U.S. JUDGE 👨‍⚖️ 🇺🇸⚖️ THWARTS ICE 🏴‍☠️ EFFORT TO REMOVE INDONESIAN ASYLUM APPLICANT – “Siahaan’s attorneys, Elsy Ramos Velasquez and Patrick Taurel, had argued the arrest was made under false pretenses, without a warrant and in violation of ICE’s policy that typically prohibits agents from making arrests on church property.”

Meagan Flynn
Morning Mix Reporter
WashPost
Photo From Twitter

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/siahaan-immigration-deportation/2020/10/03/ec7f2380-04c2-11eb-897d-3a6201d6643f_story.html

By

Meagan Flynn

Oct. 3, 2020 at 3:50 p.m. EDT

A federal judge in Maryland has granted an undocumented Indonesian immigrant temporary reprieve from deportation, ruling Friday evening that immigration authorities cannot remove him from the country until he has a chance to pursue religious asylum.

Binsar Siahaan, a 52-year-old father to two U.S. citizens, attracted considerable support from faith-based activists nationwide after he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month at his home on the grounds of Glenmont United Methodist Church in Silver Spring, Md. He and his wife, also an undocumented Indonesian immigrant, work there as church caretakers.

ICE arrested an undocumented immigrant on church grounds. They lied to coax him out, family and attorney say.

Siahaan’s attorneys, Elsy Ramos Velasquez and Patrick Taurel, had argued the arrest was made under false pretenses, without a warrant and in violation of ICE’s policy that typically prohibits agents from making arrests on church property. They also argued that Siahaan, who is Christian, should not be deported to majority-Muslim Indonesia until he has a chance to fully pursue religious asylum.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm agreed, granting Siahaan a preliminary injunction that blocks ICE from removing him from the country until the Board of Immigration Appeals, or a higher federal court, makes a ruling on his pending appeal. Siahaan is being held at a detention center in Georgia, where he was transferred from Baltimore to await deportation. Grimm also ordered ICE to bring him back to Baltimore, where he will remain in custody closer to his family.

“When the ruling came down, we were really relieved,” said the Rev. Kara Scroggins, pastor at Glenmont United Methodist. “We’re glad that he’s closer to home at the detention facility in Baltimore, but we’re going to keep fighting until he’s home with his family.”

ICE could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday but previously said Siahaan was arrested “after he received full due process in the nation’s immigration courts.”

. . . .

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Read the full article at the link.

Hats off to the litigation team and to U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm! By ordering ICE to return Siahaan to Maryland, rather than detaining him in Georgia, generally known as one of the worst places in the “New American Gulag,” Judge Grimm took the kind of effective action necessary to stop the abusive actions of ICE and to guarantee real due process!

In a functioning system with an independent U.S. Immigration Court comprised of Judges with expertise in asylum and human rights laws and a commitment to due process and the rule of law, Immigration Judges could take the actions necessary to protect fundamental rights and hold ICE accountable without constant resort to the U.S. District Courts. A “captive” Immigration Court, where Immigration Judges are subservient to Billy the Bigot Barr and pressured to act as “ICE enforcement in robes” ill-serves the national interest! It’s also highly inefficient and wasteful of public resources!

Thanks to my good friend Deb Sanders for bringing this incident to my attention!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-05-20

SCOFFLAW 🏴‍☠️ REPORT: Another Federal Judge 👩🏻‍⚖️ Exasperated🤮 By Regime’s Contemptuous Lawlessness! – Census Farce Continues To Play Out!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/in-a-new-ruling-judge-says-census-count-must-continue-through-october/2020/10/02/ecd195aa-04bf-11eb-897d-3a6201d6643f_story.html

By Tara Bahrampour @ WashPost:

A federal judge has ordered that the 2020 Census count continue until Oct. 31, blocking for now the government’s efforts to complete the survey in time to deliver apportionment data to the president by the end of the year.

The ruling late Thursday night by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California follows a tense week in which the government appeared to try to circumvent a preliminary injunction against ending the count early.

After a surprise announcement Monday that the bureau was moving the end date by just five days, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, plaintiffs in the case asked Koh to provide clarification of her earlier order and other sanctions.

