The Justice Department sure is shouty today:
DOJ, DHS REPORT: THREE OUT OF FOUR INDIVIDUALS CONVICTED OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM AND TERRORISM-RELATED OFFENSES WERE FOREIGN-BORN https://t.co/5Qs9mkQsL0
— Justice Department (@TheJusticeDept) January 16, 2018
This is the equivalent of Jeff Sessions holding a boombox aloft in the White House driveway and blaring “In Your Eyes” at Trump. But it also reminds me of this creative re-purposing of Microsoft’s dreaded Clippy widget:
Can you spot the logical fallacy involved in Sessions’ attempt to demonize all furriners to further the racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda he shares with his boss? I’ll give you a hint: international terrorism tends to involve global actors, whereas domestic terrorism features homegrown goobers.
Trump is lying on Twitter this morning about “Amnesty” and “Border Security” and “the Russia Collusion Hoax” and “our VERY DANGEROUS SOUTHERN BORDER” and “a great WALL.” Still hasn’t thrown Sessions a bone, despite the hard work on that report. Sad!
In other news, Trump’s DHS Secretary, who I believe used to work for John Kelly when he was enthusiastically enacting Trump’s bigoted immigration policies (before he was called up to supervise the adult daycare center on Penn Ave) says Dreamers have nothing to worry about, even if there is no DACA deal:
.@SecNielsen on #DACA deportations: "It's not going to be a priority of @ICEgov to prioritize their removal. I've said that before. That's not the policy of DHS." https://t.co/PM1g9bB6jj pic.twitter.com/g91D33pne6
— CBS This Morning ❄️ (@CBSThisMorning) January 16, 2018
She’s a liar. How do we know? Because she lied under oath to a congressional committee today.
The Trump administration is a Russian nesting doll of lies — falsehoods inside prevarications containing fibs enclosing untruths enveloping deceits. Liars, all the way down.
Chyron HR
“Ah sell international terrorism and international terrorism-related offenses.”
Thoroughly Pizzled
They are unspeakably vile people, the lot of them. Full amnesty and immediate citizenship for every undocumented immigrant is my preferred way to get revenge when the time comes.
schrodingers_cat
In which country was Timothy McVeigh born?
MattF
It’s one of those “You can tell she’s lying because her lips are moving” moments.
Cheryl Rofer
Five tweets from the president* this morning, full of lies. But most of the people I follow aren’t bothering with them.
Another day, another dozen lies.
laura
I saw a Detroit family ripped apart for no good reason on my TV this morning. She’s a liar. They’re all liars.
Kay
If Democrats ever take back a chamber they should do something about people lying under oath.
Come on. Tens of thousands of ordinary people testify truthfully every day. This is the deal.
Lying can’t become the norm, where only the little people are expected to tell the truth.
I don’t like prisons so I suggest hefty monetary fines. Direct withdrawal, pls. The Trumpsters will stiff us.
Walker
@Kay:
This. What is the statute of limitations for perjury charges?
The Dangerman
Trump: “Where? WHERE?!”
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
And what religion and race?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Wait, what? That means 25% of these international terrorists are American citizens. How many people are we talking about…?
Betty Cracker
Just got a news alert on my phone that Mueller subpoenaed Bannon last week. Hmmm!
Cheryl Rofer
Bannon has been subpoenaed by Mueller to appear before a grand jury. Lots of lawyers on Twitter interpreting this. Looks like the reasons may be that it will be easier to document lies. Also, Bannon’s lawyer will not be allowed to be with him.
ETA: Great minds, Betty!
MJS
That’s an odd spelling of Secretary Nielsen’s first name. Has anyone checked into her parents’ immigration status?
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Can Steve testify from under the bus? We’ll see.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
The real challenge would be to find one honest statement Trump’s ever made in his adult life, aside from chocolate cake.
Mnemosyne
Okay, I’ll be that asshole: I can’t help noticing that Nielsen is a Fox-ready blonde. There’s a shocker.
And about the Bannon subpoena: tick-tock, motherfuckers.
