It seems that alt.home.repair has become a newsgroup to discuss everything EXCEPT home repair topics.
Alt.home.repair *IS NOT* the place to post politics, gun control, current events in the news, sexual preference issues, religion, terrorism, personal attacks on others, and so on.....
There are newsgroups specific to these topics. for example, try alt.politics.xxxxx alt.religion.xxxxx and so on. A good catchall group for all of these topics is: alt.current-events.usa