Baseball Crank Asks "What Have Refugees Done for Me Lately"

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:10 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments, the podcast and sometimes YouTube show that breaks down the law and the news. I'm Thomas Dowd over there. It's real life attorney Matt Cameron. How are you doing? Wow. That must be really uplifting and encouraging work that you do all day. Yeah. Not sitting in the court all day, right? Isn't it? Yeah. Yes. And not joining us is Lydia. She's off this week. I told Matt we could, I could just like bring in just like a still image and just have, just be like, Lydia's kind of laughing at our jokes all the time, but I felt it does get creepy after a while, but maybe if we, if we say something really funny, maybe I'll cut to that. So would you rather have that or, or would we rather just have you know, just you and I? Well, we'll go with this for now, but it's always an option. All right. Well, what are we going to be talking about today in a little more detail. Yeah. I'm looking at the number. Ah, it's nobody. Yeah, I hate them. And also, yes, I will watch them sometimes. They're not good. They are not good there. Yeah there are worse things. I guess there are worse. Thanks. Yeah it's amazing that the people where I'm like why did you agree to this? You know like there's some people were like just full boy you must have have a really high opinion of yourself. Oh, I can't wait. Yeah. 90s? Any time travelers who were on Twitter in the 90s. Gosh, huge with it. I've checked the numbers. Time traveler demographic is huge for us. So, oh man. Yeah, I mean, it just would have ushered in the destruction of everything faster. You know, it's just, I think social media, we just would've gotten there sooner. Yeah and

0:00:18 Matt: Hey, Thomas, just spent my whole day in immigration court and asylum hearings and ready to talk about the asylum system once again. Got a big, big one for you.

0:00:33 Matt: It can be, it can be but not today so much. No, I mean, it's my job. I like it. But what's always funny to me is when people say that the system is broken because we often mean very different things as we're going to learn in today's cover story from the National Review about why it is broken. Got to break this one down. It's encouraging. Encouraging. Sure, sure. Maybe we can earn a Lydia. That's right. Maybe mix it up. Yeah, see how it goes. And well, for everybody who's still here after finding out that Lydia won't be with us, it's all right. I get it. I got it. We've got an amused douche. It's actually a little longer than usual just because we don't have Lydia with us. One of our favorite douches, Tim Pool. We have had a lot of fun with Tim Pool over the years. But he did one of those surrounded videos which are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine pretty dumb he's pretty dumb yeah yeah can't help it he also says some really no no it's it's all just for getting 30 second clip clips out of it uh but yeah no it says some extra stupid things there are worse things for sure and he does get owned quite a lot so it's kind of fun um but uh yeah yeah totally well Well, the very best part of the whole video is how they bill him, which I'll save that for when we play it. But, yeah, it's pretty funny. So it's a little longer than the usual music, but, you know, it simple. We're going to give him a minute. And then I've got this piece from the National Review from the baseball crank, Dan McLaughlin, who we've read before on this show. The baseball crank would be familiar to anybody who was on Twitter, like, in the lefty 90s. 90s, 2000s, I don't know. It feels like the 90s at this point. That's right. Man, Twitter during the Clinton years, that would have been something. Yeah, but that's true. Yeah, he would have been impeached for all those people he killed probably by that point. I'll remember the Clinton body count. Yeah, so it's but this piece, I had to pick it because first of all, this is my backyard that the baseball crank is working in. I can't talk to him about baseball, but if he's going to come in my backyard and talk about asylum, I'm going to have to show you that pretty much everything he says in this piece is wrong or just just badly sourced or completely wrong. So we'll have some fun with that.

0:03:23 Thomas: That's so weird because I go to baseball people for my immigration info and so I for one feel duped I want my money back straight

0:03:29 Matt: Yeah, it's just not even. Love me some baseball crank. It's been a little minute since we talked about the baseball crank, and it's a long one. It is the cover story for the National Review this week, and I just feel like, you know, the National review being the flagship of conservative media, this is what they choose to put on the cover. And if they're going to talk about immigration, I just think, you now, let's just do what this show does best and just go straight for the the National Review cover story. That's right, For the Juggler.

0:03:51 Thomas: For the juggler go for the jugular it's the best I'm excited for that we can spend even more time time on the douche while lydia's not here she'll appreciate that that we uh spared her tim pool is a weird one man that is I don't know what's going on with that guy I just yeah

0:04:10 Matt: I know less than I thought I did after watching because his favorite debate tactic is just to agree with you, which is pretty funny. I do like that. He's just like, oh yeah, no, I totally agree with that, no matter what you say. And then he'll explain why he doesn't. But I don't think he really believes anything after watching this.

0:04:23 Thomas: Yeah why or how would anyone like watch him that's the part I don'T get like there's better grifters there's better right -wing people there's but you know that's what I DON'T get we're gonna we're going to dig into it with a nice long amuse douche oh I want to say a lot awful movies is out out criminal law was the name of the movie oh my gosh it was fun go to patreon.com/law pledge that two dollar level and above to get your hands on lot awful movies it is kevin bacon it is gary oldman it is 1988 and it is bad and so what more could you want I mean set in boston uh filmed in canada which is fine but also no one acted like they were in Boston at all, which is if

0:04:41 Matt: It sure is. And what it absolutely is not is Boston, even though it it purports to be set in Boston. No Boston. Zero Boston. In the least.

0:05:10 Thomas: I had to choose between overacting that you're in Boston and underacting, I'll take underacting I guess. But yeah, you should probably go for like the right amount in Boston. Yeah. But that was super fun.

0:05:16 Matt: Same. Same, but I mean, just give me like one shot of Faneuil Hall and I would have shut up about it, but no, nothing. Nothing. Yeah, it was a good one.

0:05:26 Thomas: Check that out. And speaking of, we're going to take our first break. We're going think our hall of famers, our all -time greats, patreon.com/law. They get the shout out each and every vapid response and they're avoiding the ads. They're getting the goodies and they'RE making the show happen. So this show brought to you by Bye. Help. I'm trapped in a Patreon shout out. Rebecca, bewitched, beclowned, bewildered. My house is a mess, but I read a lot of books. Griff, the tired 2L. Matthew Cutler, autistic streamer, twitch .tv slash mtc underscore streams. A propensity for jokers. What was that from? That was like, oh, what was that? It was like jokERS. Oh, man. That was something. I don't remember now. I need Lydia for this. Yeah. Oh. Hold on. Let me go back to Lydia. Lydia. Lydia, what was that? Uh, what it was? No, she doesn't. She doesn't know. Okay. I tried. Yeah. She's just too busy laughing at all our good jokes. Gary the seagull, uh, in Jeremimus Nocti et Consumerigni. I still don't know what I, okay. It's a palindrome of some kind, whatever. Unremarkable. Amina, Donna Treadway, Mother of Herodins, Mike Lipinski. If we don't build the tournament nexus. Someone else will. Yeah. It's a great tweet or whatever that is. Cyanitis, not yet 40. Great. Rub it in. Gray preponderance of the evidence. Last train to Skanksville. Jar is pruned dance. That's not, that's not one. What is that then? Jar is prunedance. Okay. It is just Jar is Prudence, but it reads, I'm so in what's a face palindrome territory that I'm just like my mind is looking for palindromes but jar is prune dance okay uh apprentice of adventure and charlie kelly attorney at bird law thanks to our first third there and we're going to take our break we'll get into it all

0:06:13 Matt: She's thinking about something else. It's fine. In Latin. It sounds like jurisprudence, but just having some fun with words.

0:07:17 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:07:18 Thomas: Right matt why are we looking at this extremely weird guy who does not uncover his head look whatever is going on with your head or hair it's fine no I won't judge you but I do judge why are you always wearing that weird beanie all the the time. That's weird. I'm already hot looking at it. I can't, I mean, it's one thing, I guess I'm in California. What's going on with this extremely weird guy? I don't know. Was he really? He better hope those Russians don't ever want their money back. Because I'm seriously, what are you getting out of this guy? Like what? There's better propagandists, you know? Oh, that's right. Because that's been a while, right? So was that under Biden that that happened? Like the end of oh yeah because when it's that kind of person who's you know a criminal or whatever possibly that's an immigrant then it's fine if you're here to do russian propaganda you can stay and when it'S jordan peterson he's like mad that you're there for some reason gosh if you watch that one I've never seen a crankier guy he was so upset it's like dude you you did this you're what he acted like it was thrust upon him or something it was very weird well okay I've only seen

0:07:27 Matt: Yeah. Truly a hat for all seasons. I know, every time. Well, this, of course, is Tim Pool. We had an entire episode about how he is probably a Russian asset, or at least knowingly allowed himself to become a Russian asset. And what was he getting paid, like $30 ,000 an episode or more? It was more than that. It was some ridiculous amount of money. Him and Dave Rubin and Lauren Chen and the rest of them. Yeah, would not want to... Yeah. Also, those indictments, which we'll talk again about at at some point, I'm sure, but they're just kind of suspended. I mean, obviously, Tim Pool's not going to be prosecuted. Yeah. Yeah, and they let Lauren Chen come back in. She was in Canada. She basically lost her visa and had to go to Canada. Now she's back in, and nobody really knows how. Yeah, right, right. That's right. She's our type. So this is... I mean I think that anybody listening to this show probably has some idea about Tim Pool or could picture him or will recognize the beanie when they see it. But this is from the Surrounded series, which, as we were saying before the break, you know, kind of a guilty pleasure. It's pretty stupid. I mean, it's just for clicks. It's for clips, obviously. But it's also a great chance to watch idiots say stupid things. And, of course, Surrounded, for people not familiar, the format is basically you just put one person in the middle of, like, a group of 20 people. And then they just come and fire questions at them. Kind of this weird round -robin, like run to the chair. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I will say Poole, to his credit, for the most part, is pretty polite at everybody, but for what that's worth, he

0:09:31 Thomas: The headlines did he leave or something he crash out are we gonna get to that yeah yeah

0:09:33 Matt: Did get pretty miffed. I don't think we need to watch that part, but somebody called him a grifter and he just got real mad about it because, you know, he's a grifter. That's what happens. Hit dog and all that. Did you notice the title of this video, Thomas?

0:09:40 Thomas: Well that would do it yeah the title the video or this claim one here uh the title of the video I just see Tim Pool versus 20 progressives that's all I see no that's an error they must have yeah look I'm a moderate Russian propagandist there's like Like there's more, you know, there's more strident ones. Ukraine is like our third biggest enemy. I'm a moderate.

