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@Illuminatus @cstross That's the "I never want to see non-white people" policy people voted for. (Not all the people, but a lot of people.)
Nobody voted for "girls are disposable"; even if they agree (which, on the whole and by and large, the male population does) that women are chattel, they don't agree you're allowed to kill them for fun.
Which is where the politics gets into it.
@cstross Like that, but it's too small.
The central point to all of this, irrespective of rationalization or obfuscation, is a bunch of the great and good who deal with insecurity by doing stuff to prove they can do anything they want. (Emphatically "fuck who they want", but in practice much broader.) No law binds me, etc.
Consider the hate for Obama as a result of Obama being the first president since Carter who wasn't part of the club. Or every intelligence agency functioning as a fiefdom.
@cstross You pick an island because it makes corpse disposal really easy.
I think it's been obvious for years that a lot of the abducted kids never left the island alive; I think it's further obvious that Epstein's sponsor ("where did Epstein's money come from?" remains an open question) and heavy cover had to have components of the US state involved. These are trees no one is barking up, to torment the metaphor; in part because the native nazi billionaires involved fear an uprising.
@cstross I expect it's from the relatively short list of courtiers with "speaks with master's voice" tokens for anything complicated happening now.
We can't rule out, I dunno, "Miller does peyote" as an input for strategic planning and operational decisions.
I really feel for the folks trying to produce intelligence assessments about American intentions. You always have to allow for world view but once you have to allow for "despises quantitative analysis" and "formally psychotic", good luck.
@cstross I don't think we have enough information to even suggest which is might be and I'd be loathe to avoid option five, which is "someone wants us to look at El Paso and not $OTHER_LOCATION".
I would right now assume Option Five; we're being disinformed. I'd put "you call that succession planning?" at the top of the list for why, but dying mad king, ongoing courtier power grabs, damaging revelations, etc. It could be nigh-anything. (It could be someone pranking Ted Cruz.)
@cstross There's sort of four possibilities.
Someone is doing something at White Sands (missile range, just north of El Paso) and wants to make completely sure nobody gets a video record out an airliner window.
Someone in the admin wants to feel important.
Someone intends to use the airport for non-commercial purposes; load up Fort Bliss, load up the "East Montana" ICE concentration camp there, etc.
Someone has been disinformed and is (over?) reacting.
