Subject: Re: The Illusion of Vetting
bighairymike: Eight "visitors" from Tajikistan were arrested by ICE yesterday due to their affiliation with ISIS.

Careful. The information available now is sketchy, at best, based on one or two "sources". And it appears as though Of those arrested, a small subset is believed to have espoused concerning extremist rhetoric, according to the source, and it is unclear whether the remaining people were arrested for their mere association with the other people arrested.

No idea what a "small subset" of eight means.

Two points: One, The ability to surveil certain foreign targets was the subject of intense debate in Congress earlier this year, with conservatives criticizing the US intelligence community’s sweeping powers. A two-year authorization of one particular aspect of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – known as Section 702 – finally passed both houses of Congress and was signed by President Joe Biden in April before the program lapsed.

Republicans resisted passing the legislation that made their identification and arrest possible.

Two, their arrest was the result of efforts of ICE and the FBI’s joint terrorism task forces. You know, the agency that republicans want to defund: Republicans conditioned support for the first tranche of spending bills signed by the president on March 9 on cutting $654 million from the FBI budget — including $32 million that went to the heart of operations, a cut that still left far-right Republicans complaining the cuts weren't deep enough.

In addition, as we've discussed, republicans don't want to increase funding for ICE either... they want to have these kinds of arrests in the news during election season.

As the convicted felon told his rally crowd: "I don't care about you."

And he doesn't.

But then, you're in a cult and he knows it.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/11...

https://www.newsweek.com/no-co....