141 Comments

Unfortunately the only testicles in the replugs party are in Liz Chaney's purse ..

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Read the Rolling Stone piece. I didn’t think it was possible for me to love Michael Fanone more than I already did…but I was wrong :)

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One of the ways that Rick Scott is working to "bring people together" is proposing that Social Security sunset every five years unless Congress renews it each time. Please senator, take some quiet time for yourself, and stop working so hard. You're doing it wrong.

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I'm willing to give Rick Scott the benefit of the doubt. Namely, that he's sufficiently politically acute to know that Florida voters don't really care who their US Senators are as long as they're Republicans. Scott could be hit by a bus or a lightning bolt tomorrow, and Floridians would roll with whomever DeSantis appointed.

OTOH, any public separation from Trump would render him a RINO at best, but more likely a Democrat in MAGA clothing. IOW, politically suicidal. In contrast, stridently dissing McConnell would cause no issues at all among Florida voters, so just failing to defend McConnell is NBD at all.

Plus Scott has obvious presidential ambitions, and the only path to the GOP nomination requires sucking up to MAGA, which is inconsistent with saying ANYTHING critical of Trump.

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Interesting - the WSJ editorial board didn't like "DEATH WISH" comment at all. I read it in Politicususa. But here's the WSJ link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-death-wish-rhetoric-mitch-mcconnell-elaine-chao-truth-social-violence-donald-11664735710

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founding

McConnell carried water for Trump for the last six years and now Trump shits all over him. Karma can be such a bitch. I wonder when McCarthy and Scott will get their turn.

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Oct 4, 2022Liked by Charlie Sykes

I wonder how often dinner table conversation at the McConnell-Chao household gets around to, "Tell me again, WHY you and enough friends didn't just vote "Yes" to impeach the SOB the second time?" Probably sometimes, but not as often as that little voice in Mitch's head does.

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This may come as news, but Trump isn't noted for his gratitude.

In today's GOP, all shit comes from Trump, and all targets get to hail it as manna from Heaven or be damned as RINOs.

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Speaking of CPAC - over the weekend the disease infected Australia- where at a CPAC held conference, the extreme right of the spectrum appeared as well as two ex Prime Ministers (which is very much regrettable). True to form, the Australian Right is becoming more extreme - MAGA style - and during one panel, a Mona Charen moment occurred where former Senator Nick Minchin was booed by the crowd for suggesting the Liberal Party (the Oz GOP) is worth sticking with and doesn’t need constitutional or structural reform. To get this into full context, Senator Minchin has been the leader of the Conservative faction for 3 decades and is still influential but clearly he’s not right wing enough - here’s how the media reported the story and you can check out the video of Senator Minchin giving it back to the crowd and accusing them of being socialists - .... for what it is worth, I worked for Nick between 1998 and 2000 and he’s no left winger but would seem the right hunt heretics these days and devour their own https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/liberals-booed-and-heckled-by-furious-cpac-audience/news-story/b53be3f19686f742d6cadbe55ed71960

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The good thing is the Liberal Party (Oz GOP) got so badly beaten in this years election that they’ll be out of power for at least 2 or 3 election cycles.

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SPOILER ALERT! Sitting republicans won't like this.

That I suspect includes many from the Bulwark. It strikes me that on the best of days during Trunmps Reighn was the 2017 tax cut for rich people they never asked for. After that? It's fuck mexicans and the horse they rode in on." That's really all of you, not just MAGA porn people.

Then to recall for me when the last time the GOP pushed a bill that actually dealt with improving American's lives. I get it that they improved their own saving cash but this is not the nation of immigrants Reagan spoke of, and I don't really think much of Reagan either. It is largely a self serving minority that doesn't want any kind of federal government in anyway beyond boosting the defense budget to a level higher than all other free world nations combined. Some compassionate conservatism.

Now we can actually watch the GOP turning away from Ukraine and supporting putin and the ostensibly responsible GOP people shuffle and hide. They want their jobs and their influence and their power and they could not give a rat's ass about anything else.

Show me here where anyone is actually standing up for womens rights to choose a doctor and follow the doctor's advice. Show me the republican who is standing up for women. Crickets. The more liberal minded people here will keep cheering until Trump is in his grave if we're lucky. Once that's over, the truce will collapse and so will Bulwark. It won't have enough paying members to make it attractive.