Census Bureau announces new ‘target date’ of Oct. 5 to finish 2020 Census count

Rejecting the government’s argument that the request was “an attempt to radically modify the preliminary injunction,” Koh’s new ruling clarified that the end date for collection must revert to Oct. 31, as the bureau had originally planned.

It also ordered that on Friday, the government must send text messages to all Census Bureau employees notifying them of the Oct. 31 end date, and that Director Steven Dillingham must file a declaration by Monday that “unequivocally confirms Defendants’ ongoing compliance with the Injunction Order and details the steps Defendants have taken to prevent future violations of the Injunction Order.”

The suit, brought by the National Urban League and a group of counties, cities and others, said a truncated schedule would irreparably harm communities that might be undercounted.

On Friday, Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which is arguing the case, said, “Once again, the court has stopped the administration in its tracks.” Noting that some states with significant minority populations still face an undercount, she added, “Much work remains to be done to achieve an accurate census count that satisfies constitutional standards.”

The Justice and Commerce departments did not respond to requests for comment.

The government had appealed Koh’s Sep. 24 injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which denied the appeal Tuesday.

Appeals judges uphold lower court’s order to continue census count

Nevertheless, Koh found that after her injunction, the government continued to tell employees to wind down operations by Sept. 30, and the Census Bureau’s website, “which is updated daily,” continued for four days after her injunction to say that data collection would end that day.

. . . .

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

So, when is Judge Koh going to jail Wilber Ross, his census toadies, Billy the Bigot, and the DOJ lawyers who continue to defend clearly lawless, dishonest, and contemptuous actions in court? Why have corrupt Federal officials and their lawyers become exempt from ethical requirements and, in the case of lawyers, their role as “officers of the court?”

PWS

10-05-20

WITH LOTS OF HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS @ ARENT FOX, ROUND TABLE 🛡⚔️⚖️👩🏻‍⚖️🗽STRIKES ANOTHER BLOW FOR DUE PROCESS! — Here’s Our Amicus Brief in Matter of A-M-R-C- — Issue: AG’s Interference With 14-Year-Old Final Asylum Grant!

Berin S. Romagnolo
Of Counsel
Arent Fox
Boston

Sara T. Schneider
Associate
Aren’t Fox
San Francisco

Jake Christensen
Associate
Arent Fox
San Francisco

2020 0929 AMRC Amicus Brief with Exhibits – Amended POS

In the absence of any justifying change in fact or law, the Attorney General (“AG”) has reopened Mr. Chowdhury’s case fourteen (14) years after he received a final decision on the merits of his claim for asylum following a full evidentiary hearing before the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) and a complete and fair review by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA” or “Board”).
The AG’s invocation of his self-referral authority is wholly improper here. As an initial matter, the AG lacks the authority to reopen and terminate asylum cases once asylum has been granted by an IJ or the Board. But even if the AG had such authority, doing so in this case constitutes ultra vires conduct in violation of Mr. Chowdhury’s due process rights given the excessive and unreasonable delay in referral. The referral is additionally improper because, under the principles of res judicata, there should be a finality and certainty to judgments, particularly where there is no change in fact or law and so much time has passed. In addition, it appears that the AG is succumbing to political pressure from the Executive branch and is reopening the case to align with its foreign policy to aid Bangladesh. Such bias and political motivation is contrary to our immigration system, and indeed our entire legal system. Lastly, the unjustified and excessive delay in reviewing Mr. Chowdhury’s case violates his due process rights and runs contrary to the humanitarian intent of the law.
The AG’s decision to intervene unfairly and unlawfully in a long-settled asylum case infringes the sense of safety, security, and wellbeing of not only Mr. Chowdhury and his family, but also tens of thousands of other asylees who have made their homes in the U.S. in reliance on asylum and protection from persecution and in many cases, violence, in their countries of origin. The Amici Curie respectfully urge the AG to leave Mr. Chowdhury’s asylum case undisturbed, thereby respecting his rights as well, as the rights of the tens of thousands of asylees who have been granted refuge here, and maintaining the fair and impartial adjudication process in place.

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Read the entire brief at the above link.

Many thanks again to Nancy and her pro bono team at Arent Fox!

