Police Departments Aiding Immigration Crackdown, Michael Flynn May Be Approaching Plea Deal, Pope Francis in Malaysia: P.M. Links
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Mike Licht/NotionsCapital.com/flickr Dozens of police departments around the country in towns are looking for or have been granted new powers to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the federal immigration crackdown.
- First Lady Melania Trump unveils the White House holiday decor.
- Special counsel Robert Mueller may be close to reaching a plea deal with Michael Flynn.
- Lee Busby, a former Marine colonel and aide to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, announced a write-in bid for the open Senate seat in Alabama.
- California Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra moved his resignation up to "immediately" amid sexual harassment allegations.
- Pope Francis arrived in Malaysia.
- Prince Harry is engaged.
- The head of Marvel Studios says Avengers 4 will be a kind of 'finale' for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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Special counsel Robert Mueller may be close to reaching a plea deal with Michael Flynn.
Snitches get twitter stitches.
Hello.
Snitches also get...
[dons sunglasses]
no Britches.
You forgot an ellipsis.
There is nothing more wasteful than an extra, unnecessary ellipsis.
Except the word "extra" in that sentence.
~ snicker ~
So what will Mueller confess to and how many years will he get?
He better hope for life in prison. If he doesn't get a conviction and still goes free, Mueller will definitely be killed by the Clinton foundation.
"So what will Mueller confess to and how many years will he get?"
My first thought too. The sentence would read better if Mueller and Flynn's names were transposed.
Dozens of police departments around the country in towns are looking for or have been granted new powers to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the federal immigration crackdown.
Which come MRAP's and federal cappuccino grants?
Prince Harry is engaged.
I thought she was already married to Peter Suderman.
fuck them
If there is anything more un-American than the obsession with the british aristocracy, I can't think of it.
?Pope Francis arrived in Malaysia.
Relax, don't do it
When you want to go to it
What's the over/under on whether or not he gets stoned?
The head of Marvel Studios says Avengers 4 will be a kind of 'finale' for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Only if those movies stop making money.
Um, yes, of course. Why would they say such a thing? Just to make fun of Warner?
Pretty much this. They've already proven that if one of their actors dies or refuses to be in any of the later movies that they'll just use a creepy as fuck digital facsimile until the franchise stops giving milk. Uncanny valley, and franchise until 2085, ho!
"Because the actors' contracts are up, we're going to have the shocking plot development of totally new actors playing the same characters!"
RE: Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing), Rogue One. Died of prostate cancer 1994. Had a role in a movie in 2016.
Yeah, and he looked like a guy who'd been dead for a quarter of a century.
Indeed he did.
Why, do you think they crossed a line with that?
I'll see your Wikipedia entry and raise you one Brandon Bird print.
I have the Law and Order coloring book somewhere.
I have No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford hanging in my bathroom.
The original or a print? Either way, good stuff.
Just a print. I ain't have "original art" kinda money.
Yeah. Maybe if I'm rich I'll go out and buy original paintings of weird pop-culture obsessed hipster art for 1,500 a pop. But until then.
If your wife really allowed this, there are only two possibilities.
My wife is pretty rad, is the correct option.
The fact that you used a term from the 80s made famous by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to describe your wife is startlingly revealing. Unless you were talking about radians.
That's actually a lot less creepy than what I had in mind, although Nick Cage does appear to fit the bill of an alien who's clearly masquerading as a human being.
Did they pay his estate? Or just bitcoin to his avatar?
Finale in the sense that the "Thanos and the Infinity Gems" story arc will come to an end and most of the original Avengers will die/retire. Subsequent movies will begin a new arc (rumored to be based on the Skrulls) and focus on the newer characters they've been introducing in Phase Three.
Nerd.
While I'm certainly a nerd for other reasons, the above makes me a geek, sir.
Well Marvel doesn't seem to be having a whole lot of luck otherwise. At least, comic fans opinion seems a bit low of Marvel right now. That being said, Gwenpool is the only Big 2 I read regularly.
At which point everyone will stop watching. The new characters are pointless.
California Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra moved his resignation up to "immediately" amid sexual harassment allegations.
To spend more time groping his family?
