ADM
You have not explained why the Dems did not pick someone who was not an MS13 member, not a criminal, not wife beater, not under deportation orders. If this guy is the best they can find, they have already lost the battle. They are just making themselves look like idiots. Politicians who never once called the family of a crime victim are fighting for THIS guy? They need someone deserving of the role.
Now, please stop reposting and reposting and reposting failed and debunked arguments.

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, April 18, 2025 - 09:58 pm: Edit

[repetition]

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, April 18, 2025 - 10:15 pm: Edit

Ah, I had misinterpreted your question to mean, "why are people up in arms about the deportations to El Salvador", when apparently you meant, "why did the previous administration knowingly invite and/or let in criminals?"

The obvious answer is that they did not knowingly invite and/or let in criminals, at least not outside of unsupported rhetoric from various talking heads. When people with criminal records, or who undertook criminal actions once in the U.S., were caught, they were largely deported, though as always in these things, the process was not perfect. One of the bigger factors appears to have been the ever-popular problem of various jurisdictions just plain not talking with each other, a side effect of fifty states where better than a third have demonstrated utter rejection of any sort of centralized police reporting system as an infringement upon state sovereignty.

Likewise, on the larger scheme of things, they didn't have "wide open borders" or "deliberately bring in millions of 'illegals'," again a favored pair of applause lines delivered by the aforementioned talking heads. The borders were patrolled, a fair lot of those trying to cross were caught and sent back, etc. There was a massive surge of migrants starting around 2017 and starting to taper off by early 2024 (due to a combination of factors far outside the control of anyone in the U.S.), and both the Border Patrol and the immigration courts were strained to and beyond the limit. However, by the end of the tenure of 46, the rate of border crossings was lower than it was during the tenure of 45.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 18, 2025 - 10:29 pm: Edit

Jessica, thank you, but perhaps not for what you thought you were providing. There was plenty of information to screen out criminals (before the election, Trump was citing extremely specific numbers of known an identified criminals with detailed sources, all information available to 46), but 46 didn’t even try. So you have confirmed the Soros theory. End of discussion.

END

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, April 18, 2025 - 11:32 pm: Edit

There is at least one. Further act to be played out before the Garcia thing can be cleared up.

That is the U.S. Senator who decided to get involved, out side of the state department.

Namely a violation of the Logan Act, 1799 (amended 1994.)

What amounts to any citizen who enters into negotiations with a foreign government “without direct or indirect permission” could be subject to arrest, and tried in a criminal court.

The charge is considered a felony, and I believe there could be fines levied. If convicted, I also believe the individual could face a jail sentence.

Rarely enforced, i believe only one person has ever been charged, and it did not result in a conviction.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 18, 2025 - 11:41 pm: Edit

Jeff, you're out on a limb there. The senator will claim he was just checking on one of his constituents held in a foreign jail, a perfectly legitimate thing for him to do. Politically insane, as no one outside the echo chamber is buying the posterboy thing, but not a crime.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Saturday, April 19, 2025 - 04:11 am: Edit

I Said we were done.-SVC

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, April 19, 2025 - 10:30 am: Edit

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Saturday, April 19, 2025 - 10:35 am: Edit

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, April 19, 2025 - 05:26 pm: Edit

I might comment that anything in the source "National Review" is so one-sided it cannot be trusted to be complete or even accurate. It will, however, tell certain factions exactly what they would like to hear by the clever means of not mentioning things that don't fit the narrative.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, April 19, 2025 - 05:37 pm: Edit

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, April 19, 2025 - 09:44 pm: Edit

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Sunday, April 20, 2025 - 06:59 am: Edit

SVC, as I understand it, the real question you're asking is: *Why do Democrats make such strange decisions in the face of obvious facts?* It's genuinely baffling, and you're trying to make sense of it. There are two common explanations people turn to. One: perhaps they’re simply misguided—naive, deluded, or overly credulous. Two: they’re being deliberately deceitful and dishonest. To be precise, the first explanation tends to apply more to liberal voters, while the second is often directed at the politicians themselves.

Now, this viewpoint works fine as political rally talk, but it doesn't really explain the deeper dynamics.

That brings us to a second, more plausible explanation: **liberals don't consume conservative media.** Your average left-leaning activist—"liberal-ish"—likely never watches right-wing media unless it's a short clip circulating online, usually shared as something to mock or get outraged about. Take, for instance, the recent Fox News blunder where they mistakenly geo-tagged Kyiv as "Kyiv, Russia"—liberals jumped on it not to understand the context, but to reinforce a narrative.

