Comments on The Belmont Club "Quid"

The theoretical motivation for this favor was that it avoided triggering a bar on visa renewal or reentry into the country that accompany a criminal conviction. Most people are unaware of these restrictions. The problem is that they were not created by a cabal of reactionary Customs and Border Protection officers nor by some hick local prosecutors who lack the gift for nuance present in the US Attorney's office in Massachusetts. These rules are found in laws written by the Congress.

On a host of issues but especially on that of immigration Congress suffers from massive hypocrisy. They write laws and then write conflicting laws or otherwise encourage the persons charged with executing the laws, that being what the Executive branch does, to not enforce the law. This is not a matter of discretion or rather the law will state where discretion may be exercised and by who.

If Mr Sullivan wanted special relief he could have applied to a friendly Bay State Congressman or he could have openly appealed for mercy in his case to the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security. The one thing he should not have done is sanction any deed that implies the corruption of a prosecutor’s office. That really does raise the question of his fitness for admission.

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BTW to illustrate the power of privileged groups to get special exemptions from the laws written by Congress, if you have tuberculosis then you are barred from entry into the Untied States, but if you have an HIV infection, which is more communicable but is also more aligned with politically favored groups, then the ban on entry due to a Public Health condition does not apply.

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Mr Sullivan is another case similar to Ms Paglia, who we recently discussed. He is of the Left on a whole range of issues but he is not a loyal apparatchik. The hard Left will never forgive him for his apostasy on the War on Terror (as it was) and the Iranian regime (as it is) but his economic libertarianism poses no threat to them. While he can count on some support from the Left they probably view him as a useful provocateur, as many on the right view Ms Paglia, and others will view his discomfit with equanimity.

MarkJ,
(who noted that Sullivan was caught in a similar web of favors)
Nice catch, video worthy.


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Sir Henry Morgan,
From the things to say on your last day at work for TSA file.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Can somebody help this poor man? He doesn't know who he is." ... or ...

"Let's check the lining of your jacket" yank "Look, it says your name must be Robert Hall" (or Calvin Klein etc.)
Ideally that skit plays out until two Supervisors debate whether his name is really Fruit of the Loom.

Sep 12, 2009 - 4:27 pm