Rescinding DACA is Trump's Shrewdest Move Yet

Today, Trump voluntarily decreased his own power and returned lawmaking authority to Congress. His predecessor, Obama, decided to write immigration law all by himself. That's how we got DACA, via executive order.

AG Sessions announced today that immigration law is back under Congress' purview, where it belongs. Trump isn't ripping away policy like a band-aid. He's kinder and more thoughtful than that. Sessions announced that DACA will end in 6 months, and that Congress should get to work. After all, it's their job - not Trump's - to write immigration law. He's given them plenty of time to work together and come up with a practical, actionable, sustainable fix.

In the meantime, DACA recipients aren't really any worse off now than they were yesterday. Every single person currently enrolled in DACA will be allowed to finish out his or her 2-year work permit. Anyone whose permit is set to expire in the next 6 months can still apply for a 2-year extension. If you like your DACA, you can keep your DACA!

People are flipping out that the DACA work permits will expire. But they were always set to expire! The permits last for two years, as Obama wrote in his executive order. No one should be surprised that two year permits last for two years and not for forever. The DA in DACA stands for "deferred action;" there was never any guarantee of perpetual work permits and permanent residency.

Trump is sympathetic to the DREAMers, who came to this country illegally through no fault of their own. He says, "I have a love for these people and hopefully now Congress will be able to help them and do it properly." That doesn't mean "don't help them." It means "I'm asking you to help them, and do it constitutionally this time."

If Trump simply wanted to get rid of the DREAMers, he would void all the work permits, ban any renewals, and deport those formerly enrolled in the program. It would not have been unprecedented for Trump to dismantle the whole thing the same way Obama set it up - with the stroke of a pen. Instead, Trump forfeited that power and showed real compassion in the meantime. He has protected all of the current DREAMers and given Congress a window to write a more sustainable policy. That is...dare I say it...presidential.

Who are the Syrian rebels?

Most people understand Syria like this:

Assad vs. rebels

Chemical weapons vs. whatever they can get

Russia vs. USA

As Americans, we hear "Civil War" and think of two sides locking horns with each other until one comes out on top. Syria's war isn't like that. There are literally hundreds of groups struggling for power. They merge and split like cells under a microscope.

Rebels aren't necessarily the "good guys." Sometimes, they are - in the words of President Trump - bad hombres. Mainly, they're operating in these 6 groups:

1. Free Syrian Army

These are defectors from Assad's military. Mainly Salafist jihadists, they pretended to be secular for juuuuust long enough to collect weapons from the CIA and Saudi Arabia. Turkey supports the FSA, while Russia opposes it.

Big slices of the FSA ended up quitting that group and joining the al Nusra front a few years ago. The al Nusra front was a Syrian branch of ISIS from 2012 to late January 2017. Al Nusra is now known as...

2. Tahrir al Sham

Just like the FSA, these guys are Salafist Wahabbist Jihadists who want to oust Assad and form a theocracy. (Know who else was Salafist Wahhabist? Osama bin Laden.)

Government estimates place Tahrir al Sham at 40,000 people strong - significant, given that it only started in late January of 2017. Though about 20,000 of ttheir fighters came from al Nusra, they now oppose ISIS (al Nusra's former parent organization) and operate instead as a branch of al Qaeda.

Tahrir al Sham opposes Russia, Syria, Iran, and the United States.

3. Liwa al-Aqsa (here's where things get complicated)

These guys started out as Sarayat al Quds, which was a subset of al Nusra (remember: al Nusra = ISIS).

Sarayat al Quds broke away from Al Nusra because al Nusra was growing too fast. It later joined Al Nusra again, but at that point, al Nusra was using the name Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. Then, these guys changed their name again, to Jund al Aqsa, and broke away yet again.

Just to keep things interesting, this group then changed its name to Liwa al Aqsa. Liwa al Aqsa consisted of roughly 2,100 fighters in February 2017. In that month, Tahrir al Sham (think: al Qaeda) attacked - and the group split in two. One chunk was absorbed into Tahrir al Sham, and the other became part of ISIS.

4. Ahrar al-Sham

Ahrar al Sham is made up of about 20,000 Salafist Jihadists. Saudi Arabia and Turkey fund them, since they oppose Iran and Russia. This group is allied with the Free Syrian Army.

These guys opposed Liwa al Aqsa when it still existed, and they're opposed to ISIS as well. They basically want the same thing: to control Syria under strict sharia law.

