Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Thursday, September 18, 2025
·
61 comments
OTB relies on its readers to support it. Please consider helping by becoming a monthly contributor through Patreon or making a one-time contribution via PayPal. Thanks for your consideration.
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
Four arrested after photos of Trump and Epstein projected onto Windsor Castle during president’s U.K. visit (NBC)
It’s not going away, Donald.
@DK:
None of this is going to amount to a hill of beans.
Trump’s Selective Memory: “Not Familiar” With Assassinated Democratic Lawmaker While Raging About “Left-wing Violence” (TechDirt)
Don’t agree with everything in this article, but its broad complaint is solid. R.I.P. Melissa and Mark Hortman, and Officer Brian Sicknick.
Today is Dear Wife’s birthday. We’re both born the same year.
We’re not going out to eat but having spare ribs for dinner. Reason- Her sister, our nephew Kent, and DW’s cousin Emily will be staying overnight with us.
For dinner on Saturday or Sunday, DW and I may still go out but since we’re leaving for Italy and Switzerland on Monday, it will have to be a no ‘doggy bag’ outing. Can’t have the food in the refrigerator for the month we’ll be gone. So it will be Shake Shack not Okeechobee Steakhouse for the meal.
DW and I have been married 36 years. I love her very much. She had to be very strong through my cancer struggles. I wouldn’t have made it without her.
Today would have also been my father’s 108th birthday, Dad died in 1997. DW and Dad got along great. Shortly after he met DW for the first time, Dad said to me “Oh she is so sweet.” Dad still had that opinion when he died.
The headline of the day- 6 children, including infant, locked in Milwaukee storage unit: Police
@Bill Jempty: Happy Birthday to DW! And have a great time in Europe.
Have you ever turned your mind 90 degrees and look anew at what is normal? This morning I went: “Isn’t it weird to have animals wandering around the house or sleeping on your bed?
Then you snap back and hug that dog.
Pentagon’s crackdown on Kirk comments stirs fears among troops
The texts that have been released in the Kirk case are strange. No young person I know texts like that. They are either providing edited translations or something…the only people who text like that are over 50. Sus AF.
@Scott: And there’s more!
At least 8 troops punished for social media comments about Charlie Kirk’s death
More Trump foreign policy successes:
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact as Gulf Arab states grow wary of US security guarantees
Is Putin making Trump look weak?
I saw some otters again this morning. I can usually hear them rustling in the water plants that grow between the riprap on the levy. Sightings are rare, this is only my second. Boy, they’re adorable.
There are so many different flowering vines and shrubs now. Rose of Sharons and Althea in all colors grow wild. We have blue bugle vines and orange trumpet vines. There’s this lush vine with masses of tiny palest of lavender flowers that drive the pollinators insane. Butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies, bees and wasps of all shapes and sizes just all over it. I also discovered North American passion fruit vine and it’s like nothing I have seen before.
The mimosas are finished with their beautiful blooms, but I managed to get one started at my mailbox a few years ago and hoping next summer it pays off.
@Scott:
What I find strange is how dogs can easily integrate into human households, and even adapt to human body language. For instance, dogs know what you mean when you point. Chimps, which are the species most closely related to humans, can’t do this as well.
@Kathy: I think it is a matter of human-directed co-evolution. All kinds of experiments like the pretty famous Domesticated Silver Fox experiment in the Soviet Union demonstrate the possibilities on how it works.
Why the hell is JD Vance saluting in this picture. He is not in the chain of command. Are Nixon like palace uniforms in the future?
I don’t buy the Hitler analogy but Mussolini is pretty analogous with these clowns.
@Bill Jempty:..hill of beans…
Soybeans?
Is this the hill that Republican Senators Hoeven and Cramer want to die on?*
Tariffs leave North Dakota’s top crop without its biggest buyer
*Disclaimer!!! Trigger Warning!!! In common American parlance a hill to die on is a figure of speech not to be taken literally. This does not mean that I wish harm to come to the two United States Senators who represent North Dakota in the United States Congress. However if the moderators of this site deem this phrase will put OTB in jeopardy of heavy handed action by Trump’s Terror Squad please redact or remove.