Another Scott
@MattF: rofl.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike J
@schrodingers_cat:
That was domestic terrorism and they specifically said international terrorism. Doesn’t count. Like all the nazi crimes, the Trump admin is OK with killing Americans, as long as you kill the right ones.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer: DIdn’t John Dean say that he wasn’t involved in any direct discussions about Watergate, but picked up enough, basically by osmosis, to become the star witness? I imagine the Hobo Duke has a whole lot of high-level gossip about the Large Adult Children, and between that gossip, the internal politics of the trump outfit, and the general stupidity of the LAC, there could be a whole bunch of perjury traps being constructed.
Mike in DC
@Betty Cracker: He won’t roll on Trump but must be chomping at the bit to stick a shiv in Jared.
schrodingers_cat
@Mike J: Why the distinction, do you go to heaven to 63 Fox blondes if you are killed by a domestic terrorist.
Kay
@Walker:
I don’t know and perjury is complicated and it’s Congress. But if Congress can do anything they can run their own hearings, right?
This is a big deal in county courts! Frowned upon and also unusual. Blatant liars are the bottom of the barrel exception. MOST people tell the truth. This is not a high standard or impossible to meet. Surely the President’s employees can meet the same standard as 95% of people shuffling thru the justice system every day. They’re the bottom 5%? Get a handle on this, Congress.
Brachiator
These people tire me out with their combination of lies and detestable actions.
It’s going to be a long ass year.
trollhattan
Nicely played by Durban. “I hope you remember me. We were at two meetings together” last week.
Far be it for a cabinet member to pay much attention to the words uttered by the president of the United States. Focus is overrated.
Barbara
@Mike J:
FIFY — Lots of white people died in Las Vegas and at that little church in Texas. But since their killers were also white, who cares?
Calouste
That she chose to work for the shitgibbon is the only clue you really need.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I despise Lindsey Graham, but he is addressing Nielsen with what sounds very much like worn out contempt
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: @Kay: @Walker: Great minds and all that (glad I read through the thread for a change). These fucking liars…they need to pay in 2019 for all the lies they told/are telling in 2017-2018
@Mike in DC:
1) (of course) “Why not both?”
2) Trumpov has excommunicated Bannon and the Mercers have cut him off…he has no reason not to throw all of them under the bus
3) Mueller doesn’t care who Bannon wants/wants not to roll on…he just has questions. Many questions…
Humdog
Remember when the first Muslim ban went into effect and people were detained at US airports? I recall that some authority wouldn’t allow lawyers to access the detainees even after the lawyers had gotten court orders. It had to be some DHS entity but I cannot recall the acronym. I can’t find any info about who ordered those “authorities” to ignore the courts. Did they try to blame it on it individual officers? That was the first clue, to me, that our institutions are only as strong as the will of those with guns to submit to the law and to not follow their prejudices. I am not encouraged as time has passed and we find many in our government never meant the oaths they took to uphold the constitution.
Another Scott
TheHill (opinion): Will 2018 look like 1890?:
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
Oh whoops, meant to add this gem from Tea Pain on Twitter: “Trump is very flexible on immigration. He’ll gladly take highly-skilled white workers or highly-white skilled workers.” That’s pretty accurate, actually…
Frank Wilhoit
In order to understand this, it is necessary and sufficient to understand that lies are not told for gain, or from fear, or for any of the other reasons commonly adduced. They are told to humiliate their audiences. Every time, no other reason. Lies are an intangible weapon.
Accordingly, the subtext of the lies that are enumerated here and here, is “you don’t deserve the truth”.
tobie
@Cheryl Rofer: I haven’t following the Twitter discussions of Bannon’s subpoena but I recall hearing over and over again that Mueller and team won’t ask questions unless they already know the answers, which means they must be in possession of enough evidence to compel Bannon to testify. Lying to a grand jury is still a crime. Here’s hoping.
Kenneth Kohl
@Mike J:
And who doesn’t have young children on their hit list?
Dennis
Links to the WaPo seem to be useless now, unless you are a subscriber. Recent development.
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: They are screwing TN visa holders too, these are work visas for NAFTA countries. Canadians and Messicans are complaining.
schrodingers_cat
@Dennis: Incognito mode.
low-tech cyclist
What, about what she heard Trump say?
She may well be a liar about many things. But let’s stay away from what other people did or didn’t hear. To quote Firesign Theatre:
–Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers
JMG
I must imagine Bannon’s testimony is to corroborate facts already in evidence before the grand jury related to the campaign and transition, that is, Flynn’s testimony.