5. Ansar al-Sharia

This isn't one group, but a collection of groups that formed an alliance. Their end goal was controlling the city of Aleppo under a joint charter. Al Nusra was a member, as was Ahrar al-Sham.

This joint alliance went about as well as you'd expect. It started in July of 2015 and was defunct in early 2016.

This is not an exhaustive description of these groups, or of all the groups of importance in Syria. Add in foreign interference, and you'd have enough material to fill several books (Hezbollah, for instance, is sending fighters in from Lebanon to keep Assad in power by fighting against the Free Syrian Army and Ansar al Sharia).

Now you see why "provide weapons to the moderate rebels" is not a viable strategy. In a war being fought from all sides, among extremist Islamic groups, there is no clear desirable outcome.

United Airlines Maybe Smeared the Wrong David Dao

United Airlines has a gigantic problem on its hands. They called the police on an elderly man, Dr. David Dao, and violently removed him from a flight to make room for one of their employees.

United went into panic mode as the video took over the headlines. They tried to totally discredit the passenger - and lucky for them, David Dao had faced 98 charges of illegal trafficking of prescription painkillers back in 2003.

Dao's medical license was suspended for a decade. And if that wasn't enough to turn the public against him, Dao had also been found guilty of trading painkillers for sexual favors in one of the most opioid-riddled areas of the country.

United could finally stop the bleeding. One problem: They might have the wrong David Dao.

See, all those criminal records belonged to one David Anh Duy Dao. The man removed from their flight by paramilitary cops was Dr. David Thanh Duc Dao. Are they somehow the same guy?

Either way, past sins do not justify the way this man was treated. Committing a crime doesn't give corporate America a license to abuse you for the rest of your life.

Congratulations to Dr. David Thanh Duc Dao on becoming the new owner of United Airlines.

Dear D.C. Government, You're the WORST

Here's just one example of why D.C. does not deserve statehood, and why bureaucrats can't do anything right:

D.C. requires everyone with an out-of-state license plate to register with the DMV. This "shadow registration" is questionably legal - since when can one state require people who don't live there to register their cars? Whatever, you have to do it.

But you can't do it until you receive a "ROSA warning." ROSA stands for Registered Out of State Automotive. Essentially, you can't prove your innocence until you've already been "caught." So, the D.C. cops saw my car, with GA tags, twice within 30 days. I got my ROSA warning on February 9th. 

I applied for the ROSA on February 13th, well within the 15-day grace period. The DC DMV web site says they'll let you know within 5 days if your application is approved. Guess what definitely didn't happen to me within 5 days?

I chalked it up to government slowness. Whatever, their fault, not mine. And then, the government doubled down on its stupidity, and ticketed me while the ROSA application was still processing. That $100 ticket was issued on March 2nd.

Okay, I'll appeal the ticket and explain that my ROSA is still under review. I submitted all my documents on March 6th. (And just to be safe, I reapplied for the ROSA on March 3, explaining that it was a duplicate of the February 13 application, since that one had not been either approved or denied.)

ALL of the side-eye. All of it.

On March 16th, I finally received my ROSA. (Note that this is within 5 days of...not a damn thing. The hard copy says it went into effect on March 8th; the online version says March 18th. So really, who knows?) 

Newly armed with my ROSA, I enrolled in an online system to track the ticket. The system says it will notify you when certain things happened (new tickets issued, ticket appeals received, ticket fines doubling). "At least I'll get notified when they try to screw me further," I thought, and was totally wrong.

The system never notified me, the fine doubled, and the city government still hasn't responded to my request for adjudication. Now I have to prove that I had applied for adjudication, as I did on March 6th via the online system. 

It's all stored online, right? Nope. The D.C. government "lost" my adjudication request. It also "lost" my first ROSA application. 

Now, the government has tried to fine me for something that is not illegal, ignored a filed dispute, destroyed the evidence, and doubled the fine.

I wouldn't trust these goons to run a g'damn Jamba Juice, let alone a major city. I might fight the ticket. But would they even keep record of the dispute, or will I have to do this all again in a month? 

Do I have time to get my car booted or towed? I do not. I would do anything to expose the evil of bureaucracy, but I won't do that. Nor will I fly on United.

Now, I've paid $200 into a protection racket so my car doesn't get towed for doing something perfectly legal. In conclusion, I am bitter.

Drain the swamp.

