US Politics: Crossing that Ford

[Bonnot OG]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

How in the world does the orange nazi know anything about what happened?  He wasn't there.  O! Wait!  He did the same damned stuff himself, so he knows how it rolls, and the excuse was always she was drunk.  Except when she wasn't but then he was such a famous rich fellow he could do whatever he wanted.

Hell, he still can.  He can stand in front of the world at the UN and claim to be the bestest of the bestest ever and think the representatives of the world laughing at him are laughing in appreciation of his sheer awesomeness.

Get him outta there!

As far as that Kavanaugh vote -- the rethugs must be lacking confidence they've got the votes or else they would have called the vote already, wouldn't they?  It's the way they do shyte.

They are voting Friday morning.

Thursday is gonna be a sham and just a show to get the gullible centerists to beliee they give a fuck about women.

[Zorral]

Just now, Bonnot OG said:

They are voting Friday morning.

They are all Stoolies, all right.  Born to the stool, so to speak.  Talk about propagating and egging on harassment of women:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-barstool-sports-culture-of-online-hate-they-treat-sexual-harassment-and-cyberbullying-as-a-game?via=twitter_page

[Kalbear]

The judiciary committee is voting. That's not the final vote, and even if they say 'no' it can still result in him being confirmed to the court. That's what happened with Clarence Thomas. 

[DMC]

34 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

That's what happened with Clarence Thomas.

To clarify, the judiciary committee's vote was tied at 7-7 for Thomas.  All six Republicans and one Democrat - Dennis DeConcini from Arizona - voted for him.  Those GOP members included Hatch and Grassley.  Strom Thurmond was the ranking member when the committee oversaw Anita Hill's accusations.

[Bonnot OG]

The most important thing I want from the next president their commitment to doing away with procedural norms and investigating and jailing Republicans.

[Bonnot OG]

Oh yea, 

the attorney to question Dr. Blasey is Rachel Mitchell, a prosecutor from AZ.

A case of hers worth mentioning and looking at is one where she accepted a lenient plea from a defendant who confessed to sexual abuse of a child, saying it only happened once despite evidence of abuse for a decade.

[fionwe1987]

3 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

I think it's fair to conclude that enthusiasm among Democrats won't be affected one way or the other. They are fired up. 

This isn't true. They're fired up compared to previous midterms, but they're far from saturation. Any number of key races for the GOP can be upturned if more women, furious at their awful behavior, come out to vote.

[ThinkerX]

Saw a couple articles like this lately.  Strangely, I see the points complained about (pro labor) as good things to be encouraged, not as detriments.  hole thing could well be hype, though.

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/could-the-new-nafta-ruin-maga/ar-AAACuSG?ocid=msnclassic

 

For example, according to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the new agreement includes a labor regulation chapter that “brings labor obligations into the core of the agreement, makes them fully enforceable, and represents the strongest provisions of any trade agreement.”

 

This includes a commitment not to “derogate” from existing labor laws. Based on USTR negotiating objectives, this is likely to mean that the United States and Mexico agree not to lessen or reduce labor laws in order to attract foreign investment.

 

[Bonnot OG]

35 minutes ago, Triskjavikson said:

O'Donnell's show is suggesting that there are plenty of GOP Senators who are actually really on the fence and that Grassley's bizarre behavior is consistent with this.  Food for thought.  And then tomorrow might still be when the Avenatti stuff comes out.

For what it's worth, Susan Collins told reporters that it would be a huge deal if Rosenstein is fired but maybe that's like her saying Kavanaugh is solid on Roe v. Wade.

Collins is a dipshit.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

Perhaps the most dramatic move for Democrats would be impeachment. In a New York magazine cover story, Jill Abramson laid out the case last year for impeaching Justice Clarence Thomas for allegedly lying to Congress during his confirmation hearing about sexually harassing Anita Hill and other women in the 1980s. “The idea of someone so flagrantly telling untruths to ascend to the highest legal position in the U.S. remains shocking, in addition to its being illegal,” she wrote. Some Democrats have begun floatinga similar proposal to impeach Kavanaugh and remove him from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals if his nomination fails, or from the Supreme Court if it doesn’t.