0:09:46 Matt: I know the title. The title of the video, I think, is one of the titles and the way they build this is that Tim Pooley is a moderate against 20 progressives. So as soon as I saw that, I had to watch it because since when is this guy?

0:10:08 Matt: Yeah, you know, I'm a fiscal liberal and Ukraine is our biggest enemy. That's right.

0:10:16 Thomas: Yeah. There's like some Nazis there, you know, we should bomb half of it, you know, moderate.

0:10:18 Matt: Not even an exaggeration, by the way, he did just for everybody. I know you know that, but he did actually say something to that effect that Ukraine's one of our greatest enemies.

0:10:26 Thomas: Yeah. Well, that's what was so funny about like as much as Dave Rubin's an idiot, it does sound like he he has business sense and he was like, oh, OK, I'm going to get paid to do Russian propaganda. Well, I'll just do my stupid Dave Rubin thing and cash a check is what it seemed like he did. Whereas this idiot was like, sure, tell me what to say. It seems like to me, that's, that'S my interpretation, but he did give those stock lines that like were word for word Russian propaganda.

0:10:53 Thomas: So I feel like he DID the job.

0:10:53 Matt: And I think he was told to play a moderate to some degree on this because, you Know, he's being skeptical of Trump to some extent. He's being a little bit skeptical of Ukraine. Some degree somewhat. But he also loves Trump. He is saying that he understands that it's bad for ICE to shoot people. But also, as we're going to see, he loves it when ICE shoots people. He's going to actually say that.

0:10:57 Thomas: Hmm. Nuance.

0:11:08 Matt: So the thrust of this for an hour and 40 minutes is something something that isn't really debatable because it's very much requires, I mean, it is debatable, I guess, but no, it's not really debatable. It's about whether or not the left commits more violence than the right or whether inherently the left is more. Yeah. Yes. It says stupid.

0:11:20 Thomas: So let me read this claim one for listeners. This is claim one, the mainstream, and this is the, this is what I'm really interested in. He decided to say the mainstream left commits more violence than the mainstream right which is like I mean if anything the stupid claim that is smarter to make is the extreme left because then at least you can say you know you can point to some people luigi mangione who's not like a left you know it's not like particularly leftist

0:11:44 Matt: Right, right. I mean I think Amy Klobuchar threw a stapler at somebody once if you want mainstream left dangerousness. But the mainstream right is, as we're going to be talking about in this video, of course, neo -Nazis, among other things at this point, open white supremacists. So yeah. But what I loved, the reason I had to pick this quick clip is because of the way he characterizes the different kinds of violence that arise between the two sides.

0:11:51 Thomas: Yeah but what's the mainstream Left what is he even going to say well I guess he'll maybe he'll tell us I don't know we know oh okay is it going to

0:12:13 Matt: Listen close, this is pretty funny.

0:12:13 Thomas: Be language language policing. Here we go. All right.

0:12:15 Clip: Claim is that the mainstream left commits more violence than the mainstream right. If you'd like to be the first debater, get to the chair in three, two, one. There seems to be like a broader implication with your prompt that there's this domestic threat from mainstream left politicians. Like, do you really think Hillary Clinton's like leading the vanguard revolution party? Like, what is your take? When you look at the violence that we do see, it's from – I describe it as from blunt to acute, which is, with the fringe extreme right, you'll see extreme mass shootings. You'll see, you know, someone will show up and they'll unload on people, things like that.

0:12:59 Clip: On the left, though, you will see riots, vandalism that you don't see from the right. But

0:13:02 Matt: Okay, hold on. The extreme right, there's mass shootings and threats of mass shootings. And on the extreme left, there is vandalism and also unruly groups or groups of people. So that's just sort of from the beginning. He's sort of stuck in that. Also, he has to dance That's around January 6th a lot because you just can't really avoid the fact that, you know, the mainstream right, actually, the Donald Trump supporting mainstream right showed up and tried to do a coup.

0:13:09 Thomas: Yeah, rights and vandalism. Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:25 Matt: So that doesn't make it easy. This is like the first thing he's saying in this video is that the extreme right commits mass shootings and the extreme left commits vandalism. It really sets the tone.

0:13:32 Clip: There is more often an overlap between what the Democratic Party espouses ideologically and what we see in street-level violence, as well as maybe assassinations, versus what the Republicans would espouse. I mean, I couldn't disagree more. More? What ideologies that the Democratic Party is promoting that leads to these types of violence? Anytime you see an act of violence that's typically attributed to the left, it is immediately condemned by every Democrat politician. You couldn't point to one that actually endorses that. Or you have somebody like Donald Trump, who's literally the president of the United States, saying that we should call for the death of congressional members who are fulfilling their civic duty and saying, hey, maybe you shouldn't fulfill illegal orders if you're in the military. And Donald Trump's asking for them to be put to death how is that not inciting to violence no that is that's absolutely terrifying I completely disagree with that my point more so is that when you see say uh the george floyd or the blm riots you end up let me explain the republican party rejects neo-nazism

0:14:21 Thomas: Yeah, okay, cool. What's that? He just agrees with everything. Oh, yeah, Yeah, no, totally. Yeah. It's worthless.

0:14:23 Matt: Yep. There's one thing that's what we're going to come back to. Yes, that's bad, but also BLM. Great question here about where the neo -Nazis are.

0:14:38 Clip: Correct no donald trump invited nick fuentes to have dinner with him with kanye west so tell me one politician who went out and campaigned for the neo-nazi vote uh I'm blanking on his name

0:14:42 Thomas: All of them. Yeah. Oh, that's why I said that. Moderate.

0:14:48 Clip: Gosar and uh in arizona view in this country well we could talk about Gosar we could talk about Matt Gaetz we could talked about not endorsing neo-nazism and donald trump are you kidding me he's literally entirely no he is literally partnering with the america first movement he was a american neo-nazism are totally different bro so you don't think do you think nick fuentes is a neo- nazi oh I forgot you've had him on your show oh my god I literally forget I wouldn't describe nick fuentes as a neo nazi you don t think that nick fuente is celebrating that the operating Adolf Hitler is not neo-Nazi adjacent? I think you have to be very specific on what your terms are. And so when you go to an American voter and say something like...

0:15:25 Matt: That's the best moment. Yeah.

0:15:26 Clip: So, when you to a regular American and ask them what is meaningful to them in terms of an election, you don't have Democrats or Republicans endorsing violence. But you also don't... Charlie Kirk's a good example. He threw out Nick Fuentes, he threw out white identitarians, white nationalists from his events.

0:15:44 Thomas: How about that?

0:15:44 Clip: Stream. You don't have riots coming from the Republican Party on the right, although you do have January 6th and things like that. When you take a look at the, say, the shootings of the

0:15:50 Matt: Things like that. Things of that nature.

0:15:53 Clip: Tesla facilities, the execution of Aaron Danielson, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and one of the attempted assassinations on Donald Trump, not the Pennsylvania one, you can see the underlying ideologies overlap with the Democratic Party. When You Take a Look at, like Nick Fuentes, he's opposed to the Republican party. He's been actively endorsing Democrats right now. He's been saying that the Republican Party is too left for him. It's not that he's opposed to the Republican party in principle.

0:16:14 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. No, that'S not your point.

0:16:16 Clip: This is literally my point. Nick Fuentes comes out and says, do not vote for Trump. The mainstream Republican Party's at odds with these people.

0:16:24 Thomas: Don't vote for Trump because we need someone more right wing. Oh boy.

0:16:29 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, but this was the part that really kind of took my breath when he said this thing that you're about to hear about what people voted for and why ICE violence is fine.

0:16:39 Clip: Because whenever there's violence, they don't condemn it. They condone it, they congratulate it, and they pardon it. Law enforcement, duly elected by a population that voted in plurality for ICE to go out which sometimes yes absolutely and oh they voted for ice to kill American citizens really yes do you do you they're the average Republican I don't think that who said the average republican would vote but do you not believe that there are people in this country that would vote for ice the harm people is that your is this your argument do you believe this is terrible so you think not a single person this country wants to harm illegal relevance we're talking about the fact that there is a top-down approach by Republicans like Donald Trump can I ask you the question again can you answer the And allow it to happen, foment violence in this country. See, I'm pointing out. You don't think that there are white supremacists voting for ICE to go and harm migrants? Are you saying that white supremracists voted for Donald Trump so they could kill migrants? Okay, good to know that white supremacy is part of the Republican Party, and Donald Trump's doing their bidding. The initial claim that I'm making is that there is absolutely violence on the right. I already agree with one of the previous debaters that there's institutional violence from the right as well the best argument against my claim actually is that the right when they get levers of power will use law enforcement as their as their vehicle for the violence that they want to engage in those things are all fair my point is that we are not that's a nice long drawn out

0:17:10 Thomas: Now we are not a single person. Such fucking childish argument.

0:18:00 Matt: This is it. That's incredible.

0:18:04 Clip: Concession thank you for but it's not a concession because maybe maybe we agree oh okay see I I think didn't you say the modern political left commits more violence than modern political rights and Just because there are riots coming from the left.

0:18:17 Matt: Did you hear what he, because I do not want to let this point go. He said that the right, when they get levels of levers of power, use law enforcement to commit violence for them. That is a thing that he said. So the mainstream mainstream right, in fact, would be way more violent if you're including all police officers, which I'm happy to do that, Tim. I can concede that.

0:18:34 Thomas: Yeah. I don't think there's anything coherent he's saying. Honestly, it's just really stupid. Stupid yeah can we as a society move on and maybe not maybe the answer is probably no but this mode of argument where you go like I don't think people voted for trump to use ice to kill people and then he's like you don't take people no I don'T really think that's what they had you don't THINK THERE'S A SINGLE PERSON WHO VOTED FOR TRUMP like that's obviously not what the fuck anyone means these logic bros do this thing where they try to reduce it down to some like like absurd. Oh, there's not one. There's not. Well, this guy thinks there's not one person.

0:18:35 Matt: But what an amazing statement. And also saying that that's not fascist somehow to elect people to do violence for you.

0:18:42 Matt: No, no. He contradicts himself every 30 seconds in this thing.

0:19:17 Thomas: It's like, that's not the claim. And it's stupid. And you're trying to make a dumb gotcha. That is nothing like that.

