🤮🤥 “DUH” OF THE DAY: “Billy the Bigot” Barr Is An Unethical, Right-Wing Hack Who Abused His Authority @ DOJ In Service Of Trump Over America! — Durham Investigation Was “Abusive, Partisan, and Unhinged!“

 

Barr Departs
Lowering The Barr by Randall Enos, Easton, CT
Republished By License

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/01/the-durham-probe-was-barrs-witch-hunt.html

Johnathan Chait
Johnathan Chair
Political Columnist
NY Magazine
PHOTO: Facebook

Johnathan Chait @ The Intelligencer:

There is an enduring pattern in American conservatism in which the right first develops a paranoid interpretation of the liberal Establishment, and then reverse engineers its own version of the monster it has imagined. Conservatives convinced themselves that the mainstream media and universities were mere propaganda organs, then created institutions like the Heritage Foundation and Fox News, warped reflections of their own overheated critique. The January 6 insurrection was, of course, in the mind of its participants, a “response” to the imagined vote-fraud conspiracy and its antifa/BLM shock troops.

John Durham’s investigation is a classic episode in this tradition. The American right first convinced itself that Robert Mueller and the deep state, using the cover of dispassionate professionalism, had launched a partisan witch hunt to smear Donald Trump. In response, it created a right-wing mirror image, as fervently partisan and unhinged as they believed their enemies to be.

The New York Times has a deeply reported narrative showing how Durham’s counter-investigation of the Russia probe, cooked up by William Barr at Donald Trump’s urging, was just as abusive, partisan, and unhinged as Trump’s defenders made Mueller out to be.

The purpose of special counsel is to wall off a politically sensitive investigation from the attorney general. But Durham, reports the Times, was working closely with Barr behind closed doors all along. The two Republicans dined and drank together, and came to share Barr’s Fox News–brained beliefs that Trump had been the victim of a conspiracy.

Rather than preventing Barr from meddling in a politicized investigation, this arrangement inverted that purpose and laundered Barr’s involvement through Durham’s putative independence. “At some point, some particularly ill-informed critic of the administration may try to paint Durham as a right-wing hack or Republican loyalist,” wrote National Review’s Jim Geraghty in a fawning profile, singling out the NAACP’s Sherrilyn Ifill for having the temerity to suggest Durham might have been compromised by serving Trump’s ends.

Durham and Barr kept failing to prove the deep-state conspiracy they imagined, but continued to press forward anyway. At one point they seized upon hacked Russian memos that intelligence analysts deemed obviously fake, instead treating them as a valuable intelligence trove, and tried to prove it out, even harassing one of the targets to obtain his emails (which contained nothing incriminating). It weirdly reflected the Trumpist accusation that Robert Mueller had been tricked into pursuing Russian disinformation.

As Durham kept failing to find support for the conspiracy he was pursuing, and which Barr kept floating in public, his deputies chafed at his obsession. Eventually, one of them resigned in protest when he brought charges against Michael Sussmann, a target of the right. As his former lieutenants expected, Durham’s case was defeated in court.

. . . .

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Read the complete article at the link.

Immigration advocates didn’t need a NY Times investigation to tell you that Barr was corrupt! Biased anti-immigrant, anti-asylum “AG precedents;” BIA “Appellate Judges” appointed for their unusually high asylum denial rates and known hostility to migrants and their attorneys; Immigration Judges appointed without expertise in immigration and human rights, overwhelmingly from the ranks of prosecutors; busting the IJ union (“NAIJ”) for speaking out against DOJ’s politicized mismanagement; issuing an EOIR “Fact Sheet” full of lies, misrepresentations, and myths; appointing politicized managers at EOIR without judicial or due process qualifications; taking ethically questionable litigating positions in Federal Court; the list of Barr’s abuses of authority on immigration and human rights goes on and on!

AG Merrick Garland has made a few ameliorative changes. Some of the worst precedents have been overruled; some unqualified political senior executives been removed or reassigned; over time, judicial selection has been shifted to a more balanced, merit-based system that has resulted in the appointment as Immigration Judges of some widely-recognized experts, with experience representing individuals, and a demonstrated commitment to due process for all; “numerical quotas” for IJs have been eliminated. (Curiously, however, Garland “honored” 17 “transition” Barr judicial selections made under badly flawed selection criteria!)

Yet, overall, EOIR remains largely the disaster zone that Barr left behind. Trump-era anti-asylum Appellate Judges continue to dominate the BIA; many Trump-era IJs still misapply basic immigration legal standards and operate “asylum free zones;” management is weak; training is inadequate; dockets are out of control; respondents and their attorneys are treated unprofessionally; quality control is largely nonexistent; wildly inconsistent “refugee roulette” asylum adjudication remains; an enforcement-skewed culture of “any reason to deny and deport” continues to infect EOIR at all levels; “numbers” are emphasized over quality and fairness; and the DOJ’s OIL often defends indefensible EOIR decisions in Federal Court on the apparent rationale that “it’s only migrants’ lives at stake, so who cares!”

Unhappily, the Biden Administration has barely “scratched the surface” of the badly needed and long overdue common sense reforms needed at EOIR and the DOJ to put the Sessions/Barr abuses behind us and move forward! Barr was a bad AG; but, his ghost continues to haunt the DOJ and those seeking equal justice for all!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-30-23

 

GOOD YUCKS! 😀 MOSCOW MITCH LAUGHS AS AMERICANS SUFFER! 🤮 – MM Lets Sick, Dying, Unemployed Americans Suffer W/O Economic Aid So That GOP Can “Steamroll” Barrett Appointment Opposed By Majority!

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/13/mitch-mcconnell-laughs-covid-relief-amy-mcgrath-kentucky-senate-debate?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Martin Pengelly writes in New York:

Criticised by challenger Amy McGrath in a debate on Monday night for blocking a new coronavirus relief bill, Mitch McConnell laughed.

“Trying to figure out what he is laughing about,” tweeted Claire McCaskill, a former Democratic senator from Missouri who now works for NBC News.

Nearly 7.8m coronavirus cases and almost 215,000 deaths have been recorded in the US. Amid devastating economic fallout, Congress has not passed a relief package since May, when the Democratic-held House passed a $3tn bill the Republican Senate did not take up. Donald Trump recently dynamited negotiations, which he then tried to restart.

McGrath and McConnell met to debate in Lexington during a rise in cases in Kentucky. The Democrat has raised impressive sums and stayed in touch in the polls – though victory remains unlikely.

“The House passed a bill in May and this Senate went on vacation,” McGrath said.

As McConnell chuckled, she continued: “I mean, you just don’t do that. You negotiate. Senator, it is a national crisis, you knew that the coronavirus wasn’t gonna end at the end of July. We knew that.”

As McConnell tried to interrupt, still chuckling, McGrath said: “If you want to call yourself a leader … you got to get things done and those of us who served in the marines, we don’t just point fingers at the other side. We get the job done.”

McConnell blamed the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, saying: “Look, I know how to make deals. I made three major deals with Joe Biden during the Obama era. What the problem is here is the unwillingness of the speaker to make a deal.”

On Tuesday, after Trump tweeted “STIMULUS! Go big or go home!!!”, McConnell said the Senate would soon vote on a “skinny” bill, meant to tap into unused funds from previous legislation, a course Pelosi has already rejected.

. . . .

************************************

Nothing funnier in times of extreme national distress than a Republican showing you where the party’s real priorities lie. HINT: It’s NOT with “We the People.”

Vote ‘em out, vote. ‘em out!

 

PWS

10-12-20

 

 

 

 

 

SUPREMES’ CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY DELIVERS BRUTAL HIT TO CONSTITUTION: Uses Bogus “Cop Out” Standing Ground To OK Trump’s Fake “Emergency” Misappropriation Of Funds To Build Wall That Congress Pointedly Refused To Fund!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-says-trump-can-proceed-with-plan-to-spend-military-funds-for-border-wall-construction/2019/07/26/f2a63d48-aa55-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html

Robert Barnes
Robert Barnes
Supreme Court Reporter
Washington Post

Robert Barnes reports for the Washington Post:

The Supreme Court Friday night on a 5 to 4 vote revived the Trump administration’s plan to use $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds to build part of the wall project along the southern border.

The court’s conservatives set aside a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruling for the Sierra Club and a coalition of border communities that said a reallocation of the Defense Department money would violate federal law.

The unsigned ruling by the Supreme Court said the government “made a sufficient showing at this stage” the groups did not have proper standing to challenge transfer of money.

In a 2-to-1 decision earlier this month, the 9th Circuit majority noted that a stalemate between Congress and President Trump over the issue prompted the longest government shutdown in history. The judges reasoned that Congress made its intentions clear by allocating only about $1.4 billion for enhanced border protection.

The lower court said the public interest was “best served by respecting the Constitution’s assignment of the power of the purse to Congress, and by deferring to Congress’s understanding of the public interest as reflected in its repeated denial of more funding for border barrier construction.

After Congress’s decision earlier this year, Trump announced plans to use more than $6 billion allocated for other purposes to fund the wall, which was the signature promise of his presidential campaign

Environmentalists and the Southern Border Communities Coalition immediately filed suit to block the transfer of funds. Democrats in the House of Representatives filed a brief supporting them.

U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court that the 9th Circuit ruling was wrong. “The sole basis for the injunction — that the Acting Secretary exceeded his statutory authority in transferring the funds — rests on a misreading of the statutory text,” Francisco wrote. He was referring to Patrick M. Shanahan, who was acting secretary at the time.

Francisco said that the challengers did not have proper legal standing to challenge the transfer of funds. He added that even if they did, their “interests in hiking, birdwatching, and fishing in designated drug-smuggling corridors do not outweigh the harm to the public from halting the government’s efforts to construct barriers to stanch the flow of illegal narcotics across the southern border.”

The money was transferred from DOD personnel funds in response to a request from the Department of Homeland Security. Federal law allows such transfers for “unforeseen” reasons and for expenditures not previously “denied by the Congress.”

The administration contends that Congress did not reject the specific expenditures at issue, which would fund projects in California, New Mexico and Arizona.

The challengers said Congress was clear.

pastedGraphic.png

“Congress recently considered, and rejected, the same argument defendants [the government] make here: that a border wall is urgently needed to combat drugs,” said the brief from lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the groups.

“If defendants were nonetheless permitted to obligate taxpayer funds and commence construction, the status quo would be radically and irrevocably altered.”

The brief from the U.S. House of Representatives agreed.

“The administration refuses to accept this limitation on its authority, as clearly demonstrated by Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s statement that President Trump’s border wall ‘is going to get built with or without Congress,’ ” House General Counsel Douglas N. Letter wrote. “Under our constitutional scheme, an immense wall along our border simply cannot be constructed without funds appropriated by Congress for that purpose.”