Learning Mindfulness, So Far

We're about halfway through Lent, with only a few weeks to go, so I figure it's worth writing down what I've been doing for 40 days and 40 nights this year.

I decided to try out mindfulness meditation.

This sounds like something Whole Foods-y people do, like something people who listen to Enya do, like something Gwyneth Paltrow would do.

But when some people close to me started trying mindfulness - and raving about it - I thought that 1) it might be worth trying, 2) at least it can't hurt, and 3) this gets me out of giving up chocolate this year.

I was leaving the house and having to run back because I'd forget if I'd locked the door (I always had). I would stare at my to-do list for ten minutes unable to get started. These things are normal for a lot of people and if that's the price I pay for trying to do as much as I possibly can in a given day, then I'm ready to pay it. But if I could avoid those side effects, it would be nice.

So I started listening to mindfulness tracks on my way to work. Ten minutes of my commute each day, every day, until Easter. 

I really hated the first two weeks. SO painfully boring. My brain just raced until I could take the exit onto the parkway and turn on the radio to replace my thoughts with somebody else's. Those guided meditations I was listening to - some were good, most were weird (and full of wind chimes! Why?)

As it turns out, just trying to clear your mind and acknowledge your thoughts counts as mindfulness, too. So now I just breathe in for four, out for four, in for four, out for four until about ten minutes has passed. 

And then start my day. (I realize this might make me sound like a distracted driver...it is making me a more focused one.) Over the last week or so, I've noticed that I don't miss those ten minutes of radio as much as I used to.

I'm less likely to forget the name of a person I've just met, and I'm not forgetting where I put my phone or if I've locked the door as often anymore. If someone says something rude to me or about me (working in politics, it happens pretty often) I just...don't care.

So that's where I am at this point. I'm hopeful that my memory and focus will keep getting better as we get closer to Easter.

Passport Renewal

It's been just shy of a decade since I got my first passport. In the picture, I'm tan from a summer spent at the pool, and wearing metallic eye shadow...after all, it was 2007. That day my mom took me to the post office, I had no international trips planned. I had only left the country once, for a few-hour foray into Montreal during the summer we lived in New York.

Since then, that little book went with me to Japan and France and Spain and Costa Rica and Colombia and Italy and England. Those stamps are important to me. (The fact that the very last one is on page "lucky 13" seems like no accident.)

Handing over the one little thing that's been on every trip, in every airport, packed in every suitcase - the one common thread through all those years and places - was not something I was excited about. But federal law is federal law, and federal law doesn't really care about my scrapbook.

Ten years older, 7 countries down. Six weeks to wait for the new passport to arrive by mail. And then...where next?

MILO Needs Serious Help

For a guy who bills himself as a conservative firebrand, Milo somehow manages to never talk about taxes, health care, national security, or government spending. Those are kind of a big deal for anyone right-of-center...but discussing the finer points of federal expenditure doesn't draw crowds quite like saying that "Feminism is Cancer."

Milo knew how to find himself all the right enemies. Campus snowflakes took the bait, protested him en masse, and made him richer and more famous. The media loves outrage, and Milo is happy to stir it up and reap the attention as a reward. 

Milo's signature issues were 1) being gay, 2) hating modern feminism, and 3) opposing Islam because of what it does to gay people. The first one, he didn't choose (but he did intentionally make it a centerpiece of his public persona). The latter two are his opinions, which the First Amendment gives him the right to express.

The First Amendment applies equally to Milo today as it did yesterday. But what he doesn't have anymore is a platform. He was booted from Twitter for inciting racist bullying against Leslie Jones. He's out of CPAC, out of his Simon & Schuster book deal, and out at Breitbart.

So...what does the tanned, toned British boy-wonder-who-likes-boys have left?

He has a Facebook page and a large, loyal following. And that might be enough to build him back up again. Books can be self-published. Anyone can start a web site. Milo has already hinted that he will.

But before he does that, he should get help for the issues yet unresolved in his personal life. 

Before Milo was...well, Milo...he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse. He has said that the abuse was at the hands of two adult men, one of whom was a priest, and that it went on for several years. The now-infamous interview shows Milo trying to laugh it off, trying to make it seem almost normal. Milo has to understand that what happened to him was not normal and it was terribly wrong.

This is not to excuse what he said (there is no excuse), but to understand that such sick, twisted comments came from a deep place of hurt. 

This guy definitely doesn't deserve to be the face of conservatism. He might not deserve any public platform at all. But like any survivor of childhood abuse, he deserves to heal.