Barbara
@tobie: In nearly every circumstance, no good lawyer asks a question on the record that they don’t already know the answer to.
Another Scott
@Jeffro: Donnie has no problem hiring immigrants from the Caribbean or other less-developed countries to work at his hotels. In fact, he prefers them to hiring Americans at the prevailing wage.
He just doesn’t want those immigrants to think that they actually have any benefits and protections while they’re here. They gotta know their place, doncha know.
It’s stuff like that that figures into his “I’m not a racist – I’m the least racist person you have ever met” statements and “arguments”.
And it’s infuriating.
Grrr.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@Frank Wilhoit:
This. The lies that the Possum Queen and other Trump functionaries tell are a demonstration of their power over us: they can lie to our faces and there’s not a thing that we can do about it.
Jeffro
Fox News Dot Com: ” ‘SLOPPY STEVE’ To Squeal”?
Yes, you lying asses, he’s going to ‘squeal’ on Dear Leader. Which automatically makes everything he says #FakeNews, right? Jesus, I wish I could turn off my higher-order brain functions like that…
Amaranthine RBG
@Cheryl Rofer:
Bannon has alot of incentive to keep lying for Trump to keep his perch at Breitbart and to stay in Trump’s good graces.
Oh, wait…
The Moar You Know
@Dennis: There’s a lot of potential money to be made off the anti-Trump movement. They’ve decided to get some of that money.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
again, I despise Lindsey Graham but…
staff including “Chief of…”? Col Graham telling Gen Kelly to back the fuck up?
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Who did Durbin say that to, and when? I need a little backstory here. :-)
WaterGirl
Dreamers have nothing to fear? This is horrible: The deportation of Jorge Garcia
ruemara
@WaterGirl: Nielsen. She was at the immigration meeting where Trump insulted everyone from Africa or majority brown folks nations. She is also obliquely calling him a liar.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: However, Graham does avoid blaming the Tsar.
JPL
@MattF: If Graham does nothing more than rid us of the bigots on Trump’s staff, that is a win. Kelly and Miller instantly come to mind.
WaterGirl
@ruemara: I’m pretty sure Dick Durbin is pissed about being called a liar. These people have no shame. I seriously wonder how they can look at their family members when they go home. All the republicans have lost the plot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MattF: if there’s a chance he pissed off that asshole Kelly, who I believe is as arrogant and thin-skinned and racist as his boss, I’ll enjoy that possibility.
Doesn’t make up for his other sins, his war-mongering or his demagoguery about Benghazi (I think he was the biggest player in that), but if he made Kelly open an extra roll of Tums today, he has served a purpose.
JPL
If we go to a merit based system, will the Trump properties be prevented from bringing in immigrants to clean his toilets. Of course that could still be a job most Americans won’t do.
ruemara
@WaterGirl: I hate to say it, but based on Sarah Huckabee and Whateverherface Romney – they look their families in the face just fine because the family is just as toxic & depraved as they are. Sociopaths all the way down.
patrick II
The essence of the Trump administration eloquently stated. Did you use a thesaurus?
WaterGirl
@ruemara: I know that hate and fear are powerful motivators, but I cannot comprehend that half the people in this country care nothing for science or reason or logic and they don’t seem to value telling the truth. The only question when you’re in bed with a liar is when are they going to lie to you or about you? How can they trust one another, even a little bit, enough to get all this evil stuff done? It boggles my mind.
edit: Forgot to include the fact that they apparently see half of their fellow human beings as not human.
Raoul
“The majority of drunk driving convictions involve people who have consumed alcohol.” That’s the brilliance-level of Beauregard’s DOJ.
MattF
@patrick II: Trumpites lie because it serves their purposes. One may note that this leads them to lie all the time.
NotMax
Couple of things which caught the eye overnight –
1)
2)
The pairing of the words “autonomous” and “nuclear-armed” are enough to make all one’s hairs stand on end. Cheryl, any insights to share on this?
NotMax
Comment poofed. Please to liberate from FYWP purgatory.
Adria McDowell
“It’s not going to be a priority of @ICEgov to prioritize their removal. I’ve said that before. That’s not the policy of DHS.”
SureJan.gif
P.S. I wish we could post gifs here. But then I guess it would just be Twitter. :-)
Ladyraxterin
@schrodingers_cat: Extremely good point.