As a result, the information ecosystem they live in is shaped by bias, selective focus, and the occasional compounded factual error. They are seeing the world through a filtered lens. Think of it like this: they agree there’s a glass, and they might even agree it’s half full—but because they’re wearing pink-tinted glasses, the glass will always look pink to them.

[improved with chatgpt ]

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, April 20, 2025 - 08:10 am: Edit

I suspect that many won’t like CMC’s post. I think he is overphilosophizing things.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, April 20, 2025 - 09:43 am: Edit

By Bill Schoeller (Bills) on Monday, April 21, 2025 - 11:52 am: Edit

I agree with Carl's post, but I see it from both sides. Each side is hearing their own echo chamber, and do not understand why the other can't get it.

In the current case, the right is expounding on what a bad guy he is, and he should be deported. The left ( in some articles i read) is almost making him out to look like a saint. each side cant possibly see why the other side would be such a monster.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Monday, April 21, 2025 - 12:24 pm: Edit

As with most things, Bill, the truth lies somewhere between.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, April 21, 2025 - 02:47 pm: Edit

Sometimes the truth is in the middle, sometimes one side has nothing but wishes and fantasy to work with.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Monday, April 21, 2025 - 04:50 pm: Edit

Truth is ultimately a matter of opinion and cannot be inherently wrong, though it may be founded on inaccurate or misleading facts.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Monday, April 21, 2025 - 06:40 pm: Edit

For although the act condemn the doer, the end may justify him; and when, as in the case of Romulus, the end is good, it will always excuse the means; since it is he who does violence with intent to injure, not he who does it with the design to secure tranquility, who merits blame.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, April 21, 2025 - 08:13 pm: Edit

Truth is truth, but your (honest) version of the truth may have a better or weaker foundation.

Something I had to learn in military intelligence was that intentions don't matter, capabilities do. You may say you don't intend to bomb me, but when you insist that the treaty allows you to keep a fleet of missiles and bombers, I start to wonder about the intentions. When someone says that they know person X is a skunk but just want due process, I begin to wonder if the problem is not Mr X but slowing down the entire process until the midterms.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Tuesday, April 22, 2025 - 05:19 am: Edit

"-Captain, to willingly disregard the full extent of a lawful treaty is illogical. One does not negotiate terms only to ignore them when they prove useful. Efficiency and reason demand their complete utilization.”

Isn't time for suspicion when the guards on the other side of the border disappear, or when the lawyers doesn't yell: -Objection!, but sits silent?

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Tuesday, April 22, 2025 - 05:22 am: Edit

In the US there are different forms of "Due Process" as it come down to "What process is due?"

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Tuesday, April 22, 2025 - 01:23 pm: Edit

It is simpler here; if you lose in the lower court, you can appeal to the regional court. The supreme court MAY take up your case if you lose even there, but that is rare. It is mostly done when the application of laws need clarification.
Which system is better I don't know, but ours is probably faster. The process is never interrupted by appeals to higher courts.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, April 22, 2025 - 02:39 pm: Edit

I don't know that yours is any different from ours. We both have the lower court, the appeals court (if you can show grounds other than "I didn't like what the lower court said"), and the Supreme Court which may or may not take the case if they think some issue of law needs to be clarified or enforced. The US Supremes recently slapped a lower court judge who issued court orders applying to a case not in his jurisdiction for purely political reasons. This warned all lower court judges to think really hard before trying to make bad rulings for political reasons.

Like a lot of western countries, we have layers of laws. City, county, state/province, Federal. You can in some cases appeal a ruling by a lower layer if the ruling violated an upper layer. For example, you go into traffic court (municipal) and the judge orders you to shut up when you try to explain that you were not even in the country when somebody stole your car and used it to run a camera-controlled red light. You can then appeal upwards on the grounds that your rights in the provincial or federal constitution were violated.

For fun, you can always appeal to "the court of public opinion" by getting a reporter to tell the story of the injustice done to you in the public forum, embarrassing the misbehaving official into changing his mind (or his boss into changing it for him).

Laws in the western world all follow the same general principles. Routine stuff doesn't even see a lawyer, you just go to a local official and pay a fee and get a form approved (for example, a driver's license or a building permit). If some official doesn't do his job or arbitrarily abuses his authority for his personal crusade (e.g., not approving a building permit because he thinks your building is ugly) you can get a court to order the job done, or you can go to a prosecutor about the bribe he demanded to do the job he is paid to do anyway.