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Notes -
Let's start with something juicy
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvp8glg97393o
Couple of starting points - it won't help Trump, chances of uncovering smoking guns that with tank Dems in the eventual records are slim to none. Zero chance she will be stripped of citizenship or her alleged brother deported (cue Alabama joke here). It is not escalation - the escalation was the Trump trial, but as retaliation is quite weak. If democrats obtain trifecta - I wonder what type of further escalation they will figure out.
Personally I find her the most dislikable among the squad, so I won't say I am sad.
So, did she marry her brother to bring him to the United States? It seems very plausible and I'm sure similar things happened all the time prior to 2025. At the same time, conspiracy theories about the personal lives of prominent individuals usually turn out to be fake. I'll confess to wanting to believe, which means extra caution is probably warranted.
In other news Talarico (as per my prediction) has turned up seemingly no worse for wear after a 12 day absence. But... what happened? It's a very strange absence and the official explanation (flu) should be easy to verify if he was receiving medical treatment. IIRC, a right-wing influencer on Twitter claimed to have audio from an employee at a mental health treatment facility in Ohio where Talarico supposedly was being treated after having a mental breakdown. The facility came out today with an official denial. I trust both these accounts very little.
These type of stories almost always turn out to be nothingburgers, but they are definitely fun to think about.
I don't think she married her brother. But her domestic situation was, shall we say, flexible enough to raise some eyebrows. I think it's entirely possible she did an immigration scam marriage for a clan member/related to family guy who wanted to leave the UK for the US and couldn't get in legally/didn't want to wait and go through the long, boring process of application normally.
Just tribal things. She's a legal citizen, she hasn't a civil legal marriage, here's someone from the family/otherwise plugged in to the favour network who needs help, why not? She's already relying heavily on cultural backing and support to be voted into office, now suddenly she is going to get religion and go "oh no I cannot go along with the expectations of my culture, I must adhere to the law of the foreigners"?
The Irish in the US have done enough "oops I mistakenly over stayed my tourist visa - for thirty years" fudging of immigration law that I'm not saying "ethnicity X is all like this", but we're also clannish and favour network enough for me to recognise the pattern.
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