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I'll give MTG credit where credit is due. Do ALL Democrats want all Repubicans dead? Certainly not.

But from my perspective the world would be a much much better place if every single person who still considers him/herself a Republican despite the fuckery that is Trump and MAGA, just vanished off the face of the earth overnight.

Not only would I not shed a tear, I'd have a party.

The Republican Party is now clearly a fascist institution intent on doing everything in their power to steal elections, create a theocratic state, and further destroy the lives of minorities. In what universe is the world NOT a better place without people who subscribe to this fascist ideology?

Should they be rounded up and shot? Clearly not. But if they were to just magicaly disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow, that would be a an amazing turn of events.

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Sorry, but the Rapture is a myth. /s

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Well, if a bunch of republicans just disappeared one day, the rapture would certainly be the last thing I'd suspect.

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Shay Khatiri's piece on our broken immigration made me cry, but it's not surprising. I live in Texas and have known several Dreamers through the years. I've also met several undocumented immigrants. Trying to get a green card or become a citizen can be a very expensive convoluted process. Most people don't have the resources. Beyond that Republicans have criminalized brown people. The rhetoric Republicans use is similar to what Germany used against the Jews. Republicans will never agree to any immigration reform. As John McCain wrote - only when it helps them politically will the GOP welcome immigrants.

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I feel empathy with Shay, but what the heck!? He doesn't know the name of the agency he is dealing with. He is also misinformed about USCIS's troubles in 2020. If two major facts are wrong in the first section, I read the rest with extreme caution. (It's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, by the way.)

The asylum and refugee processes both are suboptimal. However, his problem is timing mostly. In 2020, because a lot of money suddenly wasn't where it was supposed to be, USCIS quit hiring people or doing employee transfers. Then because of the pandemic, all interviews we cancelled for much of the year. The immigration courts closed. Then came the furlough threat. That meant that lots of people fled to other agencies to protect themselves from that furlough. At the end of FY20, things were a little better. In 2021,new people opted to rehire those positions. But hiring new people takes time.

It sucks that the agency was mismanaged for couple of years. It sucks that all of DHS was mismanaged for most of the prior admin. But it hits everyone. Did anyone need a Social Security appointment in 2021?

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I took it as a very human look at the broken parts of the immigration process and appreciate it as such. But, yes, would have been useful to run it by someone with expertise in the area to potentially make sure to clarify specific facts.

For one, Asylum is processed through two separate agencies, USCIS (for affirmative asylum applications, which it seems Shay is. This is the "asylum interview" agency) and through EOIR (which is the agency that operates the immigration courts). Backlogs in one agency rarely affect backlogs in the other and at least with EOIR, one can file a motion to expedite if there's compelling reasons to advance trial.

For another, one of the big reasons USCIS has such a massive backlog is because the Trump administration redirected money and personnel that should have been used to process USCIS business into working for ICE. That combined with a deliberate slowdown of USCIS (including, but not limited to a reduction in staffers there) is a major reason for its disfunction today.

That said, the human element is important to keep in mind. Shay isn't an immigration attorney and shouldn't be expected to know the ins and outs of the business. It's an article that's a testament to how our immigration system (legal immigration even! USCIS doesn't handle anything that has its proper jurisdiction before the Court) hurts even those who try to do things "the right way."

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Thanks for this comment. Very helpful to understanding some of the issues.

I still don’t understand how he wants Biden to fix it though. Republicans want 0 asylum claims to be adjudicated in a positive outcome for the asylum candidate. Am I missing something much more basic?

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I honestly have no idea.

The solution, if there is one, is to hire a ton of new USCIS asylum officers. The "problem" that creates though is if you're doing that, you've also got to hire new USCIS officers at the processing centers, which speeds up legal immigration processing. Which, y'know, the nativists in the Republican Party are against, too.

I'll go through the mechanisms of how this works practically, but more USCIS asylum denials creates more workload and headache for the Immigration Courts.

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I found his article hard to follow. It was somewhat helpful to see a description of the problem but he doesn’t propose any solutions. The basic problem is simple: 1 party doesn’t want any immigrants, legal or otherwise. The other does. Hard to square that circle.

Also any reform to the system by congress (which won’t happen and the idea of Biden spending political capital on it, is at best, laughable), likely will so gut the asylum process that he likely won’t get in via that route.

Also, I don’t understand why someone walking across the southern border or flying into the US from Hungary has any better or worse claim to asylum. The only difference is one is wealthier.

