"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Vice President Mike Pence raised eyebrows with his latest praise of President Donald Trump, which critics described as “ridiculous” and “embarrassing.”
“I always tell people that to know President Trump is to know someone whose word is his bond,” Pence claimed Thursday during a “Life Wins!” event in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Read the full article at the link.
Perhaps what Mikey Moron meant to say is “whose word is as bogus as a $3 bill” (isn’t that the one with the Liar-in-Chief’s picture on the front?)
I actually think words like “ridiculous” and “embarrassing” are far, far too kind to this shameless butt-kisser, moral coward, incompetent executive, and betrayer of American democracy and human decency! He’s part of the “Evil Clown Show” ☠️🤮🤡 that has killed tens of thousands of American citizens as well as an untold number of refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrants, put innocent kids in jail, and caused unfathomable pain and suffering to name just a few of the gross misdeeds in which he has had a supporting role.
Has there ever in history been a more outlandish incumbent ticket of “proven malicious incompetency?”
This November, vote like your life and the future of our nation depend on it! Because they do!
As he seeks a second term, [Trump has] also made it clear that he hasn’t finished. He still wants to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program once and for all, drive out the millions of unauthorized immigrants living in the US and curb their political power, enact what he calls “merit-based” immigration reform, and pursue a slew of restrictive immigration regulations.
The US has already seen the harms of Trump’s first-term immigration policies, which could cut deeper if he’s given another four years: Legal immigration is plummeting, stymying growth in the labor force and threatening the US’s ability to attract global talent and recover from the coronavirus-induced recession. The US has abdicated its role as a model for how a powerful country should support the world’s most vulnerable people. And the millions of immigrants already living in the US, regardless of their legal status, have been left uncertain of their fate in the country they have come to call home.
Other concerns — including the coronavirus, racial justice, and unemployment — have recently eclipsed immigration as a top motivating issue for voters. But for Trump, who currently lags former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls, restricting immigration proved a winning message in 2016, and he will likely try to replicate that strategy again.
“It’s the thing he keeps going back to,” Douglas Rivlin, director of communication at the immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice, said. “It is his comfort zone — to go after people of color and turn them into sort of the specter of scary, violent people as a political strategy.”
. . . .
Whether any version of that proposal will get traction would largely depend on the makeup of the next Congress and whether Democrats win a majority in the Senate. Most immigration policy experts aren’t convinced that Trump will see success in negotiating with Democrats, but the political calculus could change if Democrats control both chambers of Congress and need Trump to sign their legislation.
It also depends on Republicans acting as a unified front on immigration. So far, pro-business Republicans aren’t challenging the restrictions and travel bans Trump has imposed during the pandemic, and as the US continues to grapple with its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and more than a million Americans are out of work, they will likely continue to follow the president’s lead. But in the long term, they might find themselves at philosophical odds with the anti-immigrant wing of the party.
“I think the reality of the economics of immigration and the sort of more ideological agenda are going to come into conflict,” Rivlin said.
But if Trump can overcome those hurdles, the prize would be substantial: the ability the leave his mark on the immigration system beyond a series of executive actions that could be reversed by the next Democrat who assumes office.
“Merit-based immigration reform would be a legacy for him on immigration, more so than a border wall,” the Bipartisan Policy Institute’s Cardinal-Brown said. “That would have impacts on the future of immigration for decades.”
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Read the rest of Nicole’s gloomy yet (as always) well-written outlook at the link.
Don’t be fooled. In “Trumpspeak” the term “merit-based” means “race-based” (favoring, of course, White guys, preferably rich, English speaking, and prospective GOP toadies). Again, to state the obvious, a “kakistocracy” by definition lacks the ability to recognize and reward true “merit.” That’s why it’s a “kakistocracy,” not a “meritocracy!”
America is a nation of immigrants. To change that, Trump will have to destroy America, which, as this week’s “clown show of hate, fear, loathing, and complete nonsense” (a/k/a “The GOP Convention”) shows, he and his followers are perfectly willing to do.
This perverted “vision” of America also ties in well with the Trump/GOP approach to racism and social justice: Ignore injustice and double down on violence administered by the largely White power structure against communities of color. Kill, maim, blame, punish, jail, intimidate, disenfranchise, and dehumanize the victims rather than looking for cooperative ways to solve the problems. Sow fear, hate, and division to insure that institutionalized racism and White grievance will be indelibly ingrained in America! As these self-inflicted grievances play out, the Trump family and its cronies will use the ensuing chaos as a diversion to loot the Treasury and use what remains of “government” to further their own personal interests, without regard to the common welfare. Nice folks!
It’s doubtful that America as the majority of us have envisioned it can survive another four years of Trump’s corruption, racism, and malicious incompetence. Despite some liberal wishful thinking, our democratic institutions and apparently overrated “checks and balances” are crumbling before our eyes.
The “JR Five” on the Supremes and the GOP Senate already have reached “Penceian levels” (“Pence” rhymes with “incompetence”) of mindless sycophantic subservience to the “Clown Prince” and his entourage. None of them would be able to extract their collective heads from the more than ample Presidential rear to see any daylight during a second term. Trump’s re-election would inevitably convert the “City on The Hill” to a “wealthy universally despised third world kleptocracy.” That’s the real “vision” of Trump and the GOP. (I think that Nicole’s “hypothetical” of a Trump victory and a Dem Senate is the “least likely scenario.”)
This November, vote like your life and the world’s future depend on it! Because they do!
Equal Justice & A Diverse America For All! Trump’s Dark, Evil, Dishonest Vision Of America, Never!
On Thursday night, perhaps having been zapped with some sort of taser that sent a momentary current of sense through his body, Donald Trump announced that despite previously, falsely claiming he had “total” authority to force states to reopen far sooner than experts say is safe, the decision would be left to the individual governors. “If they need to remain closed,” he said, “we will allow them to do that.” Then he went to bed and woke up the exact same lunatic we’ve come to know and fear over the last three-plus years, and decided to spend a portion of his day whipping anti-social distancing protesters into a frenzy, contradicting everything he had said less than 24 hours prior.