And Letter said that the administration’s view of who is within the “zone of interest” to have standing to sue is “in reality, an argument that no one can challenge the conduct at issue here.”

Francisco moved quickly after the 9th Circuit’s July 3 ruling to ask the Supreme Court to dissolve the lower court’s injunction. It asked the justices to rule before July 26, so the Defense Department would have time to finalize construction contracts before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Otherwise, he said, “the remaining unobligated funds will become unavailable.”

The challengers said the money already was unavailable.

The brief filed by the House said the money would not be lost, but would simply go back into the treasury, where the administration would again be free to make its request to Congress.

It noted there was no rush. “The administration has apparently completed only 1.7 of the 95 miles of border fencing Congress approved and appropriated funds for in fiscal year 2018,” it said.

The case is Trump v. Sierra Club, et al.

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For those outside the legal community, “lack of standing” is often a legalistic ruse used by spineless judges who want to reach a particular result without explaining any real rationale on the actual merits of the case.

I just read another article by Andrew Sullivan about how our system is failing to hold Trump accountable for his lawless actions. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/andrew-sullivan-the-american-system-is-already-failing.html.

I don’t agree with everything Sullivan says. In particular, his criticism of Democrats seems over the top. While the party has its failings, they only control 1/6 of the Government. Trying to leverage that into a strategy that preserves the American Republic by defeating Trump in 2020 is an essential endeavor, not an exercise in tilting at windmills. 

But, Sullivan’s “bottom line” might be disturbingly “on point:” 

The awful truth is that the American constitutional system is failing on almost every level. The system, it turns out, is not even strong enough to withstand one Trump term, let alone two. Trump intuited this in 2016, and if he wins reelection, as he now has a good chance of doing, what’s left of liberal democracy will be under acute duress.

The “extinction-level event” that I feared in the spring of 2016 is already here. Look around you. And it wasn’t even a fight.

The Supremes’ majority’s failure to call out Trump both for his contempt for Constitutional separation of powers and his constant use of the S

upremes themselves to “short circuit” the lower Federal Courts in an unprecedented manner contributes mightily to the demise of the rule of law.

Chief Justice Roberts might self-righteously and self-servingly proclaim that there are no “Democratic Judges” or “Republican Judges.” But, actions speak louder than words, Chiefie!

The pathetic performance of Roberts and his fellow GOP appointees in this case gives lie to his claim. And Trump, for all his failings, sees and is willing to use the sad truth that Roberts denies in a never ending attack on our country and our supposedly governing principles.

It started with the “conservative” Justices’ outrageous abdication of duty in the “Travel Ban Case.” Rather than standing up to a President who spewed obvious lies, racism, and anti-Muslim venom in support of a political agenda that clearly violated Constitutional norms, the majority signaled that as long as Trump gave them “cover” by asserting clearly contrived and fabricated “national security” grounds, they would give him a free hand to destroy the nation. These “cowardly false conservatives” now find themselves presiding over the demise of our legal system.  

And, while they might feel that they are above paying attention to the human carnage caused by the their intransigence and dereliction of duty, that misbegotten “Travel Ban” majority opinion has caused, and continues to cause, trauma and probably death to innocent refugees caught up in Trump’s unconstitutional racist onslaught.

Trump has a history of turning against those who have served him, but outlive their usefulness. Who will the “GOP Gang of Five Justices” look to for protection when the screw turns again and they become the “aliens,” stripped of their rights and humanity in Trump’s (Not So) “Brave New World?”

Those who fail to stand up to tyranny and protect the rights of others might find themselves unprotected in their hour of need!

PWS

07-27-19

HOW JUSTICE DIED: Trump Relies On Smug, Complicit Functionaries Like Rod Rosenstein To Undermine The Rule Of Law: “It is the Rosensteins who translate the president’s lizard-brain impulses into practical directives and create a patina of normalcy around them.”

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/rod-rosenstein-comey-barr-mueller-trump-russia-department-justice.html

Jonathan Chait in New York Maggie:

President Trump’s progress in corrupting the Department of Justice — and, to some extent, the entire federal government — into a weapon of his autocratic aspirations relies on the acquiescence of figures like Rod Rosenstein. It is the Rosensteins who translate the president’s lizard-brain impulses into practical directives and create a patina of normalcy around them. (Or, in some increasingly rare cases, refuse to do so.) And so Rosenstein’s spate of valedictory remarks attempting to cleanse and justify his service to Trump give us real insight into the worldview of the compliant bureaucratic functionary.

In a speech last night, Rosenstein delivered a sharp attack on former FBI Director James Comey. Rosenstein, of course, supplied Trump with a letter justifying Comey’s removal. Rosenstein justified his cooperation by claiming ignorance of any obstruction of justice motive. “Nobody said that the removal was intended to influence the course of my Russia investigation.”

It is perhaps remotely possible that Rosenstein actually did not realize what was going on with Trump, Comey, and the Russia investigation. It is not possible that Rosenstein believed, as he wrote, that Donald “Lock her up!” Trump fired Comey for treating Hillary Clinton unfairly, which is the reason Rosenstein elucidated in his letter.

Rosenstein also gushed about the rule of law, assuring his audience that it is safe, and implictly crediting Trump with upholding it. “We use the term ‘rule of law’ to describe our obligation to follow neutral principles,” he lectured. “As President Trump pointed out, ‘we govern ourselves in accordance with the rule of law rather [than] … the whims of an elite few or the dictates of collective will.’”

More revealingly, Rosenstein lashed out at Comey, who has made some cutting remarks about Rosenstein’s character, as a “partisan pundit.” Rosenstein’s conceit here is that Comey, a lifelong Republican, has become “partisan” by attacking Trump’s character. Meanwhile, Rosenstein, also a Republican, has maintained his neutrality and therefore his credibility.

But Rosenstein’s idea of nonpartisan neutrality does not require abstaining from political commentary. It merely requires abstaining from criticism of his boss. In another recent speech, Rosenstein attacked the Obama administration for failing “to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls, and how they relate to a broader strategy to undermine America.” (Blaming Obama for doing too little to stop the Russian operation, when Trump was abetting it and Republican leader Mitch McConnell threatened to publicly attack any administration statement against it, is one of Trump’s Orwellian talking points.)

It might seem hypocritical for Rosenstein to parrot Trump’s talking points and then lash out as Comey as a partisan pundit. But from Rosenstein’s standpoint, it probably feels perfectly consistent. Opinions that extol and burnish the powers that be are qualitatively different than opinions tearing them down. Rosenstein’s opinions are not opinions at all. They are merely the lubricant in the proper functioning of the machinery of government.

And so Rosenstein joined with William Barr to spin the Mueller report — in a fashion so misleading that Mueller himself memorialized his objections in a memo — and declare all of Trump’s efforts to obstruct the probe to be non-crimes. Barr is meanwhile authorizing the fourth counter-investigation of the Russia probe. This will probably fail to yield any charges, but will succeed in making anybody in the Department of Justice think very carefully before looking into any crimes by Trump or his friends, with the full understanding that Republicans will harass them for years if they try.

Trump continues to mock even the pretense that his attorney general should make investigative decisions independent of politics. “I’m proud of our attorney general that he is looking into it,” he told reporters today. Somehow, Rosenstein is able to look upon the situation he has left with pride. Mueller was never fired. More importantly, neither was Rosenstein himself. It is easy for the inside man to confuse a system that is intact with a system that is working.

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Here is my assessment of Rosenstein’s legacy from a recent post:

Rosenstein is on his way out the door at the DOJ.  He’ll leave behind a mixed legacy. He’ll deserve great credit for protecting the Mueller investigation from Trump’s various attempts to interfere and compromise it. On the other hand, he drafted the infamous “pretext memo” which was part of the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to cover up Trump’s real real reason for firing FBI Director Jim Comey.

His failure to stand up for judicial independence, fairness, and due process for vulnerable individuals coming before our U.S. Immigration Courts and his continuing defense of the Administration’s indefensible and harmful White Nationalist immigration agenda will go down as one of his lesser moments.

America needs an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court where judges act fairly and impartially and owe allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, not the Attorney General or any other political official.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/03/18/dag-rosenstein-inadvertently-makes-compelling-argument-for-independent-article-i-u-s-immigration-court-in-speech-to-new-judges-places-emphasis-on-executive-fealty-to-attorney-general-no/

Rosenstein is a good illustration of why 1) we need an independent U.S. Immigration Court, and 2) the U.S. Department of Justice is a failed organization whose mission and functions need thoughtful reexamination once Trump and his GOP toadies have been removed from power.

Interestingly, Rosenstein once was considered a “straight up guy” — a public servant who had served honorably in Administrations of both parties. Whatever else one might say about Trump, he does have a talent for bringing out and exploiting the underlying sliminess and weakness in folks once thought to be decent human beings and good public servants: John Kelly, Lindsay Graham, Kirstjen Nielsen, Rosenstein, Nikki Haley, Bill Barr, Rachel Brand, etc.

Somewhere out there are pockets of the “anti-Rosensteins” — civil servants who continue to uphold their oaths of office, do the right thing, and put Due Process, human lives, and the public welfare above job security or sucking up to power. Hopefully, we will reach a point in time where their stories can be told and where “sell-outs” like Rosenstein are held accountable for aiding and abetting the abuse of power.

PWS

05-15-19

ERIC LEVITZ @ NY MAG: Trump Is A Scofflaw Fraud, Particularly On Immigration — “It is abundantly clear, then, that the Trump administration’s fanatical opposition to illegal immigration is not rooted in a commitment to upholding U.S. law but rather in some other concern it does not wish to speak in public.”

https://apple.news/A1erR6RRPRnyc6GVYdS2PAw

Eric Levitz writes in NY Magazine:

PRESIDENT TRUMP

Trump Wants America to Stop Enforcing Its Immigration Laws

Donald Trump has nothing against “lawful immigrants” — in fact, he believes they “enrich our society and contribute to our nation.” And the president certainly has no investment in maintaining the United States as a majority-white nation; he is, after all, “the least racist person you have ever met.

The left might try to defame this White House by insisting its hard-line immigration policies are motivated by nativism or even white-nationalist sympathies. But the administration has made its true motives perfectly clear: It has not adopted a “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants out of animus for foreign people but simply out of reverence for American law.

“In a Trump administration, all immigration laws will be enforced,” Trump promised a crowd in Phoenix two months before his election. “Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation — that is what it means to have laws and to have a country.”

