DogofWar1

Well they're closer geographically and could probably each absorb more than individual European/Western counties, but not 4 million, at least not if we want happy endings for a reasonable number of them. But when I said "can't" I was including the political situation you alluded to, though I didn't make that clear, my mistake. Economically it's likely difficult if not impossible for them to absorb 4M people, but even if the US/West/UN fill the economic gap, there's the political problems. I mean, holy cow, it's the middle east, everyone hates everyone, even if the countries had the government infrastructure to accept and then resettle the refugees, they'd have to overcome all the potential problems that come with such a major operation, like corruption and misappropriation of funds. And of course then there's just the prejudice. There's like a 90% chance Carson's plan ends with refugees in terrible conditions in camps where the international community suddenly has to sweep human rights violations under the rug because they thought all the problems endemic to the middle east wouldn't rear their head in resettling millions of people. Just not a realistic solution to expect them to all just stay in the ME, at least not without major issues.

Carson's plan doesn't seem any more realistic today than it did before he went on his trip. The countries there can't really absorb all those people, with or without aid. His "solution" is pretty much just sweeping it under the rug. "You keep them, here's some cash for them." Sounds like the setup to a really bad babysitting situation. "Hey thanks, here's the kids, here's 20 bucks, see you two hours after we agreed to pick the kids up."

I imagine that the review room probably doesn't have cameras, so specific deed is likely off camera, but if it's like most fast food places there are probably 4-6 cameras in the whole place. Just need to see who went into the Burger King. Can probably find out through other means (cross reference dispatch records with employees who were there that night), but a camera showing several officers walking inside would suffice, even if that's all it shows. Unless the BK manager suddenly switches course and says there's an automatic delete policy, that video didn't delete itself. Heck, it'd be even more suspicious if there was no tape of them walking in. I mean, how many of big chain fast food place don't have cameras trained on the doors and area right in front of the register? If there's a gap during the shooting AND for them walking inside, ESPECIALLY if there are no gaps or staggered gaps for other cameras, that'd be even more suspicious. I hope prosecutors tug at that thread and it's not just left sitting out there unchecked as a favor to the police union.

Is there internal surveillance footage of which officers went into that Burger King that night? That group should probably be charged with obstruction of justice, seeing as the deleting of the tape directly interferes with a 1st degree murder investigation. From Illinois compiled statutes: (720 ILCS 5/31-4) (from Ch. 38, par. 31-4) Sec. 31-4. Obstructing justice. (a) A person obstructs justice when, with intent to prevent the apprehension or obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he or she knowingly commits any of the following acts: (1) Destroys, alters, conceals or disguises physical evidence, plants false evidence, furnishes false information; or I'd say there's probable cause to hit those officers with this. And it'd send the right message nationally. If you're part of the conspiracy to protect a crooked cop, they WILL drag you down too. For too long the accomplices have mostly gotten off free and clear.

You know, I wasn't going to chastise Gerry Connolly too hard for voting for the bill, politics is politics, and while I might have supported a primary challenger quietly, I wasn't going to post about it here. Then I saw this: Gerry Connolly ‏@GerryConnolly 9h9 hours ago At Oakton HS welcoming 505 new citizens at naturalization ceremony. Important reminder we're a welcoming nation and will keep our doors open Connolly released a statement earlier on his vote, saying he'd support increased resources to lower the time, and that the bill was just an added layer of certification, but he's trying to play both sides of the game. You can be Machiavellian, and you can be idealistic. Pick one and roll with it. You can't be the former, and say to me that you're the latter (though that move is indeed in line with the former). Odds are good I'd still vote for him in the general, barring some sort of superior 3rd party entrant, since he would still be superior to the GOP alternative. However, I definitely will be voting against him in the primary, if there's a challenger. I hope there will be. Heck, I'll write in Batman if I have to. You might be the lesser evil to some challengers, Connolly, but definitely not the least evil with the way you've acted the past few days.

I don't think either side needs to get hostile. That being said, this thread is an excellent repository of information on the subject, and the weight of the evidence is on the side that the present system works and that there are not really false negatives crawling out of places. That evidence in turn directs the discussion on the vote, specifically how much of the rhetoric surrounding the vote appears to stand apart from the evidence of the process' effectiveness.