First Lady Melania Trump unveils the White House holiday decor...
Prince Harry is engaged.
Krayewski double-posted these same links at his side gig at people.com.
More like sheeple.com, amirite?
Don't do this.
It's okay. He's not actually better than this.
BUCS is just worried I will summon the sheeple from their slumber. But I only whispered it, so it okay.
IT'S WHEN YOU SAY IT THREE TIMES IN A ROW INTO A MIRROR THAT IT BECOMES A PROBLEM!
That's Bloody Mary.
Baaaaaaa aaa aaaa aaa ah
First Lady Melania Trump unveils the White House holiday decor.
Making the place slightly less of a dump.
Melania could just take a dump to make the place less of dump.
Melania takes two dumps a year, and her next one isn't until February.
I like to think you checked your calender for this comment.
?The head of Marvel Studios says Avengers 4 will be a kind of 'finale' for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Thank god. I hope everyone dies.
Finally, the Big 2 can go quiet and return to the sea.
Who are we kidding, it's comic books. They'll resurrect them with some new MacGuffin of the week. Even if this somehow magically would be the end of a massively profitable franchise, they'll just resurrect it twenty years later on the back of nostalgia.
Well, let's not go crazy and condemn comic books as a whole. But I am getting burned out on this current movie stuff. And I can barely give a shit about the Big 2 unless it's a comedy book.
Full disclosure: I do not read comic books. ^_-
Although I think someone did make me read the comic where Superman lands in Russia instead of Kansas, which was amusing.
Personally I just like movies, and in that sense Marvel makes me wish I didn't.
BUCS has started writing sooo many comments where he attacks you for referring to graphic novels as "comic books," but then he deletes them instead of hitting Submit.
Nah, I don't care about none of that. That's all pretense.
I do mostly read comics people consider pretentious though, unless it's comedy.
'Pretentious Comics' is awfully close to an oxymoron... ^_-
Go read Under the Shadow of No Towers by Spiegelman and you'll see.
They're really not that comic. or books.
California Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra moved his resignation up to "immediately" amid sexual harassment allegations
I really want to make a joke about his name meaning Black Mouth but I can't get it to come out sounding not super racist.
Related.
All jokes with the word "black" are off the table forever. Sorry, accountants.
These are some real Robby Links, Ed.
Lee Busby, a former Marine colonel and aide to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, announced a write-in bid for the open Senate seat in Alabama.
Luckily Marines never get involved in sex scandals.
Pope Francis arrived in Malaysia.
I will never call it anything but Burma.
The country formerly known as ... Wait. What *was* Malaysia?
Malaya.
That means "freedom" in Tagalog.
Probably Malaysian or maybe Hindi.
It was the Bad Aysia.
The Spice Islands?
"The country formerly known as ... Wait. What *was* Malaysia?"
England
If you call Malaysia Burma, then what do you call Myanmar?
Malfeasor.
Isn't that part of the Tortfeasor Chain of islands?
Thorfeasor, another name for Iceland.
Zipperfeasor, another name for ENB
The place the pope actually visited.
I hate that they changed the name and now I can't listen to Mission To Burma anymore.
Mission Of Burma
Nocturnal e-mission?
Philistine.
My-an-mar arrow
/Harry Nilsson
Hopefully his visit won't result in a close shave.
I've been waiting for a write-in. Sounds like if he got in earlier he would actually have a chance. If he got a big donor and blitzed ads for a few weeks he could still win. I'm still predicting a narrow Moore win but McConnell refuses to seat him.
Why won't TReasoNN (get it?) ever report on the solid work of James O'Keefe??
Project Veritas will no doubt be issuing a statement based on their research declaring the Washington Post a solid, unbiased news source.
Pretty damn scummy if true. This type of subterfuge is lowly. Outing people for what they actually say should be enough.
The Washington post didn't believe a lie about a Republican. That is newsworthy. I love it that all these idiots think that the Post not being conned is like some kind of a story. Isn't this how it is supposed to work? It is a big story because it is so shocking that they were not taken in.
Nobody ever gets taken in by O'Keefe. He always fails, because he is a doofus. He has to edit tapes to fit a preconceived narrative because he can't get the actual goods. He goes around proving that mainstream media are legit.