PWS

10-04-20

POLITICS/HEALTH: Bess Levin @ Vanity Fair: The Pandemic Finally Comes Home To The White House

From The Levin Report for Oct. 2, 2020:

On Friday afternoon, Donald Trump’s approach for the entirety of the pandemic, i.e. utter disdain for mask-wearing, social distancing, and taking the advice of experts in general, reached its inevitable conclusion when he was transported to Walter Reed hospital after testing positive for COVID-19 in the early hours of the morning. On top of the president’s escalating health situation, the virus has also infected a number of people with whom Typhoid Donald and others in the administration have come in contact over the last several days, including first lady Melania Trump, adviser Hope Hicks, three members of the White House press corp, a White House staffer, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, and Senator Mike Lee, who spent last weekend rubbing up against anyone in arm’s reach at an event in the Rose Garden to announce Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. And while at this point mandating masks in the White House would be kind of a no-brainer, if not an extreme case of the horse having already left the Oval Office, apparently the administration is planning to just let herd immunity take its course.

Yes, as of Friday afternoon, the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal were both reporting that the administration still wasn’t requiring employees to wear masks, describing the use of the coverings as “a personal choice,” despite overwhelming evidence that they help stop the spread of the highly contagious disease. As if to really drive home the point that the administration remains hostile toward science and medical expertise, throughout the day numerous officials appeared on camera sans mask, including chief of staff Mark Meadows . . . .

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

Read/subscribe to the full Levin Report here:

https://vanityfair.us17.listmanage.com/profile?u=5fad3815e951f20a4a17e2c3f&id=f1626e1ce8&e=adce5e3390

Wow! Who would have thought that taking COVID-19 seriously, taking precautions, and wearing a mask would make a difference? Certainly, nobody in the White House!

While some reporters are using the term “surreal” to describe yesterday at the White House, that term would hardly distinguish yesterday from every other day of the Trump Administration. We’ve been living in “The Twilight Zone” for so long that nobody can remember what “normal” was.

PWS

10-03-20

🇺🇸ELECTION: NDPA “CALL TO ACTION” 🗽– HERE ARE “REAL LIFE” THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE OUR NATION THIS FALL!

ELECTION: HERE ARE “REAL LIFE” THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE OUR NATION THIS FALL!

https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F2QV4cC9&data=02%7C01%7C%7Ca37ac6a9da0b4b37201108d850a3f8e4%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637348012462505702&sdata=4hJ1XxSAXZDEItHRRI%2FYb%2BV5YRb0smSbysrHOaeIiRk%3D&reserved=0

From Gary Sampliner

Gary is a retired federal attorney who is heading up election efforts for a small DC area social action organization called JAMAAT (Jews and Muslims and Allies Acting Together).

Election 2020: Some Ways to Get Involved

Mass texting. This is a means of voter outreach that it is a lot of fun and effective in getting the message out and having conversations with many voters in a short period of time — and great for those with strong aversions to talking to strangers on the phone. Although some training is needed for this, mass texting can be learned within an hour, and anyone can pick up how it is done within a short time of starting to do the actual texts. Organizations use programs that allow volunteers to send a pre-written text message out to voters through their computers in batches of 200-1000, which can be done in no more than 2-4 minutes. On average, 10-20% will answer, some immediately and others trickling in over the next few hours. Volunteers can then engage with many of these voters, usually through a wide variety of scripted answers which mostly cover the waterfront of responses they receive, and sometimes result in more creative and substantive conversations. You can complete all of your conversations for a batch in 60-90 minutes, with occasional check-ins for a few responses that trickle in over the next 48 hours. The voters only get your first name and don’t have your phone number or further information about you. You can get going in doing mass texts that reach 1000 voters at a time and result in many substantive discussions through the People’s Action Network, which is now sending over a million texts a week to voters in key swing states, by clicking here:

Phone banking. While phone banking has its rewards and occasional frustrations, it has been found to be the most effective means of engaging voters other than door-to-door canvassing. Most campaigns now use electronic dialers, to dial quickly and allow callers to speak only to people who answer, and they also usually provide a script to use and adapt to their own words. While there can be many wrong numbers and occasional confrontations, many of the phone banks target likely friendly groups of people (e.g. Dem voters who we encourage to come out and get or submit ballots). In this year of COVID, phone bankers are finding that the proportion of lonely people who will pick up the phone and talk is increasing.

