Bigotry – Page 97 – immigrationcourtside.com

GEORGE WILL: Government By the Sinister – How Anti-American Hacks Like Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and Jeff Sessions Have Taken Power In The Age Of Trump!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sinister-figures-lurk-around-our-careless-president/2017/10/13/09c9448c-af6e-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html

Will writes in today’s Washington Post:

“With eyes wide open, Mike Pence eagerly auditioned for the role as Donald Trump’s poodle. Now comfortably leashed, he deserves the degradations that he seems too sycophantic to recognize as such. He did Trump’s adolescent bidding with last Sunday’s preplanned virtue pageant of scripted indignation — his flight from the predictable sight of players kneeling during the national anthem at a football game. No unblinkered observer can still cling to the hope that Pence has the inclination, never mind the capacity, to restrain, never mind educate, the man who elevated him to his current glory. Pence is a reminder that no one can have sustained transactions with Trump without becoming too soiled for subsequent scrubbing.

A man who interviewed for the position Pence captured, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), is making amends for saying supportive things about Trump. In 2016, for example, he said he was “repulsed” by people trying to transform the Republican National Convention from a merely ratifying body into a deliberative body for the purpose of preventing what has come to pass. Until recently, Corker, an admirable man and talented legislator, has been, like many other people, prevented by his normality from fathoming Trump’s abnormality. Now Corker says what could have been said two years ago about Trump’s unfitness.

The axiom that “Hell is truth seen too late” is mistaken; damnation deservedly comes to those who tardily speak truth that has long been patent. Perhaps there shall be a bedraggled parade of repentant Republicans resembling those supine American communists who, after Stalin imposed totalitarianism, spawned the gulag, engineered the Ukraine famine, launched the Great Terror and orchestrated the show trials, were theatrically disillusioned by his collaboration with Hitler: You, sir, have gone too far.

Trump’s energy, unleavened by intellect and untethered to principle, serves only his sovereign instinct to pander to those who adore him as much as he does. Unshakably smitten, they are impervious to the Everest of evidence that he disdains them as a basket of gullibles. He understands that his unremitting coarseness satisfies their unpolitical agenda of smashing crockery, even though his self-indulgent floundering precludes fulfillment of the promises he flippantly made to assuage their sense of being disdained. He gives his gullibles not governance by tantrum, but tantrum as governance.

With Trump turning and turning in a widening gyre, his crusade to make America great again is increasingly dominated by people who explicitly repudiate America’s premises. The faux nationalists of the “alt-right” and their fellow travelers such as Stephen K. Bannon, although fixated on protecting the United States from imported goods, have imported the blood-and-soil ethno-tribalism that stains the continental European right. In “Answering the Alt-Right” in National Affairs quarterly, Ramon Lopez, a University of Chicago PhD candidate in political philosophy, demonstrates how Trump’s election has brought back to the public stage ideas that a post-Lincoln America had slowly but determinedly expunged. They were rejected because they are incompatible with an open society that takes its bearing from the Declaration of Independence’s doctrine of natural rights.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) on Oct. 8 called the White House “an adult day care center” after President Trump criticized him on Twitter. The president hit back on Oct. 10, calling the senator “Liddle’ Bob Corker.” (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

With their version of the identity politics practiced by progressives, alt-right theorists hold that the tribalism to which people are prone should not be transcended but celebrated. As Lopez explains, the alt-right sees society as inevitably “a zero-sum contest among fundamentally competing identity groups.” Hence the alt-right is explicitly an alternative to Lincoln’s affirmation of the Founders’ vision. They saw America as cohesive because of a shared creed. The alt-right must regard Lincoln as not merely mistaken but absurd in describing America as a creedal nation dedicated to a “proposition.” The alt-right insists that real nationhood requires cultural homogeneity rooted in durable ethnic identities. This is the alt-right’s alternative foundation for the nation Lincoln said was founded on the principle that all people are, by nature, equal.

Trump is, of course, innocent of this (or any other) systemic thinking. However, within the ambit of his vast, brutish carelessness are some people with sinister agendas and anti-constitutional impulses. Stephen Miller, Bannon’s White House residue and Trump’s enfant terrible,recently said that “in sending our [tax reform] proposal to the tax-writing committees, we will include instructions to ensure all low- and middle-income households are protected.” So, Congress will be instructed by Trump’s 32-year-old acolyte who also says the president’s national security powers “will not be questioned.” We await the response of congressional Republicans, who did so little to stop Trump’s ascent and then so much to normalize him.”

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Leave it to Trump and his White Nationalist gang to have me agreeing with George Will, something that rarely happened in the pre-Trump era. But, the folks who perpetrated this mess are our fellow citizens who voted for Trump notwithstanding his clearly established philosophy of sowing and pandering to hate, incompetence, and his glaring unsuitability for any public office. And, too many of those “core supporters” are still out there, coarsely and ignorantly screaming their approval for an Administration that is destroying America, and endangering the lives, rights, and human dignity of many of their fellow Americans, one day at a time.