Trump has repeatedly invoked this absolutist commitment to the law when seeking to justify unpopular immigration policies. The president never offered an affirmative argument for canceling the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provided temporary work permits to 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as children. To the contrary, almost immediately after terminating DACA, the president claimed he supported protections for Dreamers in principle and implored Congress to write such protections into legislation. He didn’t want to hurt Dreamers — or use them as bargaining chips in negotiations with Democrats — he just felt the Executive branch did not have the authority to make immigration policy unilaterally. Sure, past Republican presidents (and the federal courts) might have considered deferred action to be within the Executive branch’s purview. But Trump was a stickler about the Constitution’s separation of powers. We are a nation of laws, not men. On such grounds, the president would later justify making America into the kind of nation that punishes migrant mothers by separating them from their children.

Of course, the white-collar-criminal-in-chief’s professed devotion to law and order was always a transparent fraud (this is a man who has publicly insisted that the attorney general’s job is to subordinate the law to the president’s personal interests). But even by this administration’s standards, its latest efforts to crack down on “illegal immigration” are gobsmacking in their hypocrisy.

Last week, the White House purged many of its own appointees from the Department of Homeland Security, suggesting that the president was looking to go in a “tougher” direction. Subsequent reporting has clarified that tougher was a euphemism for “lawless.”

Under U.S. law, any foreign national who sets foot on our nation’s soil has a legal right to seek asylum from persecution or violence in that person’s home country — if he or she can pass an initial screening conducted by asylum officials. And Congress designed such screenings with an eye toward minimizing the number of genuinely endangered people whom America sends back into harm’s way (rather than minimizing the number of economic migrants whom our asylum courts are forced to process). As a result, about 90 percent of those who claim asylum make it past the initial screening.

As violence and instability in Central America have sent hundreds of thousands of migrant families to our border, this law has created logistical problems for the Trump administration. Litigating asylum claims can take months, even years. And the United States does not have the resources to detain every asylum seeker who makes it past the initial test. Thus the White House finds itself in the position of releasing asylum seekers into the United States, likely allowing some number to slip into the country and thereby become undocumented immigrants.

For whatever reason, this administration cares more about curbing such immigration (even though undocumented immigration is associated with reductions in crime, and the U.S. has an acute need for more “low skill” labor) than it does about enforcing all of America’s immigration laws. As the New York Times explains:

In a separate conversation, President Trump implored then–DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to ban migrants from seeking asylum.

It is abundantly clear, then, that the Trump administration’s fanatical opposition to illegal immigration is not rooted in a commitment to upholding U.S. law but rather in some other concern it does not wish to speak in public.

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Duh!

Like policies driven by White Nationalism and racism.  Or, maybe “malicious incompetence.” That’s why it’s important for Dems not to be hoodwinked into abandoning or wrongly watering down (under the guise of a bogus “compromise”) the laws that offer refugees and migrants at least some legal protections in response to Trump’s self-created crisis that doesn’t threaten U.S. security but does threaten the lives and rights of refugees and other migrants.

Indeed, the best short-term solution to the Southern Border would be to work in a competent, cooperative, and good faith manner to fairly administer the asylum and other protection laws that we currently have on the books.

But, a fair and efficient administration of the laws already on the books undoubtedly would result in more refugees from Central America (and elsewhere) being granted asylum or some other form of protection. And, since that could be done by adjudication and judicial officials, the Border Patrol could go back to protecting the borders from real threats.

But, that’s the result that Trump and his White Nationalist cronies don’t want. That’s why they are working so hard to make the mess worse while shifting blame to the victims. Pretty much the definition of official bullying and cowardice.

PWS

04-19-19

GRIFTER-IN-CHIEF SAYS JUSTICE’S JOB IS TO PROTECT GOP CONGRESSIONAL GRIFTERS FROM JUSTICE! — “The only thing standing between American democracy and Trump’s vision of a Putin-like regime that terrorizes the opposition while nourishing an oligarchy of regime supporters is that much-mocked word: a norm. “

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/trumps-war-on-democracy-department-justice.html

Jonathan Chait writes in NY Maggie:

Over the Labor Day weekend, official Washington staged a celebration of itself through the funeral of John McCain. The insularity on display somewhat understandably enrages critics on the left and right alike. In their treatment of President Trump as a boorish outlier, and a unique personal threat to the health of the Republic, the elites either revealed their implicit conspiracy against the president (according to populists of the right) or their own insularity (according to the populists of the left).

It is certainly true that the bipartisan resistance centered around McCain has registered more self-satisfaction than actual resistance. Still, on the same weekend official Washington was treating Trump as an outcast, Trump was demonstrating what he has done to earn this status. In a revealing weekend tweet, he castigated his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for allowing the Justice Department to indict a pair of House Republicans.

Trump’s latest declaration of corrupt intent puts a fine point on the question both groups of skeptics have tended to avoid. Right-wing Trump allies have defended his assault on the Department of Justice by picking apart the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation, adopting (for the narrow purposes of defending Trump) a radically pro-civil-libertarian view of FISA warrants, or demanding to know why Trump’s subordinates are being charged with crimes other than collusion with Russia. On the left, some critics have mocked the idea that there is anything worthwhile in the bipartisan defense of democratic norms against Trump.

But Trump’s intention to politicize the Department of Justice frames in sharp detail the question they have largely elided. However one feels about the general merits of the Washington Establishment, here is a threat to a specific governing norm whose value is beyond dispute. Trump objects to the indictments of two House Republicans who have been caught in blatant illegality. Representative Chris Collins, the first House Republican to endorse him, was overheard boasting about making colleagues rich with his inside information. Representative Duncan Hunter not only systematically misappropriated public funds but was recorded in a series of damning emails. These are not marginal cases. Trump’s entire rationale for opposing the prosecutions is that they hurt his party.

And Trump has been repeatedly clear about his objective. He regularly demands that his attorney general protect his personal interests and open investigations into figures he dislikes. Trump tried to sell Sessions on the prospect that he would become a “hero” to the Republican base by locking up Hillary Clinton, and then berated him when he failed to do so. Trump’s lawyers have written a memo defending his prerogative to do so. “The President not only has unfettered statutory and Constitutional authority to terminate the FBI Director,” they argued, “he also has Constitutional authority to direct the Justice Department to open or close an investigation, and, of course, the power to pardon any person before, during, or after an investigation and/or conviction.”

Regardless of the law, there is nobody actually willing to defend such an arrangement on normative grounds. A system in which a president can order up investigations of the opposing party and quash investigations of his own would hand incumbents a weapon so powerful it would make democracy a sham. Vladimir Putin has not needed to cancel elections in order to cement his authority. His most important tool has been selective law enforcement, which has allowed him to court allies with the promise of riches and legal impunity, and to intimidate his critics with with ruinous threats to their reputation, fortunes and freedoms.

Wall Street Journal editorial earlier this year sneered, “we’re pleased to report that there hasn’t been a fascist coup in Washington.” It hasn’t been for lack of trying, or for lack of support from institutional Republican organs like the Journal. Indeed, despite a handful of criticisms, Republicans in Congress have largely refused to criticize Trump’s demands to control the DOJ.

Neither the law nor the Constitution can do much to stop Trump from fully corrupting the Justice Department. The only thing standing between American democracy and Trump’s vision of a Putin-like regime that terrorizes the opposition while nourishing an oligarchy of regime supporters is that much-mocked word: a norm. It is on this specific question, not some generalized cultural assessment of the Washington elite, that the struggle to defend democracy rests.

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The first step top getting our “Mussolini Wannabe” out of office, reestablishing “norms,” and recreating a functioning two-party system is to get to the polls and remove the GOP enablers, fellow travelers, cowards, and out ands out White Nationalists from office this fall, at all levels of Government. The grifters must go!

PWS

09-05-18

JIM CROW’S RETURN: SESSIONS ENDS TOXIC WEEK BY REVEALING HIMSELF AS ANTI-CHRIST! — Makes Bogus Claim That Christian Teaching Supports Child Abuse & Cruelty In The Name of “The Law” — African Americans Well Understand AG’s Perverted Bible Quote Once Used To Justify Slavery And Dehumanization (As Well As Nazism & Apartheid) — Shines Spotlight On His Own Deviance From The Merciful, Healing, Kind, & Forgiving Message of Christ!

Here’s a wonderful response to Sessions by Kansas City Attorney Andrea C. Martinez:

The “Christian” B.S. Litmus Test
By , Andrea C. Martinez, Esq.

To my amazing friends who are atheist, agnostic, or non-Christian. To the good-willed and the pissed-off. To the people who are genuinely confused as to how Jefferson Sessions and Sarah Huckabee Sanders can use the Bible as a justification for abhorrent policies such as the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border or the persecution of vulnerable asylum seekers, I am a Jesus-follower with a Bible degree from a Christian college and I GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO CALL B.S.

Please join me in calling B.S. whenever you hear people use the Bible to justify the oppression of others. Especially when they misuse and cite Romans 13 to justify their mistreatment. While Romans 13:4 calls us to submit to government authorities because “the one in authority is God’s servant for your good” it does not require us to submit to an unjust law. If the government authority is not acting in a way that reflects God’s law, which is the loving treatment of others, Jesus invites us to participate in civil disobedience. Remember when Jesus healed a man’s hand on the Sabbath in violation of the Jewish law (Mark 3:1-6) and says, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” Matthew 3:4. Then he goes ahead and heals the man. There are numerous other examples in the Bible of civil disobedience that I would be happy to analyze with you at a different time (like the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego).

We must look first and foremost to Jesus Himself and His words when deciding whether a law is just and therefore should be followed. Jesus gave us a “Greatest Commandment” litmus test for determining which actions are really done in his name: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Luke 6:31. And Jesus provided us a pretty simple “B.S. Litmus Test” (my words, not Jesus’!) to determine whether an action or law reflects His heart. The B.S. Litmus Test is this: “is this law/action/policy treating others as I would like to be treated?” (Matthew 7:12). And a second question would be, “does this law reflect love or fear?” If the latter, it is not from God. Because “perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18.

Regarding Jesus’ exact instructions on the treatment of immigrants, read Matthew 25: 34-46. Jesus refers to the immigrant/refugee/foreigner as “the stranger” and says, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger (refugee/immigrant/foreigner) and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” -JESUS

PLEASE BE ON GUARD: when you hear a government official use a passage like Romans 13 to try to justify actions that contradict the commandments of Jesus Himself, it is akin to a lawyer trying to convince a judge that a policy or regulation should be followed even though a statute or the Constitution of the United States itself prohibits it. Oh wait, that is exactly what is happening in the Jeff Sessions video above. The United States has ratified international refugee treaties legally obliging our nation to consider the claims of each asylum-seeker on its own merit and the Attorney General has now created his own self-indulging policy persecuting asylum seekers as a “deterrent” to seeking the protection they are legally entitled to. Laws trump policies in the hierarchy of authority, and Jesus’ words trump unjust government action in the spiritual context.