IIRC he was stationed at a military base in KS. A former student came back to school on a visit. Said he was/had been at a KS base that had a number of people with McVeigh’s mind-set.
Adria McDowell
@debbie: Please- I bet that cake was tiny and dry as fuck. :-)
ruemara
@WaterGirl: I like history. I’m disappointed but not very surprised. I don’t think it’s quite half. I think it’s 1/3 but a whole nother third is the milquetoast, spineless, ok with racism since it doesn’t affect them directly, but they would strongly condemn a burning cross. They’re the problem.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl: I lifted it from the WaPo article Betty links to above. She was under oath at the time.
Gelfling 545
Almost done reading Fire and Fury. Jesus. You could make an opera out of it. (The Twilight of the Trumps?)
Matt McIrvin
100% OF IMMIGRANT TERRORISTS ARE IMMIGRANTS
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
You just Blew My Mind!
Wyatt Derp
So international terrorists (sorry I mean INTERNATIONAL TERRORISTS) are…international? In other news, 99% of terrorists from muslim countries are…muslim! BTW, what about domestic terroris…oh, that’s right, never mind.
Uncle Cosmo
@Cheryl Rofer: @I’mARanting POS: Depends on how much Vlad-The-Paler wants him to keep his mouth shut. My guess is that no more than 48 hrs after the Mercers dumped him there came through the Bannon mail slot letters containing – oh, I dunno – photos of his (grown) children (& a caption: “No one will ever know it wasn’t an accident”), photocopies of his secret offshore bank accounts (“These can all go to zero in a few nanoseconds”), a blank piece of paper with a tiny metallic dot on it (“It only takes this much polonium”)…Stuff like that. Word to the wise guy & all that.
patrick II
Trump’s biggest lies:
There was no collusion
I am not a racist
There will be healthcare for everyone and it will be a lot cheaper too.
They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
I will not touch medicare or medicaid
There will be coal mining like there used to be: thousands of jobs.
I know he’s told thousands of lies (I won’t leave the white house and golf all of the time like Obama). But I rate the lies on the list above as most egregious for a combination of being blatant and important lies. The more he repeats them (no collusion!) the truer they are.
HRA
@WaterGirl:
I saw the story of Jorge Garcia yesterday and was really upset about it. I thought of my Dad escaping the then INS as an illegal and going to Canada. I also thought about the access to Canada across the Detroit River to my hometown of Windsor, Ont. In this now vile atmosphere for the DACA people they have to get out of here soon and into Canada ASAP.
Uncle Cosmo
@Gelfling 545: GOPerdammerung?! One can only hope…
bemused
@Frank Wilhoit:
Reading the link made me think of the book Authoritarians, studies of authoritarian leaning people and how easily they will bow to the top dog authoritarian.
NotMax
Thanks for liberating comment (now #61 above).
Jay S
@trollhattan: Having read the article, the questioning or at least the reporting of it seems to be focused more on the words used than the meaning. There was a more open ended question and she tried to minimize the meaning.
It continues by trying to pin her down about the nature of the remarks with not much success.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Chyron HR:
-Hank “Beauregard” Hill
JCJ
@Jeffro:
Does “highly skilled” in the mind of Trump equal “willing to bang him?”
BRIAN SMITH
Saying “It’s not a priority” doesn’t mean that they won’t do it! If pressed why the deportations happened anyway, the Secretary would say “We found the resources and did it anyway.”
Mike in DC
So, basically:
1. Deport all undocumented residents, except maybe the Dreamers
2. End family based migration
3. End the visa lottery
4. Evict everyone here on TPS
5. Drastically limit the number of refugees
6. Limit/ban travel from several muslim countries
7. Shift to a purely merit based quota system rather than country based
8. Cut the number of green cards issued per year from 1M to 500k
9. Build a giant superfluous wall as an F U to our southern neighbors
Wow. It’s not the first immigration policy shift based on white panic, though it is about as blatant as the old ones.
Chris
The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.
Chris
@Humdog:
It was CBP. What was even scarier, and went almost completely uncommented on, was that the U.S. Marshalls refused to enforce the court orders against CBP officers.
toujoursdan
We haven’t have a country based immigration plan in 50 years. Discrimination based on national origin is supposed to be outlawed.