Writing post cards. A great outreach technique for the worst technophobes!    A nationally known non-partisan campaign called Reclaim Our Vote has sent over 5 million post cards, primarily to deregistered (purged from the rolls) voters of color in swing states, urging recipients to register and to vote, and provide needed contact info, and is looking to send out many more as soon as possible, before shifting its efforts to phone banking and texting. (https://actionnetwork.org/forms/reclaim-our-vote-signup). Reclaim Our Vote is also one of the few campaign-related organizations that houses of worship and other 501(c)(3) organizations can participate in, and to which people can make tax-deductible contributions, because it is non-partisan (it does not search out voters by party registration). Its parent organization, Center for Common Ground, is itself a 501(c)(3) organization. Another group called Postcards to Voters (https://postcardstovoters.org/) writes post cards to Democratic leaning voters in swing states around the country. The group has a few openings in a local chapter in the DC area where one of our JAMAAT members is active, and they get together in periodic friendly Zoom meetings to write post cards and get to know each other. Please contact us at JAMAAT if you are interested.

Writing Letters. Another great outlet for the tech-challenged. An organization called Vote Forward, https://votefwd.org, is working with groups such as Swing Left to have volunteers write 10 million letters to infrequent Democratic voters in swing states, to send shortly before the election to remind them to vote.  They have had past success with their strategy, because recipients are likely to open the handwritten, personally addressed letters that remind people to vote shortly before the election. This year, they have decided to send their letters out on October 17.

Organizing friends and family. We all know that individuals have far more influence on people they know than on strangers. The Biden campaign has come up with a training program and app called Vote Joe, available on the App Store, to help organize friends and family, which seems particularly useful for young people with infrequently voting friends or people with friends and family who need to be acquainted with basic facts on the issues. The app allows users to help figure out whom to target, by providing access to publicly available voting data to show how frequently any person has voted and (depending on the state) the party for which they registered, and provides easily accessible information on the major issues of concern to voters.   For the next of the training programs that shows how to use the app and more, see https://www.mobilize.us/2020victory/?address=20850&lat=39.0839994&lon=-77.1527813.

In addition, MoveOn has put together a Mobilize to Win program that provides a framework for how to reach friends and family effectively in the 17 key battleground states for the Presidential and Senate elections and getting them and people in their networks to vote: https://front.moveon.org/mobilize-to-win/.

Poll watching and voter assistance hotlines. With all the news about Republican efforts at voter suppression and massive disqualification of votes, Democratic groups have sprung up to resist such efforts through voter education and poll observation. You can get involved with the Biden campaign as a poll observer by clicking here, be trained on how to answer questions on the Biden campaign’s National Voter Assistance hotline by clicking here, and become involved as a nonpartisan Election Protection volunteer, supported by many of our country’s best-known non-partisan election protection organizations, by clicking here.

Giving money. You are all deluged with requests for donations that seem to come from every organization on Earth, each of which professes to be the one in greatest need of your money. This document will not endorse giving to any of the worthy organizations listed here over any others. But if you have money to donate to one or more political campaigns, and you care about particular issues, you can increase the impact of your contribution by donating through a PAC of an interest group whose positions on your issue of concern are supported by that group. One organization to consider, for anyone interested in promoting an equitable two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, is the J Street PAC, https://jstreet.org/about-us/about-jstreetpac/#.X0gfNMhKg2w.   In its 12 years that it has been in existence, this group has hired some of the savviest people on the Hill, which has helped propel J Street into becoming one of the most successful Jewish organizations in Washington. One service they offer, if you wish to donate to Senate or House campaigns but could use some guidance on which campaigns are most in need of money that can make a difference, is to consult with their resident expert on this subject, Capital/South Assistant Regional Director Mike Fox, mike@jstreet.org. You will need to become a member of J Street through its web site in order to donate through the PAC, at no financial obligation. All monies donated through the PAC will go directly to the designated candidate.

Organizations doing various types of voter outreach

2020 Victory (mobilize.us/2020victory/) is the website for the DNC, for both the Biden/Harris campaign and downballot campaigns in battleground states. Here you can get text training (required before doing any texting on their campaigns), phone banking, and different types of organizing, and then sign up for particular phone banking, texting, and get out the vote events to all manner of targeted audiences.

