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Thousands of children and parents were forcibly separated while seeking asylum in 2017 and 2018.

The United States espouses noble ideals and has worked for more than two centuries to make its way toward them. It's always been an uneven process, however, and sometimes we stumble—or get violently shoved—backward.

The "zero tolerance" policy for handling migrant families was one of those times. The policy, unofficially piloted by the Trump administration in 2017 and officially enacted in May of 2018, forced children and parents to be separated instead of being detained together while awaiting asylum decisions.

During those two years, thousands of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border were taken from their families with no notice, sometimes torn straight from the parents' arms, and sent away to unknown locations around the country. Thousands of parents and caregivers were deported with no idea where their children were or if they'd ever see them again. Some were toddlers and preschoolers. We read horror stories of children screaming while being taken away, their parents frantic but helpless to do anything about it.

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It was a long, frustrating and eventful night for democracy in Michigan.

As the Trump campaign continues to attempt countless failed legal arguments nationally, another partisan effort was brutally rejected. However, this time it wasn't a judge who struck down another flagrant attempt to corrode the integrity of the electoral result - it was the people of Michigan.

On Tuesday night, staunchly Republican members of the Michigan electoral board refused to certify Detroit's election results — an absurd attempt to signal support for the President's increasingly unhinged and petty refusal to recognize Joe Biden as the President-Elect.


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Election 2020 is turning out to be just as batsh*t crazy as 2020 itself, which of course isn't surprising, but certainly is annoying.

Due to Trump's baseless claims that the election is rigged against him and that if only legal votes were counted he'd be winning, states and counties that have spent years honing their elections to make them as secure as possible, that rallied to adjust their systems to accommodate the needs of voters in a global pandemic, and that have managed to pull off hundreds upon hundreds of elections without widespread fraud now have to battle a president publicly attacking the integrity of our entire electoral process.

Good times, America.

No one disagrees that elections should be run fairly. No one disagrees that ballots should be cast within legal boundaries. No one disagrees that every legally cast vote should be counted. No one disagrees that ballot counting should be overseen by representatives of both parties and that poll watchers should raise concerns if they see something questionable in the vote tallying process.

And that has been happening in ballot counting centers across the nation. Unfortunately, so has some ridiculous tomfoolery from the Trump camp.

Julie Moroney is a law student who answered the call for non-partisan poll watchers in Detroit, Michigan, and she shared on Twitter what she experienced as she watched Wayne county ballots being counted.


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Ever wonder what happened to the real people who appeared in a fake documentary? They don't always have to cope with the aftermath of public humilation.

Jeanise Jones was told she would be participating in a documentary about child brides and women's rights. What she actually ended up appearing in was "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm," the sequel to 2006's Borat. Now, a GoFundMe for the Oklahoma grandmother set up by her pastor has raised over $130,000 after Jones told Variety she was only paid $3,600 for her appearance.

If you don't remember Jones, she was the woman tasked with babysitting Borat's daughter, Tutar, while Borat (played by Sacha Baron Cohen) attempted to make money for his daughter's plastic surgery.

"I can't say it was fair because they knew it was going to be a movie, and I didn't. I just thought I was doing a documentary about how we do things in America. But I blame myself for not reading when I signed those papers," Jones told Variety. The GoFundMe was set up after Jones lost her job of 32 years due to the pandemic.

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