The three states Trump all-caps called out have the distinction of being run by Democratic governors who’ve had the temerity to insist that logic and science will dictate when and how they will get people back to everyday life, a plan that has been met by mobs of angryprotesters who’d prefer to congregate in large groups ASAP, wildly contagious coronavirus be damned. While some of them, like Virginia’s Ralph Northam, dismissed Trump’s tweets as the ravings of an online troll, saying at a press conference that he’s “fighting a biological war” and “[does] not have time” to involve himself in “Twitter wars,” others were less inclined to let them slide.
The president’s statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts,” Washington governor Jay Inslee wrote on Twitter. “He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19. His unhinged rantings and calls for people to ‘liberate’ states could also lead to violence. We’ve seen it before.” He continued: “The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies—even while his own administration says the virus is real, it is deadly and we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted…. The president’s actions threaten his own goal of recovery. His words will likely cause a spike in infections where distancing is working. That will further postpose the 14 days of decline his own guidance says is necessary to ease restrictions…. I hope someday we can look at today’s meltdown as something to be pitied, rather than condemned. But we don’t have that luxury today. There is too much at stake.”
Meanwhile, in a Friday call with Mike Pence, Senate Democrats questioned the vice president re: what the hell Trump is doing and if they can expect someone in the administration to sit him down and tell him to cut the shit. To which the answer was obviously no:
Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) pressed Pence on Trump’s Twitter feed at the end of the call, asking why the president was trying to incite division by tweeting “LIBERATE” Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan and aligning himself with protests in those states over their lockdowns. Pence said the administration is working with governors but that the president will continue to communicate with the American people as he always has.
So that’s something to look forward to.
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Trump sends an additional half a billion dollars to states to fight COVID-19
No, just kidding. That money’s actually going to his completely useless wall, per the Daily Beast:
In the middle of a pandemic that has killed 27,000 Americans and counting, the Army this week gave a politically connected Montana firm half a billion dollars—not to manufacture ventilators or protective gear to fight the novel coronavirus, but to build 17 miles of President Trump’s southern border wall. On Tuesday, the Army Corps of Engineers announced it awarded BFBC, an affiliate of Barnard Construction, $569 million in contract modifications for building “17.17 miles” of the wall in two California locations, El Centro and San Diego. That works out to over $33 million per mile—steeply above the $20 million-per-mile average that the Trump administration is already doling out for the wall. Construction is supposed to be completed by the end of June 2021.
On the bright side, it’s not like the money is effectively being lit on fire except, oh wait, that’s exactly what it’s like:
Smugglers sawed into new sections of President Trump’s border wall 18 times in the San Diego area during a single one-month span late last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection records obtained by the Washington Post via a Freedom of Information Act request…. The records do not indicate whether the one-month span last year is a representative sample of how frequently people are trying to breach new sections of Trump’s border barrier, which are made of tall steel bollards partially filled with concrete and rebar. The Post reported last November that smuggling crews armed with common battery-operated power tools—including reciprocating saws that retail for as little as $100 at home improvement stores—can cut through the bollards using inexpensive blades designed for slicing through metal and stone.
On Wednesday, a group of 66 representatives and 25 senators sent a letter to the administration calling for the halting of construction on the wall until the coronavirus crisis is tackled. “We should be using all resources and funding to combat this virus and protect Americans, instead of using critical funding and resources to continue the construction of a border wall,” the lawmakers wrote. “The construction of a wall puts workers, law enforcement personnel, and border residents in immediate danger.” Said letter will presumably be used as toilet paper in the West Wing washroom, but it was a valiant effort nevertheless.
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You can read the rest of the “Levin Report” at the above link.
James Downie Digital Opinions Editor Washington Post
Meanwhile, over at the WashPost, James Downie weighs in on our spineless Veep:
When Donald Trump chose Mike Pence as his running mate in 2016, the obvious political benefit was that Pence, a former governor and House member who is famously Christian, could boost evangelical and conservative turnout to help Republicans up and down the ballot. But for the egomaniacal Trump, Pence had another key qualification: “He says nice things about me.”
Since being named to the ticket, Pence has repeatedly put his obsequiousness on display: Few on Team Trump are better at deploying up-is-down reasoning to spin news to Trump’s benefit. But during the vice president’s appearances on NBC’s and Fox News’s Sunday morning talk shows, it was clear that even Pence could not bootlick his way out of the lurch the president’s actions leave the rest of us in.
On Friday, Trump spoke out in support of protests against stay-at-home orders imposed by Democratic governors in Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia. It’s disturbing enough that the president would undermine the fight against the pandemic. Worse was his provocative call on Twitter to “LIBERATE” those states — and, in Virginia’s case, “save your great 2nd Amendment” — which caught the attention of far-right extremists. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) rightly observed Friday, “The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies — even while his own administration says the virus is real.”
Protests with honking horns, anti-shutdown signs and angry Americans continued in Maryland, Texas and Wisconsin on April 18. (The Washington Post)
[Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]
Naturally, hosts on both NBC and Fox asked the vice president to explain the president’s comments. After all, as Fox host Chris Wallace pointed out, “they’re protesting your own guidelines to stop the spread.” On Fox, Pence focused on bragging about the White House coronavirus task force. When pressed, he assured viewers that “no one in America wants to reopen this country more than President Donald Trump” — a line he repeated on NBC. In both interviews, he then turned to touting guidelines that Trump issued Thursday for reopening states. Pence omitted that the guidance leaves key decisions up to governors, who Trump has said should call the shots on reopening. Both are in keeping with this president’s refusal to take responsibility for the pandemic crisis or a national response.
. . . .
The simple truth is that Pence dodged because the president’s actions were indefensible. But Pence can’t say that, both because the protests are being cheered by Fox News and like-minded outlets and because Pence wants to stay in the good graces of a president who values loyalty to him above all else. So long as conservative media and egomania mean more to the president than Americans’ lives, the rest of the country suffers.
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Read the rest of Downie’s op-ed at the link.