Moms Demand Action on Gun Sense has a very active Maryland chapter coordinating postcarding for Spanberger and Luria (the two likely close congressional races in our area) and for Reclaim Our Vote, as well as texting (currently with 2020 Victory) and phone banking. They do frequent small group Zoom parties in connection with their events, led by their experienced team heads, to give tips, conversation, and offer incentives like campaign swag for frequent participants. You can contact them through the Moms Demand Action – MD Facebook page or you can e-mail mocomomselections@gmail.com.

Seed the Vote, https://www.everydaypeoplepac.org/seedthevote/, a Bay Area-organized campaign of progressive organizations, is teaming with groups from AZ, PA, and FL to do phone-banking and texting to those critical states each day of the week. Their partner organizations feature a “deep canvassing” technique to try to understand the concerns of infrequent and swing voters, to get back to them with answers to questions they cannot handle from initial questions, and to refer people in need of resources to helping institutions.

Powered by People is a PAC started and led by Beto O’Rourke, which makes calls to Texas Democrats and people of color: see https://map.betoorourke.com/ Its phone banks feature 1 or 2 weekly 2-hour sessions that start with a Zoom conference with inspirational remarks led by Beto himself, and feature both an automatic dialer I’ve found works very well and a good supportive staff who can help with issues while calls are ongoing.

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, the progressive Jewish organization that focuses on domestic issues such as racial justice, immigration, and the environment, is running a Vote Out Fear campaign (https://www.bendthearc.us/vote_out_fear_pb), doing phone banking and text banking aimed at swing Jewish voters (initially in Florida and Georgia, now expanded to include six other key states).

Turnout 2020, https://turnout2020.org/, a program of a coalition of left-leaning groups called the Progressive Turnout Project, primarily makes calls to infrequent Democratic swing state voters to urge them to take action, normally on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They are currently calling Arizona and Pennsylvania voters to encourage that they request a vote-by-mail ballot, with talking points to help voters understand options.

JAMAAT (Jews and Muslims and Allies Acting Together) is a small grass roots organization in the DC area that focuses on fighting Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, as well as on issues like immigration, preventing gun violence, and the environment. Its members have been working with all of the groups listed here. Interested people can participate in our next virtual organizing meeting on Sunday, October 4 at 7:00 pm EDT, for which they should register at http://bit.ly/jamaat2020. Any questions should be referred to gsampliner@gmail.com.

Reclaim our Vote, https://actionnetwork.org/forms/reclaim-our-vote-signup, which will be pivoting later in September from post card writing to phone and text banking, and they have useful training courses coming up to help hesitant phone bankers, some on Mondays and some at other times.

Grassroots Democrats (https://grassrootsdems.org/) is a California-based organization that has gone national and participates in phone banking and texting campaigns in most of the battleground states. They have a well-organized website to hook interested people into phone banking and texting opportunities, as well as training, in battleground state races of their choice, and good links to other key websites to get brief summaries of the candidates; background and positions.

NextGen America (https://nextgenamerica.org/2020-plan/ or https://www.mobilize.us/nextgen/) employs text banks, phone banks, and other social media strategies to target young people (ages 18-35) less likely to vote in 11 battleground states.

o Changing the Conversation (ctctogether.org) is a group that is doing both telephone and (under a strict protocol) door-to-door canvassing, focusing on Pennsylvania. They train people extensively in “deep canvassing,” which has worked to persuade reluctant voters to vote and change the minds of least the less ardent Trump supporters, not by using facts and arguments but by story-telling, building empathy, and getting voters to tell their own stories that can cause them to convince themselves to come out to vote and vote our way.

o Environmental Voter Project (https://www.environmentalvoter.org/) is a non-partisan organization that uses big-data analytics to identify inactive environmentalists in battleground states and then through its phone banks and text banks, applies cutting-edge behavioral science to turn them into more consistent voters.

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This November, vote like your life and our nation depend open it. Becauise they do!

PWS

10-03-20

“A Complete Abdication of Our Humanitarian and Moral Duty” – Outside News – Immigration Law – LexisNexis® Legal Newsroom

Syrian Refugee photography work by Bengin Ahmad
Creative Commons License

From Dan Kowalski @ LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/a-complete-abdication-of-our-humanitarian-and-moral-duty

“A Complete Abdication of Our Humanitarian and Moral Duty”

LIRS, Oct. 1, 2020

“The Trump administration proposed its annual refugee admissions ceiling just before midnight on Wednesday, September 30, committing to resettle just 15,000 individuals in Fiscal Year 2021, which would be the lowest admissions ceiling since the inception of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).