 

When Democrats Retaliate

Kavanaugh's confirmation may convince them to destroy the Supreme Court in order to save it.

https://newrepublic.com/article/151374/democrats-retaliate-after-brett-kavanaugh-confirmation

[Bonnot OG]

The Dems wont impeach anyone. They are fucking spineless and too concerned about their image.

Right now they should be vocal as fuck, tv ads, radio ads, social media etc, about how Kavanaugh is not  credible person and can't be taken seriously as a truth teller given the lies he has been telling.

Dems not being vocal about how Kavanaugh has no credibility given how he lied underoath is why they lose elections. They are unwilling to fight how you need to fight to protect people. They are toothless and more concerned with their fucking image, hence the calls for constant civility, than they are with protecting people and winning. What good is a party like this?

This is like third party voters talking about how they have to vote their conscience. it's meaningless and counter productive since you are letting far right bigots that are corrupt as all hell win and get their way thanks to your misplaced self righteous ignorant bullshit that ignores the long game.

[Bonnot OG]

Oh yea, more on more on Rachel Mitch, she worked in the same county Joe Arpaio was a sherrif. The county where her department let his concentration camp goons get away with ignoring over 400 sex crimes.

[Paladin of Ice]

On the Fox interview, Kavanaugh tried to claim that he'd never drunk to the point where he wouldn't be able to remember what happened the night before, presumably to cut off a line of approach it could be suggested that he did things while drunk that he didn't remember afterwards.

Unfortunately for him, a bunch of his Yale classmates and his own past statements are calling bullshit on that claim. A few sections from the article:

Quote

On Monday night, Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh said in a nationally televised interview that in his younger years, he was focused on sports, academics and “service projects.” But it was his comments about drinking that rankled some Yale University classmates, prompting them to speak out for the first time.

Liz Swisher, who described herself as a friend of Kavanaugh in college, said she was shocked that — in an interview focused largely on his high school years and allegations of sexual misconduct — he strongly denied drinking to the point of blacking out.

“Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He’d end up slurring his words, stumbling,” said Swisher, a Democrat and chief of the gynecologic oncology division at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “There’s no medical way I can say that he was blacked out. . . . But it’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess.”

Lynne Brookes, who like Swisher was a college roommate of one of the two women now accusing Kavanaugh of misconduct, said the nominee’s comments on Fox did not match the classmate she remembered.

“He’s trying to paint himself as some kind of choir boy,” said Brookes, a Republican and former pharmaceutical executive who recalled an encounter with a drunken Kavanaugh at a fraternity event. “You can’t lie your way onto the Supreme Court, and with that statement out, he’s gone too far. It’s about the integrity of that institution.”

Kavanaugh’s credibility will be tested this week as the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hear sworn testimony from him and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who alleges that he sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers decades ago and he was, in her words, “stumbling drunk.” As Thursday’s hearing approached, three Yale Law School classmates who had endorsed Kavanaugh called for an investigation into her claims and those of the other woman, and Yale Law professor Akhil Amar — who taught Kavanaugh and testified on his behalf before the committee — called for a probe into what he described as “serious accusations.”

...

Years before his Supreme Court nomination, Kavanaugh acknowledged heavy drinking in a 2014 speech to the Yale Federalist Society. He recalled organizing a boozy trip for 30 of his Yale Law classmates to Boston for a baseball game and a night of barhopping, complete with “group chugs from a keg” and a return to campus by “falling out of the bus onto the steps of Yale Law School at about 4:45 a.m.”

Another former classmate who has publicly supported Ramirez, James Roche, said Kavanaugh frequently drank to the point of incoherence. “He hung out with the football players and soccer players, and they drank a lot and were bros,” Roche, who briefly shared a room with Kavanaugh during their freshman year, said in an interview this month. In a statement Monday night, after the Fox interview, Roche described Kavanaugh as a “notably heavy drinker” who “became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk.”

Meanwhile, three Yale classmates who along with others endorsed Kavanaugh last month in a letter to the Judiciary Committee called Tuesday for an investigation into the sexual assault claims.

...