So please join me in calling BS on policies that oppress the immigrant, the refugee, and the foreigner. No citation to Romans 13 can ever trump Jesus’ calling to love the immigrant in Matthew 25. I stand with Jesus-followers and non-Christians alike in the disgusted renunciation of any attempt to cite Holy Scripture as a justification to oppress the weak or the vulnerable. I proudly stand with Jesus and will continue to defend the “stranger” in my law practice as an act of worship to my Jesus who I know loves and cares for them even more than I do.

Thank You,

Andrea C. Martinez, Esq.

Attorney/Owner

” src=”blob:http://immigrationcourtside.com/1416d79c-b6be-44d1-aab8-d9f091b8c723″ alt=”cid:image001.jpg@01D238F4.0AFDDA30″ class=”Apple-web-attachment”>

7000 NW Prairie View Road, Suite 260

Kansas City, MO 64151

(816) 491-8105: phone

(816) 817-2480: fax

info@martinezimmigration.com

www.martinezimmigration.com

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Thanks Andrea!

I call B.S. But, then most of what Sessions says is B.S.

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Here’s another from JRube in the WashPost:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions displayed an appalling lack of appreciation for the religious establishment clause, not to mention simple human dignity. Speaking to a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and in the wake of the Church’s condemnation of the barbaric policy of separating children from their parents at the border, Sessions proclaimed: “Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government, because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.” Later in the day, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeated his religious admonition to obey the law.

This is horrifically objectionable on multiple grounds. First, he is a public employee and must uphold the First Amendment’s establishment clause. If Sessions wants to justify a policy, he is obligated to give a secular policy justification. (Citing the Bible — inaptly — to Catholic bishops who exercise their religious conscience in speaking out against family separation may be the quintessential example of chutzpah.) Second, he is a policymaker, in a position tochange a position that is inconsistent with our deepest values, traditions and respect for human rights. Third, the bishops were not advocating civil disobedience; they were objecting to an unjust law. Sessions is trying to use the Bible to squelch dissent.

We should point out that invoking this Biblical passage has a long and sordid history in Sessions’s native South. It was oft-quoted by slave-owners and later segregationists to insist on following existing law institutionalizing slavery (“read as an unequivocal order for Christians to obey state authority, a reading that not only justified southern slavery but authoritarian rule in Nazi Germany and South African apartheid”).

I’m no expert in Christianity, but the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was when he drafted his letter from the Birmingham jail:

Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

Sessions perfectly exemplifies how religion should not be used. Pulling out a Bible or any other religious text to say it supports one’s view on a matter of public policy is rarely going to be effective, for it defines political opponents as heretics.

The bishops and other religious figures are speaking out as their religious conscience dictates, which they are morally obligated to do and are constitutionally protected in doing. A statement from the conference of bishops, to which Sessions objected, read in part:

At its core, asylum is an instrument to preserve the right to life. The Attorney General’s recent decision elicits deep concern because it potentially strips asylum from many women who lack adequate protection. These vulnerable women will now face return to the extreme dangers of domestic violence in their home country. This decision negates decades of precedents that have provided protection to women fleeing domestic violence.

Reminding the administration of the meaning of family values, the bishops continued, “Families are the foundational element of our society and they must be able to stay together. While protecting our borders is important, we can and must do better as a government, and as a society, to find other ways to ensure that safety. Separating babies from their mothers is not the answer and is immoral.”

The Catholics are not alone. The administration’s vile policy has alarmed a wide array of faith leaders. The Southern Baptist Convention issued their own statement. It is quoted at length because it is so powerful:

WHEREAS, Every man, woman, and child from every language, race, and nation is a special creation of God, made in His own image (Genesis 1:26–27); and

WHEREAS, Longings to protect one’s family from warfare, violence, disease, extreme poverty, and other destitute conditions are universal, driving millions of people to leave their homelands to seek a better life for themselves, their children, and their grandchildren; and

WHEREAS, God commands His people to treat immigrants with the same respect and dignity as those native born (Leviticus 19:33–34Jeremiah 7:5–7Ezekiel 47:22Zechariah 7:9–10); and

WHEREAS, Scripture is clear on the believer’s hospitality towards immigrants, stating that meeting the material needs of “strangers” is tantamount to serving the Lord Jesus Himself (Matthew 25:35–40Hebrews 13:2); and

WHEREAS, Southern Baptists affirm the value of the family, stating in The Baptist Faith and Message that “God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society” (Article XVIII), and Scripture makes clear that parents are uniquely responsible to raise their children “in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).  . . .

RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Dallas, Texas, June 12–13, 2018, affirm the value and dignity of immigrants, regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity, culture, national origin, or legal status; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we desire to see immigration reform include an emphasis on securing our borders and providing a pathway to legal status with appropriate restitutionary measures, maintaining the priority of family unity, resulting in an efficient immigration system that honors the value and dignity of those seeking a better life for themselves and their families; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we declare that any form of nativism, mistreatment, or exploitation is inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we encourage all elected officials, especially those who are members of Southern Baptist churches, to do everything in their power to advocate for a just and equitable immigration system, those in the professional community to seek ways to administer just and compassionate care for the immigrants in their community, and our Southern Baptist entities to provide resources that will equip and empower churches and church members to reach and serve immigrant communities. . . .

Rabbi David Wolpe dryly observed that “until 2018, I don’t believe any reader of the Bible has argued that separating families is rooted in the Bible, and if the Bible is about obeying the government, it is hard to understand what all those prophets were yelling at the kings about.” (Meanwhile, 26 Jewish organizations sent a letter condemning the policy to Sessions.)

Peter Wehner of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has written extensively on the role of religion in politics. “I would say that this is just the most recent, but also one of the most egregious, ways that those who call themselves Christians are disfiguring and discrediting their faith. They are living in an inverted moral world, where the Bible is being invoked to advance cruelty,” he said. “Rather than owning up to what they are doing, they are trying to sacralize their inhumane policies. They are attempting to harm children and then dress it up as Christian ethics.”

He added: “This shows you the terrible damage that can be done to the Christian witness when the wrong people attain positions of power. They subordinate every good thing to their ideology, twisting and distorting everything they must to advance their political cause. In this case, it’s not simply that an authentic Christian ethic is subordinate to their inhumane politics; it is that it is being thoroughly corrupted, to the point that they are using the Bible to justify what is unjustifiable.”

If the administration is embarrassed by a policy they are trying to insist is required by law (that is untrue, and I know the prohibition against lying is very biblical) they should change it. Trump and his aides need to stop shifting blame to other politicians, and stop telling Christians what their obligations are. Frankly, the lack of outrage from Trump’s clique of evangelical supporters on this issue is not simply unusual given the near-universal outrage in faith-based communities, but is a reminder that leaders of  “values voters” traded faith for the political game of power and access. As Wehner put it, “To watch the Christian faith be stained in this way by people like Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee Sanders is painful and quite a disturbing thing to watch. I don’t know whether they realize the defilement they’re engaging in, but that’s somewhat beside the point. The defilement is happening, and they are leading the effort. It’s shameful, and it’s heretical.”

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Remarkably, Sessions claims to be a Christian and a Methodist (although I can’t for the life of me find a speck of the actual kind, merciful, forgiving, teachings of Jesus Christ in any aspect of Sessions’s life, career, or actions). He’s one of the most “unChristian” people I’ve ever witnessed in American public life. And, I’ve seen some pretty bad actors, going all the way back to infamous Wisconsin GOP Senator Joe McCarthy! In his own way, Sessions is just as far removed from the true meaning of Christ’s teaching as his pagan, idolatrous boss, Trump.

At any rate, the Methodist Council of Bishops has joined other religious denominations in condemning Sessions’s policies of cruelty and child abuse.

Faith leaders’ statement on family separation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, June 7, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church is joining other faith organizations in a statement urging the U.S. government to stop its policy of separating immigrant families.

Below is the full statement signed by dozens of faith organizations. Bishop Kenneth H.  Carter, president of the Council of Bishops, signed on behalf of the Council.

FAITH LEADERS’ STATEMENT ON FAMILY SEPARATION 

Recently, the U.S. Administration announced that it will begin separating families and criminally prosecuting all people who enter the U.S. without previous authorization. As religious leaders representing diverse faith perspectives, united in our concern for the well-being of vulnerable migrants who cross our borders fleeing from danger and threats to their lives, we are deeply disappointed and pained to hear this news.

We affirm the family as a foundational societal structure to support human community and understand the household as an estate blessed by God. The security of the family provides critical mental, physical and emotional support to the development and wellbeing of children. Our congregations and agencies serve many migrant families that have recently arrived in the United States. Leaving their communities is often the only option they have to provide safety for their children and protect them from harm. Tearing children away from parents who have made a dangerous journey to provide a safe and sufficient life for them is unnecessarily cruel and detrimental to the well-being of parents and children.

As we continue to serve and love our neighbor, we pray for the children and families that will suffer due to this policy and urge the Administration to stop their policy of separating families.

His Eminence Archbishop Vicken Aykazian
Diocesan Legate and
Director of the Ecumenical Office
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America

Mr. Azhar Azeez
President
Islamic Society of North America

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera
Bishop of Scranton, PA
Chair, Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs

Senior Bishop George E. Battle, Jr.
Presiding Prelate, Piedmont Episcopal District
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

Bishop Kenneth H. Carter, Jr.
President, Council of Bishops
The United Methodist Church

The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry
Presiding Bishop
Episcopal Church (United States)

The Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer
General Minister & President
United Church of Christ

The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

The Rev. David Guthrie
President, Provincial Elders’ Conference
Moravian Church Southern Province

Mr. Glen Guyton
Executive Director
Mennonite Church USA

The Rev. Teresa Hord Owens
General Minister and President
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Rabbi Rick Jacobs
President
Union for Reform Judaism

Mr. Anwar Khan
President
Islamic Relief USA

The Rev. Dr. Betsy Miller
President, Provincial Elders’ Conference
Moravian Church Northern Province

The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II
Stated Clerk
Presbyterian Church (USA)

Rabbi Jonah Pesner
Director
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

The Rev. Don Poest
Interim General Secretary
The Rev. Eddy Alemán
Candidate for General Secretary
Reformed Church in America

Senior Bishop Lawrence Reddick III
Presiding Bishop, The 8th Episcopal District
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church

The Rev. Phil Tom
Executive Director
International Council of Community Churches

Senior Bishop McKinley Young
Presiding Prelate, Third Episcopal District
African Methodist Episcopal Church

###

Media Contact:
Rev. Dr. Maidstone Mulenga
Director of Communications – Council of Bishops
The United Methodist Church
mmulenga@umc-cob.org
202-748-5172

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Ed Kilgore over at NY Magazine also nails Sessions’s noxious hypocrisy:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/no-jeff-sessions-separating-families-isnt-biblical.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Intelligencer-%20June%2015%2C%202018&utm_term=Subscription%20List%20-%20Daily%20Intelligencer%20%281%20Year%29

No, Jeff Sessions, Separating Kids From Their Parents Isn’t ‘Biblical’

By

St. Paul would probably like Jeff Sessions to keep his name out of his mouth. Photo: Getty Images

When he spoke to a law enforcement group in Indiana today, the attorney general of the United States was clearly angry about religious objections to his administration’s immigration policies. He may have had in mind incidents like this very important one this week (as notedby the National Catholic Reporter):

The U.S. bishops began their annual spring assembly by condemning recent immigration policies from the Trump administration that have separated families at the U.S.-Mexico border and threatened to deny asylum for people fleeing violence.

