Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a comment about the Trump administration's pivot to claiming that it meant to send Abrego Garcia to El Salvador:

Remember, folks: If they'll do it to non-citizens, they'll do it to citizens soon enough. They want you afraid of being snatched off the street for protesting the Israeli government's genocide in Gaza or the Trump administration's cozy ties with Elon Musk or literally anything else Trump wants to punish people for saying or doing.

Anyone who supports this also supports innocent born-and-raised Americans being shipped to El Salvador for what are effectively thoughtcrimes. After all, when due process can be ignored to deport someone to another country with no oversight and no way to bring them back home, whether that someone committed an actual crime will ultimately be irrelevant.

In second place, it's Leah Abram with a comment about the attempts to justify Garcia's kidnapping by calling him a criminal:

Trump is a convicted criminal.
Abrego Garcia is not a convicted criminal.

These are factual statements.

You're literally on the side of criminals.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more comment from Stephen T. Stone, this time about RFK Jr.'s rhetoric about autism:

The reasons autism rates have skyrocketed" are easy enough to see: We got better at diagnosing autism and we started calling it autism" instead of saying Little Timmy is rd".

RFK's plan also carried an evil assumption: Autism is wrong" and needs a cure". Combine that with what is sure to be a load of crap disguised as a scientific study that says vaccines cause autism" and you have the makings of a situation where the director of national health would prefer to see dead children who may not have autism instead of living children with autism.

I hope that son of a bitch likes seeing child-size coffins. He's going to be seeing a lot more of them on his watch if he has his way.

Next, it's That One Guy with a comment about Senator Van Hollen's remarkable visit with Abrego Garcia:

Well that's awkward...

White House: There is no possible way we could even see the accused, let alone have him released.'

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen: Takes one plane trip and managed to do the impossible' by securing an in-person visit to the recently trafficked victim.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Dave760 with a comment about the administration's attack on Harvard:

They're going to need some good lawyers to fight this. I wonder where Harvard, of all schools, will be able to find good lawyers. It's a conundrum.

In second place, it's an anonymous comment on our post about HHS and the return of measles:

i take exception to your slanderous mischaracterization of RFKj strapping marine mammals to the hood of his family car".

It was only the head of a whale he cut off with a chainsaw on a beach, and it was strapped to the roof of his minivan. Only a litlle of the fluids of the whale and its decomp products leaked inside, and everyone was safely protected from that by wearing plastic bags over their heads for the long trip home on the highway.

The nerve of you irresponsible writers is something.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from Thad passing along a joke about the White House's contradictory communications:

I forget exactly how Scott Sharkey's joke went but it was something like this:

The New York Times: The president has shit his pants.
Press secretary: The president has never shit his pants.
Trump: I shit my pants on purpose!

Every fucking time.

Finally, it's an anonymous comment about RFK Jr.'s autism comments:

Expect shares in Adobe to go up, as to date the #1 method of showing a link between vaccines and autism is to use photoshop on your results.

That's all for this week, folks!