Best Of

A reporter asks Bukele if Kilmar Ábrego García will be returned to the US.

"How can I return a criminal to the US? Smuggle a terrorist in?," Bukele replies.

He then calls the question "absurd" and says he won't release Ábrego García because he isn't fond of releasing people from his prisons.

"The question is preposterous," Bukele says. "I don't have the power to return him to the United States."

Which means, if the US government doesn't contradict this, that the Trump administration has taken to itself the power to disappear people, innocent or guilty.

Number 3 just happened.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/bukele-abrego-garcia-and-red-lines
...But if it’s number 3?

Let us speak plainly: Nayib Bukele is a minor strongman who will do whatever Donald Trump demands of him. If Trump wants Abrego Garcia in the United States, then Bukele will return him. By the same token, if Bukele understands that Trump does not want Abrego Garcia returned, then he will keep the man.

Bukele has no interests in this game other than pleasing his political patron. His exercise of Salvadoran “sovereignty” can only be read as an expression of Donald Trump’s will.

Anyone who asserts otherwise is either a villain or a fool.

So if Bukele affirmatively refuses to repatriate Abrego Garcia, it will mean that Trump has told him not to.

At which point the Supreme Court will face a choice.

Surrender or escalation?..

Bill Kristol
@BillKristol
·
13m
Watching Trump and Bukele in the Oval Office just now made me feel physically ill.

He makes the skin crawl of any right thinking person anywhere. Oh America, what the hell have you done?

It’s the inevitable endpoint of woke leftism. The people will voluntarily elect right wing strongmen

The exact same thing will happen in the UK if we don’t reverse course on multiple crucial issues. Firstly, migration

How many times do the centrist dads need to be told this?

He doesn't make my skin crawl whatsoever.

I think most would quite like a bit of the Bukele approach within the British justice system, rather than it being populated with people who think a 'by no means bleeding-heart liberal' view is that people from ethnic and religious minorities should serve lower sentences for the same severity of crime.

What, being sent to a foreign prison at the whim of an erratic PM having committed no crime and having never been convicted of anything?

Absolutely fucking not. And if a lefty PM tried to do that to someone like you, I'd be out on the streets fighting your cause even if you would never return the favour.

(Your last bit is a blatant inverted lie. The purpose of the guidance was to try and mitigate the issue of minorities getting longer sentences for the same crimes).

A reporter asks Bukele if Kilmar Ábrego García will be returned to the US.

"How can I return a criminal to the US? Smuggle a terrorist in?," Bukele replies.

He then calls the question "absurd" and says he won't release Ábrego García because he isn't fond of releasing people from his prisons.

"The question is preposterous," Bukele says. "I don't have the power to return him to the United States."

Which means, if the US government doesn't contradict this, that the Trump administration has taken to itself the power to disappear people, innocent or guilty.

Number 3 just happened.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/bukele-abrego-garcia-and-red-lines
...But if it’s number 3?

Let us speak plainly: Nayib Bukele is a minor strongman who will do whatever Donald Trump demands of him. If Trump wants Abrego Garcia in the United States, then Bukele will return him. By the same token, if Bukele understands that Trump does not want Abrego Garcia returned, then he will keep the man.

Bukele has no interests in this game other than pleasing his political patron. His exercise of Salvadoran “sovereignty” can only be read as an expression of Donald Trump’s will.

Anyone who asserts otherwise is either a villain or a fool.

So if Bukele affirmatively refuses to repatriate Abrego Garcia, it will mean that Trump has told him not to.

At which point the Supreme Court will face a choice.

Surrender or escalation?..

Bill Kristol
@BillKristol
·
13m
Watching Trump and Bukele in the Oval Office just now made me feel physically ill.

He makes the skin crawl of any right thinking person anywhere. Oh America, what the hell have you done?

It’s the inevitable endpoint of woke leftism. The people will voluntarily elect right wing strongmen

The exact same thing will happen in the UK if we don’t reverse course on multiple crucial issues. Firstly, migration

How many times do the centrist dads need to be told this?

It reminds me of the crap you hear from abusers: "look what you made me do." Its pathetic then and its pathetic when you say it. Those who voted for Trump are responsible for their actions and the consequences of their action. Attempting to blame others is, well, pathetic.

Trump threatening CBS and 60 Minutes after they do a long interview with Zelensky.

https://bsky.app/profile/youranonjd.bsky.social/post/3lmqlaubhwc2s

Totally normal country.

The story here for those without bsky.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-trump-says-cbs-60-035040999.html

The 1st Amendment only has value if the institutions which sustain it continue to function.
That increasingly hangs in the balance.

We are not totally immune - only this weekend we had a respected journalist and travel writer advocating dictatorship here...

Imagine watching scenes of destruction and child murder by Russian missiles in Ukraine and being mad only about the editor of the programme.

Trump's comment was that it was probably a "mistake". And anyway it's 'Biden's war'.

Whatever Europe does in Ukraine, it's increasingly clear that the US can't be part of it.

You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.

I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.

Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.

Horse wasn't saying their position is illogical. He was saying he "would have a lot more time" for them if they weren't climate change deniers. Their position is logical based on their beliefs. The point is their beliefs are flat out wrong.

Such certainty..😏 When I look out of my window I don't instantly think/see "climate emergency"

I did this week, with the Pentlands on fire. Both of our "window views" are equally fallacious.

Thing is, you don’t need to fight anecdote with anecdote. We have the time series of global surface temperature, which rises, decade on decade, in a monotonic manner and pretty much a straight line.

Then we have ocean heat content which is even more monotonic and ruler-straight because the ocean smooths out the ENSO cycle.

You know, I would have a lot more time for people saying we should cancel net zero if these weren’t the same people that used to say that climate change is a hoax.

I'm not sure why. The more skeptical you are about the settled view of climate science of course the more upset you'd be about trashing the economy in a Canute-like attempt to reverse the crisis.

Much as I disagree with @Luckyguy1983 views on climate change (and most else) his point here is completely logical. The more you disagree with the climate change, the less logical it is to aim for net zero.

Horse wasn't saying their position is illogical. He was saying he "would have a lot more time" for them if they weren't climate change deniers. Their position is logical based on their beliefs. The point is their beliefs are flat out wrong.

Such certainty..😏 When I look out of my window I don't instantly think/see "climate emergency"

When I look out my window, I don't instantly think/see "evolution by natural selection" or "heliocentric model of the solar system", but they're still true. Gosh, sometimes I think you just like being contrarian.