Kavanaugh hinted at his drinking in his 1983 Georgetown Prep yearbook entry. He identified himself as the “biggest contributor” to the Beach Week Ralph Club, an apparent reference to vomiting, and treasurer of the Keg City Club. “100 Kegs or Bust,” his entry says, referring to a campaign by his friends to empty 100 kegs of beer during their senior year.

So, about Kavanaugh's credibility...

[Bonnot OG]

38 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

On the Fox interview, Kavanaugh tried to claim that he'd never drunk to the point where he wouldn't be able to remember what happened the night before, presumably to cut off a line of approach it could be suggested that he did things while drunk that he didn't remember afterwards.

Unfortunately for him, a bunch of his Yale classmates and his own past statements are calling bullshit on that claim. A few sections from the article:

So, about Kavanaugh's credibility...

Yea, he was never credible. He's a scumbag. As are the GOP for trying to ram him through. They can all go drop dead.

[Bonnot OG]

 

[Paladin of Ice]

Quote

Yea, he was never credible. He's a scumbag. As are the GOP for trying to ram him through. They can all go drop dead.

We know he pretty much flat out lied under oath about Bush torture memos, and now he's willing to lie about his past in an interview where he passionately claims that he wants to clear his name, so that pretty much makes him completely unbelievable as far as I'm concerned.

Two immigration related stories for everyone here:

A Supreme Court ruling ruling from the summer may mean that thousands of deportation cases will be thrown out. Long story shortish: if an undocumented immigrant stays in the US for over ten years without any legal woes or a summons to appear in immigration court, they could be eligible to stay. Over the summer, the Supreme Court ruled that immigration officials did not follow the law for summoning a man to immigration court when they left both where and when he had to appear in court blank. Apparently that's such a common occurrence that the ruling may be used to prevent thousands of potential deportations.

Quote

For years, immigration authorities have been skipping one simple step in the process: When they served notices to appear in court, they routinely left the court date blank. Now, because of that omission and a recent Supreme Court decision, tens of thousands of deportation cases could be delayed, or tossed out altogether.

"I'm not sure if the Supreme Court knew what they were doing," said Marshall Whitehead, an immigration lawyer in Phoenix. "But the end result of this is a major impact."

The Supreme Court's decision in the case known as Pereira v. Sessions didn't get much attention when it was announced in June, partly because it seemed so technical. The court ruled 8 to 1 that immigration authorities did not follow the law when they filled out the paperwork in that case. They served an immigrant with a notice to appear in court but didn't say when and where the hearing would be held.

"Basically the Supreme Court decision said look, you're not following the statute," Whitehead said. "So this notice to appear was ruled as being invalid."

That seemingly minor technicality has big implications.

Consider the case of Whitehead's client, Jose Silva Reyes, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. He was living in Arizona, under law enforcement's radar, for years — until 2010, when he ran a red light and got into a car accident.

Since then, Silva Reyes has been fighting in immigration court to stay in the country with his wife, a green card holder, and two kids who are citizens. He was due in court for his final deportation hearing last month, when the case against him was suddenly thrown out.

"When they told me that my case was terminated, I felt good," Silva Reyes said, speaking through an interpreter.

Like many undocumented immigrants caught up in President Trump's recent crackdown, Silva Reyes has been in the U.S. for more than 10 years. If you've lived in the U.S. for a decade without getting into trouble, and without ever getting a notice to appear in immigration court, you could be eligible to stay. Now, thanks to the Supreme Court, these immigrants can argue they never got a valid notice to appear in that 10-year time frame.

But the Supreme Court ruling could have an even wider impact.

Immigration lawyers are arguing that if any immigrant received a defective notice to appear, the whole deportation case is invalid. Silva Reyes' lawyer, Marshall Whitehead, says he has already gotten dozens of cases tossed out using this line of reasoning.

"I'm only one attorney, and I've got 200 cases I'm looking at," Whitehead said. "So you can see the massive numbers that we're talking about across the United States."

For all of Trump's claims to want high skilled immigrants, his administration is making it harder for high skilled workers to get or renew a visa, and in the latest pointless petty cruelty, the administration appears to be on the edge of cancelling a program that allows the spouses of H-1B visa holders to get a work permit while they wait for a green card.