0:19:18 Matt: What are you proving?

0:19:23 Thomas: Those tools that they have, they're worthless and stupid and pathetic, really. Yeah, we should stop.

0:19:28 Matt: Well, only if you listen to them. That's what we're doing.

0:19:32 Thomas: It used to be big in like the 2010s. I thought we, I thought that's like a Gamergate era arguing. But no, still, still big in some places. All All right, we should take our second break and then we'll get on to the main stuff. But I've got to, of course, thank our amazing patrons. Starting with our middle third here. Thanks to probably a real person, Nick Fish. Jeez, can a guy go to Africa? New name next week. Okay, must have been not a new name. Did I make fun of someone for that? I don't know. A negative phenomenon. Okay, hold on. Before I continue, I must confess, you got to fight for your right to ex parte. Jay Sank vehicular man's laughter that's it that's the joke my job is just beach this week oh nice Tutank Todd goes to the senate David Souther today's episode is brought to you by the letter nothing Thomas Freeman cavalry Cajun Killa fraud fishy hates everything Chris Simpson worst timeline ever anonymous Akilah and check out galenacomic .com for a cool web comic thanks Thanks again, top patrons at patreon.com/law. We'll take a break and we'll get to the national review.

0:20:17 Matt: Enjoy.

0:20:40 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:20:40 Thomas: All right, Matt, try as we might, we couldn't find a non -paywalled version of this. So we're forced to have a big old subscribe now banner. And as you zoom, it gets bigger. So I can't, we could have it take up the whole thing and just be one sentence, but or we could zoom out and not be able to see the words. So I'm gonna find a midpoint here, but what am I looking at? Yeah, I know, I can'T believe, I must have lapsed or something. Thing that's crazy oh god is he just like forever islamophobic because of that or something I

0:20:51 Matt: First of all, just try to to resist the sirens call to to hit that subscribe button I know how much you want to subscribe the national review but yeah uh so this is of course dan mclaughlin the baseball crank uh one of the unfortunate byproducts of 9/11 actually weird story butterfly effect thing here with 9 -1 -1 his law office was destroyed in 9/11 I just learned the other day so he turned to political writing after his law was destroyed probably maybe he's already born that way um but he's just you You know, yeah, no, good.

0:21:32 Thomas: Need to point out the art sorry go ahead the artwork on this article is so bad it is so racist so the the artwork for the listener is like a like a what like a captain america -esque shield that's like the united states flag but then it's like broken at the bottom and it's giant by the way so then some miniature people which by the way they're not even like sinister looking people they're just like they look like people you'd be like geez we need to help those people so refugees of some kind are just walking in through the crack in the shield of america which is like that's incredible that's an incredible bastardization of so many things this shield symbolizing america's great power what america is great power is to these people is the power to tell refugees to fuck off like that's the power we have and now oh no there's a crack in our armor and now we're not telling refugees to f**k off as much except we are yeah

0:22:28 Matt: Also, the artist went a little nuts and the whole thing is full of cracks. Like, it's not a good look. It's an end of empire kind of art here.

0:22:35 Thomas: Exactly well it's you see again it's it's america's asylum system which is again just a big shield why would that be what it like our asylum system is broken is the title so our asylum sistem was just keeping people That was, that's what asylum means, like keeping people out. God, so bad. Yeah.

0:22:37 Matt: Like, right, right. Yeah, that's what it means for these people. Yeah. Dan McLaughlin, remember, of course, is much like Tim Pool, a moderate. Except he actually is. He actually, I mean, he's like what passes for moderate these days. He's one of the senior writers of the National Review, prides himself on being one of these, you know, just asking questions, don't totally support Trump.

0:23:07 Matt: But of course he's going to support Trump's immigration policies pretty much wholeheartedly in here, as they all do. I really wanted to pick this one apart because, you know, we read a lot of things that are wrong, but this is like systemically, overwhelmingly, sentence by sentence, point by point wrong. This is cover story, National Review, Dan McLaughlin. And again, broken asylum system means different things to different people, as we will find out. So let's get to it.

0:23:29 Thomas: All right, Lydia, go ahead and read. Ah, damn it. All right. So how to make our humanitarian immigration policies serve national interests. I'm already confused. Yeah, where, what What humanitarian immigration policies?

0:23:34 Matt: So you're going to want to go ahead and eliminate the word humanitarian. I think that's the first problem. That's what he's going to tell us here. Yes. Good question.

0:23:45 Thomas: Where are those? 404 not found. American immigration policy should serve the interests of America and Americans. Yeah. Okay. That sounds obvious. It ought to be the starting point rather than the end of debates. When is that the end? The end of the debates. Yeah. I mean, basically all policies are kind of some way or another. You know, I also think, can things, can we do stuff that's also good for anyone else? Are we able to, is that not allowed? Sorry, I've committed a faux pas, Matt. It is no longer, it's so rude of me to suggest that the United States do something not out of just self -interest. That's how far we've gone. It pretty much, that is like, oh my God, this guy, that's so 2014, you idiot.

0:24:00 Matt: It's always the starting point it's supposed to be yeah yeah yeah I mean don't know if you heard but the agency that did that got a chainsaw taken to it by elon musk so yeah literally

0:24:36 Thomas: Ridiculous. After all, one can build the case for many different immigration policies from that premise. Us maybe we need immigrants to compensate for declining birth rates or yeah or maybe our workers already face too much competition for jobs no maybe immigrants bring valuable skill this is a point counterpoint kind of thing maybe immigrants bringing valuable skills driving perspective or point counter point or maybe we already have too many poorly assimilated isolated foreign -born residents. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, how would we, how do we evaluate that? Is that true? Hmm, I don't know. Each case can proceed from the premise that what matters is what benefits the country and the people already in it. Okay, that's nothing, but this is not the premise of two major areas of our immigration law as they exist today. Asylum and refugee law and temporary a protected status. This is a little bit like, like

0:24:46 Matt: Yes literally if we stopped closed our borders right now we would be in the situation japan is in pretty soon not for the jobs that he's going to be talking about no no no could be that one there's a lot of stuff you can't fact check here what

0:25:42 Thomas: A lifeguard being like, you know, I think my policy of swimming out and saving people should really just be like, it should benefit me. Like, let's start there, benefit me, and so I'm gonna do that, but like, am I always gonna do that? What if it's like, just to save someone? Like, that doesn't, how does that help me? I don't even understand.

0:26:01 Matt: Have these swimmers done for me

0:26:02 Thomas: Yeah, like, I like the part where I sit and get a tan. That part's good, but then then there's times where there's people like annoyingly drowning and then they expect me to like get up you know get wet and stuff like I'm not doing that america first man it's like what are you talking why would you say that asylum and refugee law for one I think it benefits us to be good people in a good country like again I'm so sorry to be from the fucking 1700s apparently or something I don't even know when what time it is or even like uh you know the the zeros or the the negative one thousands or the whenever I roughly, I forget when the great, you know, philosophers were, but the, the virtue ethics type thing where it's like to be a good person, you try to do good things. Like, I think that applies as a country to be a good country. You do good Things that benefits you. It benefits you to be a good Country. It makes people happy. Why would you not want to do that? So to think of asylum and refugee law through the like, what have they done for me lately lens what uh unreal you're

0:27:02 Matt: Recently yeah yeah as if there's no benefit whatsoever from from these people to us when in fact demonstrably I just want to say like studies have shown that people who come as refugees give back like no other immigrants people who are granted asylum status almost universally do better than most because they know what they're coming from and they they do have that extra I mean and that's my experience as well I mean again this is a broad generalization but there's lot to

0:27:25 Thomas: 100 right but even if they were completely a burden I still would be like well yeah they're yeah like when you rescue someone you're not going to be the lifeguard and go out and then the person drowning is going to like help you you know you have to help them that's right I mean

0:27:29 Matt: It right Right, right. Yeah. Counterpoint, VR1, the gumballs, do not forget that if you let in enough gumball, the gumballs will fall on the floor. You've already forgotten from last year.

0:27:42 Thomas: Okay oh god right yeah oh boy so this is already just stupid and racist and selfish. Each is grounded in humanitarian concern for the interests of potential immigrants with little thought for American interests.

0:28:00 Matt: These things I made up are not grounded properly. No, I mean, a lot of it certainly came out of the post -World War II framework where we realized that we had really failed to protect people that were sent to death camps. Yeah, yeah.

0:28:02 Thomas: Okay. Again, asylum and refugee law. That's the point of it. Am I crazy, Matt? Was anyone under the impression that we were doing those because it helps us? I mean, it probably ultimately does, but still, I just thought we would want to help people. Is that a stupid thought? Yeah. Famously, there was a whole ship of Jewish people that we turned away, many of whom died. Yeah. What did that ship full of Jewish refugees offer us though, man? What are they going to do for us?

0:28:29 Matt: And his message here is going to be again, not never again, it's going to be again. It's going to be happening again. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Unclear.

0:28:41 Thomas: Psychopath shit. Okay. Each functions in ways disconnected from how it was designed and written in law. Each should be rethought and either reformed or abolished. You're saying this guy's a modern, I believe you. I feel like he's, he's not like MAGA, right? So the modern position is like, Like, hey, what are those refugees that that's if that doesn't serve us, let's just get rid of that whole thing where we isn't that. But by the way, isn't there like international law about that? Isn't that are we?

0:28:50 Matt: So his main thinking here is that there should be more executive discretion, you'll find out, over everything, which is pretty much how the whole system is being run and why it's so bad right now. No? Yeah. There's quite a lot. He's going get into that too, about why it shouldn't apply to us and why it doesn't. Actually, he's wrong about that, of course. But, and also, you know, like the entire story we've told ourselves about America until like, you know, a couple of years ago, 10 years ago maybe. You know, let's throw that out the the window.

0:29:25 Thomas: Yeah, it's actually where he said, like, get the fuck out of here with your poor and you're tired and you fuck off with your tired and your hungry and go kill yourself, you fucking losers. I think it's something like that, right? That's the story we've told ourselves. God, unbelievable. Okay. Humanitarian concepts such as asylum, refugees, and temporary protected status did not exist in American law before the second world war. Is that okay? All right. Permissive rules before 1924 made us a haven for people fleeing revolution, war, tyranny,

0:29:38 Matt: As Stephen Miller said, a poem is not a policy. So stop quoting it. Yeah. Great point. With you there. That's a correct statement. It's more that we just don't really have any rules, but sure. You want to call them permissive, that's fine. Correct. Also, I want to point out that they did actually, so there was a briefly, I think in the 1917 Act, there was an exemption to the literacy requirement if you were suffering religious persecution. We did did actually recognize it that early. So he's factually wrong there. Yeah.

