[Discussion] Welcome to the Biden Administration!

Anything related to Biden and his upcoming administration. May this thread be less active and controversial as that last guys thread.

Was the Qumari official assassinated with a blue shell?

Blind_Evil wrote:

Understood. To be clear, I’m not saying they should have been easier on him. Firing him as soon as the facts were established would have been ideal. I’m saying I sympathize with his superiors not immediately sh*tcanning him, specifically because of the health factors. I also don’t think it’s quite fair to call them unrelated. Having such a serious illness probably means he’s on a lot of medications, which likely includes some behavioral alteration, and wound tight as a wire, making an inappropriate blowup more likely.

Yeah, that does make sense; losing his access to healthcare during late-stage cancer is an extreme punishment, and the team would have had a really hard time doing that to him. And, as you say, the meds could well be affecting his behavior, not to mention the knowledge that he's probably going to die soon. But, god, you just can't let that kind of thing go.

So, at this point, I think I'm happy with the overall outcome; Ducklo's out, and his superiors should have booted him sooner, but it's understandable why they were trying not to. If that's as far as it goes, I'm okay with it.

Honestly, given the cancer thing, I'd have been okay with demoting him to something non-public facing, with the announcement that they were doing that explicitly to let him keep his healthcare. Hell, they could use that as a driver to push fixing Obamacare.

I also gotta say that damn, that was a stupid thing to do. One of the primary functions of reporters is telling everyone about bad stuff that politicians do. So if you're in government, you don't threaten reporters, because of course they're going to tell everyone. That's their job!

Rat Boy wrote:

Was the Qumari official assassinated with a blue shell?

Blueshell the 1%.

Vrikk wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

Was the Qumari official assassinated with a blue shell?

Blueshell the 1%.

f*cking sigged.

IMAGE(https://pics.me.me/yung-spam-spamremix386-mario-karts-the-closer-to-1st-place-23405999.png)

f*ck. I knew the guy that said "blue shell the 1%" at work today stole it. Either way, it's good! Feel free to not sig me to it since I'm not the OP, but the sentiment still stands.

f*ck that.

You get credit on this board. I love it so much!

Vrikk wrote:

f*ck. I knew the guy that said "blue shell the 1%" at work today stole it. Either way, it's good! Feel free to not sig me to it since I'm not the OP, but the sentiment still stands.

It's a meme. You can't steal them, you can only spread them.

Like an STD.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Like an STD.

what exactly do you do with your memes?

Chairman_Mao wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Like an STD.

what exactly do you do with your memes?

I'm sorry, have you MET q-stone?

Tyrian wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Like an STD.

what exactly do you do with your memes?

I'm sorry, have you MET q-stone?

Only when he was stealing all my gonorrhea.

Jonman wrote:
Tyrian wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Like an STD.

what exactly do you do with your memes?

I'm sorry, have you MET q-stone?

Only when he was stealing all my gonorrhea.

I read that as "Only when he was stealing all my grandma" at first and it still works.

Jonman wrote:
Tyrian wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Like an STD.

what exactly do you do with your memes?

I'm sorry, have you MET q-stone?

Only when he was stealing all my gonorrhea.

Is that what was on your hip flask?!?

Less STD, more Champ and Major, plz?

Biden's first tan suit is his unpresidential dog. Just when I thought I couldn't hate them anymore, they go after his dog (who is black, btw).

Surprised they didn't call the dog a "thug".

Champ's also 12 years old, which is just about as old as German Shepherds get.

Wow, twelve? That's one well-cared for Shepherd, despite what Newsmax says. The fact Champ is walking at that age is astounding.

If they're griping about the dog and not something else, then Biden isn't doing enough to piss them off. Get to it!

My conservative family are talking about Biden canceling Operation Talon which targets sex offenders in the country illegally. It’s a Trump era program that is being cancelled along with other ICE initiatives.

So how big a deal is this and do you think it makes sense? I’ve heard it might not even be Biden’s idea to cancel the program, and if it is maybe he is coming up with a different plan. It could also have been a boondoggle that just looked good on paper.But if it was successful, I would support Biden continuing it. I’m against ICE separating kids or deporting someone over a parking ticket, but child predators most certainly need to get the boot ASAP.

Snopes says it's unclear whether the program ever actually was active or not. It might be nothing more than a piece of paper.

jdzappa wrote:

My conservative family are talking about Biden canceling Operation Talon which targets sex offenders in the country illegally. It’s a Trump era program that is being cancelled along with other ICE initiatives.