@Scott:..JD Vance…
No way that he knows something about President Trump’s health that is classified from the general public and he is practicing for the future.
I’m not sure if this will be a popular opinion, but I firmly believe that we are currently past the Tipping Point. There are too many oligarchs who are ready to back Trump because he is going to give them everything and anything they want. Recent events with the talk show hosts who have been fired with no push back at all, a Supreme Court that is ready and willing to crown Trump king, and the biggest tell is that our allies are absolutely falling in line and treating him like any other president, because they are resigned to the fact that he is here to stay.
Right now, he is preparing to call everyone and anyone who dares to open their mouth about him Antifa, which is great because it’s undefinable, all you have to do is make the sign of the cross and you’re Antifa. People are going to be hauled off the street, pronounced as Antifa members, and memory-holed.
The whole thing with Ezrea Kline is the canary in the coal mine. The Trump, Mega Republicans, and people like Charlie Kirk are playing a completely different game than everybody else. Meanwhile, on the left, we have people like Klein who can’t literally see the forest for the trees. MAGA is fighting an actual war while everyone else sits there watching it happen. Kline is wrong. Peaceful protest will have absolutely no effect on this Administration. Sooner or later there are going to be a lot of people who aren’t MAGA will decide that they just aren’t scared enough at the people who don’t want a police state and might take action, but it’s probably too late.
Between Trump, the oligarchs that support him, and the sycophants that are out there on YouTube propping them up, and the Third Republican state that is going to do a mid-cycle redistricting, this country will be a full-blown fascist dictatorship by 2027. I’m getting to the Point where I could see otherwise level-headed people supporting political violence. We are literally bringing a knife to a gunfight. I wonder when they’ll get around to shutting down this website, I really do. In another 6 months, I can see the administration shutting down anyone who takes on the administration. The only thing that’s going to keep this place open is that they have too many more sites to deal with first.
The only reason they need Trump right now is that he has this Svengali-like hold on the majority of Republicans. But once all of the trappings of a police state have been put into place, they will get rid of Trump and install someone who has an actual brain. I feel for our kids, they’re the ones who are going to have to live through this nightmare.
Sorry about being a buzzkill. It’s over, we’ve lost.
@Jen:
“Sus AF.” Ha, good one.
I’ll agree that the texts seem unusual for someone in their early 20’s, but people that age can have a range of texting styles, especially depending on the situation and audience. He also may be a more proficient writer than most and have a tendency to text in more complete sentences, kinda like an older person would. And it’s just hard to see why the released texts would’ve been altered except for redaction, which doesn’t seem to have happened.
@Gregory Lawrence Brown: When I was a little kid in ND we had the same senators for years, and they still do. I saw some commentary years ago explaining why senators from the Dakotas tend to be long serving, high seniority. They get the same vote as senators from CA, but they’re tiny media markets, making for very inexpensive campaigns. Along with Alaska and Wyoming, they’re the cheapest senators to buy. Maybe Vermont, but I suspect much of their media comes from expensive adjacent states.
@Scott:
You know, I can’t say whether the cat, too understood pointing.
@Rick DeMent:
I think the last slim reed of hope left is El Taco will tank the economy and produce a backlash.
… and this just in … Hell just froze over.
Tucker Carlson says Trump administration is using Charlie Kirk’s killing to trample First Amendment
If this had happened in Trumps first term it might have meant something. Right now no one cares.
@Rick DeMent: No, Hell has not frozen over. (In fact it’s quite sunny. Yes, you can take out your tomatoes now.) From the article:
That’s always the trick in MAGA-world: to criticize the Trump Admin then blame it on everyone but the man at the top. (And this is coming from a guy who once privately called Trump a demon!) Also, unless they’ve left it out of the quoted passages, Tucker never mentions or alludes to the canning of Kimmel or Colbert. In fact his comments are vague enough to interpret as only complaining about a potential crackdown on portions of the right that saw Charlie Kirk as too establishment, while being perfectly fine (or at least silent) on censorship of Dems and lefties. If you think it’s too absurd to imagine him adopting such a position, let’s recall that he has criticized Israel for its treatment of Christians while being silent on its treatment of Muslims.