PWS

10-15-17

WHITE NATIONALISM (NOT ISLAMIC TERRORISM) IS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO WESTERN CIVILIZATION!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/sunday/white-nationalism-threat-islam-america.html

SASHA POLAKOW-SURANSKY writes in the NY Times:

“When rapid immigration and terrorist attacks occur simultaneously — and the terrorists belong to the same ethnic or religious group as the new immigrants — the combination of fear and xenophobia can be dangerous and destructive. In much of Europe, fear of jihadists (who pose a genuine security threat) and animosity toward refugees (who generally do not) have been conflated in a way that allows far-right populists to seize on Islamic State attacks as a pretext to shut the doors to desperate refugees, many of whom are themselves fleeing the Islamic State, and to engage in blatant discrimination against Muslim fellow citizens.

But this isn’t happening only in European countries. In recent years, anti-immigration rhetoric and nativist policies have become the new normal in liberal democracies from Europe to the United States. Legitimate debates about immigration policy and preventing extremism have been eclipsed by an obsessive focus on Muslims that paints them as an immutable civilizational enemy that is fundamentally incompatible with Western democratic values.

Yet despite the breathless warnings of impending Islamic conquest sounded by alarmist writers and pandering politicians, the risk of Islamization of the West has been greatly exaggerated. Islamists are not on the verge of seizing power in any advanced Western democracy or even winning significant political influence at the polls.

The same cannot be said of white nationalists, who today are on the march from Charlottesville, Va., to Dresden, Germany. As an ideology, white nationalism poses a significantly greater threat to Western democracies; its proponents and sympathizers have proved, historically and recently, that they can win a sizable share of the vote — as they did this year in France, Germany and the Netherlands — and even win power, as they have in the United States.

Far-right leaders are correct that immigration creates problems; what they miss is that they are the primary problem. The greatest threat to liberal democracies does not come from immigrants and refugees but from the backlash against them by those on the inside who are exploiting fear of outsiders to chip away at the values and institutions that make our societies liberal.

Anti-Semitic and xenophobic movements did not disappear from Europe after the liberation of Auschwitz, just as white supremacist groups have lurked beneath the surface of American politics ever since the Emancipation Proclamation. What has changed is that these groups have now been stirred from their slumber by savvy politicians seeking to stoke anger toward immigrants, refugees and racial minorities for their own benefit. Leaders from Donald Trump to France’s Marine Le Pen have validated the worldview of these groups, implicitly or explicitly encouraging them to promote their hateful opinions openly. As a result, ideas that were once marginal have now gone mainstream.”

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Read the entire article at the link.

I’ve said it before: Donald Trump and his “fellow travelers” are the biggest threat to our democracy, safety, and security.

PWS

10-15-17

GONZO’S WORLD: Jeff Sessions Is The New Jim Crow – Public Officials Using Bogus “Rule Of Law” and False “Christian Values” To Advance An Agenda of Hate, Bigotry, Intolerance, and Resentment Is (Sadly) Nothing New In America – The Main Difference: African-Americans Aren’t Gonzo’s Only Targets! — LGBTQ Americans Last Week, Hispanic Asylum Seekers This Week, Who’s Next: Latino Communities, Minority Voters, Dreamers, Children, Women, Muslims, Democrats, Obama, Poor People, Property Owners, Marihuana Farmers, The Sick & Disabled? – The Majority of Americans Are Somewhere On Gonzo’s “Hit List!” – When Will It Be YOUR Turn? — Who Will Defend YOUR Rights Against Gonzo’s Nasty Crusade Of “Injustice At Justice?”

http://www.newsweek.com/sessions-deals-another-blow-lgbt-community-684572

Marci A. Hamilton writes in Newsweek:

“I never expected to speak the phrase: “As Mississippi goes, so goes the federal government.” But when it comes to demeaning and disempowering LGBT, it is now apropos.

The self-righteous drive to make others suffer for not living Evangelical beliefs appears to be unstoppable with Trump in power and with Sessions as his henchman for civil rights. They are taking their cues from the Deep South and particularly Mississippi.

Mississippi is the national leader on religiously-motivated discrimination against LGBT and generating divisiveness on these issues, as I discussed here.

Mississippi continues to aspire to fomenting the most discrimination against LGBT with HB 1523, which explicitly permits business owners to refuse service to LGBT for religious reasons. The trial court correctly held that it was unconstitutional and issued a preliminary injunction.

In June, the Fifth Circuit let the law go into effect, holding that the challengers lacked standing. On further review, the Fifth Circuit refused to vacate the ruling, which let the law stand. Now perhaps it goes to the Supreme Court.

