Aww, poor baby justices had to stay up late working? Well, maybe if you didn't issue a stupid as hell ruling that tried to have it both ways a week ago and then kicked everything into the 5th circuit you wouldn't be working at midnight on a Saturday, but here we all are.
It's one rock breaking loose when we need a landslide, but that's how landslides always start
The courts at the time said he was formerly in a gang
I don't think even that's right, I think ICE claimed he was a member of MS-13 (based off of one bullshit statement from a cop whose not allowed to testify anymore for the state prosecutors because he got caught lying about so much other stuff (arc)), but I don't think the immigration court ever really addressed that and just left it at "If you wanted asylum you should have asked within one year after getting into the country but you've been here 7 years, and that's reason enough to rule against you"
Besides that, Garcia never said he was a member of a gang. He said his family was threatened by a completely different gang and that they were going to hurt him if he didn't join them, but he left instead of joining them (arc).
Like, his only real connection to a gang is being a victim of it, but the Laken Riley Act supporting assholes of our world will never give a shit about brown people being victimized by criminal gangs because they're racist hypocritical douchebags (and maybe they understand on some level they've got the same kind of symbiotic relationship with MS-13 that George W had with Al Quaeda and Netanyahu has with Hamas).
Snopes says her methods are legit
Rubin says she is certified on a device known as a handheld XRF, or X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. Such a machine is used extensively in a variety of scientific disciplines and can provide a basic assessment of the chemical composition of an object by exciting the object’s molecules with X-rays and seeing what secondary X-rays are emitted, according to Thermo Fisher:
XRF analyzers determine the chemistry of a sample by measuring the fluorescent (or secondary) X-ray emitted from a sample when it is excited by a primary X-ray source. Each of the elements present in a sample produces a set of characteristic fluorescent X-rays ("a fingerprint") that is unique for that specific element, which is why XRF spectroscopy is an excellent technology for qualitative and quantitative analysis of material composition.
Experts agree that this method is a valid first approach for the detection of lead in a sample. A 2013 study performed by researchers at the California Department of Public Health Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch suggests that XRF “is an effective screening method for food and similar items with lead content > or = 10 ppm [parts per million], provided the operator is trained to identify lead spectra.”
We reached out to an expert via email: Howard Mielke, a professor of Pharmacology at Tulane’s School of Medicine, who heads a research unit into lead contamination and once served alongside Rubin as a board member for Lead Safe America. We asked him if XRF was a valid method for Rubin’s purposes, and he told us that it was, but only as a first step. The second and more expensive step involves seeing how much if any of that lead is capable of being transferred to a child: "The use of the XRF is suitable as a first step in determining lead in an object. The second step involves evaluating whether or not the lead is readily picked up on hands or ingestible through the use of the object. The second step is the expensive step but it provides information critical to understanding the possibility of lead poisoning from the object."
Note that the story here says the toothpastes have lead in them, not that they're necessarily causing lead poisoning, so it seems entirely accurate.
Shame on the Guardian
They're not the only ones reporting this,
https://fortune.com/well/article/toothpaste-brands-toxic-metals-lead-arsenic-mercury-cadmium/
Van Hollen shouldn't have publicized those pictures at all, everything from the setting to the clothes they gave Garcia was a misrepresentation of what he's going through
If they spend weeks convincing you that you should do it, give you money or other resources to do it, or so on, then it can be entrapment.
Things like that should theoretically help you make an argument for entrapment, but it's no sure thing
I don't understand your aggressive tone
I can understand people being furious about seeing the progress fascism is making in our country. I think the aggression is a bit misdirected in this particular case, but I get it.
You're calling the kettle black in the middle of the cookware aisle here, we're all "keyboard warriors," you just don't like this one's opinion
If he'd tried to forcibly secure Garcia's release that would very likely set off an insane chain of consequences we haven't made adequate preparations for. Like, if nothing else, Van Hollen would be a fugitive from the American government at that point because there's no way any American court would let a Senator start doing commander in chief stuff like that.
Want to see a politician that really goes the extra fucking mile and stays the fuck there until they leave with him
I tend to agree, but we need all the votes in the US Senate we can get right now, so I think Van Hollen's a bad person to do this. A quick online search tells me there's a decent margin in the Maryland state Senate though, so one of those lawmakers could camp down there and keep pushing this.
Every single photo and video from CECOT is staged
So if Van Hollen couldn't have taken any photos or videos without the prison guards' interference that's all the more reason not to make and share sanctioned propaganda for them like these photos were.
Doubters would be asking for real proof
Again, for reasons already discussed these pictures are not proof of anything and if anything only serve to make Van Hollen's statements seem less credible and make any doubters seem more reasonable. I think I still believe him, but the gullibility displayed here by sharing this misinformation is incredible.
If he was talking to a stuffed corpse, once he leaves El Salvador, there's nothing stopping Sen. Van Hollen to say so
I guess I'm less cynical than you are, I'm willing to assume Van Hollen's statements from El Salvador weren't pure bullshit and provide proof that these photos don't, but if people are arguing that his statement was coerced somehow then we really didn't get anything at all from this trip other than a propaganda win for the fascists who are going to use these pictures to argue that CECOT isn't that bad.
I don't know what you would want from the Senator
I want him to not be duped into sharing fascists' propaganda. Going to El Salvador and meeting with Garcia and sharing a statement about that meeting and what he observed during it was good (actually, in spite of the harm he did by sharing those misleading photos I'm still grateful to the Senator just for giving Garcia a friendly face to talk to), but sharing staged photographs and not realizing that those pictures are going to be used by fascists to dispute his statements and drown out all the long boring detailed reports from human rights NGOs about conditions at this prison that the average American never reads was bad.
I think his heart was in the right place here, he just did a boneheaded thing accidentally at a time when we really need everyone to be on their A game.
e; One other thing I want from the next person who's able to secure a visit with Garcia - bring his lawyer and spouse with you so they can meet with him as well
Ugh, the fact that people are referring to these pre-planned and staged pictures as proof of anything shows the damage this did.
These pictures don't prove anything, Garcia could be dead in those pictures and they could have taken him to a goddamn taxidermist and posed him. The fact that a US lawmaker who seems to not be a fascist moron says he met with Garcia and Garcia is alive is proof, but those photos are pure bullshit that don't tell us anything and should not have been shared.
Good
(archived)