So how big a deal is this and do you think it makes sense? I’ve heard it might not even be Biden’s idea to cancel the program, and if it is maybe he is coming up with a different plan. It could also have been a boondoggle that just looked good on paper.But if it was successful, I would support Biden continuing it. I’m against ICE separating kids or deporting someone over a parking ticket, but child predators most certainly need to get the boot ASAP.

Seems to be hard to tell at the moment. While sure we all want to stop child predators, I'm wary of people overly promoting various sting operations. They seem to claim large numbers of children saved from predators, but are unclear of that number versus kids that were run ways or custody things, etc.

As far as deporting predators, I was always mixed on this or violent felons. If we deport them, do they just have a chance to get back here? Isn't imprisoning them a better idea? I should look into that more.

jdzappa wrote:

My conservative family are talking about Biden canceling Operation Talon which targets sex offenders in the country illegally. It’s a Trump era program that is being cancelled along with other ICE initiatives.

So how big a deal is this and do you think it makes sense? I’ve heard it might not even be Biden’s idea to cancel the program, and if it is maybe he is coming up with a different plan. It could also have been a boondoggle that just looked good on paper.But if it was successful, I would support Biden continuing it. I’m against ICE separating kids or deporting someone over a parking ticket, but child predators most certainly need to get the boot ASAP.

1st take - what precisely did this do? ICE's job is already to deal with people here illegally, sex offender or not.

2nd take - that article reads like BS clickbait. "Did Joe Biden cancel X?" isn't a headline, it's an inquiry. It's a nothingburger of an article.

3rd take - this is like a program that targets people who break speed limits. We already have agencies whose job it is to do this, so what is the point of the program?

4th take - "Won't someone think of the children being molested" is literally ripped directly from the QAnon playbook. Not to mention that sex offender != child predator

5th take - there is no reporting of what is being done INSTEAD of this program. Is Talon being cancelled because it's being replaced by something better that'll toss more sex offenders out of the country? Who knows? Not us.

jdzappa wrote:

My conservative family are talking about Biden canceling Operation Talon which targets sex offenders in the country illegally. It’s a Trump era program that is being cancelled along with other ICE initiatives.

So how big a deal is this and do you think it makes sense? I’ve heard it might not even be Biden’s idea to cancel the program, and if it is maybe he is coming up with a different plan. It could also have been a boondoggle that just looked good on paper.But if it was successful, I would support Biden continuing it. I’m against ICE separating kids or deporting someone over a parking ticket, but child predators most certainly need to get the boot ASAP.

Are they at all concerned about the sexual assaults happening to migrant children in the Trump Camps?

jdzappa wrote:

My conservative family are talking about...

I'll admit that I got exactly that far into your post and immediately dismissed whatever story was coming next as probably junk. That's concerning to me because it means I'm not remaining open to things, and yet at the same time the level of BS that has come from that side is beyond the pale.

Just to be clear- I don't want my "dismissal" to be taken as directed at you.

A very good data point would be: how many convicted sex offenders are here illegally? I can't imagine the number is very high. And how many were deported under the program? It apparently only existed for a few weeks before Trump left.

Yeah, it's rather conspicuous that all of the "we MUST bring this back!" proclamations have absolutely no stats or even anecdotes about the program's efficacy.

lunchbox12682 wrote:

As far as deporting predators, I was always mixed on this or violent felons. If we deport them, do they just have a chance to get back here? Isn't imprisoning them a better idea? I should look into that more.

The answers you’re looking for are very long and full of what-ifs, so I’ll be brief.

If someone is convicted of an aggravated felony as defined in section 101(a)(43) of the Immigration and Nationality Act they are permanently barred from admission. If they aren’t convicted of an aggravated felony but removed under an order or an Immigration Judge due to anything else, there is a 10 year bar for admission, but a waiver exists. If they were convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude, they are a barred unless they receive a waiver grant. These waivers are not handed out like candy.

Immigration law is the second most complicated behind property so I could go on for pages, but in short: people removed (“deported” is an outdated term) have a steep hill to legally returning.

All that said? People can always try their luck entering without inspection at the border.

jdzappa wrote:

My conservative family are talking about Biden canceling Operation Talon which targets sex offenders in the country illegally. It’s a Trump era program that is being cancelled along with other ICE initiatives.

