Show me a terrorist stopped by REAL ID. I’ll wait. Meanwhile, Grandma can’t fly to her sister’s funeral because her birth certificate is in cursive and has the wrong county. This isn’t about safety. It’s about obedience.
REAL ID was passed 20 years ago—born in the shadow of 9/11, alongside the Patriot Act and the dawn of TSA security theater. It’s a two-decade-old law that’s only now getting its teeth.
It didn’t come from MAGA fever dreams. It predates the Tea Party. It traces back to the Bush administration—2005. Back then, we weren’t talking about migrant caravans or voter fraud. The national anxiety was different.
@freemo The irony is that the "by whatever means necessary" and "never again" energy will be directly responded to by "by any means necessary" from MAGA and "never again" for Trump isn't the Holocaust but it's "2016-2020" all the "administrative deep state" obstructionism is nope "never again" for Trump. In the same way that RUSSIA was PROVOKED into Russo-Ukraine war, JAPAN was provoked into 12/7/1941 through sanctions and blockades, and Versaille cornered Germany... 2 to tango! #unpopular
@freemo Well, Trump feels so much pressure from his Never Trumpers from the Left and the Right that he needs to get 30 million illegals out of the country before midterms... do, he'll surely do it "by any means necessary" and the more obstructions happen the more brutal he'll become. In that toxic way of "I don't want to spank you, it'll hurt me more than it will you, you're responsible for your whipping, your escalation is only hurting you more, stop resisting, stop struggling," like he does.
@freemo That may hold in principle, but in practice—especially in a post-9/11, populist-nationalist America—those legal distinctions don’t always matter. Obama, Clinton, and even Bush had hardline deportation policies. “Kids in cages” didn’t start with Trump. The machinery has been bipartisan and ongoing. The question is less about what’s technically legal than how the state chooses to wield power.
@freemo I get that. But is it a “lie” to use the term “illegal alien” if someone is undocumented or overstaying a visa? Or is the issue that DHS applies the label without due process, or that the term itself is inhumane? Are we talking about legal truth—or moral framing?
@freemo If someone is in a country without a valid visa or passport, that’s illegal—everywhere, not just the U.S. If your counter is “people aren’t illegal,” that’s a moral framing, not a legal one. I respect the sentiment, but we can’t pretend immigration law doesn’t exist. Overstay a German visa? You get deported. This isn’t unique to Trump or America—it’s how borders work globally. So which argument are we having: legal, moral, or utopian?
@freemo To wit: > This kind of collaboration is “a preview of what is to come around the country: large scale operations that employ our state and local law enforcement partners to get criminal illegal aliens off our streets,” DHS said.
@freemo No, it's still lying because it's reported by CNN and they'll Always Be Pandering. They're actually calling all the military aged single men enemy combatants and insurgent terrorists... Then illegal aliens. Then migrants and refugees (if they have papers and zero arrests) and then there are immigrants, which include my Irish and Hungarian family tree. Nope, it's not gotten better, only worse. CNN holds its ground.
@LukeAlmighty Empathy, once a virtue, can be exploited as a weapon—used to manipulate, shame, or control public behavior. Luke’s “game theory” reply points out that in a zero-sum world, even kindness gets strategized. It’s not about compassion—it’s about leverage.
@freemo I also love that you reduce the unique tribes and the unique DNA and unique cultures of the many indigenous peoples of North America as one racial group... how reductionist are you! I throw down a Red Race Card! Penalty! To the penalty box for you! :) Trying too hard, my friend Doc Freemo!
@freemo yeah, but it so happens that America and American isn't defined as a race, only a Nation State and a Nationality. The bullshit trap is when someone intentially frames references to Mexico and Mexican or China/Chinese, etc, as Nation States and Nationalities but because it's so fun to throw stupid Race Cards everywhere, when someone calls it a Chinese Wall or China Virus (literally reference to the country and not even Chinese), and it's so obvious bullshit, what then, #nannystate#karen