Actually, Pence is the only person in the Trump regime that the Clown-in-Chief can’t arbitrarily remove from office for speaking truth. Sure, Trump can toss him off the ticket for November. But, there are other factors here:
In the best case scenario, it won’t make any difference because Biden will win;
Trump might still remove Pence from the ticket on a whim, no matter how much he sucks up;
At some point is being a coward/toady/apologist for the most corrupt President in U.S. history really worth sacrificing the health and welfare of our nation as well as your human dignity?
I guess for someone like Pence, toadyism has no limits. But, America needs and deserves better from its #2.
This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does! Throw the Clowns out!🤡
President Trump has no one but himself to blame for the fact that he is on the verge of being impeached. He recognizes no legal or moral limits on his “absolute right” to do whatever he pleases — including pressuring a foreign country to intervene in U.S. politics on his behalf. But his most senior aides have done him no favors by acting as accelerators rather than brakes on his unconscionable conduct.
Three senior officials, in particular, could have tried to dissuade the president from misusing his office for personal gain, but there is no evidence that they ever attempted to do so. History will record their names along with Trump’s in the annals of ignominy. The president’s principal accomplices in his brazen assault on the rule of law are Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Attorney General William P. Barr.
Pence has been Trump’s most prominent proxy in his attempts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to cough up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and to absolve Russia of hacking the 2016 election. Trump told Pence not to attend Zelensky’s inauguration in May so as to turn the screws on the Ukrainian president. When they finally met in Warsaw on Sept. 1, Pence again pressured Zelensky to take action on “corruption,” a code word for investigating Biden and the former vice president’s son Hunter.
Pence has adopted the Sergeant Schultz defense: I know nothing! His protestations of innocence are unconvincing, given that the president’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, publicly proclaimed his desire to get dirt on the Bidens from Ukraine. Moreover, Pence’s national security adviser listened in on the now-infamous July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky that another participant described as “crazy” and “frightening.” Pence himself was given a readout of the call, yet he claims to have seen nothing wrong and is still sticking to the discredited cover story that Trump was pursuing a legitimate investigation of corruption. Pence will be saved from being remembered as the worst vice president in history only because Spiro Agnew had to resign after being charged with tax evasion and bribery.
Pompeo is now officially the worst secretary of state in history — wresting that uncoveted title from his predecessor, Rex Tillerson. As former secretary of state Colin Powell notes, “Our foreign policy is a shambles right now,” and Pompeo bears part of the blame for failing to stand up to Trump. He did not offer his resignation when the president proclaimed himself “in love” with the dictator of North Korea or when he abandoned the United States’ Kurdish allies. Pompeo subordinates the United States’ national interest to his own political interests; he is said to be interested in succeeding Trump.
Pompeo was fully aware of how unlawful Trump was acting — he was also on the July 25 call, though he pretended during interviews that he had no idea what had transpired. There is no evidence he did anything to stop Trump. Instead, he has endorsed the crazy conspiracy theory that it was the Ukrainians, not the Russians, who interfered in the 2016 election. Pompeo is now leading Trump’s coverup: He has refused to allow State Department employees to testify to Congress, denouncing Congress’s request as “an attempt to intimidate” and “bully” the career professionals. If anyone is bullying Foreign Service officers, it is Trump; witness the president’s firing of a respected ambassador in Ukraine because she wouldn’t help Giuliani frame Biden. Pompeo stood by as this happened.
No wonder State Department employees are so disgusted and demoralized. “The mood is low and getting lower,” Thomas Pickering, a distinguished former ambassador, told the New York Times.
But wait. If you think that’s bad, Barr says “hold my beer.” The attorney general has already misled the country about the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation by falsely claiming that the president had been absolved of collusion and obstruction of justice. Barr then refused to investigate complaints that a crime had been committed during Trump’s call with Zelensky. Now, he is flying around the world to pressure allies to cooperate with his politically motivated probe designed to show that the investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia was actually a “witch hunt” by the so-called deep state — just as Trump claims. Barr’s highly improper requests have stirred a backlash in Italy, Australia and Britain — close allies that have no desire to be thrust into U.S. domestic politics.
By waging war on the dedicated professionals in his own department at the behest of a law-breaking president, Barr is ensuring that he will be remembered as the worst attorney general ever. He has even eclipsed in awfulness his immediate predecessor, acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker, a political hack who was previously a hawker of toilets for “well-endowed” men.
Impeaching Pence, Pompeo and Barr would be an unneeded distraction from the necessary impeachment of their boss but, on the merits, all three richly deserve to join Trump in the dock. They have betrayed the country and their oaths of office. They have even failed Trump by not acting to save the worst person ever to occupy the White House from his worst instincts.
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Yup. Public service doesn’t get any worse than this, although “Big Mac” could easily be included (and Stephen Miller, but he’d be part of the “Trump package.”) Unlikely to happen, of course. But, it should!
In an interview on “Meet the Press,” President Trump repeated a whopper of a lie.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
Separation, President Obama, I took over separation. I’m the one that put it together. What’s happened though are the cartels and all of these bad people, they’re using the kids. They’re, they’re, it’s almost like slavery.
CHUCK TODD:
But let’s not punish the kids more.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
No this has been happening —
CHUCK TODD:
Aren’t you — the kids are getting punished more.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
You’re right. And this has been happening long before I got there. What we’ve done is we’ve created, we’ve, we’ve ended separation. You know, under President Obama you had separation. I was the one that ended it. Now I said one thing, when I ended it I said, “Here’s what’s going to happen. More families are going to come up.” And that’s what’s happened. But they’re really coming up for the economics. But once you ended the separation. But I ended separation. I inherited separation from President Obama.
The Post’s fact-checkers back in April explained: “The Obama administration rejected a plan for family separations, according to Cecilia Muñoz, Obama’s top adviser for immigration. The Trump administration operated a pilot program for family separations in the El Paso area beginning in mid-2017.” Trump’s claim that “Obama did it first” is both morally vapid and completely wrong: “The Trump administration implemented this policy by choice, exercising its discretion to prosecute some crimes over others. But no law or court ruling mandates family separations. In fact, during its first 15 months, the Trump administration released nearly 100,000 immigrants who were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, a total that includes more than 37,500 unaccompanied minors and more than 61,000 family-unit members.” In short, “The zero-tolerance approach is worlds apart from the Obama- and Bush-era policy of separating children from adults at the border only in limited circumstances, such as when officials suspected human trafficking or another kind of danger to the child or when false claims of parentage were made.”