Bibi is saying Israel needs to be an autarky because basically nobody likes him. Some think he’s projecting strength, others think he’s nuts.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-netanyahus-autarky-remarks-divide-analysts-1001521881
Yves over at Naked Capitalism says Larry Wilkerson has been warning the Israeli economy is collapsing, young professionals leaving… wonders aloud if there will even be an Israel in ten years.
Wow.
Futurama dropped a whole season this week.
I cancelled Disney+, which carries this show, but the subscription is good until October 9.
Maybe it’s the cancellations and resurrections, but the first ep felt so effing stupid. Not to mention repetitive.
Ok. I’ve been watching TV series long enough to understand many themes are going to repeat over and over. So one more Bender obsession with some inadequacy, or Fry and Leela struggling in their relationship, is only to be expected. But this was handled so poorly. Unlike when Bender goes looking for free will, or for his factory inspector.
Perhaps after 25 non-consecutive years, the show has passed its peak.
@Jen:
The shooter is from Utah, old sport. Everyone in Utah is over the age of 50, even the children.
But here is the thing that seems a little suspicious to me.
The meme, and what was engraved on the bullet casing, was OwO, not UwU. The UwU/OwO represents a face. UwU has the eyes closed contentedly, while OwO is surprised.
By all other accounts, the shooter is a man who knows his memes. It’s weird that he would get it wrong inconsistently. Not impossible, but weird.
And this line:
It reads like weird exposition, saying something the other person knows for the benefit of an unseen audience. It has a “since you’re my brother and an ornithologist” quality to it.
Police routinely lie, and Kash Patel has utterly undermined the FBI and their role in the investigation, so I’m not trusting them, but my expectation is that these are accurate partial transcripts — mostly because it would be incredibly easy to disprove by getting the actual text messages from Verizon (or whoever their carrier is).
Hello, Chairman Xi? Have you seen this? Cool. So. . . how much will you give us for Bagram? –
The Taliban
@Kathy: Or that Trump will die from being a billion years old, and then MAGA will tear itself apart as they fight for control.
That’s my assumption, anyway.
@Scott:
I don’t like that guy either, but the people saluting him have to hold it until the salute is acknowledged by his returning of it. See page 2:
Unless he wants to be rude he has to return the salute.
@Bill Jempty:
Well, it’s amounted to something for the UK Ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelsson, who was sacked a few days ago after the Epstein documents revealed he’d been sending sympathetic mails to Epstein after the latters conviction in 2008.
Having formerly stated he broke links after that conviction.
Ironic: it’s assumed one of the reasons for Mandelson’s appointment in the first place were his social connections to Trump and others in DC.
I can’t help thinking the Services screwed up on this one: perhaps fell into the cracks between SIS and SS, and what gets relayed to the Cabinet Office as (lawfully)”known”, and what the PM and his staff actually pay attention to.
Oopsie.
@Gustopher:
It would depend how JD Vance does at the top. He might do something actually smart like rescind the crazy tariffs.
On other things, we have the annual National Earthquake Drill tomorrow at noon. I think this year I won’t skip it like the past two years.
@Gustopher: The excerpts you’ve quoted are actually another thing that bothers me about the texts. It seems very odd to me that things are spelled out. I mean, if these are allegedly people in a relationship, the “remember when I was doing X, that meant Y” is strange. Assuming these are people in proximity when the activity is occurring (as is indicated by the “remember when”), wouldn’t the romantic partner have asked THEN? (“Hey, I see you are engraving bullets. What’s up with that?”). It feels like someone who is narrating a confession. Not someone who had a real-life interaction.
Is it a sign of a conspiracy? No. Is it strange? Yes.
ETA: Yes, this, exactly: “It reads like weird exposition, saying something the other person knows for the benefit of an unseen audience. It has a “since you’re my brother and an ornithologist” quality to it.”
@dazedandconfused:
It’s an odd US convention, it seems.
British politicans never return salutes.
Nor does the monarch; more junior royals who are formally officers do.
The basis being: the politicians are civilians and therefore outside the military hierarchy; junior royals are often formally regimental colonels; the monarch IS the sovereign that is saluted.
@Scott:
In fact Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have rather long-standing defence links, if less formally.