0:30:05 Thomas: And persecution. Yeah, sure. But there were no special dispensations. So like we didn't need special special dispensations before we put heavy restrictions on stuff, right? Okay. The Irish and the Swedes fled famine. Germans fled failed revolutions. Russian Jews fled pogroms, but nobody asked them why they came here, much less to prove it in court. Okay. Where's he going with this? Yeah.

0:30:41 Thomas: I mean, we were pretty religious. We've been pretty religious this whole time. So I think we usually liked, right. I also want to say like, aren't these the people that you You always say you're like, well, they did it right. And they're my, you know, great grandparents and they're great. Like, so maybe we should go back to that when we just let people come over. Yeah. The 1924 immigration law for the first time imposed strict numerical caps and national origin quotas. Okay.

0:30:45 Matt: And that was actually George Washington's original example of asylum was the Dutch who were fleeing religious persecution, like he thought we should protect them. Yeah, the most permissive rule we've ever had. Yeah when we didn't have to worry about asylum because they just get to come here. So that's lazy because national origin quotas were introduced in 1921, but I guess he doesn't know that. They were solidified in 24, but they began in 21. And he's not really going to talk too much about where the whole national origin quotas came from, because why would you want to mention that? And it's not great.

0:31:27 Thomas: I can't believe a baseball guy didn't get that nuance. What is his job? Like, what was his, I mean, it's like a haver of dumb opinions. But did he have any qualifications or anything or just was a blogger? It was a law. Okay.

0:31:38 Matt: He was a lawyer a long time ago. I think he met Clarence Thomas once. I don't know.

0:31:44 Thomas: That's less than nothing. When the targets of Nazi persecution, especially European Jews, were turned back from our shores with nowhere else to go, America's restrictive laws suddenly seemed a mockery of the nation's promises.

0:31:56 Matt: So at the time, too, I want to point out, obviously, the ship that we mentioned, the system that we had at the time, it was basically case -by -case discretionary parole, which is something that he seems to be suggesting we should go back to, which was very strange. I'm not really sure what he's ultimately arguing for, but maybe we can piece it out. Resist. Resists the urge. My son, sometimes you're going to find yourself sitting alone, wishing that you could feed the poor,

0:31:59 Thomas: Boy, the humanitarian urge can be tempting. God, this is just pure psychopath shit, man. What do we... Sometimes I imagine... Yeah. Yeah. Be the hungry, yeah. My mind just went to like, imagine you and I are two robots with the mission to kill everybody. And we're just sitting here like, man, I don't know. This kind of seems bad sometimes. And you're like, well, well. Well, the humanitarian urge will be tempting, but remember our program. Like what? The humanitarian urge can be tempting. What a weird fucking thing thing to say man oh my god you might as well he's gonna launch the next thing he says is like but let them die to decrease the surplus population right it's like the the ebenezer scrooge quote after that god we

0:32:29 Matt: Clothed and naked. Don't do do it. Resist. Yeah.

0:33:06 Matt: I'm going to say that whatever rehab he went to cured him, I think, pretty much, of the temptations. Yeah, right. That's right. Just the overwhelming Christianity. Great. Okay. Thanks, Dan. Yeah! Good points. Billions. Billion's of babies in the world. That's fine.

0:33:11 Thomas: Are after all still a largely christian nation with a biblical sense of duty to all neighbors oh yeah that's why all the humanitarianism is coming out of the right the christian right right now that's my yeah so that that's where the just the minimal semblance of humanitarianism is coming from it's just it's that little dying ember of it it's coming from the religious right and we we want to get rid of that the emma lazarus poem oh give me your tired your poor etc is deep in our national dna the scandal of turning people back to the holocaust still nags at our conscience we are rich and free they are poor and unfree why shouldn't we welcome the stranger and share our blessings end of article yeah let's let's call it there the first first problem is that this logic has no limit. Oh, fuck off. Just fuck off so fucking hard. Just fuck of so hard, man. The first problem, is that, this logic, has no limiting principle. Hey, Matt, when I see, like, a, a baby drowning, I'm like, well, okay, am I supposed to save every baby? Well, it's every, oh, million babies. I gotta solve all, what's your, what the limiting principle? I'm not doing it. Fuck you. That's, that's your first thought. It has no limiting principle okay fucking yeah okay okay true story I was just going to make a joke that is actually the next sentence in his article I swear to god I started to make the joke and I glanced inside the world holds 8 .3 billion people yeah what if they all came then what if they all get we can't limit any of them matt because what if They all oh where's the oh plus us what if there's aliens and they come no limiting principle so fuck everybody the united states is the 0 .3 it's kind of weird matt I know I'm gonna lose you on this one but that's a weird numbers thing to say the world holds 8 .3 billion people in the united states is 0 .03 yeah we're like the we're specifically allocated to be the the final 300 million it's just weird we can't Matt, take in everyone whose life would be improved by coming here. Oh, okay. I can't, look, I can'T save every baby drowning everywhere, Matt. I can' t do it. So this one right in front of me that I pushed into a body of water, why would I save that one? That the CIA pushed into A Body of Water using my tax dollars? And once you accept that even a generous immigration system must turn away most supplicants, we're back where we began. How do we choose? Why not choose those who make the best Americans?

0:34:54 Matt: Also, I know he doesn't know anything about a saint -l 'amour, but a saint l 'amour is the limiting principle. It is extremely limiting. It doesn't just allow allow everybody to come here. So if you're arguing that should be set up, it's already here. Okay. That's probably not quite accurate, but yeah. Yeah. Really just the appendix on the population. That's right.

0:36:00 Matt: We're just doing the gumballs again, folks. It's just the gumbles.

0:36:02 Thomas: Fuck jesus christ dude the second problem is political resentment of immigrants is neither new nor likely to go

0:36:09 Matt: Not as long as I'm around, Don McLaughlin.

0:36:09 Thomas: Away yeah the second program is people who write this article and I'm not going anywhere humanitarian policies that disregard the interests of the host country and its people are almost perfectly calculated to exacerbate those tensions and it's nothing to do with the constant propaganda that fuels reactionaries designed to make us all mad ad so that we forget that we're voting in the interest of billionaires. Nothing to do with that.

0:36:16 Matt: Yeah, that's right, coordinated campaign of proto -fascism to make us blame people who are much worse off than we are. That's fine. Yeah. Generally I can sell it as the first one because when nobody says it's the second one, where it's not a moral duty to give away what we have.

0:36:40 Thomas: Yeah. It's easier to sell immigration as a pie expanding boon to the economy than as a moral duty to give away what we have. Yeah,

0:36:55 Matt: It's not a potluck. Like, we're not, okay.

0:36:57 Thomas: I also don't even like I'm not even sure that's true. We don't know. Like, have we tried lately? Has anyone tried making the case? I mean, again, maybe I'm an idiot, Matt. You can say has anyone tried like, hey, maybe we should be nice to people like has anyone tried that or is it just constant demagoguery and hate and whatever I think sometimes people actually it's a weird thing where like incentives are weird for people and sometimes they do actually respond to more of a moral pressure than like a financial pressure just kind of depends on the situation

0:37:26 Matt: But he's not even going to consider the possibility that it is a pie -expanding exercise, because that's what it is. It does make the pie bigger. That's how it works. And the people coming are overwhelmingly young and healthy and ready to work, and that's what's happening. It's hard to argue against it. I promise we're not, Dan. I promised we're nicht doing das.

0:37:28 Thomas: Certainly does it certainly does yeah it's like how could you think it doesn't because like the rest of the world has more people and there's more money out out there. Where did that come from? You know what I mean? Like people equals money, eventually economy. Yep. It's easier to make the case for assimilation when we're not giving preference and priority to immigrants from the most dysfunctional countries. Yeah.

0:38:02 Thomas: It is also the worst possible introduction to our values for rivals. What? Introduction to our values to our value for rivals. Oh, to compete in narratives of victimization. Oh wow. Okay. I was was so confused by that sentence because I couldn't predict, once again, the psychopath nature of it. It's also the worst possible introduction to our values for our rivals to compete in narratives of victimization rather than show what they can achieve and contribute.

0:38:29 Matt: Yep, we put them in the Hunger Games crimes of victimization and make them fight it out. That's right.

0:38:32 Thomas: God, we're inviting all these people whose families have been killed and are certainly facing like death and torture in their countries. We're just inviting them to complain. You know, They're just grousing, tired of it. Why don't you say like what you can do? Because literally, Matt, literally don't the forms require you to say why you're...

0:38:45 Matt: Plus, you're not going to out -complain Americans, obviously. Yeah,

0:38:52 Thomas: They have to do that, don't they? Like you have to say while you're in danger if you go back home, right?

0:38:56 Matt: Pretty explicitly and in detail and to a legal standard that he'll ignore later.

0:39:01 Thomas: Okay. Sorry, I interrupted you. You were saying something. Yeah, that's true. Oh my God. Yeah, I think it's like your victim narrative, baseball man, that you're the one who's competing in narratives of victimization especially when it's like the people who are also here and safe are taking away from me given

0:39:03 Matt: Oh, I was just going to say, as established in this piece, nobody's going to out -complain Americans. Native -born Americans are very good at complaining. So don't even try. Just go home if that's what you're here for. Almost is doing a lot of work there.

0:39:25 Thomas: Constitutional birthright uh u .s citizenship for the sorry for the children of all temporary visitors a rule almost unique in the world yeah

0:39:36 Matt: He's also seemed to posit in the sentence that every immigrant coming here is pregnant. If you read the rest of the sentence.

0:39:41 Thomas: Oh yeah each arrival is a generation's long proposition hey man now now this just in this guy thinks men can give birth I'll just go at it from that angle look at this asshole who likes trans people apparently I don't know I'm just trying stuff refugee and asylum law grew from the post -world war ii world amid the didn't we do this already okay amid the massive displacements of the largest war in human history the 1951 un convention relating to the status of refugees was like so many government initiatives an ad hoc response to a temporary emergency that was then it's weird to call like world war ii like a temporary I mean I guess

0:40:23 Matt: The crisis after the migrant. I mean, it was a massive displacement throughout Europe, but yeah, it was, yes, yeah.

