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I mentioned we might get another serving of “freedom fries” in my first post. Sure enough, we now have the White House tweeting about “Freedom Seeds”:
Close enough.
NO MALARKEY
I mentioned we might get another serving of “freedom fries” in my first post. Sure enough, we now have the White House tweeting about “Freedom Seeds”:
Close enough.
NO MALARKEY
I mentioned we might get another serving of “freedom fries” in my first post. Sure enough, we now have the White House tweeting about “Freedom Seeds”:
Close enough.
NO MALARKEY
I mentioned “freedom fries” in my first post, and we now have the White House tweeting about “Freedom Seeds”:
Close enough.
NO MALARKEY
Glad to hear it. As a good first step, please stop voting for the party that has spent decades making it easy to mix money and politics.
NO MALARKEY
And you’re implying that wanting to acquire Greenland is so bizarre
Mick, the fact that you’re even pretending this is all perfectly normal is mind blowing. I mean WTF? I don’t even know if this warrants much of a response.
Trump says U.S. will ‘get Greenland,’ military force may not be needed but not ruled out
Do I really need to explain why this is fucking bonkers?
NO MALARKEY
Mick. It sounds like we agree then. Let’s get rid of money in politics.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen just proposed an amendment to do exactly this:
Amendment to End the Domination of Big Money in Politics Introduced in U.S. Senate
I hope you and all the others here who are concerned about big business being “in the bag” for Democrats will get on board with this. Or do you not actually care about money in politics — but just care about it when it is given to Democrats?
NO MALARKEY
We as a country should not be violating human rights and deporting people to gulags in the first place, much less because it’s too expensive to give them a hearing. These guys were already being detained. It took Reuters about ten seconds to verify the legal status, criminal record, and other detail. Is legal justice now too expensive? Should we dismantle our criminal justice system and fire all the prosecutors and defense lawyers, as well?
You mention Guantanamo. At least with Guantanamo the U.S. government kept the detainees on a base we control. That meant the courts got involved and there was some level of public scrutiny. Lawyers could visit. The media could report. Human rights groups were watching. I guess that’s the point of El Salvador — Guantanamo was too nice, apparently, if you no longer believe in human rights.
With our new arrangement we can just vanish people into a system with no rules, no recourse, no transparency.
By way, you mention that nobody seems to dispute that these guys entered the country illegally. That’s actually not true:
A 35-year-old former professional soccer player, Jerce legally entered the U.S. in 2024 seeking asylum after reportedly being detained and tortured by the Maduro regime. Despite a pending asylum hearing scheduled for April 17, 2025, he was deported based on a Real Madrid tattoo, which authorities misinterpreted as a gang symbol.
After fleeing persecution in Venezuela to Colombia, “E.M.” and his girlfriend were granted refugee status in the U.S. Upon arrival in Houston on January 8, he was detained due to tattoos—a crown, a soccer ball, and a palm tree—that were suspected gang symbols. Despite no criminal record in Venezuela or Colombia, he was deported to El Salvador on March 15 and imprisoned.
The gay Venezuelan asylum seeker and makeup artist I mentioned –Andry — legally entered the U.S. seeking protection from persecution. Despite no gang affiliations, he was deported to El Salvador and incarcerated in a mega-prison.
A 26-year-old barber, Franco entered the U.S. in 2023, requesting asylum. He was detained during a routine check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February 2025 and later deported, despite documents indicating he had no criminal record.
You distrust the media, and think maybe those guys are actually worse than portrayed. But you have no evidence. Because how could you? They weren’t given a hearing. Who is even making these decisions?
You don’t want to believe the media? Ok. Give them a hearing and believe the courts, a judge, or the administrative process that concludes affirmatively, with some evidence, that they are gang members.
NO MALARKEY
Mick — you do realize that conservatives voted every step of the way to weaken the laws and rules around money & politics. Every lawsuit, Supreme Court decision, legislation, etc. was championed by conservatives.
Imagine spending decades advocating for steroids in sports — and then complaining that the other teams are using steroids.
Over the past 25 years, the legal barriers separating money from politics in the U.S. have been systematically dismantled—primarily through a series of Supreme Court rulings driven by conservative majorities. The most pivotal decision was Citizens United v. FEC (2010), which held that corporations and unions could spend unlimited amounts on independent political expenditures, framing such spending as protected free speech. This opened the door to Super PACs and dark money. That same year, SpeechNow.org v. FEC allowed for unlimited contributions to Super PACs, while McCutcheon v. FEC (2014) struck down aggregate limits on how much individuals could donate across all federal candidates. More recently, FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate (2022) made it easier for wealthy candidates to be repaid by donors after elections. Together, these decisions turned campaign finance law into Swiss cheese.
Politically, these changes were overwhelmingly championed by conservatives and the Republican Party. Conservative legal groups like the Federalist Society, libertarian think tanks, and GOP-aligned donors pushed the idea that campaign finance restrictions violated the First Amendment. Republican leadership in Congress, particularly people like Mitch McConnell, fought vigorously against contribution limits and transparency laws. Democrats, by contrast, generally supported stricter campaign finance rules and sought to pass legislation like the DISCLOSE Act, though some benefited from the same dark money system in practice.
