There's nothing in this that any of you will find the least bit new. The point, I think, is to put this message in lots of places where people who support the President, but may think there is some point to the cruelty, might see it.
*The author is my cousin, and is very knowledgeable about immigration over the southern border.
Y'all have probably seen this already, but here's a photo from Melania Trump's Twitter feed with the first lady holding a baby whose parents were killed by the El Paso gunman.
If I understand what happened right, none of the adult survivors were willing to pose with the president, so he got a picture with a baby whose parents were dead and unable to refuse.
The baby certainly doesn't look like a willing participant.
The baby's uncle was enthusiastic about meeting with Trump. He said the father was a Trump fan.
At the risk of furthering rumor, there's a twitter-sourced claim that the poor kid's uncle (and now guardian) is a trumpero, also possibly the late father.
It does make sense that the current guardian must have given permission, I suppose. It's still kind of unpleasant.
A couple of links from Charlie's:
The Charlotte court that would hear Ana's case was one of five jurisdictions labeled "asylum free zones" by a group of immigrant advocates in written testimony last December before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The courts in Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas and Atlanta also received the designation. The advocates testified that, while asylum is granted in nearly half of cases nationwide, Charlotte judges granted asylum in just 13 percent of cases in 2015. The Charlotte court was singled out for displaying a particular "bias against Central American gang and gender-related asylum claims."I'd have thought that much arbitrariness should be illegal in some way. Also, how is this constitutional?
U.S. immigration courts are administrative courts within the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review. Unlike federal court judges, whose authority stems from the U.S. Constitution's establishment of an independent judicial branch, immigration judges fall under the executive branch and thus are hired, and can be fired, by the attorney general.
In broad outline, deportation isn't a criminal matter, so the safeguards applicable to criminal prosecution don't apply. "Constitutional" protections can be pretty technical and narrow.
I'd have thought that much arbitrariness should be illegal in some way.
Even under previous administrations, immigration courts handling asylum cases were often quite accurately described as "death-penalty decisions in a traffic court setting." The sheer administrative mess of the court system has to be seen to be believed, including such absurdities as holding people responsible for appearing when court-issued notices (inaccurately) tell them to appear at 1 a.m., for example.
The TRAC clearinghouse at Syracuse University has done excellent research for a long time using immigration court data obtained by FOIA. The sheer roll-of-the-dice arbitrariness of the system is breathtaking, with huge differences not only from city to city but between judges in the same city with regard to likelihood of granting asylum claims.
The entire system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Unfortunately, it sort of is -- but by monomaniacal immigration restrictionists rather than competent civil servants.
The usual message is inappropriate: Jeffrey Epstein is dead. He should not be dead.
I think the cruelty would actually work if it was directed at the CEO and senior managers of these companies.
Fuck. Now all those other rich child molesting rapists will skate. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
How the fuck wasn't he on 24/7 suicide watch after the previous attempt. This is not at all suspicious.
14: According to former event planner now HUD official Lynne Patton, this is Vince Foster II.
Somebody has already asked the world on another site, "Does anybody really believe he killed himself?"
Jeffrey Epstein killed himself
With tardigrades on the Moon
His face and arms began to swell
And tardigrades on the Moon
Hangin' there inside his cell
But tardigrades on the Moon
He can't snitch on no one else
Now tardigrades on the Moon
.
Clinton, Dershowitz and Trump
Ain't tardigrades on the Moon
Economy's about to slump
Cause tardigrades on the Moon
Brexit don't make any sense
Like tardigrades on the Moon
Jesus, save us from Mike Pence
And tardigrades on the Moon
.
Not that it's ever a good week for the AG to be espousing the theories of "justice" embodied in Death Wish and Dirty Harry but this was a particularly bad one.
"Death Wish, yeah," Barr said. "That gives people a sense of satisfaction when they see it."
Over time, the first line I remember from the Kang and Kodos run for president episode has shifted from "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos" to "I am looking forward to an orderly election tomorrow, which will eliminate the need for a violent bloodbath." Also, it's now very believable that if the candidates were revealed to be aliens from space the day before the vote, all the powers that be would throw up their hands and shrug, saying: "We have to follow procedure and it's too late to reprint the ballots."
20: are you aware that these are Zionist tardigrades?
17: this is very much the sort of thing that happens in Russia when someone is arrested for being inconvenient to the president.
|| Harold Pollack arguing for the Analogy Ban on Twitter
Argument by analogy on Twitter across divisive social issues almost never works. It almost always become a way to wildly jump topic to topic w/o engaging granular realities of either side of the analogy. It's like we're trying to debate ethics of euthanasia by--oh just never mind.
https://twitter.com/haroldpollack/status/1160546104255160321
||
|| I posted the most popular thing I have ever posted on the internet a couple of days ago -- it's gotten 144 likes so far! Looking through the list of people that "liked" it I don't think a single one of them knows me in real life or online. Since I love you all so much, I've decided to share it with you.
On the plus side, that kind of proved your point.
Like nearly all the lines that people choose as their favorites from movies, it suffers out of context.
https://twitter.com/peepinthefog/status/1159831974019776512 ||
Love you too, peep! (But not enough to look at twitter.)
I will find my Twitter login and like that. Unless it takes effort.
I retweeted it, which is better, right?
34:. Right! Now it's bound to go viral.
Thanks, Moby!
I read a twit thread earlier today about how the employer of those MS people (a) had been providing employees with fake ssns etc and (b) is a big Trump supporter. But now I can't find it.
28: no, no, you're thinking of a bugbear, these are water bears.