0:40:25 Thomas: But yeah but I just feel like it's like a bigger thing than that you know like the the bigotry the generational bigotery and hatred and stuff and like forces that led to that conflict it's not like that just goes away once you end the war part I don't know yeah yeah yeah like an earthquake or something the convention's definition of refugees focused on the Nazi dominions and was time limited to people displaced before 1951. It aimed to prevent people from being sent back to countries where they would be persecuted or killed by the government for political reasons. The U .S. didn't sign it. Now, while

0:40:41 Matt: It wasn't a hurricane. Yeah. So this is an extreme technicality. Yes, they didn't sign it in 1951, but we signed the 1958 convention that incorporated the protocols. We have been bound by the definition of what refugee is, which again, is somebody who's fierce persecution in their home country based on race, race, religion, national origin, political opinion, and membership in a particular social group, which he's going to complain about quite a lot later. Not necessarily about this thing with the Nazi dominion. Yes, there were provisions, obviously, for the displaced people of Europe to specifically deal with that issue, but it was thinking ahead. They were absolutely thinking ahead in a flexible way to try to figure out how we're going to deal with these problems in the future.

0:41:31 Thomas: Mass immigration always had its critics, the post -war politics of the issue were heavily shaped by the Cold War, which produced an elite consensus that for many years was broadly popular. We were waging ideological war within Western civilization. Like Nazism, communism was a a European creation that argued for a better way to organize advanced Western societies. The losers abroad could join our side here to continue the fight. What? I didn't even understand what that was.

0:41:57 Matt: They could escape communism and come and love capitalism. And again, he's going from this position that the only reason we did asylum law was to look good during the Cold War to bring in refugees to, you know, show those communists.

0:42:08 Thomas: And now that that's over, we don't give a shit about looking good anymore. Fuck that. Why would we care? It's a waste of time. Many political refugees shared America's cultural premises. Soviet bloc refugees were often the most pro -liberty, pro -democracy people in their societies. Communist persecution, blah, blah. Blah, blah, I don't, I can't skip through this. I'm just deciding, whatever. Nixon argued that every wave of refugees that has come to the United States has strengthened America rather than weakened it. So people as selfless and compassionate as Richard Nixon also disagree with this asshole. It sounds like,

0:42:10 Matt: Yeah. No, no, no. Just pull the mask off. Let's do it. Yep. Yes.

0:42:43 Thomas: Like he's, we never recovered. We lost half the country. Famously, Florida's communist as they come now.

0:42:44 Matt: Yes, they did. Also, he's not going to mention, you know, again, this was done by parole authority, right? It's case by case or it was usually like mass parole, right. But parole is technically case bycase. And the reason that we switched over to the asylum system is because it's way more efficient to actually be able to look at this stuff instead of trying to get a whole boatload of people and, you know, one at a time decide which boatloads of people come in. Like we can actually have have a system and a systematized approach to all of it. And he's making it sound like the Soviet black refugees are the only refugees we took in during that time. But of course, the Hungarians, for example, that displaced people were disproportionately young. They were people without income or experience or couldn't speak English. The Mario Boatlift, very famously in 1980, was the single largest influx of people from a communist country that we ever took in. And it made no demonstrable difference. And there's multiple studies on this. They all went to Miami and so Miami thrived and you know it was that's right that's

0:43:38 Thomas: It goes blue every election, never causes any trouble for us intellectually. We need to sneak in a third break. When should we do that? Should we do that now? Who knows?

0:43:43 Matt: Fine oh yeah yeah we're how far are we We're about uh yeah good enough yeah let's do it

0:43:48 Thomas: But why don't we sneak in our third break? I got to take a break from reading psychopaths. You know, like our lot awful movies, if I stare too close into the abyss, I'm going to become the robot psychopath that is this fucking asshole. I hope this doesn't represent the moderate American, you know, because that's depressing.

0:44:06 Matt: I think it might that's pretty good yeah

0:44:07 Thomas: You know who's not just the moderate American? Our patrons, our top patrons especially. These These folks are the best. Thank you to Bob Loblaw's Law Podcast, ET, Philly Basement Bar says we should take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Elect Thomas Smith, President, American Oncotonic Bar Association, Baltic Cate, Philip Kaiser. The court is now in session. The Honorable Judge, Jury, and Executioner. That's so stupid. The judge's name is Jury and Initial N, Executionor, Presiding. The Honorable Judge, Juror, and Executive. That's stupid. Stupid. Corrin Lant, a string of unpronounceable characters. Malika Chandler, David in Brooklyn, ron2thedork .com, Milo Meadsong argues the plural form of footnote, kind of like attorneys general, should be notes feetsies. I think you should say notes feet. I think I stand by that. Chris Waltrip, big easy blasphemy, hors d 'oeuvres in the court before a report, Sam Donow, Fred Grotheus, Fred R. Grotheas, Classic Lip Tart, and Mitchell. Congratulations for being our top patrons. We love you so much. Again, patreon .com slash law, avoid the ads and get a lot off the movies we'll take a break and we'll finish off with this psychopath okay

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0:45:15 Thomas: Matt when we last left our psychopath he was explaining how nixon is far more compassionate than he is

0:45:22 Matt: I don't know what the Nixon goal thing is supposed to prove because Nixon certainly didn't agree with what he's saying here in that quarter generally so not not sure why that's in there.

0:45:28 Thomas: Yeah it's bad argument taking in communism's victims wasn't just charity it was foreign policy so this is great so so his whole thing and by his I mean this this asshole the psychopath thing is that like we need to only do stuff that's good for us us and for some reason back then it was good for us and he tries to make the special pleading case of like well because of the cold war and whatever but that's not what the the nixon quote says uh yeah every wave of refugees ever that has come to the united states has strengthened america rather than weakened it and then he's like see it's only when it's good for US but not now somehow

0:45:35 Matt: It was both. Every wave. He says every wave. Yeah. Yeah, maybe.

0:46:07 Thomas: Nixon would be rolling over in his grave the 1965 Hart-Celler Act abolished the 1924 national origin quotas, and greatly expanded immigration.

0:46:18 Matt: Yes, that was their first mistake. Abolishing national origins quotas based explicitly on race and bad race science.

0:46:22 Thomas: Yet refugee and asylum law intended to ameliorate pre -1965 conditions was enacted after that. What does that mean? What's the function of that in the argument, I guess?

0:46:32 Matt: It wasn't intended to ameliorate pre -NICC. I mean, it was supposed to just set the standard for how we do asylum forever. That was the point for the world. After World War II, the next time we have a major cataclysm, we try to figure out how we're going to work on refugees and asylees. He's got a lot of presumptions here that I don't understand where they're coming from. And they're not based on my understanding of immigration history or policy history.

0:46:48 Thomas: Yeah. But what the fuck would you know? What are you? Some kind of expert? Yeah.

0:46:55 Matt: What would I know? I've just read a lot of books and taught it a bunch, but, you know, and do it every day.

0:47:01 Thomas: Just because you listen to opening arguments, you think you know what you're you're talking about? A 1967 UN protocol unmoored the 1951 UN convention from its context. Its expanded definitions were incorporated in the Carter -era Refugee Act of 1980. Refugees or asylum status is granted to anyone, quote, unable or unwilling to return, end quote, to his home country because of a well -founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Opinion. At the time, as the bill's title attests, refugees located abroad were the focus while asylum for those who reach our borders was an afterthought.

0:47:09 Matt: No, it concretized it. It made it official. It systematized the asylum system as we know it. And every country who's a member of the UN pretty much has signed off on how they handle this stuff under the same standards. I don't think that's true. I don't know where he's getting that or where that would be in the congressional record, but the definition he just gave is the UN definition that had been around for decades before that, so I don't even know what he's talking about. Yeah, let's say that. Let's say it's about refugees, really. He's going to say some things that are... Okay, well, keep going. This is amazing. Congress is supposed to consult on those refugee camps. That's what they called them. Hey, why do you think we took in so many people in 1980 from Vietnam? Vietnam.

0:47:58 Thomas: Well, I think he's saying because it would be convenient to my psycho argument. Let's just say, let's just assume. Sure. Refugees are capped annually at the president's discretion. That reflects the grounding. Wow. Really? The the president gets to do that. That's right. We've kind of talked about that, huh? Because, man, I feel like it would just be zero for all of Trump's terms. But that reflects the grounding of refugee law in foreign policy judgment, but it allows wild swings. In 1980, 81, nearly 300 ,000 refugees were accepted from Asia, largely Vietnamese boat people. Sounds weird to say, but okay. And refugees from Cambodia's genocide. Cambodia, yeah.

0:48:53 Matt: Yeah. And so again, and the reason, by the way, besides the obvious that we just destroyed these regions is that we had this huge backlog of parole because we're using this parole system, which is completely outdated. We should have been using the refugee system. And yeah, a whole bunch came in at once because we were catching up on the backlog. But that was the national origins quotas. That was the race -based for the visas. So this is, I should be very clear, the refugee asylum system is completely separate from the visa system. The refugee system is managed by the UN. Asylum system is managed by immigration authorities here in the US when you get here, if you are not granted refugee status ahead of time. And also the Vietnamese boat people and Cambodians, and I've worked with quite a number of, we have a very large Cambodian community here. I've talked to quite a few of them here. Again, it doesn't really help his argument. I mean, again, they're great and they've contributed a lot to this country, but these are not the people that like he's saying would advance national interest. I mean, these again were war refugees, right? They're coming from desperate circumstances. There's a lot of that going on. That would be about right, yeah. And a lot of them had to live in Cambodia for a couple of years. I've got quite a number of clients who are citizens of other countries that were born in Thailand or Cambodia. To the extent that I understand what he's even saying at all, I think he's trying to say that the president should have way more control and that we should stop using the asylum system that was set up by the UN. But if you're going to do that, then you're gonna get to the last sentence of this paragraph.

0:49:07 Thomas: Is that the thing we've talked about where you showed us the old documents and it was like, this would take a thousand million years to... Okay. Gotcha. Oh, right. Yeah. Right. Yeah? Yeah. You know, I just realized I worked with someone, now that I think about it, who literally had a story. She had a a story of getting out of Vietnam on a boat. So that must be exactly what it was. She was probably, she probably got to be 60 now. Is that somewhere in the right? Yeah, or something. Okay.