So how big a deal is this and do you think it makes sense? I’ve heard it might not even be Biden’s idea to cancel the program, and if it is maybe he is coming up with a different plan. It could also have been a boondoggle that just looked good on paper.But if it was successful, I would support Biden continuing it. I’m against ICE separating kids or deporting someone over a parking ticket, but child predators most certainly need to get the boot ASAP.

The only actual reporting that mentions Operation Talon that's based on source documents--ICE emails--said that it was a planned operation that was cooked up in the last weeks of the Trump administration. There's no evidence it got beyond the realm of PowerPoint slides and talking points let alone that Biden stopped a functioning program that was actively arresting hundreds or thousands of sex offenders.

Even the letter from conservative state AG's bemoaning Biden's supposed cancellation of the program notes that ICE arrested less than 20,000 undocumented immigrants who had prior criminal convictions that were sex-related between 2014 and 2018.

To put that in perspective, during that same period ICE was arresting between 110,000 and 150,000 undocumented immigrants each year. Sex-related crimes don't even make the list of the most common prior convictions immigrants have. Most are DUIs, drug offenses, and traffic offenses (followed closely by the high crime of being an undocumented immigrant).

This is BS being spread by ICE officials who are pissed that they can't be America's brown shirts anymore and that they're no longer able to arrest and deport anyone they want under the Biden administration.

Washington Post wrote:

...

The draft guidelines are awaiting approval by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday.

ICE officials say anyone unlawfully in the United States will still be subject to arrest, including people who committed crimes and were released before the memo was issued. Crimes such as sex offenses remain a top priority, they said.

“The commission of an aggravated felony is the most conclusive proof of a public safety threat,” ICE spokeswoman Jenny Burke said in a statement. “ICE retains its unlimited discretion to evaluate any conduct in defining a public safety threat.”

...

The interim guidelines show how ICE’s priorities have pivoted since Biden took office.

A Jan. 20 memo issued by DHS ordered a 100-day pause on deportations — which a federal judge soon halted — and set temporary enforcement priorities while the agency underwent a review. Johnson, the acting ICE director, sought to clarify the new rules last week in an email to officials unsure of how to operate in the meantime.

Immigrants should be considered public safety threats if they have an institutional record of violent behavior, well-documented gang affiliations or aggravated felony convictions, Johnson told senior staff. Such crimes would include murder, rape, child abuse and major drug offenses, and agents should prioritize those released after the issuance of the Jan. 20 memo, he wrote.

In instances where the aggravated felony is more than 10 years old and not the reason for a recent arrest, that individual would not be considered a public safety threat, Johnson indicated. Gang tattoos or records showing “loose affiliation with gang activity” would also not meet the narrower criteria.

ICE officials said that under Trump, criminal offenders were the vast majority of those taken into custody by agents. But many of those arrested had convictions or pending charges for driving under the influence, traffic offenses and immigration violations, such as illegally reentering the country.

John Sandweg, an acting director of ICE during the Obama administration, said the preliminary guidance was a good step toward improving the agency’s public image and the quality of its work. “No one judges the FBI by the number of arrests they make. They judge them by the quality of arrests,” Sandweg said.

Measuring ICE’s performance according to the number of arrests and deportations, as Trump did, is “not a recipe for good law enforcement,” he said. “It’s a recipe for jacking up stats with the low-hanging fruit of the law enforcement system.”

The narrower priorities, he said, “will focus agents on getting dangerous people off the street.”
...

Biden officials said they are not abandoning immigration enforcement and will continue to prioritize national security and public safety threats, while preventing the deportation of those who do not meet their more selective criteria.

And they emphasized that the interim guidance makes clear that anyone in the United States illegally still could be subject to deportation if an ICE officer makes the case for removing them.

Emails among senior immigration officials show them eschewing most enforcement activity while waiting for more permanent guidance to be issued in the coming days.

ICE officials also canceled Operation Talon, a nationwide operation targeting sex offenders subject to deportation that had been planned in the final weeks of the Trump administration, emails show.

A senior ICE official said the Biden administration had nothing to do with that decision. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, the official said they had not heard about the operation, but that it was possible that career staffers had planned it and set it aside while awaiting new instructions from the Biden team.

The official noted that Homeland Security Investigations, a separate wing of ICE that conducts criminal investigations, has continued investigating sex offenses involving U.S. citizens and noncitizens.

The leadership change at ICE has made the agency more responsive to the legal and immigrant advocacy groups that were shunned by the Trump administration, emails show.

Thanks all. The fact that so many governors were up in arms about the cancellation made me wonder if this was a more serious issue. It’s obviously political theater.