Its sponsors put it into place so that Evangelicals can legally exclude LGBT from the marketplace. They say it’s about their “religious liberty,” by which they mean not the right to observe their own practices, but rather their supposed right to judge and condemn others before doing business with them.

The whole anti-LGBT project is so unbelievably hypocritical: they aren’t fighting to bar liars, adulterers, rapists, or pedophiles from their businesses, all of whom who violate plain biblical commands.

GettyImages-646266774 Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice on February 28, 2017 in Washington, D.C. ZACH GIBSON/GETTY

What they are engineering is lives without having to associate with “those people.” One can only hope that good, old-fashioned profit motives enrich those businesses that provide service to LGBT and put out of business those who prefer the Jim Crow life.

Trump Administration Follows Mississippi’s Lead

Now, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has piled onto this administration’s obsession with humiliating and harming transgender Americans here and here with a new document interpreting federal law to require accommodation of those in the government who believe LGBT are sinful.

That’s right, the drive is to accommodate the ones who cannot tolerate those who aren’t like them. This is all about deconstructing the LGBT civil rights the Obama administration put into place as discussed here and here.

For good measure, the administration is also rolling back protections intended to ensure LGBT are not discriminated against in long-term care facilities. (The administration also went after women’s rights to contraception as fellow columnist Joanna Grossman explains, again an issue where it is in lock step with Evangelical lobbyists.)

Where Did This Intolerance Come From?

The push to inflict exclusion and suffering on LGBT for religious reasons owes its origins to the working out of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in American culture. Whether you have read Hegel or Calvin, this is what happens when you put into place a “right” that has no natural limit.

The religious lobbyists, including knowing conservatives and some truly naïve liberals, backed this benighted law in 1993. It was declared unconstitutional in 1997 in Boerne v. Flores, because it was so far removed from anything that the First Amendment had ever required .

What was unleashed with this federal statute, which morphed into state laws and later federal law, was a theory that the default position for religious liberty should be that a religious believer has a right to overcome any law that burdens religiously-motivated conduct.

Many laws exist to protect the vulnerable. When religious believers seize a “right” to trump the law, they in effect hurt the vulnerable. That is true here.

This power grab—particularly by religious organizations who believe in imprinting their beliefs on the culture—paved the way for the depraved arguments now being made for “religious liberty” that amount to exclusion and harm to an entire category of citizens defined solely by their sexual orientation. They have falsely claimed the mantle of victimhood while making victims of others.

The powerful choose the labels and the vulnerable suffer. If you have not seen this power maneuver elsewhere in history or in the Trump Administration’s dealings with race, you are not paying attention.

Marci A. Hamilton is the Fox Professor of Practice and Fox Family Pavilion Resident Senior Fellow in the Program for Research on Religion in the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania; the founder, CEO, and Academic Director of the nonprofit think tank to prevent child abuse and neglect, CHILD USA, and author of God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty and Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children. She also runs two active websites covering her areas of expertise, the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, www.RFRAperils.com, and statutes of limitations for child sex abuse, www.sol-reform.com.”

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While the Evangelical right wages a bogus war against the non-existent “Sharia law in America,” the real threat to our freedoms, our Constitution, and the rule of law is posed by these very same right wingers. Led by folks like Gonzo who have moved from the “wacko fringe” to positions of power, they are forcing their false interpretation of Christianity down the throats of the rest of us who don’t share their “Gospel of Hate & Intolerance.”

From a theological standpoint (after all, it is Sunday), Jesus’s ministry was not to the rich, powerful, rulers, or Pharisees enforcing the Jewish Law; no, Jesus’s ministry was one of love, compassion, forgiveness, and eternal hope for the outsiders, the outcasts, the poor, and the “rejected” of Jewish and Roman society. If Jesus were among us today, he would much more likely be found “rubbing shoulders” and preaching to the gay community or the undocumented than he would wandering the halls of Jeff Sessions’s Department of (In)Justice.

PWS

10-15-17

NEW FROM THE HILL: N. RAPPAPORT SAYS “NO” TO MOST OF CAL SB 54, BUT WOULD LIKE TO FIND A COMPROMISE LEGISLATIVE SOLUTON TO HELP DREAMERS AND OTHER UNDOCUMENTED RESIDENTS!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/59dad902e4b08ce873a8cf53

In encourage you to go over to The Hill at the above link and read Nolan’s complete article. As always, whether you agree with Nolan or not, his articles are always thought-provoking and timely. Nolan is definitely a “player” in the immigration dialogue! (And, frankly, by going over to The Hill, Nolan gets a few more “hits” which give him a few more “hard-earned nickels” in his pockets. Gotta help out my fellow retirees!)