The morning session here began with a statement, but by its end escalated to numerous bishops endorsing the idea of sending a delegation to the border to inspect the detention facilities where children are being kept and even floating the possibility of “canonical penalties” for those involved in carrying out the policies.

Being a Protestant and all, Sessions has no fear of the kind of “canonical penalties” Catholic bishops might levy. But perhaps he is aware of an official resolution passed by his own United Methodist Church in 2008 (and reaffirmed in 2016), which reads in part:

The fear and anguish so many migrants in the United States live under are due to federal raids, indefinite detention, and deportations which tear apart families and create an atmosphere of panic. Millions of immigrants are denied legal entry to the US due to quotas and race and class barriers, even as employers seek their labor. US policies, as well as economic and political conditions in their home countries, often force migrants to leave their homes. With the legal avenues closed, immigrants who come in order to support their families must live in the shadows and in intense exploitation and fear. In the face of these unjust laws and the systematic deportation of migrants instituted by the Department of Homeland Security, God’s people must stand in solidarity with the migrants in our midst.

So Sessions decided he’d smite all these ninny-faced liberal clerics with his own interpretation of the intersection of Christianity and immigration:

In his remarks, Sessions hit back at the “concerns raised by our church friends about separating families,” calling the criticism “not fair or logical” and quoting scripture in his defense of the administration’s tough policies.

“Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” Sessions said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”

Those who are unacquainted with the Bible should be aware that the brief seven-verse portion of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans has been throughout the ages cited to oppose resistance to just about every unjust law or regime you can imagine. As the Atlantic’s Yoni Appelbaum quickly pointed out, it was especially popular among those opposing resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act in the run-up to the Civil War. It was reportedly Adolf Hitler’s favorite biblical passage. And it was used by defenders of South African Apartheid and of our own Jim Crow.

Sessions’s suggestion that Romans 13 represents some sort of absolute, inflexible rule for the universe has been refuted by religious authorities again and again, most quoting St. Augustine in saying that “an unjust law is no law at all,” and many drawing attention to the overall context of Paul’s epistle, which was in many respects the great charter of Christian liberty and the great rebuke to legalism in every form. Paul was pretty clearly rejecting a significant sentiment among Christians of his day: that civil authorities deserved no obedience in any circumstance.

Beyond that, even if taken literally, in Romans 13 Paul is the shepherd telling the sheep that just as they must love their enemies, they must also recognize that the wolf is part of a divinely established order. In today’s context, Jeff Sessions is the wolf, and no matter what you think of his policies, he is not entitled to quote the shepherd on his own behalf. Maybe those desperate women and men at the border should suck it up and accept their terrible lot in life and defer to Jeff Sessions’s idolatry toward those portions of secular immigration law that he and his president actually support. But for the sake of all that’s holy, don’t quote the Bible to make the Trump administration’s policies towards immigrant families sound godly. And keep St. Paul out of it.

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Last, but certainly not least among my favorite rebuttals to Sessions is this article from Marissa Martinelli at Slate incorporating a video clip from John Oliver which captures the smallness, meanness, and lack of humane values of Sessions perfectly:

https://slate.com/culture/2018/06/stephen-colbert-quotes-the-bible-to-jeff-sessions-video.html

Stephen Colbert Tells Jeff Sessions to Go Reread the Bible Before He Defends Trump’s Child Separation Policy

By

There’s nothing funny about the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border, which doesn’t make it an ideal topic for late night hosts. Stephen Colbert acknowledged that difficulty directly on The Late Show on Thursday night, explaining that he usually only addresses tragic stories on the show if everyone is already talking about them. But he’s willing to make an exception:

That’s my job: to give you my take on the conversation everyone’s already having. With any luck, my take is funnier than yours, or I would be watching you. But this story is different, because this is the conversation everybody should be having. Attorney General and man dreaming of legally changing his name to “Jim Crow” Jeff Sessions has instituted a new policy to separate immigrant kids from their parents at the border.

An estimated 1,358 children have been taken from their families so far, with some officials reportedly telling their parents that the children were being taken away for a bath, only to never return them. “Clearly, no decent human being could defend that,” said Colbert. “So Jeff Sessions did.”

Colbert, who is devoutly Catholic, especially took issue with Sessions quoting the bible—specifically, Romans 13, the same passage used to defend slavery in the 1840s—to justify the policy as morally acceptable. Colbert suggested that Sessions might want to go back and reread that bible, and quoted Romans 13:10 to him. “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law,” he recited, before ripping into Sessions’s use of the bible as a smokescreen: “I’m not surprised Sessions didn’t read the whole thing. After all, Jesus said, ‘Suffer the children to come unto me’ but I’m pretty sure all Sessions saw was the words children and suffer and said ‘I’m on it.’”

Colbert concluded the segment by borrowing a phrase from Samantha Bee: “If we let this happen in our name, we are a feckless … country.”

Here’s a link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4KaLkYxMZ8#action=share

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A NOTE TO MY WAYWARD CHILD, JEFF

I am very concerned about our relationship, Jeff.

For I was hungry Jeff, and you gave me nothing to eat.

I was thirsty, Jeff, and you gave me nothing to drink. 

I was a stranger seeking refuge, Jeff, and you did not invite me in.

I needed clothes, Jeff, and you clothed me only in the orange jumpsuit of a prisoner.

I was sick and in a foul prison you called “detention,” Jeff, and you mocked me and did not look after me.

I said “suffer the children to come unto me,” Jeff, and you made my children suffer.

In your arrogant ignorance, Jeff, you might ask when did I see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

But, Jeff, I was right there before you, in a caravan with my poor sisters, brothers, and children, having traveled far, seeking shelter and refuge from mistreatment and expecting mercy and justice under your laws. But, in your prejudice and ignorance, Jeff, you did not see me because I did not look like one of you. For you see, Jeff, as you did not show love, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, and human compassion for the least of my children, you did not do for me.

And so, Jeff, unless you repent of your wasted life of sins, selfishness, meanness, taking my name and teachings in vain, and mistaking your often flawed view of man’s laws for my Father’s will, you must go away to eternal punishment. But, the poor, the vulnerable, the abused, and the children who travel with me and those who give us aid, compassion, justice, and mercy will accompany me to eternal life.

For in truth, Jeff, although you yourself might be immoral, none of God’s children is ever “illegal” to  Him. Each time you spout such nonsense, you once again mock me and my Father by taking our names, teachings, and values in vain.

Wise up, Jeff, before it’s too late.

Your Lord & Would Be Savior,

J.C.

 

 

 

CAN AMERICA RECOVER FROM THE TRUMP/GOP KAKISTOCRACY? — Maybe — But, Eric Levitz @ NY Maggie Gives You Four Reasons Not To Sleep Tonight!

“Kakistocracy is a term that was first used in the 17th century; derived from a Greek word, it means, literally, government by the worst and most unscrupulous people among us. More broadly, it can mean the most inept and cringeworthy kind of government. The term fell into disuse over the past century or more, and most highly informed people have never heard it before (but to kids familiar with the word “kaka” it might resonate).”

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/donald-trump-has-never-been-more-dangerous-than-he-is-now.html

Levitz writes:

From one angle, it’s been a comforting few weeks for those of us who fear and loathe the Trump presidency. Since early February, public support for the president and his party has declined significantly — erasing the polling gains that both had made at the start of this year. Meanwhile, Democrats have continued to over-perform in special elections, scoring their most impressive victory yet last week, when Conor Lamb bested a better-funded Republican opponent in a Pennsylvania district that had gone for Trump by 20 points. Signs suggest that the GOP’s House majority won’t survive the winter — and that our reality star–in-chief is unlikely to be brought back for a second season.

For progressives, the case for optimism about Trump’s tenure has always gone something like: If he doesn’t get us all killed, the demagogue might just rejuvenate the Democratic base, poison the GOP’s brand, trigger big “blue” wave elections in 2018 and 2020, and thus, ironically, leave U.S. politics in a better place than it had been in circa 2016.

ADVERTISEMENT

Over the past month, each piece of this scenario has begun to seem a tad more likely — except, that is, for the “doesn’t get us all killed” bit.

Of course, Donald Trump is (almost certainly) not going to literally end all human life. But in recent weeks, many of the downside risks of his election — a mass-casualty war, irreparable diplomatic blunder, or constitutional crisis — have become more plausible than ever before. Assuming we avoid total catastrophe, America is poised to make a speedy recovery from its ill-advised experiment with kakistocracy. But there are (at least) four reasons why that assumption has never been less safe: . . . .

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Read the complete article with the “four reasons” at the above link.

Trump and his gang of evil incompetents and valueless enablers are the biggest threat to American democracy since the Civil War. Essentially, he and his White Nationalist cabal are out to reverse the results of the Civil War, leaving the country divided and a bunch of unqualified Old White Guys in charge because — well just because they are White Guys and can get away with it.

But, if we all unite behind the New Due Process Army, we can use the legal system and the ballot box to achieve regime change and the return of human decency and common sense.

PWS

03-22-18

 

 

 

SPLINTERED SUPREMES PROVISIONALLY OK “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” — Trump/Sessions Successfully Fight To Preserve Obama Legacy Of Never-Ending “Civil” Immigration Detention — Case Remanded To Lower Court, But Alito & Fellow GOP Justices Show Scant Concern For Human (Non-Economic) Rights & Freedom Under Constitution!