There are reasons why the Saudis bought Chinese missiles that are only suitable for nuclear weapons use, due to high CEP, and if said missiles aren’t specced to mate to Pakistani warheads, you can paint me red and call me a radish.
@Michael Reynolds:
My lord, but Trump is such a putz.
What does he propose, landing the 101st at Bagram?
Sanctions?
Maybe it’s all just a cunning plan to make Xi die from uncontrollable fits of laughter?
@JohnSF: That is the way it used to be done here in the States. Reagan the showman was the first to salute regularly. Eisenhower did it occasionally but he was a retired 5-star general and that was usually the context. It used to be understood that the Commander in Chief title did not make one military but was emblematic of the civilian control of the military. The VP is not in that line unless he is made President.
But no one cares anymore about propriety. It is propaganda 24/7 these days.
@Kathy:
I fear they’ll pull a Reagan, tank the economy, then get re-elected (or whatever Trump or the minions are planning) on a Fed engineered recovery, however weak.
@becca:
Still plenty of flowers in my garden also.
The buddleia is gowing brown, but the Lady of Shallott rose is still flowering away (definitely my most successful rose: for some reason it’s really happy!) .
Also some geraniums
The perennial sunflowers and Michaelmas daisies, rudbeckias, nasturtiums, autumn aconites, etc are only really now getting started, having been held back by the hot drought of this summer.
Just hoping for some nice sunny autumn weekends to really appreciate it.
The countryside grass is greening up again after the rain we’ve had over the last few weeks, after looking like an African savannah at the end of August.
If every year now is likely to be as hot and dry in summer as the last few, and in particular this year, there are going to be have to be changes in garden plans: going to need more plants that can cope with less water in midsummer.
@Gustopher:
And the Governor prayed the killer would be an “other”. Seems to be trying hard to make that true.
@Gustopher:
And the Governor prayed the killer would be an “other”. Seems to be trying hard to make that true.
Gotta love the rough and tumble of the British press:
This Scottish Newspaper’s Cover About Trump’s UK Visit Is Going Viral
@Kylopod:
Hardly novel; I recall a bunch of paleocons on blogs I visited from time to time back in the late 90’s/early ‘oughts who used to make frequent refrence to that.
It’s a long-standing, if not so often, these days, explicitly stated, aspect of both Orthodox and Catholic dissatisfaction with Israeli policy, and indeed of the British Mandate, to some extent.
In mandatory Palestine, iirc, about 10% of the Arab population was Christian; and mostly concentrated in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
A lot of the former in particular were displaced after 1967.
They generally considered themselves to be the longest continually resident population of Palestine, but had also come to identify as “Arabs” (for an arbitrary value of “Arab”)
@Scott:
Never mistake British state ceremonial performance for what most Brits actually think.
Many may think it’s necessary, in the national interest, to schmooze the sod.
But I doubt either the government or the Royals are, in private, to be numbered among the 19% of the UK polled who actually approve of him.
@JohnSF:
Nowadays it’s roughly 1-2% in Israel proper as well as the West Bank, while being ~0.1% in Gaza. It’s simply absurd (but also incredibly bigoted) to focus solely on the impact of the conflict on Christians and ignore everyone else. I’d also be curious to know what Tucker’s audience thinks is the percentage of Christians in those areas. While I’ve never watched his program beyond clips, I read that he had at least one Palestinian on–a Palestinian pastor.
@JohnSF:
I imagine our generals are contemplating a war with Iran and have mentioned Bagram as a place they’d love to have, but Trump’s mind simply grasps at the first straw it happens to come across and runs with it.
Trump is hard-wired transactional. Ask Trump for anything and he reflexively asks for something in return. Wouldn’t be surprised if Trump asked for Bagram response to an ask for some baby formula for starving kids.
@Jen:
Agree that it is all very weird. The odd thing of the rush by all to assign this guy to some collective (guilty myself as well in trying to do so) is exasperating. When looking at him he was not registered with any party, did not vote nor espoused any type of identity or ideology, at least from what is out there, or consistently. It may just be a gay man struggling with mental health issues targeting someone he despised. The family, the interactions, the weapon, the history all these things here and there…it is quite a web of WTH? Guy may be a anomaly, which unfortunately means the constant quest to assign him to some collective ideology will just continue ad nauseum.