I can agree with Nolan’s bottom line:

“It would be better to help undocumented aliens by working on comprehensive immigration reform legislation that meets essential political needs of both parties.”

The challenge will be figuring out what those points might be. So far, the GOP “Wish List” is basically an “incendiary White Nationalist screed” drafted by notorious racist xenophobe Stephen Miller (probably with backing from Sessions and certainly incorporating parts of Steve Bannon’s alt-right White Nationalist world view) that contains virtually nothing that any Democrat, or indeed any decent person, could agree with. Indeed, the very involvement of Miller in the legislative process is a “gut punch” to Democrats and whatever “moderate GOP” legislators remain.

What are some “smart enforcement” moves that Democrats could agree with: more funding for DHS/ICE technology; improvements in hiring and training for DHS enforcement personnel; U.S. Immigration Court reforms; more attorneys and support (including paralegal support) for the ICE Legal Program; more funding for “Know Your Rights” presentations in Detention Centers.

But more agents for “gonzo enforcement,” more money for immigration prisons (a/k/a the “American Gulag”), and, most disgustingly, picking on and targeting scared, vulnerable kids seeking protection from harm in Central America by stripping them of their already meager due process protections: NO WAY!

Although “The Wall” is a money wasting folly with lots of negative racial and foreign policy implications, it probably comes down to a “victory” that Democrats could give to Trump and the GOP without actually hurting any human beings, violating any overriding principles of human rights law, or diminishing Constitutional Due process. It also inflicts less long-term damage on America than a racially-oriented “point system” or a totally disastrous and wrong-headed decrease in legal immigration when the country needs the total opposite, a significant increase in legal immigration opportunities, including those for so-called “unskilled labor.”

While this GOP Congress will never agree to such an increase — and therefore workable “Immigration Reform” will continue to elude them — the Democrats need to “hold the line” at current levels until such time as Americans can use the ballot box to achieve a Congress more cognizant of the actual long-term needs of the majority of Americans.

PWS

10-09-17

AFTER HELPING INSTALL AN ANTI-AMERICAN REGIME IN WASHINGTON, SEN. “BOBBY THE CORK” FINALLY STARTS TO FACE UP TO WHAT HE AND THE GOP HAVE DONE TO DESTROY AMERICA: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/08/opinions/corker-and-white-house-day-care-center-opinion-dantonio/index.html

Michael D’Antonio reports for CNN:

“(CNN)In the end, Donald Trump finally pushed Sen. Bob Corker to the point of exasperation, frustration and exhaustion felt by vast numbers of Americans who despair of the President’s behavior. “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center,” tweeted Corker, referring to his fellow Republican as if he needs constant minding. “Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”

Corker was provoked by early Sunday morning statements from Trump. who said, via Twitter, “Senator Bob Corker ‘begged’ me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee, I said ‘NO’ and he dropped out (said he could not win without my endorsement).” Trump also said Corker asked to become secretary of state but, “I said ‘NO THANKS.'” He also said Corker “didn’t have the guts” to seek re-election in 2018.

Corker: Trump setting US ‘on the path to World War III’

The capital letters suggest the tweets came straight from the President. He loves capital letters. But the timing and content are more important indicators of authenticity. Trump’s social media outbursts are more vivid on weekends, when he’s likely home alone.

And true Trump tweets resonate with a tone — “guts” and “begged me” are classics — that makes it seem like he doesn’t quite understand where he is, or what is required of him. (Never mind that Corker’s chief of staff, Todd Womack, challenged Trump’s account of the facts: “The President called Sen. Corker on Monday afternoon and asked him to reconsider his decision not to seek re-election and reaffirmed that he would have endorsed him, as he has said many times.”)

The fact that Trump could conduct stream-of-consciousness carping from the confines of the same White House that had been occupied by the likes of Lincoln, FDR and Ronald Reagan suggests that he may not be aware of his surroundings. As he tweets about TV shows, we can see that his mind is too often fixed on matters beneath a president. And when he does focus on something important, like national security, he indulges in silliness about the “Rocket Man” (Kim Jong Un) or praises himself: “Wow, Senator Luther Strange picked up a lot of additional support since my endorsement.”

Despite the President’s “Wow,” Alabama’s Sen. Strange wound up losing a GOP primary to Roy Moore. A religious extremist who was twice forced to step down from the Alabama Supreme Court, Moore had called homosexuality “evil,” insisted Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison should not be permitted to serve in Congress and suggested the attacks of 9/11 could have been God’s punishment for American sinfulness.

Did Trump win the NFL fight?

The prospect of serving with Moore may have helped Corker reach his decision to retire as of 2018, but his concern about Trump predates the Alabama primary. In August, Corker was obviously appalled by Trump’s response to a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, when he said among the torch-bearing neo-Nazis there were some “very fine” people.

Corker considered these words and concluded, “The President has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.”

