Day: November 27, 2019

Undercover US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been operating a fake university designed to lure in immigrants seeking to obtain student visas fraudulently — but the students are claiming they are the ones who have been deceived.

ICE has arrested about 250 students at the University of Farmington in Farmington Hills, Michigan, for violating the terms of their visas, which mandate that they be enrolled full-time at a federally accredited educational institution while they complete their studies, an ICE spokesperson said Wednesday.

The University of Farmington, which ICE agents opened in 2015 to weed out fraudsters, did not qualify …

When Rudy Giuliani talked with top Ukrainian officials about getting dirt on Joe Biden earlier this year, he also wanted something else: lots of money.

That’s the upshot of two new reports from the New York Times and the Washington Post, both of which are based on draft documents and legal agreements apparently drawn up by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and his allies.

At one point in early 2019, Giuliani reportedly wanted Yuri Lutsenko, Ukraine’s then-prosecutor general, to pay his consulting firm $200,000 — purportedly to help the Ukrainian government recover illegally embezzled assets. At another point, Giuliani …

“Thanksdreading: when you’re trans and dreading Thanksgiving dinner bc you’re gonna be surrounded by a whole buncha family that don’t know [or] respect your preferred name and pronouns.”

The Twitter user who expressed this fear isn’t alone. Sentiments like this one are very common online, from the user complaining that her relatives refuse to use her correct pronouns, to the one worried about dealing with relatives who don’t know they’re out.

For many people, going home for the holidays is difficult: It can mean crossing ideological lines, entering into charged political conversations, or even worrying that your basic identity — …

So often during a congressional hearing, when it comes time for a lawmaker to question a witness, they don’t ask a question at all. They grandstand, making a political argument for the people watching at home.

What’s common in Congress is now common in every public forum. On Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, people are using social platforms to make themselves look moral (and therefore good). It’s status-seeking, not argument, and it detracts from the democratic goal of actually engaging in arguments in good faith.

The thing is, it’s hard to know if someone is moral grandstanding when they, for …

If you are a Star Wars super-fan in 2019, you can hypothetically purchase these items to demonstrate your devotion: a , a figurine of Yoda, or a (inspired by coats worn by the 1979 film crew).

Of course, it helps to have disposable income as a fan — especially for a franchise like Star Wars that produces a cycle of new content almost every year or two. The third installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker, will be released next month to theaters packed with zealous fans. If December feels like a galaxy away, then …

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Trump and House Dems trade blows in court

• President Donald Trump’s week began with a court loss and a court win: a federal judge ruled a former White House official cannot ignore a congressional subpoena, as Trump instructed him to do; while the Supreme Court said Trump’s accounting firm doesn’t have to turn over the president’s tax returns to Congress. [Lawfare /