Jennings v. Rodriguez, O2-27-18

MAJORITY: Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch

CONCURRING OPINION: Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch

DISSENTING OPINION: Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor

NOT PARTICIPATING: Justice Kagan

HERE’S A COPY OF THE COURT’S FULL DECISION:

15-1204_f29g

ANALYSIS BY ERIC LEVITZ @ NEW YORK MAGAZINE:

“For much of his presidency, Donald Trump has appeared more committed to nullifying his predecessor’s legacy than to any affirmative political principle. The president campaigned on a promise to repeal Obamacare and expand access to affordable health insurance — but when these goals came into conflict, he opted for the former. Trump argued vociferously that rogue regimes must be blocked from acquiring nuclear weapons — then “decertified” an Obama-era nuclear agreement that did just that. He claimed to believe in regulatory policies that protect “clean air and clean water,” then rolled back Obama-era rules aimed at that objective. Trump praised Janet Yellen’s economic management — but still took the precedent-defying step of refusing to grant the Obama-appointed Federal Reserve chair a second term.

Nevertheless, for all his policy nihilism, the president can still occasionally put substance over spite, and admit that on this or that specific issue, Barack Obama actually had a point. Thus, on Tuesday the Trump administration celebrated the preservation of one piece of Obama’s legacy.

In 2014, a federal district court ruled that immigrants detained while awaiting deportation proceedings were entitled to periodic bond hearings. The lead plaintiff in the case was a legal permanent resident of the United States, Alejandro Rodriguez, who was arrested as a teenager for joyriding and misdemeanor drug possession – and then jailed for three years, without ever receiving a bond hearing, as his lawyers (successfully) contested his deportation. The federal judge ruled that Rodriguez had a legal right to request to await trial outside of a detention facility. The Obama administration disagreed, arguing that the federal government has the authority to decide whether any individual immigrant should be afforded that right – or whether he or she is simply too dangerous for such due process – even if the person in question is a legal permanent resident or asylum-seeker.

Upon his election, Trump set aside his differences with Obama, and continued his predecessor’s appeal. Even when the Ninth Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling, Jeff Sessions & Co. persisted in their defense of the Obama Justice Department’s position.

And on Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority sided with the government in a narrow ruling: The justices did not rule that detained immigrants have no right to bond hearings under the Constitution; rather, they merely ruled that immigrants had no such rights under federal immigration law. As the New York Times explains:

The Ninth Circuit had ruled that bond hearings are required after six months to determine whether detainees who do not pose flight risks or a danger to public safety may be released while their cases proceed. The court based its ruling on an interpretation of the federal immigration laws, not the Constitution, though it said its reading was required to avoid constitutional difficulties.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority on Tuesday, said that this interpretive approach, called “constitutional avoidance,” was unavailable here, as the words of the immigration laws were plain. “The meaning of the relevant statutory provisions is clear — and clearly contrary to the decision of the court of appeals,” Justice Alito wrote.
This ruling will send the case back to the Ninth Circuit, which will have the opportunity to assess whether the Constitution requires bond hearings for detained immigrants.

Three of the court’s liberals opposed the decision, while Elena Kagan recused herself (due to relevant work she had performed as Obama’s solicitor general). In an impassioned dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer insisted that the court should have reached a determination on the underlying Constitutional question – and ruled that all human beings in the United States are entitled to our founding document’s basic protections.

“[W]ould the Constitution leave the Government free to starve, beat, or lash those held within our boundaries?” the Justice asked. “If not, then, whatever the [legal] fiction, how can the Constitution authorize the Government to imprison arbitrarily those who, whatever we might pretend, are in reality right here in the United States?”

“We need only recall the words of the Declaration of Independence, in particular its insistence that all men and women have ‘certain unalienable Rights,’ and that among them is the right to ‘Liberty,’” Breyer wrote.

But thanks to the bipartisan efforts of the patriots in our Justice Department, the Trump administration will remain free, for the moment, to indefinitely imprison any legal immigrants and asylum-seekers it wishes to deport.

And Trump wishes to deport quite a few — although he’ll need to get much more aggressive on that front, if he wishes to preserve the pace of deportations set by his predecessor.

But, as Tuesday’s ruling demonstrated, with enough will and bipartisan cooperation, there’s little the American government cannot do.”

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HERE’S WHAT JUSTICE ALITO, JUSTICE THOMAS & THEIR BUDDIES REALLY ARE SAYING BEYOND THE LEGAL GOBBLEDYGOOK:

The plaintiffs are neither corporations nor guns. They are mere human beings. Therefore, they are entitled to no Constitutional protections that we care to enforce.

FROM JUSTICE BREYER’S DISSENT:

The relevant constitutional language, purposes, history, traditions, context, and case law, taken together, make it likely that, where confinement of the noncitizens before us is prolonged (presumptively longer than six months), bail proceedings are constitutionally required. Given this serious constitutional problem, I would interpret the statutory provisions before us as authorizing bail. Their language permits that reading, it furthers their basic purposes, and it is consistent with the history, tradition, and constitutional values associated with bail proceedings. I believe that those bail proceedings should take place in accordance with customary rules of procedure and burdens of proof rather than the special rules that the Ninth Cir­ cuit imposed.

The bail questions before us are technical but at heart they are simple. We need only recall the words of the Declaration of Independence, in particular its insistence that all men and women have “certain unalienable Rights,” and that among them is the right to “Liberty.” We need merely remember that the Constitution’s Due Process Clause protects each person’s liberty from arbi­ trary deprivation. And we need just keep in mind the fact that, since Blackstone’s time and long before, liberty has included the right of a confined person to seek release on bail. It is neither technical nor unusually difficult to read the words of these statutes as consistent with this basic right. I would find it far more difficult, indeed, I would find it alarming, to believe that Congress wrote these statutory words in order to put thousands of individuals at risk of lengthy confinement all within the United States but all without hope of bail. I would read the statutory words as consistent with, indeed as requiring protection of, the basic right to seek bail.
Because the majority does not do so, with respect, I dissent.

ONE POINT THAT ALL EIGHT JUSTICES AGREED ON:

The 9th Circuit was without authority to rewrite the statute to require bond hearings at 6 month intervals with the DHS bearing the burden of proof on continuing detention.

PWS

02-27-18

 

CRISTIAN FARIAS @ NEW YORK MAGGIE – THE HISTORY OF PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION IN IMMIGRATION GOING ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE “BERNSEN MEMO” – WHY, CONTRARY TO SESSIONS & THE RESTRICTIONISTS, IT IS A SOUND LEGAL CONCEPT – AND WHY THE SUPREMES SHOULD STAY OUT OF THE DACA ISSUE IN THE LOWER COURTS! – PLUS BONUS TRIVIA! – “Who REALLY wrote that four decades old memo?

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/scotus-would-be-crazy-to-jump-into-the-daca-dispute.html

Cristian writes:

“The earliest, highest-profile critic of granting an executive reprieve to Dreamers was none other than Justice Antonin Scalia. The plight of young immigrants brought to the United States as children was not something the Supreme Court was concerned with in 2012, but the late justice somehow felt the need to protest, in open court, President Obama’s then weeks-old decision to not deport them for humanitarian reasons. “The president has said that the new program is, quote, the right thing to do, close quote, in light of Congress’ failure to pass the administration’s proposed revision of the immigration laws,” he said as he read from a summary of his partial dissent in Arizona v. United States. That case and decision had nothing to do with Dreamers.

Maybe Scalia’s real qualm was with the sitting president and not the recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA. But his broader point, which a Supreme Court majority rejected, was that states should have leeway in enforcing federal immigration laws, since they — and not undocumented immigrants — face the “human realities” of a broken immigration system. The citizens of border states like Arizona “feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy,” Scalia complained. Somewhere, a future President Trump may have been taking notes.

More than five years since that screed, the Supreme Court could soon get a chance to judge the propriety, if not the legality, of Trump’s decision last September to pull the plug on DACA. A federal judge in California in January ordered the reinstatement of the program, reasoning that its rescission rested on a “flawed legal premise” — namely, Jeff Sessions’s paper-thin conclusion that DACA was illegal the moment it was conceived. The judge also rejected as “spin” and “post-hoc rationalization” the Trump administration’s contention that DACA was vulnerable to a legal challenge by Texas and other states, which had threatened Sessions with a lawsuit if he didn’t kill the initiative outright. “The agency action was not in accordance with law because it was based on the flawed legal premise that the agency lacked authority to implement DACA,” wrote the judge, William Alsup, in a ruling that effectively brought DACA back from the dead. Days later, the administration began accepting renewal applications as if the rollback had never happened.

Legal scholars weren’t impressed with the ruling. And Sessions, not one to give up on Trump’s anti-immigrant crusade, then took the “rare step” of appealing Alsup’s decision directly to the Supreme Court — and why not? The Ninth Circuit, Trump’s least favorite appeals court, is unruly, liberal, and anti-Trump, anyway; leapfrogging it seemed the smart thing to do. What’s more, Sessions wanted the justices to act expeditiously — his solicitor general filed an additional request to decide the case before the end of June. Not doing so, he suggested, would be the same as blessing “indefinitely an ongoing violation of federal law being committed by nearly 700,000 aliens.” So much for Trump’s wish to treat Dreamers “with heart.” There was only one problem: The Supreme Court rarely, if ever, lets anyone skip over the regular appeals process. And if Sessions is in such a hurry, why didn’t the administration seek to block Alsup’s ruling rather than comply with it? Last Friday, a coalition that includes the University of California, several states, a local chapter of the SEIU, and a number of Dreamers told the Supreme Court to reject the Trump administration’s request to hear the case. The DACA mess, this alliance broadly contended, is Trump’s and Congress’s to own, and the justices shouldn’t be the ones fixing it, at least not with the urgency Sessions is demanding.

. . . .

The principle of prosecutorial discretion, which is what holds DACA together, was never once discussed by Sessions when he announced the wind-down of DACA. He didn’t even try. Prosecutorial discretion wasn’t some novelty that Napolitano came up with at the time, let alone a quirk of immigration law. In a path-breaking memorandum written some 40 years ago, Sam Bernsen, the general counsel of the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service, advised the agency’s commissioner that the “ultimate source for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion” lies with the inherent powers of the presidency. “Under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the executive power is vested in the President,” Bernsen wrote in what is believed to be the first in a long string of government memos justifying prosecutorial discretion in the immigration realm. “Article II, Section 3, states that the President ‘shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’” Ironically, conservatives would later seize on this “take care” language to argue breathlessly that Obama’s immigration actions were an affront to the constitutional text, but no judge took that argument seriously.