Jake Tapper at CNN showed the right way to confront administration members on Sunday, when he went right after Vice President Pence’s misrepresentations about the dismal condition of children still held. After playing a clip of administration lawyers arguing in the 9th Circuit that there was no responsibility to provide basic necessities to children such as toothbrushes, Pence tried to claim that he didn’t know what the lawyers were saying. Tapper kept after him:
”But this is going on right now,” Tapper said, adding “This is the wealthiest nation in the world. We have money to give toothpaste and soap and blankets to these kids in this facility in El Paso County. Right now, we do.”
“Well, of course — of course we do,” Pence said.
“So why aren’t we?” Taper asked.
Pence again dodged the question with a snicker, replying “My point is — my point is, it’s all a part of the appropriations process.”
Tapper then had to cut Pence off from the lengthy digression that followed in order to force the question again.
“But I’m talking about the kids — I’m talking about the kids our custody right now,” Taper said. “Just listen to this. This is ‘The New Yorker’ citing a team of lawyers who visited a border facility.”
Pence tried to interrupt him again, but Tapper insisted “I just want to quote this.”
“The conditions the lawyers were found were shocking,” Tapper read. “Flu and lice outbreaks were going untreated. Children were filthy, sleeping on cold floors, taking care of each other because of the lack of attention from guards.”
“I know you. You’re a father. You’re a man of faith. You can’t approve of that,” Tapper said.
“Well, I — I — no — no American — no American should approve of this mass influx of people coming across our border,” Pence stammered. It is overwhelming our system at the southern border.
“But how about how we’re treating these children?” Tapper asked, again, and Pence deflected, again.
“I was at the detention center in Nogales just a few short months ago. It is a heartbreaking scene,” Pence said, but then added These are people who are being exploited by human traffickers, who charge them $5,000 a person to entice them to take their vulnerable children…”
“But now these kids are in our custody,” Tapper said.
Pence continued to blame Democrats in Congress, but Tapper again reiterated “But I would say that I’m talking about the kids on our southern border right now.”
He told Pence “you have the power right now to go back to the White House and say, we need to make sure that these kids — first of all, that there are people taking care of them, so it is not 12-year-olds taking care of 3-year-olds, and, second of all, that they have soap, that they have toothbrushes, that they have combs, that we’re taking care so they don’t all get the flu.”
Pence once again tried to blame Democrats, to which Tapper replied “I think Democrats would argue that they want to do a deal with President Trump, but he hasn’t showed any inclination.”
That’s precisely how reporters need to go after Trump and his morally deficient administration. This is the Trump administration’s policy. This is the Trump administration’s doing. This is the Trump administration’s refusal to address basic humanitarian needs (while raiding the Defense Department to build a useless wall that has nothing to do with asylum seekers presenting themselves at the border).
Allowing Trump and his ilk to bluster and flat-out lie their way through interviews might be the path of least resistance when trying to cover a lot of ground. However, if Trump and his teammates are not stopped dead in their tracks, the media become a platform for deceiving voters.
Headlines that echo the president — “Trump says Obama did it first” — are equally reprehensible. (It should be “Trump falsely blames Obama for his own policy.”) Trump, Pence and the rest are accustomed to running through their ridiculous talking points (e.g. the United States has the cleanest water and air in the world) without objection on outlets such as Fox. Other media can and must do better. And when the general-election debates roll around, moderators must be willing to correct misstatements of fact. (Or follow up by asking, “But that’s not true, is it Mr. President?”)
We’re at risk of losing not only a shared set of facts but also a uniform belief that there are such things as facts. That’s straight out of the autocratic playbook — one that the media cannot facilitate.
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Another part of the Trump, Pence, GOP “Big Lie” — that folks are coming “illegally.” Actually, they are coming and turning themselves in to apply for legal status which they are entitled to do under our laws and international treaties. Trump & Pence actually eliminated the only program allowing folks from the Northern Triangle to seek refugee status from outside the U.S.
What is illegal is the Trump Administration’s failure to promptly and fairly process individuals at ports of entry and returning those who have passed the first step of the process, known as “credible fear,” to Mexico where they are in danger, prevented from getting lawyers of their choice as authorized by statute, and inhibited from fairly and completely presenting their asylum cases before U.S. Immigration Judges (who themselves are not independent, fair, and impartial adjudicators since they work for Attorney General, Trump protector, and self-styled enforcement guru Bill Barr).
Oh, and how about a moratorium on Trump’s Golf Trips and Pence’s religious proselytizing trips on the public dime until every kid in Government custody has a bed, blanket, toothbrush, and a bar of soap?
No, it isn’t really about Congressional appropriations (although the GOP in Congress certainly bears a major part of the blame for Trump’s audacious violations of human rights). Congress didn’t waste money that could and should have been spent on the welfare of asylum seekers on less important things like walls, tent cities, detention, and other “built to fail” initiatives that have done little or nothing to advance the fair and effective administration of our asylum laws. Nor did Congress make the decision not to be prepared to process the asylum seekers who have been slowly and methodically heading north since before last Thanksgiving. You wouldn’t need the world’s best intelligence service to figure out the rate of flow and predict how many might need processing.
As those of us who understand immigration know, desperate people are likely to continue to leave the failed states of the Northern Triangle until the international community deals with the causes of the migration.
Everything the U.S. has done under the “maliciously incompetent” Trump Administration, from encouraging environmental degradation, to withdrawing refugee programs and aid programs, to dumb, anti-human rhetoric, to egging Mexico on to a militarized rather than a human rights response, to idiotically trying to ”enforce” our way out of a humanitarian crisis notwithstanding decades of experience and data showing it won’t work, to empowering gangs, smugglers, cartels, and corrupt government officials, to intentionally backlogging Immigration Courts while destroying established legal principles that could have led to “fast track grants” of many deserving domestic violence asylum cases, to tying up the Federal Courts with frivolous litigation, to intentional child abuse, has made the situation immeasurably and unnecessarily worse.