The announcement comes on the heels of what was previously the lowest level of refugee admissions in American history. For FY 2020, which ended on September 30, the administration had set a goal to welcome just 18,000 refugees, in stark contrast to the average admissions ceiling of approximately 95,000 since the beginning of the USRAP. Despite this historically low target, the administration barely attained 65% of allotted admissions – resettling only 11,814 refugees this fiscal year, according to Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

“In just four years, this Administration has cut the refugee resettlement program from 110,000 to a historic low of fifteen thousand. At a time of unprecedented global need, today’s decision to further cut the refugee admissions ceiling is a complete abdication of our humanitarian and moral duty.” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a resettlement agency that has welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees since 1939. “Let this serve as a wake-up call to those who believe this administration supports avenues of legal immigration. Refugees go through extreme vetting and have done everything our government has asked of them, yet they continue to be met with open hostility and egregious processing delays from this administration”

The record-low admissions figures have also disproportionately impacted certain groups. Admissions of Muslim refugees have declined to just 2,503, down from approximately 38,900 in FY 2016 and approximately 4,900 in FY 2019. Additionally, the Trump administration set aside 4,000 slots for Iraqi allies who assisted U.S. interests in their home country. However, it fell drastically short, resettling only 123 individuals in this category, or just 3% of the admissions goal.

“It shows the tragic extent to which we have abandoned our Iraqi allies who risked their lives, and those of their family members, to assist U.S. government and military personnel,” noted Vignarajah. “This further undermines our diplomatic and military efforts, rendering it nearly impossible to garner support from regional allies moving forward.”

Given FY2020’s record-low admissions numbers and an FY2021 proposed admissions ceiling of only 15,000, refugee advocates are deeply concerned by the human toll on the most vulnerable.

“In real terms, this means that families who have already waited years are forced to postpone reunification. It means that thousands who would otherwise find safety on our shores are left to languish in refugee camps, with no end in sight,” concluded Vignarajah. “This heartless decision is diametrically opposed to our values as a welcoming nation and it dishonors our common humanity at a time of dire need.”

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Here’s then”Trump Regression” — From international leader, to outlier, to outlaw state!🏴‍☠️

This Fall, vote for a return to humanity and the rule of law!

PWS

10-02-20

👨🏻‍⚖️JUDICIARY: GOP Appointed Senior USD Judge John D. Bates Shows What We Used To Expect From Our Federal Judiciary Before The Era Of Biased Righty Zealots — Slams Trump/Billy Bogus Racist “Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice,” Stuffs Release Of Trump White Nationalist Political Propaganda In Guise Of “Report!”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-law-enforcement-task-force_n_5f75fd84c5b6c35a64194768

Ryan J.Reilly reports for HuffPost:

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration not to release a report by the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, finding that the group ― comprised entirely of current and former members of law enforcement ― had been “far from transparent.”

Senior U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a 45-page ruling finding that commission ― which President Donald Trump announced with fanfare at a police conference last year ― had violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires that committees be “fairly balanced” in the viewpoints represented.

Attorney General William Barr said there was a need to hear from a “diversity of backgrounds and perspectives,” but the commission was full of law enforcement officials. Bates’ order requires Barr “to ensure the Commission has a fairly balanced membership.”

Last month, as HuffPost previously reported, an elected prosecutor quit one of the commission’s working groups because he worried that it was “providing cover” for a predetermined law-and-order agenda that “will only widen the divisions in our nation.”

Bates wrote that the commission’s membership “consists entirely of current and former law enforcement officials” and that no commissioner “has a criminal defense, civil rights, or community organization background.”

“Especially in 2020, when racial justice and civil rights issues involving law enforcement have erupted across the nation, one may legitimately question whether it is sound policy to have a group with little diversity of experience examine, behind closed doors, the sensitive issues facing law enforcement and the criminal justice system in America today,” he wrote.

. . . .

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Read the full article at the link.