This stance itself is fakenews.
It's based on the MSM lie that O'Keefe's taped are edited to fit into a storyline--when it's the teasers that are edited. The full videos--usually quite long--are available on the PV site.
Since a whole lot of their video is waiting, they cut it out. When they're putting together a media package, they include the most explosive bits rather than tedious hours of waiting--which won't fit in a commercial or news segment.
But you know that. Which makes this disingenuous repetition of false 'facts' even more pitiable.
The Washington Post did no followup after publishing the explosive allegation. Sure enough, the former employees of the BBQ joint says Moore was never a regular there, and one of them says she doesn't actually remember Nelson working there. Moore was never banned at the mall, but that's old news. Corfman was a problem child years before having met Moore, and that custody battle was about that very issue.
Wapo dismissed a story that was INTENDED to be outlandish. O'keefe sends agents asking questions that are designed to be nonsensical to catch targets. It's a "gotcha" game, but entirely new. There's youtube vid where the host asks random people "What do you think about Trumps support of hunting patreodactyls" and they'll give serious answers to that questions.
Wapo proved that it was smarter than some average liberals on the streets, but given that they failed to verify any of the accuser's allegation after publishing them, 'we beat a prank attempt" is not a sign that they're honest journalists.
"not entirely new"
You don't have to justify scummy tactics such as this. You can criticize the WaPo all you want, but it doesn't have to take the form of defending such alleged subterfuge.
"Dozens of police departments around the country in towns are looking for or have been granted new powers to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the federal immigration crackdown."
By "crackdown", do you mean enforcing completely constitutional laws that have been on the books for decades?
Whatever "crackdown" means, I don't think it should mean the opposite of "the rule of law", and yet that seems to be the way "crackdown" is being used here.
I suppose it's obligatory to point out, now, that so long as congress is setting the rules of immigration in harmony with the First, Fourth, Fifth, Fourteenth Amendments, etc. then what we're talking about here really is the appropriate place for democracy--just like declaring war. Imagine what kind of country we'd live in if the president could declare wars, impose taxes, or inflict immigration policies on the American people without any consideration for congress, our elected representatives, or the rule of law. Would you have strangled the Magna Carta in its cradle--just to get your way on immigration?
Do you plan to oppose wars on the basis that they were unconstitutionally imposed on us without the approval of congress again, or should we sell our integrity on that issue down the river over immigration "crackdowns", too?
A crackdown is often meant to refer to increasing the severity of a response to illegal behavior.
Just like you think we should do for weed growers, no doubt. Laws on the books!
If we're talking about them enforcing laws that they weren't being enforced before, then I'm not sure we're talking about increased severity so much. It's like the difference between turning up the heat in the shower or turning on the shower. Turning on the shower isn't severe. Turning the heat up so high that the water blisters your skin is more of a crackdown.
By enforcing laws you're referring to forcibly ripping families apart and sending people to countries they don't want to live in, right? Just making sure.
I'm in favor of pretty much open legal immigration--so long as we have a way to screen out known felons, etc. One of the reasons I want to open the borders through a constitutional treaty is so the only people who sneak across the desert at night are the people who can't just drive across the border because they're known criminals, etc.
Regardless, law enforcement often involves tearing families apart. It's terrible when something like that happens--to arsonists, armed robbers, and rapists, too, which is why we should only do something like that after people have had a fair trial, legal representation, a unanimous jury that considers men rea, etc.
And mens rea is a serious consideration. If you don't want to be thrown out of the country for being an illegal alien, there's an easy way to avoid that. For instance, you could not come here without a visa. You could not overstay a visa, etc. etc. That's the way real justice works--the true job of a jury is to decide whether the accused willfully forfeited their rights.
I have sympathy for illegal aliens who came here of their own free will, but there are consequences for the choices we make. I also have sympathy for innocent civilians who get caught in the cross fire of a war. That doesn't mean we should never declare a war--not even in self-defense. There's this thing called democracy, and it has proper roles. Declaring wars is one of them, and setting the rules of immigration and naturalization is another.
