of how hard her wheels were turned and how low and to the driver corner windshield that shot was fired- trying to drive to the left of that agent is IRRELEVANT in the picture as a whole.

None of this would have happened if those agents had done even one single thing correctly. Not just correctly, but within their legal scope of authority. Every single moment of that interaction was escalated by untrained, unprofessional, procedurally inept "agents" who not only had zero control of themselves but everything around them. And not because they are helpless, but because their actions that did not fall under their scope of power CAUSED this. Their tempers, lack of training, and the knowledge that they can get away with violating their own scope of authority caused this.

"I will always be the first to defend law enforcement when lethal force very clearly is required. But this was not even remotely the case, and as an actual TRAINED professional in that field with experience and understanding of both the law and procedures, there is no justification for this- and it would benefit EVERYONE to actually read up on the laws, scope of authority, and use a single shred of common sense to see that this situation was started, escalated, and caused by the ICE agents involved. I have zero respect for those in power who are ignorant of the scope of their authority and abuse it at the cost of lives around them."

Just breezed through preclearance in Dublin. No issues. No questions. Not very 1930s Germany

Well that settles it then. All is well with the US.

It's not "nonsensical propaganda." It's all completely verifiable.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) significantly reduced certain recruitment standards in 2025 to meet hiring goals, including removing age limits, cutting training time in half, and dropping the Spanish language requirement, while also offering large signing bonuses and student loan forgiveness to attract officers amidst an aggressive expansion. These changes have drawn criticism from lawmakers concerned about increased misconduct, with ICE reportedly doubling its workforce in 2025.

Sources:

Secretary Noem Unveils No Age Limit for Patriotic Americans to Join ICE Law Enforcement to Help Remove Worst of the Worst from U.S.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/08/06/secretary-noem-unveils-no-age-limit-patriotic-americans-join-ice-law-enforcement

^ That's from the horse's mouth. They're not confessing. They're bragging.

Durbin Presses Noem On Lax ICE Hiring Standards, Inflammatory Recruitment Messaging
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/dem/releases/durbin-presses-noem-on-lax-ice-hiring-standards-inflammatory-recruitment-messaging

As ICE boosts recruitment, critics concerned over changes to hiring and training standards
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/as-ice-boosts-recruitment-critics-concerned-over-changes-to-hiring-and-training-standards


Just because the right spews fact-averse crap doesn't mean everything coming from the left is equally false.