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On the last point, for the most part they're handled by different agencies. Someone who flies in on a B1/B2 visa and then affirmatively applies for asylum goes through USCIS. People crossing the border pretty much all get referred immediately to EOIR (the courts).

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Apologies for not knowing this but does that mean that one is more likely or less likely to have their asylum claim granted. Apologies for not knowing

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No worries! Most people don't know because it's confusing and a bit counterintuitive. Also, people almost never talk about affirmative asylum outside of maybe immigration attorney forums.

So, it's complicated. The process for affirmative asylum is:

1) Person arrives in U.S., either via visa, humanitarian parole, or by crossing the border and just wasn't caught by ICE (extremely rare nowadays). Mostly people enter on visas or are paroled in.

2) Person files an asylum application with USCIS. USCIS processes this and sends the case to a USCIS field office.

3) An interview is conducted. This is where it's different from an application in court - USCIS interviews are non-adversarial. There's no prosecutor/other side, no cross examination, etc. Just an asylum officer asking the applicant questions to get his or her story. In that sense, it may be theoretically "easier" to win with USCIS (though in my experience, your mileage may vary. Very dependent on individual officers who in my opinion are inclined to lean towards "not grant" because of step 4)

4) If asylum is granted, the person is designated an asylee. If not granted, the applicant is referred to the Immigration Court, where they have a second shot to try their case.

This was a long answer that basically is an "it depends." With USCIS you have two chances to win your case, the first in a non-adversarial environment (whereas those who cross the border and are caught and pass their credible fear interview are referred immediately to the Immigration Court).

Practically, there's a lot more transparency with the Immigration Court. People have set hearing and trial dates and if there's huge delays, a person can request that their trial date be advanced. Even if not advanced, a person can see specifically on paper when their hearing date is. With USCIS it's just a black box of "still processing."

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Elaine Chao worked in Trump's cabinet for 4 ugly years. She's a politician in her own right who is perfectly capable of defending herself - although she very noticeably isn't doing so. Not that she should have to. Nobody should be required to jump simply because Trump cracks the racist whip. But it sure doesn't seem like she had the best time serving in his cabinet. A saying about leopards eating faces might be appropriate here.

It's the smallest of consolations, but some days, it's nice knowing I never have to apologize for Trump's behavior. It's only October of 2022, more than two years until the next Presidential election. There's so much time available for Trump to keep going lower and lower every time he feels slightly threatened.

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Dark Time: When he's indicted, he'll go all in, calling for a jihad against Dems in general, Garland, etc. by name. And some believer will oblige him. The only thread of good in that is it might FINALLY get the McConnells, et all off their asses, especially if one of the true believers thinks Trump also meant McConnell.

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I don't want that to happen, but it might be the final nail in his coffin if he calls for violence and some of it actually happens.

I may be an optimist, but the republican leaning democrat haters that I know won't tolerate political violence of that kind.

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Trump had been run off the headlines and popular conversation by this hurricane and little fracas in Ukraine. In an effort to grab some attention back, Trump uses his strategery to pop off juvenile, racist remarks about McConnell and especially his wife. (“Coco” is catchier, more alliterative, than “Elaine”.). McConnell employs his normal, minimalist strategy of ignoring it. Ted Cruz looked humiliated by his ineffectual momentary outrage at Trump calling his wife ugly and his father an assassin, melting into “yes, my wife is indeed ugly, very ugly, and I’m sorry my dad was a traitor”. McConnell just let’s Trump throw flailing haymakers as he stands above him and holds his hand on his head. He has gotten the judges and tax breaks out of the Trump piñata. Now he just has to wait for the Justice Department to clean up the pieces of crockery.

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Oct 3, 2022·edited Oct 3, 2022

If we do have to wade into the morass of a Benghazi-style investigation into Hunter Biden's China business, let's not lose sight of the fact that investments in young Biden's private equity positions were in the several millions. By contrast, Jared Kushner managed, while on the government clock, to unload a white elephant building for 1300 million and accept another 2000 million as an "investment" in a start-up of his own design.

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Maybe the Democrats should nominate Michael Fanone for President.

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When anyone named Kushner, Trump, Walton, Ford or anyone else in the Fortune 500 does business in China, that's, uh, business. When your name is Hunter Biden and you do business in China, that's *very* different: a national calamity.

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