Just days ago, Corker stood up for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who had reportedly called Trump a “moron” and was trying to demonstrate his loyalty to the President. “I see what’s happening here,” said Corker. “I deal with people throughout the administration and (Tillerson), from my perspective, is in an incredibly frustrating place, where, as I watch, OK, and I can watch very closely on many occasions, I mean you know, he ends up being, not being supported in the way I would hope a secretary of state would be supported. That’s just from my vantage point.” He suggested that Tillerson, along with Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, were keeping the United States from tumbling into “chaos.”

Frustration with Trump can be heard across the nation as leaders who hoped the President would set aside his rage and self-centeredness in the service of the country are met, instead, by the same old Donald Trump. No more thoughtful than he was as a TV game show host and no more reliable than when he was a salesman practicing “truthful hyperbole,” Trump makes much of the world cringe as he fails to achieve his agenda at home and undercuts his own secretary of state abroad.

With Trump in a cycle of saying and doing destructive and disruptive things unbecoming the leader of the free world, Corker seems to be suffering from the sort of burnout experienced by those who care for senior relatives.

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Here his evocation of “adult care” is more meaningful than the senator may even know. Adult day care is as much a service for the friends and family of those with dementia and other disabling conditions as it is for those who attend programs. The respite they receive when experts take over for a few hours makes it possible to continue with the burden of caregiving.

In the case of President Trump, the parallel with adults in care includes, also, the sad reality that someone who is supposed to be strong and capable is, instead, in need of supervision. It’s hard to begrudge Corker his decision to escape dealing with a president in this condition by not running for re-election. But as a member of the Republican Party, he’s one of the few who have the standing to get through to the man, and thus it seems like he’s taking the easy way out while leaving more of the work to the rest of us. We’re burned out, too.

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Duh, Bobby, many of us knew that Donald Trump was the most spectacularly unqualified candidate ever to seek the Presidency long before he announced his intention to do so! It’s not like his racism, bias, incompetence, divisiveness, monumental dishonesty, pandering to hate and bigotry, fiscal irresponsibility, bullying, misogany, boorish behavior, science denial, anti-intellectualism, neo-facism, White Nationalism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, intolerance, toadying up to Putin, lack of respect for human rights, wanton cruelty, jaw-dropping lack of judgement, untrustworthiness, cowardice, immorality, etc. were secrets. They’ve been out there for everyone (who was smart or intellectually honest enough) to see all along. But, you were happy to “go along to get along” until now. You’ve suddenly had an epiphany. “Hey, this guy that I supported and helped elect is totally incompetent and a threat to the heath and safety of the entire world (not just the “free world”).”

Forgive me if I’m not overwhelmed, Bobby! And, the majority of us who voted to save America and the world from the horrible catastrophe of Trump are still waiting for you and your “fellow travelers” to apologize to us. That would be an honest start on actually “Making America Great Again,” Bobby! Yup, Bobby, we’re burned out too! Long before you were!

PWS

10-09-17

TERRIFIED PENCE FLEES NFL STADIUM FOLLOWING PEACEFUL EXERCISE OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS! — “Trump Told Me To Do It,” Says Vapid Veep!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-pence-nfl-walks-out_us_59da5fb4e4b0f6eed35114bd?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Igor Bobic reports for HuffPost:

Vice President Mike Pence walked out of Sunday’s NFL game between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers as several 49ers players knelt in protest during a rendition of the national anthem.

“While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I don’t think it’s too much to ask NFL players to respect our Flag and our National Anthem,” Pence wrote on Twitter minutes after leaving the game in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Following the example of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, NFL players around the country have knelt during renditions of the national anthem in order to protest against police brutality and racial injustice directed towards black Americans.

More than a hundred NFL players from several football teams kneeled or held arms in solidarity earlier this month after President Donald Trump called NFL players who kneel during the anthem “sons of bitches.” He later insisted his criticism of the NFL had “nothing” to do with race.

Trump said on Sunday that he asked Pence to leave the stadium in Indianapolis if any players knelt during the national anthem, an extremely likely event given the number of players on the 49ers team who kneel during the anthem before every game.

The president’s revelation suggested the White House orchestrated the walk out on purpose, raising questions about the cost of Pence’s brief trip to Indianapolis. The vice president flew there from Las Vegas, where he visited the victims and families of last week’s horrific shooting. He is now flying back West for a stop in California.

“Wait. This was orchestrated to make a point? That’s not an inexpensive thing to do,” tweeted Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) on Sunday.

Many people have commented that Pence’s action came off as publicity stunt, including San Francisco 49ers’ Eric Reid, who was one of the first players to kneel alongside Kaepernick in 2016. Reid told reporters that the three-year-old photo of Pence at a Colts game in 2014 was the last he had heard of the vice president attending a game.