Yes, Trump might be able to get away with killing and abusing hundreds, perhaps thousands, in Mexico. But even this predictable bloodbath, which he hopes to keep out of sight as the U.S. media loses interest, won’t solve the problem in the long run.
Every day Trump remains in office we diminish ourselves as a nation; but, that won’t stop human migration. It will just leave us as diminished, dehumanized, shells of humanity. It’s time to “just say no to Trump and his supporters and enablers” as they seek to destroy America!
Sophia Menchu Reporter, ReutersEleanor Acer Senior Director for Refugee Protection, Human Rights First
Sophia Menchu reports for Reuters:
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – A U.S. plan to make asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador seek refuge in Guatemala instead of the United States would endanger, not protect, refugees, a prominent rights group said on Friday as U.S. negotiators met Guatemalan officials.
U.S. rights group Human Rights First said it was “simply ludicrous” for the United States to assert that Guatemala was capable of protecting refugees, when its own citizens are fleeing violence.
“The Trump administration is doubling down on its efforts to block, bar and punish refugees for attempting to seek asylum in the United States,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First.
“These policies put the lives of refugees in great danger.”
Guatemala, like its neighbors Honduras and El Salvador, suffers high levels of violence, driven largely by transnational street gangs including MS-13, which operate across borders in all three countries. Many asylum seekers cite gang threats as the reason they come to the United States for refuge.
Tens of thousands of people have left Guatemala to seek U.S. asylum this year. Nearly 150,000 undocumented Guatemalan families have reached the U.S. border since October, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, many of them citing fear of violence in their home country for seeking asylum.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said this week the two nations had a deal under which Guatemala would take asylum seekers from neighbors. “They ought to be willing to apply for asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive,” he said.
Details of the plan have not been made public, and Guatemala has not publicly confirmed talks that the U.S. State Department said were taking place in Guatemala on Friday.
The talks were about a range of initiatives aimed at reducing illegal immigration, including “improved asylum processing,” a State Department spokeswoman said on Friday in response to a Reuters question about the Guatemala asylum plan.
The emerging plans flow from a U.S.-Mexican deal struck to avert tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump to push Mexico to do more to stem immigration through its territory.
That deal included sending 6,000 members of Mexico’s National Guard to the border and expanding a separate asylum program under which U.S. asylum seekers are sent back to Mexico to await U.S. court hearings.
If those measures fail, Mexico has agreed to consider becoming a “safe third country” where all asylum seekers passing through the country would have to apply for refuge, instead of the United States
Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said other countries should share the load, including Guatemala.
Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in the Americas, has little experience receiving large numbers of asylum seekers and a large wave of refugees would strain limited resources. Just 262 people applied for refugee status in Guatemala between January and November 2018, according to data from the U.N. rights agency UNHCR.
By comparison, nearly 155,000 families from El Salvador and Honduras have been apprehended at the U.S. border since October, with many of them requesting asylum.
Guatemala holds presidential elections on Sunday, after a campaign that has highlighted the lack of rule of law in the country, including the influence of drug traffickers on politics in the country.
Trade and immigration between Mexico and the United States – tmsnrt.rs/2Khd82D
As pointed out in the article, Guatemala is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for its own citizens. It doesn’t even have a functioning asylum system. So, how could it provide access to a “full and fair” asylum adjudications to non-citizens as required by our law. The answer is simple – it can’t, by any stretch of the imagination. After all, living long enough to apply, even if there were a functional asylum adjudication system, would be a prerequisite to a legitimate “Safe Third Country” process.
Seems like clear abuses of authority like this by Trump and Pence that should be enough to remove both of them from office forthwith in a functioning democracy. But, that’s not going to happen before 2021, if then.
In the meantime, Dems should make a note that when responsible Government returns at some point in the future, the law should be amended to require at least Senate ratification of any future “Safe Third Country Agreement” to prevent future Executive abuses like this. Indeed, the failure of this Congress to revoke Trump’s authority to enter into these clearly bogus and ill-intended “Safe Third Country” agreements is an indelible stain upon its reputation.
“Safe Third Country” was intended to be about refugee burden sharing among countries with substantially comparable due process systems for adjudicating claims under the Refugee Convention. It was never intended to allow the U.S. to “outsource” asylum adjudication to dangerous, major human rights violators with dysfunctional asylum adjudication systems. What Trump and Pence are proposing is little more than outright murder and human rights abuses inflicted on asylum seekers in violation of both international and U.S. laws.
By now, I assume everyone has read the explosive “Anonymous NY Times Op-Ed” (linked above) that confirmed 1) what everyone already knew about Trump’s total incompetence for office, and 2) the widely rumored but heretofore not previously confirmed existence of an organized “resistance” to Trump within his own senior staff. While many will take heart from the latter, count me out.
What a bad dream! So, now, as a result of the gutless GOP and their supporters, we have the unelected, self-proclaimed “real conservatives” unilaterally deciding which Trump programs are “worthy” — like tax breaks for the rich or eliminating environmental protections — and which are “unworthy” — like, presumably starting a gratuitous nuclear war or handing the country over to Putin.
Is this really an acceptable solution to this GOP/White Nationalist created problem?
What about taking our country back at the ballot box from the anti-American Trump base? What about “outing” these self-proclaimed “saviors” and confronting the GOP with the need to initiate some “removal proceedings” against Trump?
What these “internal resisters” really are doing is putting their own egos over the good of the country. They need to resign, tell what they know, and demand action to remove Trump immediately.
Time to vote every Republican out of office.
Yes, Trump’s removal would result in the ascension of
“Mike the Terrible” Pence to the office of President. Under normal circumstances that would be an unparalleled national disaster in its own right. But, obviously, these aren’t normal times.
Some actually are speculating that “Mikie” is the “Deep Bloat” here. Seems unlikely given his record of sycophancy; on the other hand, he’s the one guy Trump can’t fire. And, stranger things have happened — like Trump being inflicted on us in the first place.
In the meantime, join the New Due Process Army and fight Trumpist White Nationalism in all of its insidious forms.