The irony is sharp when conservatives complain about the influence of money in politics today. I was on the CEB long enough to remember many of you poo pooing any arguments against some of these things. Because “freedom”, money is speech, etc.
Meanwhile you have Elon Musk – the richest guy in the world — literally taking questions from the Oval Office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyqB3t91quQ
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NO MALARKEY
Deicy Aldana, 26, said her husband, 26-year-old Colombian-Venezuelan dual citizen Andres Guillermo Morales, had a legal work permit in the United States as part of his U.S. asylum application when he was arrested by ICE in early February. His work authorization was verified independently by Reuters.
Aldana shared paperwork showing her husband, who has a Colombian mother and was raised along the two countries’ border, has no criminal convictions in Colombia. Reuters confirmed the authenticity of the document with its own records search.Reuters was not able to immediately find any U.S. criminal convictions for Morales either.Morales, who worked for an air conditioning company and then a cement company, had multiple tattoos, Aldana said, but none were connected to any gang. He had his parents’ names on his arms, with a clock next to his father’s, as well as a star and music notes on his neck and a Bible verse on his ribs.NO MALARKEY
Sad story about one of the disappeared people. If you read the story, he is a gay make-up artist with some tattoos. Does that sound like a gang member to you? Maybe he is. I doubt it, but how would we actually know without a hearing?
He waited months in detention for an immigration court hearing on March 13, but instead was put one of three planes with 237 other migrants and deported.
Another story about a guy with an “Autism Awareness” tattoo sent to this gulag. Is that the new profile of a Venezuelan gang member?
https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/trump-sends-innocent-man-el-34945042
the sister of Neri Jose Alvarado Borges—a 24-year-old of Venezuelan descent deported to El Salvador this month—said relatives suspect that Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials used his tattoos, one showing the name of his autistic younger brother and another showing a rainbow-colored ribbon of the autism acceptance movement, to justify his illegal ousting from the US.
Montilla said her brother wasn’t in any gang. Instead, he had been a psychology student who dropped out of school to come to America nine months ago due to the upheaval of the Venezuelan economy.
Are you guys seriously arguing this is not only ok, but good?
NO MALARKEY
And how do you know if they really are criminals? Is this just a “trust me bro” scenario? Even criminals are allowed human rights.
We don’t even know if these are all criminals. They are simply alleged criminals. And even criminals are entitled to human rights and due process. Or do we as a country not believe in that anymore?
GR, I’m surprised to see you on the wrong side of this. As you well know, there are ways of keeping court proceedings anonymous.
You can withhold juror names, you can keep juror addresses, workplaces, or demographic data confidential, you can sequester the jury.
A court can seal proceedings or certain filings to protect the identity of witnesses, victims, informants, even parties in civil cases (e.g., Doe v. Roe cases).
Judges can issue protective orders under Rule 26(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or equivalent state rules.
There are laws and procedures for keeping details of the judges confidential, as well.
The U.S. Constitution deliberately uses the term “person” rather than “citizen” in key provisions such as the Due Process Clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments, the Equal Protection Clause, and the 4th, 6th, and 1st Amendments. These rights—protection against unlawful searches and seizures, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech and religion, and equal protection under the law—apply to anyone on U.S. soil, regardless of immigration status.
The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently upheld this interpretation. In Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), the Court confirmed that constitutional protections extend to all persons within the country. In Zadvydas v. Davis (2001), it ruled that even undocumented immigrants cannot be detained indefinitely without due process. While non-citizens don’t have full political rights like voting or holding certain public offices, they are still protected from arbitrary detention, discrimination, and abuse. U.S. courts have repeatedly affirmed that the rule of law does not depend on citizenship.
NO MALARKEY
These are incentives to do business in California. But perhaps we can agree that increasing income and capital gains taxes on rich individuals makes sense.
NO MALARKEY
@Legend, is this part of the gambit?
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/24/politics/us-joins-russia-ukraine-un-vote/index.html
For those who keep harping on Crimea, it’s a ridiculous analogy. Neither Ukraine nor the West was prepared for the annexation. It was basically a fait accompli and would have required starting a war to reverse it. The invasion ten years later was a war thrust upon Ukrainians whether we wanted it or not. It is happening. We can support the pro democracy side and pro West side, or act like cowards and Neville Chamberlain, allowing naked aggression, terrorism, kidnapping, murder, rape, genocide, and blatant illegal annexation of a European country.
How is it that Republicans are on the wrong side of almost every major war? You were cheering on Bush when I was protesting that idiocy. Now you’re slinking away from the most important conflict in Europe in all of our lives. Insane.
Russia is weak. Putin can be defeated. Ukraine has been standing up to them with one arm tied behind its back and the bare minimum support.
What would I have done? The answer is, I would have given more support than Biden — though I don’t entirely blame him. Recall that Congress dithered for seven months last year before even bringing a vote to give Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine aid. I had hoped for someone more competent than Biden, but you guys voted in dipshit Russian stooge who makes Biden look like a hero. The bar was so low, but you found someone who is even worse.
NO MALARKEY
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