0:50:22 Matt: And he does not mention the problem here

0:50:24 Thomas: Donald Trump cut the cap to 30 ,000 in the last pre -COVID year of his first term. Joe Biden tripled that by 2024. Yeah, right. Now Trump accepts only Afrikaners, white Southern Africans, who made up all but three of the more than six, more than, of the more than 6 ,600 refugees accepted in the past six months.

0:50:25 Matt: By restoring it, yes, right? No further comment. Those are the refugees we're taking now. And that is true, that the refugee system is now pretty much, right now, white South Africans. It's a joke. It's turned the whole thing on its head. And he has nothing to say about it.

0:50:55 Thomas: But it's also, yeah, it's also pretty fucking weird to say more than sixty -six hundred. Why would you say more? It's just weird. I don't know. It's fucking bullshit. By contrast, asylum claimants can theoretically be unlimited in number. Presidents indirectly influence the process by interpreting the law that immigration officers and executive executive branch immigration judges follow, as well as by dictating who can stay in the country while cases are pending.

0:51:04 Matt: But it's true. So I would dispute that because the president has complete authority over the immigration court system, hires and fires the judges, sets the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is now completely stacked with very, very Trumpy people. And the attorney general can pick up any given immigration court case and snatch it out of the system and decide on it and make it precedential, which they've been doing.

0:51:36 Matt: So as he's going to talk about later, you can basically rewrite asylum law at the executive level. I really don't know what he's trying to say here, but it's true that there's no cap.

0:51:42 Thomas: Just that the president has the right to do the psychopath behavior that he wants. Is that all it is?

0:51:46 Matt: See, he's saying the president doesn't have enough power over immigration, which is exactly wrong. That's what he was saying in this paragraph. No, he was also

0:51:48 Thomas: It doesn't have enough power. I thought he was saying it has enough power, sorry. Oh yeah. Right. There's no cap on how many people can apply. Is Is that what he's saying? Like what? Oh, okay. I thought he said, I'd said asylum claimants can theoretically be on the limited number. Yeah. That's what he said. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, why is that even a, okay, as well as by dictating who can stay

0:51:54 Matt: Saying that the asylum system, and this is true, there is no cap on asylum, because that wouldn't really make a lot of sense. That when you get here, if you apply for asylum and you receive it, then that's it. No one can receive it. But he's still saying the President doesn't have enough power. They indirectly influence the President. Yeah, that's also true. They certainly can be. Claimants of any kind can be unlimited number to any program.

0:52:21 Thomas: In the country while cases are pending, Trump's remain in Mexico policy required applicants at the border to wait outside until asylum was granted.

0:52:30 Matt: Not exactly, but sure. Let's not even get into that.

0:52:32 Thomas: And wasn't that also like against international law or whatever? Like, isn't that?

0:52:35 Matt: It also requires Mexico to participate, which they're no longer wanting to do. Any sentence? Yeah.

0:52:40 Thomas: In practice, the system is a farce. Every immigration lawyer. Oh, this is about you, Matt. Here, let me know. This is about you. Every immigration lawyer and advocacy group knows how to advise people to game the system.

0:52:52 Matt: Yeah, I guess I do know how to do that. I don't, but yeah. Remember Trump said that you just have to say the magic words and that lawyers just tell people, I claim asylum. That was what Trump said the magic words are. Works every time. That's what I get the big bucks for. Yeah. Okay. This is an amazing sentence. So first of all, particular social group is an expression that goes way back as he says to 51. And the purpose of it was to keep things flexible. And intentionally, this wasn't some offhand thing. This was a decision made by the UN at that time to say, look, we can't actually anticipate what all the possible threats might be and all the different reasons people might be persecuted. And it turns out it really worked out that way because at the time, people weren't necessarily thinking, for example, of your sexuality as something that you would receive asylum for. But now, a particular social group can include gender and sexuality claims, right? Yeah. Get some good scientists out of it, yeah.

0:52:55 Thomas: Does that mean that you can get anyone in?

0:53:02 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, boy. Designed to address government persecution on the model of the Holocaust, the law isn't limited to state persecution. It includes threats to a particular social group, a term added offhand by a Swedish UN representative in 1951 that courts have struggled to define. Yeah. Right.

0:53:53 Thomas: Yeah. I'm pretty sure if there was a country that was like, hey, we're just going to start killing all Star Trek fans and we're juste fucking killing them. You'd want to be able to say like, okay, well that, I mean, I guess we got to let in some Star Trek bands. I don't know. Sounds like the Star Wars fans have gone nuts in that country. Taking things way too seriously.

0:54:12 Matt: And saying that the courts have struggled to define it, that's not true either. I mean, yes, there's been a lot of arguments. Oh, yes, that is true. That is true, I

0:54:16 Thomas: Oh, but he's got some good authority for this, Matt. Hold on. Let me read the next sentence. As then Judge Samuel Alito complained in 1993, and his word is gospel, the phrase is almost completely open -ended. Virtually any set, including more than one person, could be described as a particular social group. I guess? Yeah, that's also just logically not true. Like, okay, my grandma and then like some guy dressed as Santa Claus. What's the group that that is? I don't, you know, know like just any anything that's more than one person I don't know that seems hard actually it doesn't weird many asylum seekers claim threats from criminal gangs well maybe that's because there's a lot of threats from communal gangs the obama and biden administrations even extended asylum to include victims of domestic violence even yeah can you believe it? Hey,

0:54:33 Matt: Don't think that was true under 93 law. It's certainly not true now. The particular social group analysis has been extremely limited by social visibility and how much people would recognize you as part of that group. It can't just be that it's some guys hanging out in the corner. I know it sounds like it's a bridge club, but it's not a bridge club. It's really not your particular social group. Can you believe it? Wow. To people the government wouldn't protect from domestic violence. Violence.

0:55:21 Thomas: I wonder what this guy's opinion on honor killings is I bet ask him on a different topic like oh you know and they're they those those muslims they do honor killings and whatever you know like I'm sure he would be against all that then but then in this voice where you're like they even extended asylum to people who might be victims of domestic

0:55:37 Matt: Well, you might want to finish the sentence. You'll see it right there. You did it again.

0:55:39 Thomas: Violence oh god don't did I do it again in cases where foreign governments don't police it oh fucking jesus I swear to god I haven't read this at a time this is how we do this parentheses and they do not in much of the third world especially Muslim countries. Jesus Christ. I didn't. I swear to God, I did not. Oh, I just know how these fucking idiots think.

0:55:52 Matt: Yep. Psychic. You're just in the baseball crank's head. I'm worried for you. Yeah. Most of the domestic violence claims which have been granted historically back when that was a ground and it was no longer, unfortunately, a direct ground for asylum. Back when it was, it was not from Muslim countries. It was from the Western hemisphere, from Central America mostly.

0:56:15 Thomas: Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, they wouldn't even be able to get to that point. Yeah. No U .S. foreign policy interest is advanced by this. Fuck you, asshole. God, what? Yeah. Was it not good to be? Aren't you the ones who like America? I find I find myself in a weird position, Matt, and I know you felt this too, where you're like, hey, actually, I mean, like there was some good stuff about America where you were like, I was being looked at as the shining city on the hill to the extent it was true. The part where we did let in the tired and the poor and the hungry, the whatever, that at least was good, right? Like that's, and imagine if we only did that, like that would be cool. If that was the thing we were known for, wouldn't the world be like, man, that's a cool country. We like them. Let's do business with them. Let's like their stuff and buy their products and like their culture and use their money and speak their language like isn't that good isn't all good stuff

0:56:17 Matt: But, and again, it's not just any domestic violence, which I'd love to protect everybody, but it's from countries where if you go to the police, they will laugh you off or they'll protect your husband. And there are countries like that. But protecting people from domestic violence.

0:56:46 Matt: Yeah. Wow. You're going to America first on me.

0:57:13 Thomas: Yeah I mean I'm in crazy town here like right I mean okay it seems to be calculated to import the class of immigrants most likely to end up on public assistance realistically women halfway across the planet who need to flee their husbands likely have closer places to go than here yeah

0:57:18 Matt: Yeah, I'm with you. Calculated. That's what it's for. He's making up a bunch of women now. I don't think that fleeing from El Salvador to Texas is halfway across the planet, but how do I know?

0:57:39 Thomas: Also like wasn't that a very short -lived thing wasn't or like how how many people have made it here on a domestic violence asylum claim is that a big group of people yeah exactly it's

0:57:48 Matt: Well, they said it when they they get here. But no, and it was active. That was an option for maybe 10 years, on and off. So yeah, not that many.

0:57:56 Thomas: Like well how big of a group of People could that possibly fucking

0:57:59 Matt: I love the idea that we sat down and calculated which groups of people would be most likely to be on public assistance. Let's make sure that we protect those. No, it's people that desperately need it, that are not being protected by their governments. That's the point of asylum.

0:58:00 Thomas: Be yeah and it really does come down to if your theory of the world is that there are good people and bad people and I'm not saying it's by skin color but you're saying it by skin color then maybe that makes some kind of sense where you're like don't let in the bad ones but But if your worldview is more like, like mine, which is like, I think largely poverty and all that is like often a product of circumstance. And, you know, it has a lot more to do with like societal factors, all kinds of things, political factors. Has your country been ruined by the United States? Has it been, you Know, whatever, a bunch of factors and therefore that people who might be in desperate circumstances in one place might thrive in another place, right? That's what, that's what I think.

0:58:49 Matt: Absolutely. Given the chance. That is how it is supposed to work. That is what we have always said. Asylum lawyers. Yeah. Yeah, that is not an argument against asylum. And also, I couldn't find those numbers. I don't know. Those aren't the track numbers where I get my numbers. But I've always hated this argument against asylum, the fact that there is a lower grant rate. That doesn't mean that there are people who deserve asylum that you scrap the system. That's not how it works. It's more about the high standards that we're setting, which for the law is just getting harder and harder to win. But these are about people already here who are applying for asylum. So there's no limits. If they qualify, they qualify.