“So this looks like a PR stunt to me,” Reid told a pool of reporters on Sunday. “He knew our team has had the most players protest. He knew that we were probably going to do it again. This is what systemic oppression looks like. A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple of things out and leaves the game with an attempt to thwart our efforts. Based on the information I have, that’s the assumption I’ve made.”

This is what systemic oppression looks like. A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple of things out and leaves the game with an attempt to thwart our efforts.Eric Reid, San Franciscos 49ers

Prior to walking out of the game, Pence met with former Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. The retired football star, who also played for the University of Tennessee and has donated to prominent GOP figures, has been floated as a potential candidate to replace Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). Corker is retiring next year, but Manning has said he has no plans to run for the seat.”

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Obviously, Trump orchestrated this event to show America that if they ditch him they would be trading a bully for an idiot.

NOTE: Although Pence undoubtedly was carrying out a “staged” role assigned to him by Trump, and the quote is certainly sufficiently obsequious to have come from Pence, the actual quote in the headline section is “fake news.” However, the rest of the story about Pence’s idiotic behavior is, unfortunately, true — just another day in Trumpland.

NOW, ON TO MORE SIGNIFICANT NEWS:

After spotting the home-standing Dallas Cowboys a 21-6 lead (including missing two missed extra points) the Pack rallied for an exciting 35-31 victory over the ‘Pokes. The incomparable Aaron Rodgers (“AR”) led the last second comeback with a key third down scramble setting up the winning TD pass to Devonte Adams with 11 seconds remaining. Adams came back to catch two TD passes in an inspiring performance following a scary near-decapitation on a cheap shot by Bears’ LB Danny Trevathan during the Pack’s victory on Thursday, September 28.

PWS

10-08-17

CNN’S TAL KOPAN: WHITE HOUSE RESTRICTIONIST AGENDA THREATENS DREAMER DEAL!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/08/politics/white-house-daca-deal-principles/index.htm

Tal reports:

“Washington (CNN)The White House on Sunday night is expected to release an aggressive list of priorities for any deal to protect young undocumented immigrants in limbo — a list that could make a deal almost impossible to reach if it is strictly followed.

According to documents obtained by CNN, the Trump administration is expected to ask lawmakers to include tough border security and immigration enforcement measures in any deal to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program the administration is ending. Those measures would include provisions to make it harder for unaccompanied minors to enter the country illegally, money for the President’s border wall and cuts to legal immigration.

Trump announced he would end the Obama-era DACA program, which protects young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children, at the beginning of last month, but gave Congress a six-month window in which to act to make the program permanent. Trump has repeatedly said he wanted border security measures as part of a deal, but Sunday night was the first time lawmakers were able to see the full list of the White House asks.

The list represents Republican priorities for immigration and border security, such as tightening the standard for asylum protections, beefing up staffing, cracking down on sanctuary cities, expanding the ways would-be immigrants can be rejected and cutting back significantly on the number of ways that immigrants can obtain green cards in the US by restricting family categories and transforming the employment-based system.

While Democrats have signaled an openness to some deal on DACA and border security, many of the proposals alone would be deal-breakers. Democrats are almost certainly needed to pass a bill to clear the filibuster threshold of 60 votes in the Senate and to make up for Republicans in both chambers who may decline to vote for any path to citizenship or legalization for DACA recipients.

close dialog

What will be key, one Democratic congressional staffer said, is how hard the White House pushes for the wish list.

“Depends on whether they’re serious or just positioning,” the staffer said. “If it’s the latter, and they leave themselves a lot of room to move, then maybe we can still negotiate something. The problem is that they could lock themselves in politically and then not be able to bend.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were quick to pan the list, saying it shows Trump “can’t be serious” about reaching a deal if they start with a list that is “anathema” to immigrants and Democrats.

“We told the President at our meeting that we were open to reasonable border security measures alongside the DREAM Act, but this list goes so far beyond what is reasonable,” the Democratic leaders said in a statement, referring to discussions over dinner at the White House last month. “This proposal fails to represent any attempt at compromise. The list includes the wall, which was explicitly ruled out of the negotiations. If the President was serious about protecting the Dreamers, his staff has not made a good faith effort to do so.”

While Trump has Republican supporters on Capitol Hill who have endorsed a similar wish list of measures, even among his own party, lawmakers have pleaded with the White House not to seek a comprehensive immigration reform package before dealing with DACA — for which permits begin expiring March 6.

At a hearing in the Senate last week with representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, both Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who have proposed different DACA measures, implored the officials not to seek a complete immigration deal before any action. Durbin said it was “too much” to “put the burden” on a DACA bill to answer all of the issues on the table.

“It’s too much to ask … and I hope you’ll take that message back,” Durbin said.