Donald Trump, with his feral cunning, knew. The oleaginous Mike Pence, with his talent for toadyism and appetite for obsequiousness, could, Trump knew, become America’s most repulsive public figure. And Pence, who has reached this pinnacle by dethroning his benefactor, is augmenting the public stock of useful knowledge. Because his is the authentic voice of today’s lickspittle Republican Party, he clarifies this year’s elections: Vote Republican to ratify groveling as governing.
Last June, a Trump Cabinet meeting featured testimonials offered to Dear Leader by his forelock-tugging colleagues. His chief of staff, Reince Priebus, caught the spirit of the worship service by thanking Trump for the “blessing” of being allowed to serve him. The hosannas poured forth from around the table, unredeemed by even a scintilla of insincerity. Priebus was soon deprived of his blessing, as was Tom Price. Before Price’s ecstasy of public service was truncated because of his incontinent enthusiasm for charter flights, he was the secretary of health and human services who at the Cabinet meeting said, “I can’t thank you enough for the privileges you’ve given me.” The vice president chimed in but saved his best riff for a December Cabinet meeting when, as The Post’s Aaron Blake calculated, Pence praised Trump once every 12 seconds for three minutes: “I’m deeply humbled. . . . ” Judging by the number of times Pence announces himself “humbled,” he might seem proud of his humility, but that is impossible because he is conspicuously devout and pride is a sin.
Between those two Cabinet meetings, Pence and his retinue flew to Indiana for the purpose of walking out of an Indianapolis Colts football game, thereby demonstrating that football players kneeling during the national anthem are intolerable to someone of Pence’s refined sense of right and wrong. Which brings us to his Arizona salute last week to Joe Arpaio, who was sheriff of Maricopa County until in 2016 voters wearied of his act.
Noting that Arpaio was in his Tempe audience, Pence, oozing unctuousness from every pore, called Arpaio “another favorite,” professed himself “honored” by Arpaio’s presence, and praisedhim as “a tireless champion of . . . the rule of law.” Arpaio, a grandstanding, camera-chasing bully and darling of the thuggish right, is also a criminal, convicted of contempt of court for ignoring a federal judge’s order to desist from certain illegal law enforcement practices. Pence’s performance occurred eight miles from the home of Sen. John McCain, who could teach Pence — or perhaps not — something about honor.
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Read the full op-ed at the link.
Yup! Courtside readers please remember that I beat Ol’ Georgie to the punch on this one. https://wp.me/p8eeJm-2vv
Usually, it’s better to just deal with the “real one,” rather than the one who has his nose wedged 12 inches up the real one.
Interesting: “Mikey the Immoral Sycophant” is Trump’s best insurance policy. And Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions is all that stands between Mikey and the “Most Disgusting ‘Whatever’ In Washington” Award!
I’m betting that when the time comes that our poor nation finally is relieved of Gonzo’s “services” as AG, unlike the late Janet Reno he won’t be showing up for any live appearances on SNL. Perhaps, he’ll be out on bond awaiting trial. At least he’s smart enough to hire “Chuckie” Cooper as his mouthpiece rather than “The Fixer!”
“At a televised cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Donald Trump, as is his custom, called on his appointees to publicly praise him. In a performance that would have embarrassed the most obsequious lackey of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Vice President Mike Pence delivered an encomium to his boss, who sat across the table with arms folded over his chest, absorbing abasement as his due.
“I want to thank you, Mr. President,” Pence said. “I want to thank you for speaking on behalf of and fighting every day for the forgotten men and women of America. Because of your determination, because of your leadership, the forgotten men and women of America are forgotten no more. And we are making America great again.” The president thanked him for his kind words, and Pence replied, “Thank you, Mr. President, and God bless you.”
It was a neat summation of where the Republican Party is at the end of the first year of Trump. There’s been a synthesis, in which Trump and establishment Republicans adopt one another’s worst qualities. Trump, who campaigned as a putative economic populist — even calling for higher taxes on the rich — will soon sign into law the tax plan of the House speaker Paul Ryan’s Ayn Randian dreams. The majority of elected Republicans, in turn, are assuming a posture of slavish submission to Trump, worshiping their dear leader and collaborating in the maintenance of his alternative reality.
Some of this might be strategic; everyone knows Trump is susceptible to flattery. But in many cases — certainly with Pence — it seems sincere. In a recent Atlantic profile of the vice president, McKay Coppins wrote that Pence’s faith mandates obedience to temporal as well as heavenly authority. When he accepted the vice-presidential nomination, Coppins wrote, “he believed he was committing to humbly submit to the will of Donald Trump.” From a secular perspective, Pence, like many other Republicans, appears to be a person inclined to authoritarianism.
Erich Fromm, a German-Jewish psychoanalyst who fled Nazism, described authoritarian personalities as simultaneously craving power and submission. “The authoritarian character loves those conditions that limit human freedom; he loves being submitted to fate,” he wrote. Fate, in his formulation, can be the laws of the market, the will of God, or the whims of a leader. According to Fromm, authoritarians might make a show of valuing freedom and independence — watchwords of the American right — but long to be ruled by a stronger force.
Viewed this way, it’s not surprising that religious conservatives have been among Trump’s most ardent fans. Certainly, it’s understandable that people on the right would try to get what they can out of this president. But the relationship between Trump and many Republicans increasingly looks less like a marriage of convenience than a sadomasochistic affair.
. . . .
It is, as they say, not normal for erstwhile law-and-order Republicans to attack the F.B.I. for being overzealous in its pursuit of Russian subversion. Nunes’s inquiry appears similar to Trump’s voter fraud commission, invented to substantiate right-wing fantasies about Democratic vote rigging. The point, in both cases, is to flesh out a lie rather than find the truth. Hannah Arendt once wrote of this sort of policy-as-disinformation: “Totalitarianism will not be satisfied to assert, in the face of contrary facts, that unemployment does not exist; it will abolish unemployment benefits as part of its propaganda.”
For the past year, a lot of us have assumed that Republicans are putting up with Trump out of fear of their base or lust for tax cuts. We’ve imagined that beneath our mutual partisan loathing lies some remaining shared commitment to liberal democracy. Maybe that’s true, and Republicans will display new independence once tax reform is signed, particularly if support for the president keeps dwindling.