@gVOR10: all I know about the governor is that he read “If you read this you are gay. lmao”.
So, he’s gay.
@Kylopod:
Yes, its pretty bigoted.
I mean, it’s understandable, I suppose in terms of the churches concerned.
Whose actual bishops, and their actual congregations, are directly affected.
But it’s really rather odd re American Evangelicals, who most traditional middle eastern Catholics and Orthodox would regard as a bunch of heretics in the first place.
Incidentally, there’s an amusing, for arbitrary values of “amusing”, episode in mid 19th European diplomacy, when France and Russia were disputing the privileges of being “protectors of the Christians of the Holy Land” re the Ottoman Porte.
Sounds anachronistic now, but it was serious at the time, and still has echoes in Orthodox and Catholic conservative circles in Europe to this day.
iirc, a disproportionate number of the Palestianian diaspora in the US are Christian, so perhaps not that odd for Tucker.
(Beyond Tucker being odd in the first place, and likely pandering to his almost-as-odd audience)
@Jc:
I think it’s more that a lot of people don’t understand the black-pilled Nick Fuentes Groypers enough to realize that they are an identity and ideology, because it seems so self-contradictory.
The shooter definitely shared memes that were very popular with Groypers, and the roommate was often on /r/4tran, and /r/4tran4, Reddit groups for Nazi incel femboys and self-loathing trans folks who want to be one of the “good ones”.
Was he a Groyper? Dunno, but he looked like one and travelled in those circles.
Nick Fuentes was either dating a catboy or pretending to date a catboy for the “lulz.” And that lovely group of the right is enamored of an ahistorical vision of the Roman Empire where “gay” doesn’t apply if the other man is feminine enough.
There’s a lot of WTH? though. It’s pretty much all WTH?.
I make no guesses as to the genders or orientations of anyone involved, if they are even really in a relationship. I think there’s a decent chance we would stare at their self identifications, and say “No… that doesn’t work. At least one of you has to be wrong.”
@dazedandconfused:
I personally doubt any US commnders are so silly.
Bagram is about a thousand miles from eithe Tehran or the Gulf Coast areas, which would be the main focus of any serious US operation.
And you have the teensy issue, for any helicopter ops, of the Hindu Kush.
Arabia and the Gulf States are far more practical.
I think the default is as ever: Trump is an idiot, who probaly glanced at a map and said
“Gee, Afghanistan is kinda central in central Asia! Look, I’m a genius. Where’s my sharpie?”
@JohnSF:
I was under the impression that McSweeny was well aware of what Mandelson’s deal was. To me it seems like one more rake Sideshow Starmer gleefully jumped on.
I’m also of the mind that Raynor should have paid the tax and penalties, told Starmer and his boys to fuck off, then grabbed her vape and danced away.
Which reminds me, I need to register to vote and join the Greens and Hypnotits. I’ve been a life long Democrat and I’m not falling for milquetoast right wing centrist bullshit again. I’ll vote for Labour right after Streeting gargles my balls.
@Gustopher:
Huh, well, I learned something today.
@JohnSF:
Charlie Kirk died in the middle of Mormon country, a religious group he almost certainly did not consider legitimately Christian, but kept that to himself because of the need to maintain the coalition. Hell, I remember reading that there was friction between Falwell and Robertson due to the latter being a charismatic.
@Beth:
McSweeney was well aware, as everyone was, that Mandelson had Epstein connections before his conviction.
So did a lot of people: Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were, imuho, running a classic “multi-level” entrapment operation.
First there’s the “charitable” and “business” and “futurological” outer shell of “networking”.
Once within the outer circle, you just tempt, stage by stage.
That’s why a lot of people with nominal “Epstein links” pre-2005 are not necessarily culpable of anything.
A lot of prominent scientists and charitable figures were linked during the early days.
What does astound me is that SIS/SS did not warn the Brits concerned off: Ghislaine’s connections were screamingly obvious to anyone among the intel/security clueful from the outset.
That aside, the point is, Mandelson seems to have assured everyone that after Epstein was convicted in 2008, he broke off.
The recent releases indicate he did not.
That is, he lied to the PM, it seems.