0:58:52 Thomas: All that might be forgiven if we only let in people who qualified under the law, but asylum seekers have exploited these ambiguities to file vast numbers of claims that must be adjudicated one at a time, choking the system by sheer volume. The abuse screams from the data. Since 2016, under three different presidents, only 13 .2 % of asylum claims have been granted. That's 26 .9 have been denied and another 18 .7 have been abandoned or withdrawn even under biden more were denied than granted yeah what no yeah it also could be a product of our low limits right if they don't want to let people in sure oh so sorry maybe I don't know how that works so if they're already they're уже here and so that grants them the more status I'm sorry. I just so bad at this. Okay. Okay, okay. And so, right. So this, okay, so the standards are really high because xenophobia mostly, but still it's like, this reminds me of when they would say, oh my God, Biden has an open border. And the thing they would point to was a headline that's like Biden turned down a zillion people from the border. You know what I mean? They would be like, the stat would be like look at how many people Biden refused at the border and they'd be be like, look at this open borders. You're like, no, that's the opposite of what it means. Like if, if only 13 .2 % of asylum claims are granted, which he's making that up apparently, but whatever, if it's low, doesn't that mean the system's working in his mind? Right? Like if you're going to make this argument that there's abuse of this system, wouldn't you be like look, a hundred percent of claims are grounded. That means you just get over and you say, say, I declare asylum C and then you're in. It's the opposite to say like, look, it's abused. Only one person ever gets it. You know, it was like, that doesn't make any sense.

1:00:04 Matt: Oh, no, just to be very clear, because this is a pretty common thing. So refugees are people people who are abroad, who are able to go through the UN system. And that's where the caps come in. And people who were here, who have crossed the border or otherwise come on a visa or just here on student visas or whatever, it can apply for asylum. And there's no limit on that, on the claims or the approvals.

1:00:43 Matt: Yeah. Right. Right, right. Yeah, right, right? Also, if you look at it from the other side, as I do, when we talk about the system being broken, obviously, Dan McLaughlin and I mean very different things. Because I think that if If you have a system where, let's just assume, just for the sake of this conversation, that pretty much everybody who files an asylum application is actually, to some degree, afraid to return home, right? Even if it's not for reasons the law will recognize. So you've got a whole bunch of people who are afraid to return Home, and 13 .2 % of those people get to stay. That might be a problem, too. Maybe we have set the law incorrectly. Maybe it is not caught up. So maybe I can agree to some decree that some of this is broken.

1:01:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And like Matt, I, again, I don't want to, I do not want to attack you, but notice that those percentages do not add up to anywhere near a hundred percent. So is the rest, are they outstanding? Does that mean they're not looked at in the timeframe frame, maybe, or something?

1:01:58 Matt: I didn't, actually. There are big backlogs, and there are big backlogs in the immigration court because the Trump administration has done everything possible to make immigration court the standard, to keep people in immigration court. Pending, I think, would be the other pending. Yeah. Right. Right, right. Is that there's so many pending. Yeah. Right. Not seeing how that helps your argument, Dan.

1:02:12 Thomas: Yeah, I think I'm asking, is there another category that he's leaving out that things could be pending? Yeah. Well, that's what, so I'm saying other than that, I guess, is THERE another category? So the point being that there's so many, they're barely getting through any, they'RE only letting a tiny percent in, and yet that's the argument that the system is being abused. Doesn't make any sense. Even under Biden, more were denied than granted. Oh, oh, okay. So even under communist Biden, which is what you people think, even then more were denied than granted. So it sounds like there's not an abuse of the system and there's pretty tight containment on it. And even Democrats don't let in more than they deny. What am I in crazy town? Yeah. He's just making the opposite of his argument. Okay. Those numbers understate the issue. Annual applications surged from 65 ,000 into, I wonder if there's going to be anything thing to explain this, Matt. 65 ,000 in 2016 to 2016 -19 to 230 ,000 in 2022 through 2025. That could only just be abuse, right? There's no reasons like in the world that more people would have needed to

1:03:20 Thomas: Apply for asylum, right.

1:03:20 Matt: Or the fact that we completely basically did actually not shut the border, but that we turned away asylum seekers based on shaky COVID grounds, you know, way past the point at which the rest of the society was open. That's why he he doesn't, you know, notice 20 to 21 are missing there.

1:03:33 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. The backlog of cases spiked from 411 ,000. In 2016 to 2 .35 million in mid 2026. Two thirds of the overall backlog. Oh, I skipped a little little bit. The share adjudicated dropped from 57 .8 % to 32 .2%. So your argument is too much paperwork. Is that his argument? There's too much paperwork, damn it. Okay.

1:03:35 Matt: A lot of people tried to come after that. I don't know. Yeah. And as I said, like the backlog is very much created by this administration. And I will point out that a lot of the people now that TPS is ending have no choice but to file for asylum because they're still afraid to go back to Haiti. They're still ready to go back to the other countries we're terminating. And you're forcing them into the asylum system, essentially, when TPS was a very efficient way to protect them. Yeah, and yeah, yeah. Yeah.

1:04:06 Thomas: Right. What else are they going to do? The thing he would want to be saying is like, and they were all granted and that's why it's so abusive. But no, like you're just saying they're either denied or not looked at yet. That's what you're saying. Asshole. Put another way, for every person granted asylum Under the law, since the start of 2022, there are 30 more immigration cases in the pipeline, 20 of which are asylum claims. Asylum appeals, nearly all of them meritless. What?

1:04:37 Matt: He's reviewed them all. So there

1:04:37 Thomas: Where does he get? Where do you get that? Nearly all the meritless swamp federal appeals courts, where they are often the largest category of appeals, slowing down the rest of the justice system. All right. Well, one last paragraph here. We got. Oh, wait. Oh, I thought that was the end. Damn it. If they can get into the country or reach the border under a Democratic president, claimants stay here while their cases sit dormant in the system, often for years, rarely with legal merit. The point is to file, not to win. Yeah, and you're going to just uproot your whole life on the promise of like, if I file, then no one will notice and I'll live here forever. That's the thing people would do who have other options. Tbs likewise evolved from cold war initiatives although it was codified by congress only 1990 between 1960 and 1989 presidents designated the nationals of 15 countries who are already in the u .s for extended voluntary departure entitling them to remain indefinitely during a war natural disaster or other temporary emergency again the idea was that the dispensation would be temporary but the inch once get fuck you the inch wants given became endless miles what who fucking died and gave you the country, dude. Oh, I gave them an inch of my land and now they're coming. Fuck you, dude, you're just born here of not your own choice, asshole.

1:04:49 Matt: Has been quite an increase, despite a lot of efforts to try to keep them out of the appeals courts. Because the Board of Immigration Appeals is essentially rubber stamping the immigration courts. And now with the end of Chevron deference, the appeals court can actually not necessarily agree with the BIA right away. So some benefit there. Oh, there's more. Sure. And what's it costing you, Dan? Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah?

1:06:14 Thomas: God, I can't imagine feeling that level of like arrogance over something you didn't earn at all. What gives you the right? Somalia has been on this list for 35 years. El Salvador and Haiti, yeah, El

1:06:26 Matt: Why why do you think they've been on the list for 35 years, Dan? Sorry.

1:06:31 Thomas: Salvador in Haiti designated Designated because of earthquakes in 2001, 2010. Yeah, and they're probably faking those earthquakes, is the spirit in which this is written.

1:06:39 Matt: And also Haiti was fine after the earthquake as established, right? Nothing wrong now.

1:06:43 Thomas: They have stayed ever since. When will safe, stable governance return to Somalia, which has had little of it for millennia, or Haiti, which Has been either unstable or tyrannized for most of its 235 years of independence?

1:06:55 Matt: So tyrannized by the Americas, Americans. But also he's undercutting his own point again, because he's like, well, they've Been on the on the List for so long, why do we keep giving them TPS? And he's like, Well, of course, their countries, you know, are not safe to return to, but we shouldn't give them TBS. Yeah.

1:06:58 Thomas: Yeah. What's that, France? Yeah, it's like, okay. Okay, if you're not safe for a little bit, fine. But if like, if You're gonna die if you go back to your country for too long, then like, fucking that's your fault, you know? Why haven't you fixed your own government yet? Person who's gonna be killed by your own government, maybe for a month or something, but years, come on. As Justice Clarence Thomas noted, oh, okay, here we go. Noted archly, I think would be, is it would be archly? In a recent case on trump's terminating tps for haiti and syria the program is national origin discrimination dominicans who share an oh my god

1:07:21 Matt: Yeah, we got a last call here. Come on. Don't have to go home, but but you can't stay here. Oh, this is our favorite. Our favorite example from the TPS case from Mullen v. Doe. You're going to remember this one. You remember this? Who could forget?

1:07:54 Thomas: Yeah yep oh I sure do matt I never forget something this stupid dominicans you share an island with haitians don't share the same immigration benefits that flow from haiti's instability I still to this day do not understand understand what the fuck this point might be.

1:08:05 Matt: Yep. We treat different countries differently based on different circumstances. It's not a point. It is a clearance Thomas Mike drop, and it is a concurrence, by the way, also. It isn't even the majority opinion, so he's just citing it because he likes it.

1:08:16 Thomas: Well, it's because he noted archly.

1:08:23 Matt: Yeah, that's right. He loves the urchins.

1:08:24 Thomas: Unlike asylum, TPS is not grounds for admission. It's a bar to the removal of some individuals, even if they are here illegally. The only people eligible for TPS are those who were already in the U .S. at a time when the designation for their country was made. But this can be gamed. Fuck, really? This can be gamed, especially by people from places with poor record keeping, which includes nearly all the the qualifying countries numbers tell the tale we're back to this by 2025 1 .3 million people were in the u .s on tps 935 000 of them from two countries venezuela and haiti and 322 000 from three or more aren't we again making the opposite of your point because like if this was easily exploitable when you expect that like all the world was taking advantage of it not like like like if it was like easily exploitable versus what it actually is is sometimes countries are going going through acute problems, then you would expect it to just be a few countries, which is what he's saying, right? So he's not even making, okay.