But there’s another possibility, which is that a critical mass of Republicans like being in thrall to a man who seems strong enough to will his own reality, and bold enough to voice their atavistic hatreds. Maybe Trump is changing Republicans, or maybe he’s just giving men like Pence permission to be who they already were.”
Read Michelle’s entire article, aptly named “Fifty Shade of Orange” at the above link. I’ll reluctantly go with “possibility two:” Trump is just giving GOP “closet bigots,” oligarchs, anarchists, racists, theocrats, and neo-Nazis permission publicly to be what they always were underneath. Not a happy thought, but at least we’ll know what we’re up against and why to date most so-called “establishment Republicans” who intend to remain in office have “gone along to get along.”
Remember, at the end of the day, not a single GOP Senator was willing to vote against a fairly obvious “Tax Heist.” That, plus all the “slavish submission” and repulsive flattery of “The Supreme Leader” this week tell you all you need to know about the “Heart and Soul” of the GOP. The country needs “regime change” before it’s too late!
“Aha, says Mr. Kobach, writing at Breitbart, the right-wing website, “now there’s proof” of fraud: “It seems that they never were bona fide residents of the State.”
In fact, when New Hampshire Public Radio examined the data earlier this year, it found that more than two-thirds of 5,900 day-of-election registrants who had out-of-state driver’s licenses lived in college towns, indicating most were students voting perfectly legally. Again, on most of the state’s biggest residential campuses, a majority of students — usually a sizable majority — are from out of state. That’s true at the University of New Hampshire, Dartmouth College, Keene State College, Franklin Pierce University and others.
It’s also true at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., where on Tuesday Mr. Kobach attempted to defend his baseless claim at a meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Under fire for his tendentious claims, which he used to cast doubt on the narrow victories in New Hampshire of Hillary Clinton and now-Sen. Maggie Hassan, both Democrats, he said: “Until further research is done, we will never know the answer regarding the legitimacy of this particular election.”
That’s Mr. Kobach at his most insidious, using innuendo, but never actual evidence, to impugn and subvert American democracy.”
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Kobach is a long-standing racist, White Nationalist, and xenophobe whose mission is to promote a primarily anti-Hispanic agenda that includes suppressing the votes not only of Hispanics but of other minorities and the poor because he and his cronies deem them to be “unsuitable” for the franchise. What greater proof of unsuitability can there be than that many of the foregoing are thought to vote for Democrats.
Kobach is out to insure that a minority of White Nationalists and their GOP “fellow travelers” (which would be virtually every other GOP pol and voter who consistently refuse to stand up and expose Kobach’s charade) maintain control over the rest of us in the majority. And no lie, fabrication, or misrepresentation is too low for him to go.
But, in the end, it’s the GOP electorate (particularly in Kansas), President Trump, and the “establishment” GOP pols (like Mitt Romney and Mike Pence) who have enabled this toxic anti-American dude. The rest of us need to come up with a strategy to “retire” Kobach to the fringes of alt-right “fake radio” where he belongs. He certainly is totally undeserving of a voice on the national political scene.
“In a Wednesday ruling, [Judge James P.] O’Hara denied Kobach’s request for a motion for reconsideration because he was introducing new arguments he hadn’t used before.
“Significantly, defendant never represented, as he does now, that his misstatements were the result of editing errors. The court declines to grant reconsideration based on this explanation ‘that could have been raised in prior briefing.’ In any event, this new excuse lacks credibility based on its late assertion (which appears to be an attempt at a second bite at the apple) and lack of supporting documentation,” O’Hara wrote.
Kobach is the vice chair of a commission that Trump convened to investigate elections. He is also running for governor of Kansas.”
[emphasis added]
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Read the complete article and a copy of Magistrate Judge O’Hara’s order at the link.
It’s no wonder that 44 states, including a number of so-called “Red States,” are declining Kobach’s request for information, in whole or in part, in connection with a bogus commission (and taxpayer financed boondoggle) to investigate what all credible experts and prior studies have shown to be a non-problem. Read the latest article from the Washington Post below:
“An abstract, in-case-of-emergency-break-glass executive order drafted by the Trump administration in March may become real-world applicable as the president, raging publicly at his Justice Department, mulls firing special counsel Robert Mueller.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has twice rewritten an executive order that outlines the order of succession at the Justice Department — once after President Donald Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to defend his travel ban, and then again two months later. The executive order outlines a list of who would be elevated to the position of acting attorney general if the person up the food chain recuses himself, resigns, gets fired or is no longer in a position to serve.
In the past, former Justice Department officials and legal experts said, the order of succession is no more than an academic exercise — a chain of command applicable only in the event of an attack or crisis when government officials are killed and it is not clear who should be in charge.
But Trump and the Russia investigation that is tightening around him have changed the game.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has already recused himself from overseeing the investigation into possible collusion between Trump campaign aides and Russian operatives, after it was revealed that he failed to disclose meetings with the Russian ambassador during the campaign. And Trump started his morning on Friday by appearing to take a public shot at his deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who has increasingly become the target of his impulsive anger.
“I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt,” the president tweeted.
The Justice Department said in a statement on Friday that there are no current plans for a recusal, but Rosenstein has said in the past that he would back away from overseeing Mueller’s investigation if his role in the ouster of former FBI Director James Comey becomes a conflict.
That has legal experts closely examining the dry executive order to figure out who might be next up to bat, or, as Democratic lawyers and consultants view it, who might serve as Trump’s next sacrificial lamb.
“We know Rachel Brand is the next victim,” said Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the editor-in-chief of Lawfare, referring to the former George W. Bush official who was recently confirmed as associate attorney general, the third-highest position in the Justice Department.
“For those of us who have high confidence in Rachel — the more confidence you have in someone in this role, the less long you think they’ll last,” said Wittes, who said he considers Brand a friend. “That does put a very high premium on the question of who is next.”
That question, however, has become more complicated because the Trump administration has been slow to fill government positions and get those officials confirmed. Typically, the solicitor general would be next in line after the associate attorney general, followed by the list of five assistant U.S. attorneys, the order of which would be determined by the attorney general. But none of those individuals have been confirmed by the Senate, and they would be unable to serve as acting attorney general without Senate confirmation.