But what if the people are being caught in the crossfire of a racist political strategy that doesn't care how much harm it causes to them as long as they can't vote?
You think the existence of your favorite good guys and bad guys means the rule of law, the separation of powers, democracy, and the consent of the governed don't matter anymore?
Tony believed in all those things until he saw a floppy eared bunny with big, sad eyes being eaten by a big, bad wolf?
Yeah, right.
Tony,
OECD statistics show that 13.1% of Americans are foreign born and 0.8% of Mexicans are foreign born. When will you call Mexicans racist for having such restrictive immigration policies?
I'm in favor of pretty much open legal immigration--so long as we have a way to screen out known felons, etc.
I always feel like a tremendous amount of issue people say they take with open-immigration evaporates if the welfare state is slowly dismantled. I suppose that's another argument though.
And mens rea is a serious consideration. If you don't want to be thrown out of the country for being an illegal alien
I'm confused here. I don't believe deportation cases go to a jury trial. What point are you trying to make with mens rea?
There's this thing called democracy, and it has proper roles.
Democracy is not libertarianism anyway. Nor is the Constitution mean that all adherence to it follows a libertarian ideal (As if there is a precise ideal anyway. There is legitimate disagreement on many topics. Look at Eddie and abortion.). That Reason then may diverge in opinion from the law at the time is not surprising.
I always feel like a tremendous amount of issue people say they take with open-immigration evaporates if the welfare state is slowly dismantled.
What they say they take issue with, yes. It doesn't mean their opposition will evaporate.
(not referring to all who use the welfare argument, but definitely some of them)
"I always feel like a tremendous amount of issue people say they take with open-immigration evaporates if the welfare state is slowly dismantled."
No question. The more people are forced to pay for each other, the pickier they get about who benefits from their "generosity". That's why more socialist countries tend to have more restrictive immigration policies.
The Europeans seem more tolerant at the moment, but the people they're letting in are refugees. I favor open, legal immigration. Try to immigrate to Germany, France, or the UK as an American, even. I know someone who wanted to open an office and hire 50 people in London. They didn't want her coming into the country to work. They wanted to know why she couldn't hire someone in London to open the office and hire the staff. Why did they need an American to do it?
It was ridiculous.
"I don't believe deportation cases go to a jury trial. What point are you trying to make with mens rea?"
The point I made with mens rea is that people should only be held responsible for the crimes they commit if they can be shown to have acted willfully. I appreciate that illegal aliens aren't necessarily prosecuted for being in the country illegally. Throwing people in prison for being brought here as children without any kind of mens rea would be absurd. Once it's determined that someone is an illegal alien, they should either consent to being deported or insist on a trial.
If illegal immigrants are being held criminally responsible without the benefit of a trial or the right to insist on one, then that problem should fixed. Whether we should still deport people for being in the country illegally is another question entirely. Any suggestion that deportation necessarily involves a rights violation is wrong. It's like the suggestion that congress isn't the proper venue for setting immigration policy.
Whatever "crackdown" means, I don't think it should mean the opposite of "the rule of law", and yet that seems to be the way "crackdown" is being used here.
It's not, but I guess you need an excuse to copy+paste your tirade.
Elections have consequences. Someone else said that once.
Copy/paste?
LOL
Which part of my comment do you imagine came from elsewhere?
From the last time you posted on an immigration thread. That was the implication.
If something I commented on weeks or months ago is still true weeks and months later, then that's the way it is.
Incidentally, Reason's staff hasn't changed their position on illegal immigration either. They're still mostly wrong. Even when they're right, they're often right on immigration for the wrong reasons.
They're anti-democracy on the issue of immigration, and that is a really hard way to make people think you're not an elitist.
Like I said I want to see us sign an open borders treaty with Mexico--with certain stipulations. That treaty will need the support of the Senate, and that means, in order to have an open border, we'll need to convince voters to change their minds about the desirability of immigration.
Telling people that they shouldn't have any say in immigration by way of their elected representatives in congress is no way to make friends and influence people, and neither is denigrating democracy, the Constitution, or the enumerated powers of congress. For goodness' sake, reading Reason, you'd think the libertarian solution were to elect a kinder, gentler dictator who wasn't beholden to congress.