Gin & Tonic
Speaking of liars, isn’t there supposed to be a briefing from the President’s physician today?
Brachiator
@Mike in DC:
And this kind of thing needs to be rejected because the claim of “merit based” is a fig leaf for a neo-soci@l Darwinist BS categorizing of human beings. It also insanely turns becoming an American into some stupid quasi-job interview based on the resume of the applicant. The ultimate in running the country “like a business.” Vile, dehumanization.
Betty Cracker
@low-tech cyclist: Nope, Trump flunkies don’t get the benefit of the doubt and definitely shouldn’t in this case. Unless they were eating takeout Chinese food at that meeting and she’s on video shoving the chopsticks through her eardrums, she heard what Trump said. Durbin and Graham confirmed it. Flake confirmed a second-hand account using the word “shithole” before it was reported in the media. The only people who “can’t recall” are shameless toadies like Cotton and Perdue, who are liars just like Nielsen.
schrodingers_cat
@toujoursdan: There are per country quotas for most GC categories and the total # of Greencards available per year is fixed too. Only exceptions are parents, minor children and spouses of US citizens)
Chris
@Brachiator:
“Merit-based,” for fuck’s sake. Most of our [white Americans’] ancestors showed up with nothing to offer at all other than their bodies, and worked them off copiously on farms, in mines, and on assembly lines. There’s no reason at all contemporary immigrants should have to do anything like that.
(Not to mention that we know perfectly well that “merit based” will in practice just mean the time-honored practice of racial profiling. “He’s Asian? He must be tech-savvy, let’s take him. He’s Latin? He must be lazy and drug dealing, leave him at the door.”)
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
And IIRC, plenty of countries (the ones Trump wants more immigration from) never come close to fulfilling their quotas, while plenty of others never come close to finding spots for all the people who want to immigrate. You’d think this would mean that you could simply take those unfilled openings and give them to people from the countries with long lists of candidates. But no. That would make sense.
Immanentize
@Cheryl Rofer: Lawyers are almost never allowed to accompany a witness (their client) in the Grand Jury. There is no right to counsel, only a limited fourth amendment right, and really no fifth amendment rights outside a blanket refusal to testify. Once you go beyond identifying information, if you answer a question, you have waived your right to not testify…. From a criminal defense perspective, grand juries are SCARE-EEE!
Immanentize
@MJS: From day one of this shithole shitstorm, I imagined Kelly was behind it — that is his kind of language for sure and I just imagine him saying to Trump: “I’ve been to these countries, and let me assure you Mr. President, they are all shitholes.”
And Trump thinks, “Donnie likes!”
geg6
@Adria McDowell:
One of the many reasons I don’t use Twitter is all the gifs. They slow down and screw up all of my devices. I wish even front pagers couldn’t post gifs here. I realize I’m probably in the minority, but I hate them. I come here for conversation, not more Twitter crap.
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: They did that in Clinton era, but it has opponents in Congress, even the great sage of Vt is opposed IIRC.
Boatboy_srq
@NotMax: Not Cheryl, but speaking as a Navy/USN-contractor brat, one of the scariest things about Trident II was the near-self-launching functionality, and that was an early-80s development. If Russia has developed this capability, they’re a) way behind the curve and b) stepping awfully close to Red October territory.
Humdog
@Chris: Right, thanks for clearing that up. Marshall’s are Justice department, correct? This seems to have dropped into a memory hole.
Immanentize
@Humdog: Marshalls are a part of the judiciary, not justice. That is why it was so weird. But Marshalls (known as Grey Pants) need a judge to tell them what to do or they will not do it. A Court Case decision without a specific order is not enough for them to act.
Brachiator
@Immanentize:
A bit of both?
Chris
@Humdog:
Wikipedia says yes. I didn’t remember where they fit into the government bureaucratically, but they’re the enforcement arm of the federal courts. So, if they’re sticking with their “fellow” uniforms against the people they owe allegiance that’s frankly terrifying for anyone who cares about separation of powers, accountability in the security state, and just the rule of law in general.
Gelfling 545
@Uncle Cosmo: ?
J R in WV
@Raoul:
Actually, if you change that to Driving While Intoxicated, it would be accurate. But they’re too dump to make the change.