Far and wide, executive officers enjoy similar discretion to enforce the law. From the president down to a lowly street cop, every law enforcer, state or federal, exercises some form of prosecutorial discretion over the laws they’re entrusted to oversee. It’s the reason you don’t always get ticketed for jaywalking or pulled over for doing 65 on a 55, even in instances where you happen to do those things in full view of the police: The government has ample discretion to not go after you if it feels you’re a low-priority lawbreaker. Maybe the 75-miles-per-hour driver is the bigger fish. Whichever the case, the decision is, by and large, unchallengeable. “Federal officials, as an initial matter, must decide whether it makes sense to pursue removal at all,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in the same immigration ruling that Scalia assailed in 2012. “Discretion in the enforcement of immigration law embraces immediate human concerns,” he added.

Kirstjen Nielsen, the new DHS secretary, and Trump himself have all but conceded the point in recent weeks. In an interview with CBS’s John Dickerson, Nielsen said that it’s “not the policy of DHS” to go after Dreamers who are DACA recipients, even if the current legislative talks fail and the program isn’t renewed. “It’s not going to be a priority of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize their removal,” Nielsen clarified, directly contradicting the Department of Justice’s position on DACA before the Supreme Court. (Dreamers and immigration advocates know better than to trust Nielsen’s assurances.) Asked last month if he might extend the arbitrary March 5 end date of the DACA rollback process — which is no longer the end date as a result of Judge Alsup’s ruling — Trump spoke as if he never truly believed, like Sessions did, that deferred action was unlawful: “I certainly have the right to do that if I want.”

In this climate, and with Trump still fielding immigration offers as Congress faces yet another deadline to fund the government, the Supreme Court would be crazy to jump into the DACA controversy. “I think for the Supreme Court to reach down to a district court decision and not allow the normal appellate process to proceed would necessarily, under the circumstances, involve or indicate that the Supreme Court is signaling its involvement in a deeply political matter,” Napolitano told me. Scalia may have felt comfortable criticizing policy choices from the bench, but that doesn’t mean Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues have to take the bait. For their own peace of mind and that of Dreamers, the Court is better off staying as far away as possible, and letting Trump take care of the laws that give him broad authority to spare young undocumented immigrants if he really wants to.”

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Read the rest of Cristian’s analysis, including his detailed interview with former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, now President of the University of California System and a plaintiff in the District Court case, over at New York at the above link.

SPECIAL BONUS:

From the “archives” here’s a copy of the famous “Bernsen Memo” of July 15, 1976:

Bernsen Memo service-exercise-pd

YOUR TOSSUP IMMIGRATION TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Who actually wrote the “Bernsen Memo?”  

(Hint: Look at the bottom of the last page.)

TRUMP GOP INTENTIONALLY TORTURES DREAMERS – MESSING WITH AMERICA’S FUTURE FOR NO GOOD REASON!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/why-the-trump-administrations-daca-policy-is-indefensible.html

Eric Levitz writes for NY Maggie:

“There are a lot more undocumented immigrants in the United States than our government can possibly deport (without increasing the size and scope of immigration enforcement beyond even the Trump administration’s wildest dreams). At present, U.S. immigration courts are so severely backlogged, deportations actually went down during Trump’s first year in office, even as the number of immigration arrests dramatically increased.

This context requires the White House to set priorities for enforcing immigration law. Until Congress increases the relevant resources, the Executive branch cannot significantly increase deportations with its policy changes — it can only change the composition of the deportee population. The Obama administration decided that it made little sense to use the government’s limited resources on expelling Dreamers (law-abiding, gainfully-employed undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children). And on Tuesday, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion.

“It’s not going to be a priority of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize their removal. I’ve said that before. That’s not the policy of DHS,” DHS head Kirstjen Nielsen told CBS This Morning. “If you are a DACA that’s compliant with your registration, meaning you haven’t committed a crime, you, in fact, are registered, you’re not priority of enforcement for ICE should the program end.”

This statement is not surprising. It would be bizarre if Homeland Security did prioritize deporting a category of immigrants that is, by definition, compliant with all (non-immigration) laws, and making productive contributions to society. And the significance of Nielson’s remarks are unclear. There is a big difference between deprioritizing Dreamers, and instructing immigration enforcement agents to leave them alone. Many Dreamers shared their personal information and immigration status with the government when applying for protection from deportation under the Obama administration. If ICE isn’t explicitly prohibited from using that data to make quick-and-easy arrests of undocumented individuals, some agents could take that initiative.

Regardless, Nielsen’s statement betrays the fundamental incoherence of the Trump administration’s policy on Dreamers. Like its predecessor, the Trump White House (officially) believes that Dreamers should not be prioritized for deportation; unlike the Obama administration, it does not believe that the Executive branch should make it easier for Dreamers to contribute to the legitimate economy while they’re here.

Trump has never actually made a policy argument for this position. When the administration ended Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — which had provided Dreamers with formal protection from deportation and renewable work permits — it claimed to do so on legal grounds: Whatever the merits of the policy, it was simply unconstitutional for the Executive branch to implement such a program without congressional approval.

The problem with that argument, as a federal judge recently noticed, is that “deferred action has been blessed by both the the Supreme Court and Congress as a means to exercise enforcement discretion” and embraced by presidents of both parties for decades. Further, the specific features of DACA, such as work permits, are explicitly allowedunder current law. (Notably, in other contexts, the Trump administration has shown little reluctance to assert the Executive branch’s immense discretion over immigration policy.)

The Trump administration says it does not want to deport Dreamers. A large body of law — and now, a federal court ruling — says that it has the power to unilaterally give Dreamers formal protection from deportation. And yet, Trump refuses to exercise that authority. Thus, his ostensible position is that Dreamers should be allowed to stay in the U.S. — but should be kept in a perpetual state of anxiety, and prevented from securing legal employment — until Congress agrees to pass a long-list of controversial reforms to the immigration system.

In this light, Trump’s DACA policy is not (as Jeff Sessions once suggested) an act of deference to the limits of executive authority. Rather, it is a gross abuse of that discretion: The administration revoked the legal status of 700,000 people, not because it thinks this is defensible as a policy, but solely as a means of coercing Congress into passing legislation that it otherwise would not.”

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The Trumpsters are holding the Dreamers “hostage” for a White Nationalist, restrictionist, racist immigration agenda that would be bad for American in every imaginable way.

Levitz also “gets” two things that others sometimes miss: 1) that Trump is actually “over a barrel” because he can’t really remove the Dreamers — just drive them underground and make their lives miserable and less productive (and deprive us of tax revenues) by taking away their work authorization; and 2) the legal underpinnings for DACA are much stronger than Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions would ever admit.

The GOP White Nationalists have created a fake “immigration crisis” that any other Administration with an ounce of human decency, good lawyering, and common sense could and would have avoided. And, all of this is a colossal waste of taxpayer money! “Throw the bums out” at the ballot box!

PWS

01-17-18

THE DAILY INTELLIGENCER: AMERICA’S “TOADY IN WAITING”

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/mike-pence-first-toady.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily Intelligencer – December 6, 2017&utm_term=Subscription List – Daily Intelligencer (1 Year)

Ed Kilgore reports for The Daily Intelligencer in NY Maggie:

“Most reactions to McKay Coppins’s vast new profile of Vice-President Mike Pence have focused on an October 2016 incident wherein the then-candidate for veep offered to replace Donald Trump at the top of the ticket in the wake of the Access Hollywood revelations, which for a moment looked likely to bring the mogul down.

But the far more enduring picture Coppins paints is very different: Mike Pence as a man who decided early on in his relationship with Trump that no one could look in the mirror at night and see a browner nose.

In Pence, Trump has found an obedient deputy whose willingness to suffer indignity and humiliation at the pleasure of the president appears boundless. When Trump comes under fire for describing white nationalists as “very fine people,” Pence is there to assure the world that he is actually a man of great decency. When Trump needs someone to fly across the country to an NFL game so he can walk out in protest of national-anthem kneelers, Pence heads for Air Force Two.

This willingness to serve as First Toady was evident in Pence’s initial interview — on a Trump golf course — as a potential running mate:

Pence had called Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, whom he’d known for years, and asked for her advice on how to handle the meeting. Conway had told him to talk about “stuff outside of politics,” and suggested he show his eagerness to learn from the billionaire. “I knew they would enjoy each other’s company,” Conway told me, adding, “Mike Pence is someone whose faith allows him to subvert his ego to the greater good.”

True to form, Pence spent much of their time on the course kissing Trump’s ring. You’re going to be the next president of the United States, he said. It would be the honor of a lifetime to serve you. Afterward, he made a point of gushing to the press about Trump’s golf game. “He beat me like a drum,” Pence confessed, to Trump’s delight.

This set the pattern for Pence, notwithstanding anything he might have contemplated during the brief but intense hours after the Access Hollywoodrevelations.

What makes Coppins’s take on Pence especially valuable is his understanding that sucking up to Trump was entirely in keeping with the Hoosier governor’s sense that God was working through the unlikely medium of the heathenish demagogue to lift up Pence and his godly agenda to the heights of power. Just as it has been forgotten that the Access Hollywood tapes nearly brought Trump down, it has rarely been understood outside Indiana that Pence was down and possibly out when Trump reached out to him to join his ticket.

The very fact that he is standing behind a lectern bearing the vice-presidential seal is, one could argue, a loaves-and-fishes-level miracle. Just a year earlier, he was an embattled small-state governor with underwater approval ratings, dismal reelection prospects, and a national reputation in tatters.

Pence’s apparent demise, moreover, came after his careful plans to position himself to run for president in 2016 went awry via his clumsy handling of a signature “religious liberty” bill and a fatal underestimation of the resulting backlash from the business community.

All of a sudden, he was lifted from this slough of despond and placed a heartbeat away from total power thanks to his ability to, as Kellyanne Conway put it, “subvert his ego” in the presence of his deliverer, whose own ego has no limits. He clearly has not forgotten this lesson of an ambition fed by self-abasement rather than self-promotion. And according to Coppins, he even has a theological justification for blind loyalty to Trump:

Marc Short, a longtime adviser to Pence and a fellow Christian, told me that the vice president believes strongly in a scriptural concept evangelicals call “servant leadership.” The idea is rooted in the Gospels, where Jesus models humility by washing his disciples’ feet and teaches, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.”

Usually the idea is to be the “slave” of one’s followers and of the less fortunate, not the slave of the billionaire POTUS, but Pence has the “humility” part down pat.

Pence’s presumed reward in this redemption story could, of course, extend beyond the power he exercises as one of the more influential vice-presidents in history, and as Trump’s designated mediator with the Christian right and with those Republican elected officials who aren’t themselves in the great man’s retinue. He would be the obvious successor to Trump in 2024, when he will still be a relatively youthful 65 — whether or not Trump wins a second term in 2020. And in the meantime, as in the panic-stricken hours after the Access Hollywood tapes were released, Republicans will look to Pence as a reassuring and unifying figure whenever Trump’s presidency is endangered, whether it’s by the Mueller investigation or his own erratic conduct.