YOUR tax dollars being squandered by corrupt AG on White Nationalist political propaganda. But, given that Billy the Bigot is siphoning off money from the public to fund the campaign of a racist President and his racist GOP “party,” that should be little surprise!

Billy is a one-man illegality machine. 🏴‍☠️ But, rarely does a Federal Judge call out his personal illegal and unethical conduct this clearly!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-02-20

PACKERS: Rodgers Letting His Play Do The Talking — Helping Team Win & Raising Level Of Everyone’s Play, Including His Own!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/sports/football/aaron-rodgers-green-bay-packers.html

From The NY Times:

By Mike Tanier

Sept. 30, 2020

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has a reputation as someone who always wishes to speak to the manager.

To the public he is the beer snob who turns up his nose at all 500 brewpub taps, the faultfinding co-worker whose arrival prompts everyone to politely excuse themselves from the break room with their lunches half-eaten. No pass route is ever run precisely enough for Rodgers, no game plan creative enough for his talents, and dissatisfaction radiates from him with the passive-aggressive fury of a million failed marriages.

Nevertheless, Rodgers’s 2020 season is off to an excellent start. The Packers are 3-0 after a 37-30 victory in Sunday night’s duel with Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints. Rodgers is tied for third in the N.F.L. with nine touchdown passes, ranks sixth with 887 passing yards and third with a 121.1 efficiency rating.

His success should be unsurprising for an eight-time Pro Bowl selection and former Super Bowl champion, except that 2020 was supposed to be the year that the perpetually disgruntled 36-year-old Rodgers earned his comeuppance at the hand of a rookie heir apparent, Jordan Love.

. . . .

In the wake of so much melodrama, this Packers season was expected to be part “All About Eve” and part “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with a dash of “Sunset Boulevard.” But Rodgers has proved that he is still ready for his close-up.

He is also playing nicely with others: With his favorite receiver, Davante Adams, hobbled, Rodgers has been connecting with his secondary targets instead of heaving the ball out of bounds and lamenting his lack of weapons in postgame interviews. Rodgers is even operating comfortably within LaFleur’s system, distributing short tosses while waiting for ideal opportunities to unleash his (still magnificent) deep ball.

Perhaps Rodgers has become a model employee out of sheer spite, though if Rodgers were truly motivated by spite he might have conquered the world by now. Perhaps it took a rookie’s arrival to persuade both sides — Rodgers and the coaching staff — to work things out for the sake of a Super Bowl instead of plunging the team into free agency and a rebuilding era. Or, just maybe, Rodgers’s churlish reputation is somewhat overblown, as were observations about his deteriorating skills.

Whatever the cause of Rodgers’s resurgence, it has caught N.F.L. talk-show dramatists without a narrative arc for him. He is not yet a venerable warrior like Brees or Tom Brady. He’s certainly not a young hero like Mahomes or Lamar Jackson. He never fell far enough for comeback player of the year redemption and he won too many accolades to join Russell Wilson on a quest for validation. And he refuses to play the role of arrogant heel as cast. He is just a future Hall of Famer on the inside track toward a return to the Super Bowl.

Ho hum.

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

So far, so good.

Russell Wilson of the Seahawks, who transferred to the Wisconsin Badgers and “lit up” the Big-10 in his final season, is another grossly underrated player. Many pundits claimed Wilson was “too short” to play in the NFL. All he does is pass, run, score, win, and lead, under a variety of conditions! Seems like that should be enough to put him at or near the top of the “upper echelon” of NFL QBs.

PWS

10-01-20

MUSICAL EDITORIAL: “Weird Al Presents: ‘America Is Doomed,’ The Musical”

Trump Clown — Donald J. Trump
Famous American Clown
(Officially titled “Ass Clown”)
Artist: Scott Scheidly
Orlando, FL
Reproduced by permission

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000007370133/presidential-debate-weird-al.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

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W. Al, always one of my favorites!

PWS

10-01-20

⚖️HON. SHIRA SCHEINDLIN👩🏻‍⚖️ @ THE GUARDIAN: Barrett Nomination Part & Parcel Of GOP Destruction Of American Democracy! 🏴‍☠️ – The Continued Erosion Of The Supremes & The Federal Judiciary Is Destroying Our Nation!👎

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/29/supreme-court-conservatives-trump-amy-coney-barrett?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

. . . .