Yeah. And I'm not even sure if they have a say on where in the US they resettle. Most of these attacks are unsophisticated, but it becomes really tough to pull off if the 5 guys are resettled in states an average of 1000 miles apart each. Yeah. There's not really any downside to voting yay, and plenty of potential downside to voting nay. Even if there was no attack, there's no bonus points in saying "I voted against this because it was unnecessary and overkill, and the lack of attacks demonstrates the system we had in place works" because probably 90% of voters in your district didn't hear you say it, and 70% of those who heard it probably didn't hear past the first three words.

Not surprised. It's simple election math. The odds of facing a primary challenger over the vote vs. the odds of losing to an R over the vote. Political cover votes can't be underestimated. If I'm surprised at anything, I'm surprised more Ds didn't vote for it. Or abstain.

I don't think that link supports your position, frankly. The only thing that remotely suggests weakness is the FBI director's explanation that certain aspects of the program are limited by Syrian records. But that stuff seems to be countered by these things: Really, the only negative to the process the article talks about is that it's imperfect, but that's true of all manners of immigration, and the refugee process is significantly more robust than most if not all other forms of immigration, and Syrians are watched even more closely than usual refugees. Basically, if they can get an infiltrator in via the refugee process, that person was getting into the US one way or another, because literally every other possible process has a higher success rate.

Saw this on FB from an immigration attorney, thought it was worth a re-post. It's long, but worthwhile.

Oh, it definitely sucks for the refugees. We're either creating a backlog or a rubber stamp, the former will delay refugees and the latter won't improve the process. Heck, it could be both, and then we've REALLY screwed up with the bureaucracy. But as sad as it is to say, it's important to not let fears be validated, or else the refugee situation will get even worse. If there's an attack from a refugee vector now, it's going to bolster the fearful wing, and we'd likely see a long term policy of not taking people from war torn countries where there's any sort of anti-American group (which is probably most war torn countries, let's be honest). And that would be a terrible result. The best way to avoid that, obviously, is to not get attacked, but on the off chance we do, having bi-partisan legislation in place that makes the system "more" robust would help push back against the appearance that the Ds are weak. And keeping Ds from looking weak if an attack happens is crucial to ensuring that the damage to refugee programs long term isn't massive and generational. It sucks because basically we're playing politics and electioneering with people's lives on the line, but a penny of political capitulating now could be worth a pound of avoided xenophobic policy in the future.

The Bill's contents aren't totally unreasonable, but are still likely superfluous and don't really address the concerns that some are mentioning. Really it just adds some additional reporting requirements, which I guess isn't bad, but it's pretty much just adding more bureaucracy to the process. If there's an intelligence gap because Syria's system sucks, adding extra reporting requirements doesn't really do much. Of course, there seemingly isn't a large intelligence gap in the first place. Frankly though, if I was the President, I'd sign this, just so that if anyone slipped through, however unlikely that is, you've got political cover. It's a zero sum game if you don't, but if you do, you can come out okay even if an attack happens through a refugee vector, again, despite the lack of likelihood of that happening.

Yeah, but the rumor is that it's to give her time to train. Dana sorta pushed her back into the ring saying she'll get an immediate rematch, so he needs to pull her out of it long enough for her to fix the gaping holes in her game.

I don't even... Sigh... This takes the cake though: Advocating a state's militia to take up arms against the federal government? I think we have a word for that.

Rousey given a 6 month medical suspension for head injury.