If something I commented on weeks or months ago is still true weeks and months later, then that's the way it is.
But you have a compulsion to repeat those comments, going so far as to misread a simple, innocuous, accurate use of the word "crackdown" in a Links link.
Have you ever tried blogging, Ken?
I didn't misread it.
Enforcing the same laws the feds have been enforcing isn't a "crackdown".
A crackdown would be more of an increase in severity.
What's we're talking about is the rule of law. If it isn't violating anyone's rights, if it's simply returning to the norm, if it's using the same practices that illegal aliens have been dealing with for decades, then "crackdown" isn't the right word.
It's a loaded term in this context, and I simply pointed it out as such.
"Special counsel Robert Mueller may be close to reaching a plea deal with Michael Flynn."
I think Michael Flynn should ask the judge to let Mueller off with house arrest--if Mueller agrees to plead guilty, of course.
Do you seriously think this is going to end well for the Trumpies? At this point I'm just curious whether Trump will throw more or less of a tantrum than Mugabe.
I think Mueller is going to shake the foundations of the Trump administration, American society, and the world.
Sexual assault roundup, dead hooker found inside Democratic donor's home.
Dead woman or live boy. Doesn't say anything about a dead man.
"If there was ever anybody in West Hollywood whose bed you expected a dead body to turn up in, it was Ed Buck."
Okay then.
C'mon, Ed Buck, excellent porn name, amirite?
Hot!!!
Figures that a political jockey would have a fucking Corruption Fetish. Gross.
'Dozens of police departments around the country in towns are looking for or have been granted new powers to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the federal immigration crackdown.....'
"I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists!"
On-topic, the NYT yesterday ran a story on how ICE agents use local courts as the cheese in a mousetrap to bust and deport foreigners. Suppose Juan Valdez del Milagre de na V?rgen Imaculada gets busted in Ohio for half a joint. When he shows up to pay the fine or face the flogging, federal jackbooted minions leap upon him with guns and handcuffs. These cases are up 900% since the election of 2016, according to a group of lobbyists. That's the background for the story. For context, when Bert Hoover was elected in 1928, beer was already illegal. It became a serious felony just days before his swearing-in to build "a new race." That's what "crackdown" means.
It's telling how crazy our immigration that this swings back and forth so much.
mmmm It's like the Democrats should have reformed the immigration system when they had the power to pass any laws they wanted without Republican votes instead of just making us buy insurance.
"First Lady Melania Trump unveils the White House holiday decor."
Dreaming... Of an orange christmas...
First they make Orange a power color. Then jumpsuits come into vogue. Then, when everyone is wearing orange jumpsuits the Fed declares a crackdown on Escaped Convicts! Then everyone is arrested and we all live in prison colonies not unlike the Thunderdome.
WaKE UP PEOPLE
Orange is the new black helicopter.
If you want to be enraged and creeped out all at the same time, here's the leaked audio of the Wilfrid Laurier U investigation into Teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd which Reason covered last week.
If I want to be enraged and creeped out, I just watch the surveillance video at a Scottish sheep pen.
Don't laugh: One of those surveillance videos got 1,238,609 hits on YouTube!*
*What do you mean what's my source, don't you trust me?
Trump calls Warren 'Pocahantas' in front of Navajos. Hilarity ensues.
Warren has said she is proud of her heritage, citing "family stories" in defense of her claim of Native American ancestry, though she has never produced documentation.
I'm so glad I get to just be smug about how both sides suck.
Exactly. Since I dislike both of them, I find it amusing.
Maybe one of her ancestors was a light skinned African-American trying to pass for a Cherokee.
4 more years, please. Pocahontas....that is priceless
It's like President Camacho levels of ballsy, or stupid, or both.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Trump fires a M249 into the ceiling during his first State of the Union.
John Smith would have sailed back to England.
If "John Smith" was, in fact, his real name.
Just what do you suppose Flynn is going to reveal?
The secrets of tequila.
"To make McDonald's secret sauce, you just take a pinch of....aaagh...." [Boba is seen in the distance flying away]
Boba Fett that is
Poor Zuckuss never gets given any contracts these days.