Because of that, the executive order comes into play — one that puts next in line after Brand the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Dana Boente. Boente, a career federal prosecutor and an appointee of former President Barack Obama, was tapped last April to serve as the interim head of the Justice Department’s national security division, which oversees the FBI’s Russia investigation.
Boente, who was briefly thrust into the no. 2 spot at the Justice Department after Yates was fired, was also tasked with phoning Preet Bharara, then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to deliver the unexpected news that he was fired. At the time, Boente also vowed to defend Trump’s travel ban in the future.
Boente is followed, on the succession list, by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, John Stuart Bruce; and the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, John Parker. Both are career prosecutors who are serving in their posts on an interim basis, until a presidential appointment is made. But they would not need to be Senate confirmed to take over.”
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Read Karni’s full article at the link. Meanwhile, over at Newsweek, Graham Lanktree speculates that Trump’s outside legal team is building a case against Mueller. But, that case appears to be totally bogus, a rather blatant attempt to obstruct and pervert justice, in the best (or worst) traditions of Richard Nixon. Many believe that the firing of Mueller would lead to the fall of Trump (either by impeachment or forced resignation) and the ushering in of President Mike Pence.
“Vice President Mike Pence will soon lead the U.S. if President Donald Trump fires Russia investigation special counsel Robert Mueller, a Bush administration ethics lawyer said Saturday.
Trump’s legal team and surrogates are “building a case for firing Mueller,” wrote Richard Painter in a tweet after he appeared on Fox News Saturday. Painter was President George W. Bush’s chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007.
“If that happens Mike Pence will soon become the 46th President,” Painter wrote. “Trump surrogates are making up Mueller ‘conflicts’ to justify firing him. That will be yet more obstruction of justice if it happens.”
. . . .
Friends of Trump said earlier this week that the president is considering firing Mueller. If that happens, legal scholars say, it would likely prompt the resignations of senior Department of Justice staff, reprisals from Congress, and resignation of White House staff. Painter argues that it could lead to impeachment.
“Mueller is absolutely not compromised by his professional relationship with Comey,” said Painter on Saturday. “This is just an effort to undermine the credibility of the special counsel.”
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Stay tuned. Almost everyone except Trump and his “outside advisers” believes that firing Mueller would be suicidal. But, Trump appears to be unhinged and often doesn’t let rationality or prudence enter into his decision making. He’s managed to survive many self-destructive acts that would have spelled the end of the line for any other politician. But, this one might well bring him down.
A heightened sense of unease gripped the White House on Thursday, as President Trump lashed out at reports that he’s under scrutiny over whether he obstructed justice, aides repeatedly deflected questions about the probe and Vice President Pence acknowledged hiring a private lawyer to handle fallout from investigations into Russian election meddling.
Pence’s decision to hire Richard Cullen, a Richmond-based lawyer who previously served as a U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, came less than a month after Trump hired his own private lawyer.
The hiring of Cullen, whom an aide said Pence was paying for himself, was made public a day after The Washington Post reported that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is widening his investigation to examine whether the president attempted to obstruct justice.
A defiant Trump at multiple points Thursday expressed his frustration with reports about that development, tweeting that he is the subject of “the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history,” and one that he said is being led by “some very bad and conflicted people.”
Trump, who only a day earlier had called for a more civil tone in Washington after a shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Va., fired off several more tweets in the afternoon voicing disbelief that he was under scrutiny while his “crooked” Democratic opponent in last year’s election, Hillary Clinton, escaped prosecution in relation to her use of a private email server while secretary of state.”
Shortly after Trump took office, I predicted that while he was unlikely to be able to keep most of his promises about “job creation,” he was likely to be a boon for at least one segment of our economy: the legal industry.
By the time this ends, however it ends, Trump will be ruing the day that he got rid of Jim Comey (who, apparently, wasn’t investigating him). While Trump and his White House and Cabinet cronies have had little but open contempt for government service and public servants, he’s finding out the hard way that lots of public servants take their jobs and their oath to uphold the Constitution seriously, and that they are very good at what they do. This isn’t “reality TV,” SNL, or some real estate deal where he can schmooze and BS his way through. And, he’s not going to be able to “settle up” by throwing a few million on the table and expecting everyone to go away happy. Nope. This is the “reality” of being President of the US. And, Trump is quickly cementing his place in history as the most unqualified individual ever elected to the job.
“Once again, Vice President Pence was out on a limb.
A day after President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey, his vice president stared into a television camera, surrounded by a gaggle of reporters on Capitol Hill, and cited the president’s decision to rely on the counsel of his advisers as proof of his “strong” leadership.
“President Trump made the right decision at the right time to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to ask for the termination” of Comey, Pence said.
But that wasn’t true.
Trump told NBC News in an interview the next day that he had not relied on the lengthy letter written by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to make his decision, but rather that his mind had been made up before the letter existed.
Since President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, the explanations for the dismissal have been getting murkier. Now Trump has tweeted a threat to cancel press briefings and a suggestion about “tapes” of his private conversations with Comey. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
Pence also had insisted that Trump’s decision was not influenced by his disapproval of the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia — another statement contradicted by Trump in the NBC interview.
“In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,’ ” the president said.
Aides declined to comment about when the vice president learned that Trump had decided to fire Comey.
Since his selection as vice president, Pence has been unflagging in his loyalty and deference to Trump. But in return, the president and White House aides have repeatedly set Pence up to be the public face of official narratives that turn out to be misleading or false.
It is a risk that comes with this high-wire presidency, where talking points and game plans nearly always have an unknown expiration date and where missing meetings can mean being out of the loop when critical decisions are made. The greatest disrupter of all is the president himself, who regularly — and without warning — throws out the communications playbook in favor of his own approach.”
I guess this is an “occupational hazard” of pledging eternal fealty to a guy who lacks human values and cares only about himself. Still, if Trump finally shoots himself in the foot enough times to get thrown out of office, Pence will get the “last laugh” by becoming President. And, then we’ll all see how horrible and inhumane Pence’s policies and beliefs are in their own right. Which is worse: badly misguided beliefs or no beliefs at all? Tough choice!