1:09:07 Matt: It doesn't have that many people, do they? It's It's not biased in their favor. I absolutely promise you that. TPS is for, you don't want to be in a situation where you're eligible for TPS. That is not a good thing. Like your country's in bad shape if you're eligible for TPPS. Nobody should want that. They're not gaming the system. And also we've got, I just want to point out TPS for Haiti officially ended on August 4th. TPS rail Salvador is supposed to end on September 9th. This is like a slow moving immigration pandemic. Like it's going to be bad. We're going to have a lot of people losing their work permits. We're already starting to see it with employers asking us, well, why can't my person still,

1:09:19 Thomas: Outside of the US decapitation of the Venezuelan regime, only Ukraine's troubles have any end in sight. Set aside what to do with people already here. What American interest is served by letting, but today by letting anybody into the country via asylum or as refugees, or by keeping anyone here under TPS. You don't have have to want an immigration system that is biased against Somalis or Haitians or Syrians to want one that isn't systematically biased in their favor?

1:10:18 Thomas: Oh, and so they'll be here and not contributing at all, whereas they could have been. Well, are they eligible? What public benefits? Just like ERs and yeah, yeah. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, for example, complains that terminating TPS for Haitians will deprive his state of in -home healthcare workers. Oh, Matt, you did it this time uh in -home health care workers many of whom are doubtless also faithful churchgoers what the fuck is the point of that what the fuck wait is that sarcastic I don't

1:10:18 Matt: Still, you know, we've got personal care assistants. Yeah, that's right. Suddenly eligible for public benefits. Yeah. The thing he says that they're already doing when they've already been working way too much. I mean, maybe some state benefits, not really. But also we're talking about personal care assistance. We're talking about nurses. We'RE talking about construction workers, roofers, like people are doing hard work that it can't work anymore because of a Trump policy that didn't need to happen. Yeah I just said that. They do one of the hardest jobs on earth, but also they get a church, so they're probably okay. Okay. I don't even know why he's throwing that in.

1:11:07 Thomas: Doubtless also faithful Churchgoers but that is incidental oh okay I wasn't sure if he's being sarcastic or I guess he's acknowledging like all right you know there are some good people here is that that what he's going for but that is incidental to these programs purpose and we can get the same I don't know we can give the same or better results by other admission criteria tps systematically prefers people from the most dysfunctional societies of the third world who maintain tps designation for decades precisely because their homelands lack civic institutions yeah why haven't they fixed that by now by keeping them we are selecting for the people least likely to be assimilated into the american creed why why would you think that yeah those were the good ones right for him yeah that's what I'm saying so like he those were he used them as the good example but there's functionally no reason yeah I love how he just hand waves I'm truly baffled by what he was getting at there but he hand waves the like they're gonna lose a bunch of in -home care workers and then he just doesn't wouldn't you have an answer for that don't you want to have an an answer for that? Yeah. What are they doing? Yeah, they're just used to having like stuff handed to them for being white. Is that? Oh, no, you're right. Actually, I hear it. That is a perfect American. The people who benefit most are those who make false asylum claims. Why would that be? And most of the claims are false. Well, how do you know that? Or who simply abscond after using using the system to obtain entry and never show up for their court date. Right. Yeah. And conflating like a low acceptance rate with therefore it being not meritorious in any way, you know, which is not necessarily true. Right. What about geo -strategy?

1:11:08 Matt: Having been to Haitian churches, I can tell you there are a lot of faithful churchgoers, I guess.

1:11:50 Matt: This is incredible. Think about what he was just saying half a page up when he's talking about the Hungarians and the Indo -Chinese and the Vietnamese boat people and the Cambodians, all these people wave after wave of refugees. No, by his standards, by the admissibility criteria of all those people at TPS today, he'd be very mad about it. But I guess, you're right. Right. Yeah. There's actually less screening for the parole system the way it was set up than there is now. With the TPS, you have to renotate every 18 months with a background check. That was not a thing back then. Shouldn't you maybe comment on the fact that the only refugees we're taking are white people from South Africa? Don't you think that's bad that the president has used that authority that way? It's clearly not the purpose of the program. It's incredible. I want to know who he's talking to. Too. I mean, I know who he's talking to to get this information. It's some of the worst people. But I mean just the idea that you just know that most of them are false. And also if you make a false claim, and it's pretty easy for the system to figure it out for the most part, you're barred from doing anything in the immigration system ever again. You're done. It is immigration death penalty. And also leaving out the 40 % or whatever of pending cases when you're talking about the 13 % denials as we've established. Even I know that's not right. That's not how you do it. China's doing pretty well in the world right now. I think people are pretty happy with China. Okay. So imagine what they could do to their dissidents inside their borders, Dan. Maybe we need an asylum system to protect people that could actually... I mean, it's just like, are you thinking, are you reading what you're writing? I mean it's true, the Chinese government does have spies here that follow around the dissidents that get asylum or are seeking asylum. But yeah, what are you trying to say? Yeah, I don't know. I don' t either. If they can control their nationals inside our borders, then why are you saying they shouldn't get asylum if they're that powerful? I don't think that's what he's saying. I don t know. Rather than fighting tyranny by liberating its subjects, modern technology lets despotisms control their subjects. I mean, he's saying that I don' t even know what the sentence is doing in here or what work he thinks it's doing, but it's working against him.

1:13:43 Thomas: None of the Cold War's conditions persist. None of them? We're no longer in an ideological war within the Western world. World china and russia are attractive models to nobody outside their borders jesus yeah what are you talking about yeah they're gonna take over the fucking world rather than fighting tyranny by liberating its subjects modern technology lets some foreign despotisms mainly china control their nationals inside our borders in ways that were hollywood myth in the 60s and unthinkable in in the 19th century. Yeah. What is he saying? I, yeah, like, I, I know, I guess the point is, like, what, what is the, again, as, as always, I'm almost always trying to say, why, what does that mean to him? Like, what Does that argument? I'd like, actually don't know. What does that matter? Okay. Yeah, oh, sorry, because they're like sleeper agents. Like, that must be it. Like they're going to be here. And then China is like controlling them to sabotage us. Is that what what he's saying? That must be what he said. Right. There's no other way. Right, because if they're able to control their nationals inside a border, I think he's saying Chinese people are more of a threat now because the technology allows China to control them from China. I think that's what he saying. I don't know how else to read it. Rather than fighting tyranny by liberating its subjects, modern technology lets them. Yeah, OK. The The main competing foreign ideology is radical Islam, but defeating its ideas requires an intra -Islamic debate in which the West has little role, especially like we're literally at war with Iran right now. We have no part in that, the Muslim world. Yeah.

1:15:46 Matt: That's an incredible concession. And that's not what what George W. Bush said, man. Yes.

1:15:55 Matt: Remember all the rhetoric about radical Islam, about how we have to fight it and defeat it, like, you know, on our terms. And now they're just saying, well, this is like an internecine thing. Let them figure it out. All right.

1:16:04 Thomas: And don't you think having dissidents who are able to think and read and write and produce work? Yeah, exactly. Exactly, like produced speech and thought abroad would be good for moderate Muslims in the world. Wouldn't you think that? There's no evidence that letting more Muslims from dysfunctional countries into ours will tip that debate in a positive direction. You just say that, I guess, but I bet there is a lot of evidence that just logically speaking, it's got to be true. Have a good experience. And there's evidence that doing so will instead be a lever to undermine our values as it has been in Europe. Ideally, all these programs would be repealed and replaced with something more, because that works so well with Obamacare, with something more modest and pro -American. There are also options for Congress to reform them rather than abolish them. Sure. Remain in Mexico should be law, not just presidential policy. Yeah, it should be our law that you do stuff for us. TPS, once granted, should be much more strictly time limited we should join oh yeah good point we should join the yeah hey how long is this earthquake gonna take can you we should yeah stupid we should joined the many countries that disallow asylum claims from people who pass through multiple other nations along the way without seeking asylum there asylum claims found meritless should result in permanent bar from admission already true you just told me that Yeah, because like the wrong person is going to kill you rather than the person that the paperwork wants to kill you. And the criteria for asylum should be significantly tightened, especially by eliminating social group. Do you think a lot of them are that? Whatever. And non -state -backed persecution in ways that allow... Yeah, just Africaners. In ways that allow for far more claims to be resolved summarily without laborious fact -finding. So just being able to say like fuck all the domestic violence victims denied basically yeah that's what he wants he wants to eliminate categories of people as broadly as possible I'd love to see americans welcome more legal immigrants no the fuck you wouldn't including these are illegal immigrants right like if you have an assignment anyway including those from poor and oppressed lands you you don't you wouldn'T want that shut up dude like how could could you say that as your last paragraph here yeah I love to see americans welcome more legal immigrants including those from partner presidents others disagree yeah setting himself as the I'm the look I'm the pro -immigration guy here but in selecting whom we accept we are likelier to widen the welcome mat if we make american interests and values our compass

1:16:08 Matt: Yeah. And speak out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, yeah. No, if you're talking about countries, right. If you're telling my countries that hate us and their people come over here and maybe do well here, but yeah. Again, requires Mexico to participate. So you can't force them to do that. Like that's not, yeah, right. Can't do that by definition because TPS has to be there as long as the condition is in effect. So like you can'T time limit it. You guys going to wrap this war up already or that's already happening? Yeah. Well, meritless being that it's based on lies. If it's just like, you're only afraid to return because somebody is going to kill you because you owe them money, then that's not meritless. It's just, right, for the wrong reason. That's right. They're already tightening. I mean, again, the Trump administration is a model of how you can eliminate all of this stuff, right? Stupid fact -finding. So much work. Yeah. And don't hear them out. Nobody needs fact -fighting. Yeah? Why even say this? Yeah.

1:19:00 Matt: What are you saying? What is your proposal? Because everything you've proposed is already being done. Pretty much, Trump is already doing it. I don't know who he talked to. I mean, this guy knows nothing about asylum law, obviously. And he read a couple of articles or something. I really don't know. But this is the cover story for the premier leading conservative thought magazine in America right now. And we've just torn it apart.

1:19:20 Thomas: Boy what an asshole what a psychopathic fucking asshole I can't imagine being that selfish and Matt Heartless and putting in that much effort to write something in defense of a system that's already nothing like it's dismantled. It's already nothing. We're not letting anybody in except the yeah. God. All right, Matt. Well, thanks for finding that and telling us why it's so stupid in so many ways. That article made Tim Pool look smart. That's that's how that's a bad that was. But thanks listeners so much patrons as well and catch that lot awful movies and also see you on friday for some rapid response

1:19:37 Matt: Mr. Crank, I'm going to get up there and I guess I got to start writing about baseball now. I have no choice.

1:19:54 Matt: Yeah. And moderate. Yeah, yeah. All right. See you later.