IMHO it’s a stone cold certainy that “the Big Eye” aka GCHQ knew. But what they can actually tell, even in private, re UK citizens, is legally tricky.
As I say, I suspect it fell into the cracks of communication and authorty between GCHQ, SIS, SS, Special Branch, and the Cabinet Office, and was only indicated in “hints” that McSweeney etc simply did not appreciate.
Or just thought were “rumours”.
So they asked Mandelson and he lied.
They should have gone to the “services” and (off the record) asked: “is there dirt?”
I suspect if Sue Grey had still been in post she’d have done exactly that.
But for some reason no-one at No10 seems to have been smart enough to “go unofficial”.
@Beth:
The whole Rayner business is a farce.
She got legal advice, seems to have handed it off to her solicitors and purchase agents, and everyone in the Tory press (and some Labour enemies) is bitching that she should have got a second opinion.
I’m damn sure if I’d been told by my solicitor and estate agent “this is all fine” I’d have not bothered.
It’s all to do with if it was, or was not, her, and her families, “primary” residence, and also because she had legal obligations relating to her childrens trust, relating to previous marriage.
Meanwhile, Farage who claimed to have “bought a property” in the constituency he represents, is now blithely stating it had nothing to do with him, and it was just his partner buying a house there, for reasons best known to herself.
And nobody gives a shit.
Because reasons.
Frankly, I’m pissed off.
I rather liked Rayner.
@JohnSF:
Nothing I’ve seen of Starmer and his crew since I got here has given me any indication that they anything more than snobby, witless morons. Between Farage running circles around them and the “Island of Strangers” speech I’m shocked by how bad at this they are. That one pissed me off pretty bad, but I’m in a fairly unique situation of being both an immigrant and a citizen.
Re: Rayner, it took me a bit to figure out what was going on, it it’s basically just a complicated transfer tax. I get that she has a whole lot of stuff that makes it complicated, but it really seems, to me, that posh Starmer and his boys figured they could just dump her because she’s a woman and get away with it. I realize there’s more to it, but shit. She shouldn’t have resigned. That picture of her in the tube with the vape really made her look like a normal person.
What I fully don’t understand is how in both the U.S. and UK, ostensibly center-left/left parties can’t get their shit together enough to just say, “no, these people are just fucking lying.”
At first glance, this both makes no sense but feels reassuring: CDC panel recommends multiple shots for measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox instead of single vaccine
I counsel against being reassured.
My first thought was “Sure, make it less convenient to get children vaccinated by requiring multiple vaccines; more expensive, too.” So fewer children wind up with the full complement of childhood vaccines, even before taking into consideration which require two doses to begin with.
And then there’s the rest of the world. The US is a huge market. I wonder whether some pharmaceutical firms that make the MMRV vaccine will discontinue it, as it won’t be as popular in one of the biggest markets. this would complicate things for every other country in the world.
@JohnSF:
One can never have too many available bases in war, as bases can get pelted, and it’s nice to have the enemy defending multiple directions. The A-rabs are not exactly reliable allies. The Gulfies have oil and yuuuuge piles of cash which gives them leverage to buy minds as well as agendas of their own, while Afghanis can be more or less ignored.
I am quite certain we have generals silly enough.
Btw, the Hindu Kush mountains are located on the other side, between China and Afghanistan, not between Iran and Afghanistan.
@dazedandconfused:
The Hindu Kush run across eastern Afghanistan from NE to SW.
Kabul, and Bagram are on the eastern slope, away from Iran.
The mountains between Afghanistan and China are the NE end of the range, and the Pamir and Karakoram ranges they join with.
The more the merrier with airbases, but I doubt this is in any way a serious plan, outside Trump’s silly head.
With possible exception of Hegseth, who is rather silly on his own account.
@JohnSF:
Why are you arguing something as obvious and easy to look up as the location of the Hindu Kush mountains?
@dazedandconfused:
Because you said the Hindu Kush are between Afghanistan and China; they are not.
Just look at the map image I linked; or any other.
Kabul and Bagram are east of the Hindu Kush, Iran is to the west, and that’s that.
You could obviously fly high altitude aircraft, over them; but lower ceiling aircraft, such as helicopters, not so much.
And I suggest you don’t presume to teach me about geography.