Responding to the general principles articulated at the hearing, Tillis said: “It reads like a laundry list for comprehensive immigration reform, and if Congress has proven an extraordinary ability to do anything, it’s to fail at comprehensive immigration reform.”

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As I’ve said before, this “proposal” — obviously the work of White Nationalist racists like Stephen Miller and Jeff Sessions influenced by Steve Bannon — is DOA. And, it’s certainly not an outline for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” No, it’s actually “Regressive Racist Anti-Americanism.” Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that that America has used immigration laws to advance a despicable racist agenda. But, in the 21st Century all decent Americans have to take a strong stand against “neo-racists” of the GOP and the “neo-fascists” of the Alt Right. And, a guys like Miller, Gonzo, and Bannon fit both of those categories. They, along with Trump and “Looney White Guys With Guns,” pose the biggest threats to America’s safety and security.

PWS

10-08-17

LEGACY OF HATE – TRUMP’S APPOINTMENT OF HOMOPHOBIC JUDGES LIKELY TO TORMENT LGBTQ AMERICANS FOR DECADES TO COME! — Elections Have Consequences!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-judicial-nominee-abortion-rights_us_59d67a63e4b046f5ad96e117?feh

Jennifer Bendery reports for Huff Post:

WASHINGTON ― Thursday was a good day for Amy Coney Barrett. A Senate committee voted to advance her nomination to be a federal judge.

It wasn’t a pretty vote. Every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee opposed her nomination. They scrutinized her past writings on abortion, which include her questioning the precedent of Roe v. Wade and condemning the birth control benefit under the Affordable Care Act as “a grave infringement on religious liberty.” One Democrat, Al Franken (Minn.), called her out for taking a speaking fee from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit that’s defended forced sterilization for transgender people and has been dubbed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But Republicans don’t need Democrats’ votes, and now Barrett, a 45-year-old law professor at the University of Notre Dame, is all but certain to be confirmed to a lifetime post on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit — a court one level below the Supreme Court.

Barrett is the model judicial candidate for this White House: young, conservative, and opposed to abortion and LGBTQ rights. For all the stories about President Donald Trump using his executive power to roll back civil rights protections — in the past day, his administration axed the ACA birth control benefit and ended workplace protections for transgender people — it is here, on the courts, where his team is working most aggressively to reshape the country.

“Trump’s speed in nominating judges has been perhaps the most successful aspect of his presidency,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who specializes in judicial nominations. “Trump has easily surpassed Obama, Bush and Clinton at this point in the first year of their presidencies in terms of the sheer number nominated.”

He has. Ten months in, Trump has nominated 17 circuit court judges and 39 district court judges. That’s far more than former President Barack Obama’s seven circuit court nominees and four district court nominees by this point in his first year of office. Former President George W. Bush had nominated 11 circuit judges and 31 district judges by this point.

He’s also got more court seats to fill. He inherited a whopping 108 court vacancies when he became president ― double the number of vacancies Obama inherited when he took office. That’s largely due to Republicans’ years-long strategy of denying votes to Obama’s court picks to keep those seats empty for a future GOP president to fill. It worked.

If Trump’s current judicial nominees are a preview of the kinds of judges he plans to nominate in the coming years, prepare for a significantly more socially conservative group of people shaping the nation’s laws.

Consider John Bush. The Senate confirmed him in July, on a party-line vote, to a lifetime post on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Bush, 52, has compared abortion to slavery and referred to them as “the two greatest tragedies in our country.” He has also said he strongly disagrees with same-sex marriage, mocked climate change and proclaimed “the witch is dead” when he thought the Affordable Care Act might not be enacted.

The Senate also confirmed Kevin Newsom, 44, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in August. He wrote a 2000 law review article equating the rationale of Roe v. Wade to Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 decision upholding slavery. He also argued in a 2005 article for the Federalist Society, a right-wing legal organization, that Title IX does not protect people who face retaliation for reporting gender discrimination. The Supreme Court later rejected that position.

Ralph Erickson, 58, was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in September. As a district judge in 2016, he was one of two judges in the country who ordered the federal government not to enforce health care nondiscrimination protections for transgender people.

Here’s U.S. circuit court judge John Bush testifying in his Senate confirmation hearing in June. He thinks abortion is like slavery, and they are “the two greatest tragedies in our country.”

These are just judges that have been confirmed. Nominees in the queue include Leonard Grasz, Trump’s pick for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Grasz, 56, proposed amending the Omaha City Charter in 2013 to let employers discriminate against LGBTQ people. He has also compared the “personhood” of fetuses to the civil rights of Native Americans and African-Americans, according to an exhaustive report issued by the Alliance for Justice, a left-leaning advocacy group that focuses on the federal judiciary.

