XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: OFeem1987@teleworm.us   
      
   Promises Promises wrote this post by blinking in Morse code:   
      
   > "'Encounters' at U.S.-Mexico border at lowest level in more than 50   
   > years"   
   >   
   > "Trump's executive orders, stepped-up border security and end of Biden   
   > asylum scheme all made difference"   
      
   Not to mention making the U.S. a much less pleasant place to visit for   
   would-be immigrants and would-be tourists.   
      
          
      
       The startling extremism of the Trump regime, even compared   
       with other modern wannabe dictatorships, is obvious to the   
       naked eye. But I always find quantification useful. So I was   
       very pleased to see that the estimable John Burn-Murdoch of   
       the Financial Times has risen to the occasion, producing an   
       index of *democratic backsliding* that lets us compare the   
       trajectory of the United States under Trump with those of   
       other nations we used to view as cautionary tales. (I’ve   
       looked at how the index is constructed, and it’s reasonable.)   
       We’re on a uniquely steep descent, at least for modern times:   
      
      
      
   --   
   For I swore I would stay a year away from her; out and alas!   
   but with break of day I went to make supplication.   
   		-- Paulus Silentiarius, c. 540 A.D.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)