Perhaps, but it's probably unlikely. While ISIS isn't exactly without resources, their resources aren't unlimited, and become thinner and thinner the farther away from their pseudo-caliphate semi-state they go, especially once they hop the Atlantic. Any infiltration of the US from the Middle East is likely a low percentage proposition, and each attempt takes resources. The refugee process is probably the lowest probability option that uses official channels, and is probably lower probability than many unofficial channels. It's risky and slow; if an ISIS infiltrator started the process now, they probably wouldn't even be in the United States for a year, at a minimum, and would be vetted extensively though the whole process. There's no guarantee ISIS would even exist in anything but decentralized marginalized scattered form in a year with the stepped up anger and activity by the West. If that happens, coordination problems happen; even if the attacks are unsophisticated, a refugee infiltrator would need some measure of coordination. Multiply those issues by however many times over for each person you're trying to sneak in, and it's likely much easier and efficient to go another route. Most of the attackers in Paris were European Nationals probably because utilizing homegrown, radicalized on-site fighters is probably easier than exporting them from Iraq/Syria. Google searched it, seems it came from a Breitbart report which said two CBP officers contacted BB and said they got 8 Syrians attempting to cross on Monday. Official word when they contacted CBP officials is the standard "can neither confirm nor deny" line. Did not see any major news outlet reporting it.

Obama should troll everyone by signing the bill, and then changing nothing, except maybe adding a new rubber stamp box for a State Dept. official to "certify" at the end of the process. Which would likely be 100% consistent with the law. He could be like "we implemented your bill so well, that your standards traveled into the past and were implemented many years ago." *does the exploding head hand motion*

I think this article is worth re-posting, along with the quoted snippet regarding the process. http://www.vice.com/read/is-it-legal-for-the-governors-of-more-than-a-dozen-states-to-refuse-to-accept-syrian-refugees-116 Combined with No Excuses' chart above, this paints a picture of a complex process that is fairly robust and successful. If there was a clear point of weakness, I could understand temporary pauses to implement fixes, but there do not appear to be any major points of weakness. Keep vigilant, but otherwise proceed as normal.

Rousey is either done, because she'll never be able to discipline herself sufficiently to overcome the game-planning gap between her and Holm (and whoever else is capable of emulating Holm's gameplan), or she's going to get the training she needs, really buckle down, overcome her weaknesses, and beat Holm by not messing around, then proceed to continue what she was doing before 193. She does not strike me as someone who wants to be a gatekeeper to Holm, just as Tate didn't want to be a gatekeeper to Rousey. She might just go do the Carano thing and bail for movies and other media if she can't overcome Holm. It's gonna be an interesting 2-3 years in women's MMA. Between Rousey trying to right the ship, and the flurry of title defenses that Holm will have to go through, we could see some real interesting action.

Yeah, and I think Tate should get that match sooner rather than later. After all, she was supposed to get her 3rd title shot before they subbed in Holm. Give it to her now, when you can sell to the public that with Rousey dethroned it's the wild west again and anyone could be holding up the belt at the end of the next UFC. Good way to get eyes on the PPV.

It's weird to think about but Ronda has only been winning in the UFC for a little under 3 years. She's fought a lot and been so dominant, it feels like longer since I saw her beat Carmouche. Holm, at 34, has a good chance to make a strong impact on the sport before she declines. If she holds onto the title through the inevitable flurry of challengers, that'll probably carry her to 3-4 years when she'll be in her late 30's, and could be the longest consecutive holder of the belt for the division when she retires/gets beat. That would be quite the accomplishment. But fending off challengers will be easier said than done, I have no doubt she can do it, but Zingano, Tate, and the rest will be lining up.

Rousey probably did need to be humbled. Clear holes in her fight tonight, she needs to rebuild from the basics. I'm no fighter, I did only a small amount of boxing stuff with my roommate for a short while, but probably the first thing he mentioned was protecting the head, moving around, keeping hands up, chin down, etc. It's so basic. She should probably not fight for a year and just train in that aspect of her game. Learning to defend her head alone probably could have kept her around through another couple rounds, and given her more chances to get a takedown right.

Yeah, there's definitely going to be a re-match, too much money in it. It does seem like it'll be tough to Rousey to train to beat Holm, Holm defended against takedowns beautifully. Either Rousey was out of shape or Holm really scrambled her head in the first few strikes. I'll say the latter because Holm looked great the whole time. We're in uncharted territory with Women's UFC.

Yeah, Holm had a good gameplan, and I'm not sure if Ronda didn't take her seriously or what, but dang, she kept Rousey at arm's length and that kick was beautiful.

Holy crap.