Pence has indeed come a long way since he was airlifted out of what was probably a losing gubernatorial race to the role of worshipful sidekick to Donald Trump. And he’s earned his actual and potential power via a habit of slavish loyalty that he may consider godly, but others find infernally corrupt if effective.”

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I’ve called Pence a sycophant. But, sycophant, toady, you get the picture: spineless, and when you get beyond the disgustingly un-Christian and un-Jesus brand of intolerant religious zealotry that Pence passes off for Christianity (thus giving Christians a “bad name”) you get a guy that no thoughtful American should want for President.  Doesn’t, of course, mean that he won’t be President; just that he shouldn’t be.

Now, there is a school of thought around “The Swamp” that “Mikey the Toady” is “going down” along with The Trumpster in “Russiagate,” leaving us with the “Weaselly  Badger” Paul Ryan as President. Before you get too excited about that prospect, however, best to read the following article to understand that in addition to being a spineless coward who isn’t as smart as he and his backers think he is, Ryan is a “Joint Venture” (50-50 ownership for you non-corporate types) of the National Rifle Association and the Koch Brothers. Yeah, I know that this is a “fake news” satirical piece by none other than the New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz. Sadly, however, it contains more accuracy than a standard White House press briefing by Sarah Huckabee Sanders (a disturbingly low standard to be sure — where oh where is “Spicey” when we need him?). In the end, he could turn out to be just as damaging to America and the world as Trump and Pence.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/koch-brothers-and-nra-reach-timeshare-agreement-over-ownership-of-paul-ryan

“WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a unique accord, the billionaire Koch brothers and the National Rifle Association have reached a timeshare agreement over the ownership of House Speaker Paul Ryan, representatives of both parties have confirmed.

Speaking on behalf of the Kochs, Charles Koch said that he contacted the N.R.A.’s executive director, Wayne LaPierre, with the timeshare proposal “so that we could all get the maximum enjoyment out of owning Paul.”

The arrangement is intended to minimize conflicts between the Kochs and the gun group that have arisen in the past when both co-owners have wanted to use Ryan at the same time, Koch said.

“I said to Wayne, ‘This is craziness,’ ” he said. “ ‘Let’s work something out where you get Paul half the year, and we’ll take him the other half.’ ”

Under the timeshare deal, the Kochs will have the exclusive use of Ryan during the months when tax cuts and environmental deregulation are put to a vote, while the N.R.A. will have him for the months when gun legislation is to be defeated.

Additionally, each co-owner is responsible for insuring that Ryan is well maintained and in good condition when the other’s period of using him commences.

Koch indicated that, if the timeshare agreement is a success, the two parties are likely to work out a similar deal for their longtime joint ownership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.”

So, what’s a self-respecting country to do? The answer is actually pretty obvious. Stop putting Republicans in elective office. No, that won’t cure all the country’s ills; indeed, just repairing the damage already done by this Administration could take decades.

But, at least we’ll have some folks in office who are working for the common good and trying to solve the nation’s and the world’s problems (yes, amazingly, they are interrelated) rather than actively making them worse every day. And, that would be a start!

PWS

121-08-17

GONZO’S WORLD: Sessions Gives Congress The “Scarface Treatment” Again — Then He Jokes About Russia — Will Mueller Eventually Wipe The Smirk Off Gonzo’s Face?

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/jeff-sessions-has-a-strangely-selective-memory.html

Eric Levitz writes in NY Maggie:

“Jeff Sessions’s memory works in mysterious ways. He has “no clear recollection” of the March 2016 meeting where George Papadopoulos offered to set up a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin — but the attorney general does remember shooting down the campaign aide’s unseemly suggestion.

Or, so Sessions tells the House Judiciary Committee.

In October, Sessions testified to the Senate that he did not have any “continuing exchange of information” with Russian operatives — and that he wasn’t “aware of anyone else [on the Trump campaign] that did.” Weeks later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller revealed

“Papadopoulos’s confession to the crime of lying to the FBI. In that written statement, the former Trump campaign national security adviser claimed that he had told Sessions about “connections” he had that “could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin” in March of last year. In his testimony before Congress Tuesday, Sessions tried to account for this apparent discrepancy.

“I do now recall the March 2016 meeting at Trump Hotel that Mr. Papadopoulos attended, but I have no clear recollection of the details of what he said at that meeting,” Sessions explained. “After reading his account, and to the best of my recollection, I believe that I wanted to make clear to him that he was not authorized to represent the campaign with the Russian government, or any other foreign government, for that matter.”

Later, Sessions said more firmly, “At the meeting, I pushed back.”

So, the attorney general has no clear memory of the meeting, but has a vivid recollection of behaving admirably during it.

This isn’t the first time that Sessions’s memories of last year have failed him. In January, the attorney general testified to the Senate that he had not “been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day.” Months later, the Washington Post revealed that Sessions had met with the Russian ambassador to the United States multiple times during the 2016 campaign. Sessions responded to these revelations by insisting that he’d met with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in his capacity as U.S. senator (not as a Trump surrogate), and that they did not discuss the 2016 election. Sessions later conceded that it was “possible” that Trump’s positions on U.S.-Russia relations came up in his discussions with Kislyak.

Some Democrats have suggested that Sessions’s multiple false statements to Congress this year were conscious lies. The former senator responded to such charges with indignation Tuesday.

“My answers have not changed,” Sessions said. “I have always told the truth, and I have answered every question as I understood them and to the best of my recollection, as I will continue to do today … I will not accept and reject accusations that I have ever lied under oath. That is a lie.”

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Meanwhile, speaking to a friendly audience over at the Heritage Foundation, Gonzo treated the Russia investigation as a joke. Mary Papenfuss reports for HuffPost:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions had lawyers rolling in the aisles with a surprising string of Russian quips at the start of a speech he gave Friday.

Sessions was the keynote speaker at the National Lawyers Convention at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel hosted by the conservative Federalist Society.

He thanked the applauding crowd for welcoming him. Then, smiling mischievously, he added: “But I just was thinking, you know, I should ― I want to ask you. Is  Ambassador Kislyak in the room? Before I get started ― any Russians?” As the laughs grew louder, he continued: “Anybody been to Russia? Got a cousin in Russia?” The audience roared.

The jarring jokes came just three days after Sessions was pressed in Congress on apparent discrepancies in his previous testimony about Trump associates’ meetings with Russians during the 2016 campaign.

Sergey Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., met with several members of Donald Trump’s campaign during the Republican National Convention, Kislyak and some Trump associates have revealed. Kislyak was widely believed a top spy recruiter.

Kislyak has said he discussed Trump’s policy positions during the campaign with Sessions, an early Trump supporter who was an Alabama senator at the time, The Washington Post reported.

But during his confirmation hearings to become attorney general ― before the Post report ― Sessions said he “never met with or had any conversations with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election.”

Sessions later recused himself from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election.

Critics were stunned by Sessions’ attitude in the lawyers’ speech.

Sessions “still doesn’t get it” — he’s “in trouble,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) told Wolf Blitzer later on CNN.

“He’s not in trouble where he happened to be in places where there are Russians,” said Lieu, a member of the House Judiciary Committee who grilled Sessions this week. “He is in trouble because he had a nearly hour-long meeting with Ambassador Kislyak — also a spy — and then he failed to disclose the existence of that meeting under oath to the U.S. Senate. That’s why Jeff Sessions is in trouble.”

Blitzer noted that Kislyak “now says he spoke with so many Trump officials it would take him more than 20 minutes to name them all.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sessions-russian-lawyers_us_5a0fb5dee4b045cf43718e96?ncid=APPLENEWS00001

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PWS
11-19-17

GONZO’S WORLD: FRANK RICH @ NY MAGGIE THINKS GONZO COULD FOLLOW JOHN MITCHELL’S FOOTSTEPS ALL THE WAY TO JAIL: “He’s an awful attorney general but he’s arguably an even worse liar.” — I Think It’s Time for Senator Al Franken (D-MN) To Step Down!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/frank-rich-the-gop-cant-handle-moore-problems.html

Rich writes:

“Last month, Jeff Sessions testified that he was not aware of anyone in the Trump campaign who had been in contact with Russia. Though press accounts have appeared to prove him wrong, yesterday he told the House Judiciary Committee that he “had no recollection” of the meeting, and has “always told the truth.” Will he face consequences for changing his story?

The second most-scandal-ridden presidency in American history, Richard Nixon’s, also had an attorney general, John Mitchell, who had played a major role in his boss’s presidential campaign. He ended up in prison. Sessions seems determined to head to the same destination. He has been repeatedly caught lying to Congress about his and others’ contacts with the Russians, and his only defense has been to strike a sanctimonious tone of self-martyrdom, to repeat or enhance the original lies, and to accuse his inquisitors of rank injustice. He’s an awful attorney general but he’s arguably an even worse liar. It was especially choice to hear him testify last week that he had completely forgotten about attending a meeting with Trump where George Papadopoulos talked about his Russian connections; he just couldn’t stop himself from embroidering the lie further by adding he did remember a single aspect of it after all — a supposedly exculpatory moment when he pushed back on Papadopoulos’s suggestion of a Trump-Putin meeting. This stuff is not going to go over well with the special counsel.

The most unexpected twist in last week’s hearing, by the way, came when Sessions, for the moment at least, firmly shut down Trump’s idea of appointing a new special counsel to investigate the Clintons. What brought that on? A cynic might ask if he is already trying to butter up the jury pool in Washington.”

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Read Rich’s full column, where he also covers Ayatollah Roy, Ivanka, and Donnie Jr., at the link.

As I have noted before, as a former trial and appellate judge, I find Gonzo totally incredible by the standards applied to witnesses in immigration cases. I also find his bristling self-righteous indignation that anyone would dare call him on his obvious lack of candor to be disgusting hypocrisy, even by Gonzo standards. But, testifying incredibly, even under oath, does not necessarily amount to perjury under the law.

I have no particular desire to see Gonzo end his career in jail. But, there are plenty of reasons why he should no longer be the Attorney General of the U.S. Right wing talk radio would be a good fit for him.

Gonzo might also benefit from the good fortune to have one of his chief Senate critics/accusers Senator Al Franken (D-MN) in some pretty “deep doodo” himself. Indeed, given that the woman who raised Franken’s past sexual harassment has pictures, witnesses, and Franken himself doesn’t deny or attempt to justify the incident, why would he put her, himself, the Senate, the Democratic Party, and the country through a useless investigation? What is there to “investigate?” We know what happened; in light of it, Franken needs to do the right thing and step down. This isn’t SNL. And, the Democrats can’t afford a major sexual scandal in the Senate right now.

PWS

11-16-17