Elon Musk takes over Twitter

But people are talking!

 

There is a whole other discussion to be had about what are "acceptable" and "unacceptable" news sources around here. For example, Mr. Legum is apparently more palatable and credible than the New York Post to some folks here.
But I digress.

I haven't read the original story Elon is referencing, and have only seen secondhand references to it, so I am taking it with a grain of salt. It's possible the right is spinning it the way Legum says.
It's also possible Legum is taking a release from those silver tongued devils in the White House press office and is confusing one program with another or spinning it the way he wants to. I don't know Legum, who he works for or if he's a twitter rando or blogger.

Are we still allowed to be skeptical of both sides? I thought when we were doing this the right way, that that's what we're supposed to do.

 

Both sides LOL

 

More Musk stupidity:

 

You're trying to spin this like you're being a critical and skeptical news consumer... when you were just too lazy to actually click any of the links involved or read anything you are citing.

I mean, are we supposed to believe Elon Musk when he says it's a secret program, or do we believe the White House when they issued a press release about it more than a year ago? Who's to say?

 

Being a just asking questions guy must be exhausting.

 

More like too busy. Some of us have jobs that occupy a good portion of our time.
But OK, I finally had 30 minutes and looked through both the original report (which is, admittedly, from a partisan conservative organization) and the thread from Legum (who, I will assume by his tone, is a partisan progressive/liberal journalist).
I think my conclusion is that they're talking about two facets of the same kaleidoscope that is the CBP One app.

Legum is pointing to the fact that this program was announced as rock-solid evidence that it's a non-issue.
The Center for Immigration Studies is looking into the fact that it has been little-publicized being why it is an issue.
The CIS is framing these flights as "secretive" because they haven't been widely publicized, even if the program was announced. The Border Patrol, citing "security vulnerabilities," is refusing to say which airports the flights are originating from or which U.S. cities they are arriving in. Likewise, information about the CBP One app has been hard to obtain. The CIS' work did reveal that 43 airports are being used, and 221,456 migrants were granted entry from October 2022 to mid-September 2023. It seems like it's in the public's interest to know where those people are being flown to and settling in.
Migrants are supposed to buy their own tickets and be vetted, but based on the numbers alone — especially considering how many migrants are using the app at the land border with Mexico — it seems fair to question whether the Border Patrol is doing that in every case. Or at the very least doing it thoroughly and efficiently. Throw in the likely shoddy record keeping in the countries these migrants are coming from (especially Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti) and it becomes an even better question.

New Records: Biden DHS Has Approved Hundreds of Thousands of Migrants for Secretive Foreign Flights Directly into U.S. Airports

But at the end of the day, none of that was really my point. My point was that nobody knows who the hell Judd Legum is and his RECEIPTS!!! seem like an odd way to singularly refute the claim without any further debate. It was presented as a really weird mic drop. It was a comment more about media, and what we'll accept as credible sources and not credible sources, than any support of Elon Musk.

 

And I would counter that providing evidence that Musk is spreading bullshit is a pretty decent way to refute the claim.

Musk says it is secret. It is not. The program has existed for decades and the Biden White House issued a press release announcing what was happening.

Musk says Biden is chartering jets. He is not.

Musk says they are illegal immigrants. They are not.

Musk says this is treason. That is -- and I think I'm being kind here -- fucking moronic.

And why do you think the public has a right to know where asylum seekers are? We've had asylum seekers put up in a hotel about two miles from my house. The only problem they caused was attracting white trash with bullhorns, Trump flags and AR-15s threatening to kill them.

 

I agree that the treason part is pretty moronic. So is opening the floodgates at the border — I think it's a seriously awful policy decision, maybe even dereliction of duty — but treason is a high bar.

As for why the public has a right to know? We don't need to know that they're staying at the Quality Inn off of Exit 28 on the interstate, but I think we should know what cities they're sending these folks to. We ought to know if they've sent 10,000 to Boston, 20,000 to New York, another 10,000 to Chicago or 5,000 to Milwaukee. I read somewhere last week that Whitewater, Wisconsin, has gotten a huge influx of migrants (I think it was about 1,500 in a town of about 15,000 people). Considering how much stress the immigration wave is putting on city services in even large cities like New York and Chicago, you'd think people in those cities would have a right to know why.
It's also a major political issue. Greg Abbott has taken a lot of heat for busing migrants to those larger self-proclaimed sanctuary cities. How would residents react if they knew the Biden administration had sent 10 or 20 times more people, almost under the radar (and I don't care if they announced it; they announce 10,000 things a day), than Abbott has bused?

I really didn't want to get into this tonight. It's late, I'm tired, and I have work to do, and I didn't want to derail this thread. All I wanted to do was point out that fucking Judd Legum seems like an odd person to let drop the mic. Really. I swear.

 

But he's Elon Musk.

 

Especially when the cool kids' club is there, ready to pounce.

 

When I was growing up we were told to ask questions and that freedom was great.

Now they're just lazy, knee-jerk punch lines.