Quote

The Trump administration says it wants to move to a "merit-based" immigration system — one that gives priority to immigrants who speak English and are highly educated.
But critics say that rhetoric is at odds with the administration's actions.

"Show me any policy that's come out so far that has actually made it easier for highly skilled immigrants," says Doug Rand, who worked in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Barack Obama.

"I haven't seen any," Rand said.

In practice, critics say the administration is making high-skilled immigrants' lives harder, in all sorts of ways. It has gotten tougher to get or renew an H-1B visa, a program that brings in tech workers, doctors and other professionals. And the administration is getting rid of other visa programs altogether.

That includes a special program for the spouses of H-1B guest workers that has been widely embraced by immigrants like Neha Mahajan. She hosts and produces a TV talk show in Edison, N.J., that's targeted mainly at Indian expats like her.

"This is the kind of work I always wanted to do," said Mahajan. "I am picking up topics that typically don't get talked about in the South Asian community. So I'm trying to be a change-maker in my community."

Mahajan has a master's degree in English literature and worked as a journalist in India. It never occurred to her that she would have trouble finding opportunities in the U.S. But Mahajan was not allowed to work when she first got here.

"So here I am in the U.S., the most advanced nation on this Earth," Mahajan said. "But I'm in a cage. A metaphoric golden cage."

Mahajan moved here with her husband and daughter in 2008 when he secured an H-1B visa to work as a software developer. But she wasn't able to work legally until 2015, when the Obama administration launched the H-4 EAD program. It allows the spouses of H-1B guest workers to get work permits once they've been approved for a green card. About 100,000 people have signed up — mostly women, and mostly from India, which has a years-long waiting list for green cards.

Now the Trump administration is poised to end the program, which it considers an overreach.

"For me, one of the main reasons for proposing to rescind that is because I don't think it's appropriate," said Lee Cissna, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency in charge of legal immigration. "I don't think that Congress intended for the spouses of H-1Bs to work."

Cissna did not respond to requests for an interview. But he did speak last month to the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors lower levels of immigration.

"Everything we do is guided by the law," Cissna said. "That's all we're doing."

The administration is also trying to kill another Obama-era program known as the International Entrepreneur Rule, which Doug Rand helped create.

"This was designed for entrepreneurs from other countries to more easily come to the U.S., or stay in the U.S., build companies here, create jobs for U.S. workers," said Rand, who now runs a firm called Boundless Immigration.

...

Nonetheless, immigrants like Neha Mahajan wonder whether the administration is serious about "merit-based" immigration.

"I don't know what to think," Mahajan said. "Hypocrisy, maybe? They want us to stay. They don't want us to stay. Why put people's lives into a limbo?"

Mahajan and other spouses of guest workers are pushing to save the H-4 EAD program that allows them to work. The Trump administration is expected to announce the official end of that program any day.

By the way, as is too often the case with NPR, it's far too polite when it makes reference to the Center for Immigration Studies, which is the alt-Right's favorite anti-immigrant "think tank" and whose founder was a racist that often made common cause with White Nationalists and Eugenicists. So that's who the official head of Citizenship and Immigration Services voluntarily gave a speech to.

[TrueMetis]

How is leaving out the time and place of your trial a " seemingly minor technicality" that's basically what the government in Harry Potter did to show how incredibly corrupt it was.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, TrueMetis said:

How is leaving out the time and place of your trial a " seemingly minor technicality" that's basically what the government in Harry Potter did to show how incredibly corrupt it was.

I'd give my left leg for Cornelius Fudge's leadership right now. 

[Paladin of Ice]

1 hour ago, TrueMetis said:

How is leaving out the time and place of your trial a " seemingly minor technicality" that's basically what the government in Harry Potter did to show how incredibly corrupt it was.

NPR is a great information source, but they do tend toward being overly polite and adverse to calling out some things they should.

[Fragile Bird]

Something I meant to mention yesterday, no member of Cosby’s family showed up at his sentencing hearing. Not his wife, not a child, not a relative.

Only his publicist, who said Jesus was persecuted too, though he was not saying Cosby was Jesus, and the whole world knows how unfairly black men are treated by the justice system. The whole world does know, but this wasn’t exactly a case to rally around.