This is no longer the case. Public confidence and public perception that the courts are non-partisan has eroded. The Republican boycott of Garland, together with Trump’s unprecedented nomination of Barrett and her likely confirmation, will seal the Republican theft of two supreme court seats, at least in the eyes of more than half the electorate, and will ensure conservative control of the court for decades to come.

If Barrett’s record is any indication, the court will soon turn its back on its most treasured precedents and turn America into a more regressive country. Before joining the bench just three years ago, she served as a law clerk to Scalia, whose judicial philosophy she has fully embraced. She has also been a longtime member of the rightwing Federalist Society.

Public confidence and public perception that the courts are non-partisan has eroded

Her short judicial record, together with her scholarly writings, reveal that she is a rock-solid conservative jurist. Like Scalia, she defines herself as an originalist and textualist, which means that the constitution must be viewed as of the time it was written. From that perspective, there is nothing in the constitution that would explicitly support abortion rights, gay marriage, mandatory school desegregation, or the right to suppress evidence that is illegally seized. By contrast, in one of her most famous opinions, United States v Virginia (1996), Ginsburg wrote that “a prime part of the history of our constitution … is the story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded.”

In a 2013 article, Barrett repeatedly expressed the view that the supreme court had created, through judicial fiat, a framework of abortion on demand that ignited a national controversy. In an opinion she joined with another judge, she expressed doubt that a law preventing parents from terminating a pregnancy because they did not want a child of a particular sex or one with a disability could be unconstitutional. These writings surely indicate that Barrett will do whatever she can to limit or eliminate abortion rights.

Barrett has also expressed dissatisfaction with the Affordable Care Act and support for a broad interpretation of the second amendment. She has writtenthat Chief Justice John Roberts “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning”. She also quoted Scalia, when he wrote that “the statute known as Obamacare should be renamed ‘Scotuscare’” in “honor of the court’s willingness to ‘rewrite’ the statute in order to keep it afloat”. There is little doubt that Barrett would be inclined to find the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional and thereby deprive millions of Americans of affordable healthcare coverage. Similarly, she wrote a dissenting opinion questioning the constitutionality of a statute that prohibited ex-felons from purchasing guns. Thus, she has demonstrated her fealty to the NRA position that the more guns the better – inevitably leading to more Americans dying from gun violence.

When addressing the legal doctrine known as stare decisis, meaning respect for precedent, Barrett wrote that she “tend[ed] to agree with those who say that a justice’s duty is to the constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the constitution rather than a precedent she thinks is clearly in conflict with it”. In other words, she would overturn landmark decisions such as Brown v Board of Education or Roe v Wade if those decisions did not reflect her best understanding of the constitution.

Amy Coney Barrett: what will she mean for women’s rights?

Read more

Stunningly, in an interview in 2016, when asked whether Congress should confirm Obama’s nominee during an election year, Barrett responded that confirmation should wait until after the election because an immediate replacement would “dramatically flip the balance of power”. Given that answer, she should decline the nomination, as her confirmation would even more dramatically flip the balance of the court, entrenching a 6-3 conservative majority.

Confirming this nominee before the outcome of the national elections – which will determine both the identity of the next president and the composition of a new Senate – is unprecedented, inexcusable and a threat to many rights that the majority of Americans have embraced. This is a tragedy about to happen.

Shira A Scheindlin served as a United States district judge for the southern district of New York for 22 years. She is the co-chair of the board of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a board member of the American Constitution Society

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Read the rest of Judge Scheindlin’s article at the link.

As I have been saying “Better Judges For A Better America!” It starts with electing a President who will nominate them and a Senate that will confirm them. That requires “regime change” and defeat of the GOP Anti-Democracy Party at all levels.

Dems need to stop sputtering about Barrett, whom they don’t appear able to stop anyway, and get out the vote to insure that she will be the last GOP far right shill on Supremes for many years! Rebuilding and improving American democracy starts NOW, with THIS ELECTION. As Willie Nelson says: “Vote ‘Em Out, Vote ‘Em Out!”

BTW, “Moscow Mitch” and his GOP toadies have plenty of time to race through the Barrett confirmation during an election, but no time to help Americans thrown out of work or losing their health insurance because of the pandemic!🤮⚰️

PWS

10-01-20

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