Trump’s effort to shift the federal bench to the right isn’t just aimed at district and circuit courts. He nominated Damien Schiff, a 37-year-old attorney, to a 15-year gig on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Schiff has criticized efforts to prevent bullying of LGBTQ students, referring to messages of equality as “teaching ‘gayness’ in schools.” He also argued that states should be allowed to criminalize “consensual sodomy.”

Part of the reason the White House has been able to nominate so many judges, so quickly, is because it’s been focused on filling court vacancies in states represented by two Republican senators. It’s easier for Trump’s team to work with Republicans in picking nominees, and then in moving them forward in committee, where it takes both home-state senators turning in a “blue slip” to get the hearing process going.

Trump has been less successful in confirming nominees, though. That’s partly because in the mad rush to fill courts seats, the White House isn’t reviewing nominees’ records as thoroughly as, say, the Obama administration did. That means more controversial nominees and more scrutiny. Democrats aren’t exactly eager to cooperate, either, given the way Republicans treated Obama’s judicial nominees (remember Merrick Garland?).

But as Trump plows through judicial nominations that will be a part of his legacy for decades, the only thing Democrats can do while they’re in the minority, for the most part, is make noise.

If they want real change, says Tobias, “Democrats need to win elections.”

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

Homophobe Jeff Sessions’s time as Attorney General won’t extend beyond the Trump Administration, if that long. However, the damage he has done to the U.S. legal system, our Constitution, the Department of Justice, and LGBTQ Americans won’t be easily repaired, if ever.

But, life tenured Federal Judges are an even bigger problem. These “robed bigots” will be inflicting cruel, discriminatory, and degrading treatment on the U.S. LGBTQ Community from their benches for decades to come.

In the end, Professor Tobias is entirely correct:“Democrats need to win elections.” Otherwise, our LGBT family, colleagues, friends, and neighbors are going to continue to be targets for homophobic Federal Judges and GOP politicos for many decades.

PWS

10-08-17

7TH CIR. “SCHOOLS” BIA IN BIA’S OWN AUTHORITY TO GRANT WAIVER — ARTICLE III THWARTS BIA’S ATTEMPT TO “GET TO NO!” — Matter of KHAN, 26 I&N Dec. 797 (BIA 2016) BLOWN AWAY — BAEZ-SANCHEZ V. SESSIONS! — There’s Is Now A “Circuit Split” With The 3rd Cir., Which “Went Along To Get Along” With The BIA!

rssExec.pl

Baez-Sanchez v. Sessions, 7th Cir., 10-06-17 (published)

PANEL: Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

OPINION BY: Judge EASTERBROOK

KEY QUOTE:

“LDG addressed the question whether the Attorney Gen‐ eral has the authority to waive the inadmissibility of an alien seeking a U visa. We assumed that, in removal proceedings, IJs may exercise all of the Attorney General’s discretionary powers over immigration. The panel did not justify that as‐ sumption, because the parties had not doubted its correct‐ ness. But after LDG the Board concluded that the assumption is mistaken. In re Khan, 26 I&N Dec. 797 (2016), holds that IJs have only such powers as have been delegated and that the power to waive an alien’s inadmissibility during proceedings seeking U visas is not among them. The Third Circuit has agreed with that conclusion. Sunday v. Attorney General, 832 F.3d 211 (3d Cir. 2016). We must decide in this case whether to follow Sunday and Khan.
Delegation from the Attorney General to immigration judges is a matter of regulation, and arguably pertinent reg‐ ulations are scattered through Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The BIA in Khan observed, correctly, that the panel in LDG had not mentioned 8 C.F.R. §§235.2(d), 1235.2(d), which omit any delegation to IJs of the power to waive an alien’s admissibility. And that’s true, for those regu‐ lations concern the powers of District Directors rather than the powers of IJs. The principal regulation that does cover IJs’ authority is 8 C.F.R. §1003.10, which provides in part:
(a) Appointment. The immigration judges are attorneys whom the Attorney General appoints as administrative judges within the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge to conduct specified classes of proceedings, including hearings under section 240 of the [Immigration and Nationality] Act. Immigration judges shall act as the Attorney General’s delegates in the cases that come be‐ fore them.
(b) Powers and duties. In conducting hearings under section 240 of the Act and such other proceedings the Attorney General may assign to them, immigration judges shall exercise the powers and duties delegated to them by the Act and by the Attorney General through regulation. In deciding the individual cases be‐ fore them, and subject to the applicable governing standards, immigration judges shall exercise their independent judgment and discretion and may take any action consistent with their au‐ thorities under the Act and regulations that is appropriate and necessary for the disposition of such cases. Immigration judges shall administer oaths, receive evidence, and interrogate, exam‐ ine, and cross‐examine aliens and any witnesses. Subject to §§ 1003.35 and 1287.4 of this chapter, they may issue administra‐ tive subpoenas for the attendance of witnesses and the presenta‐ tion of evidence. In all cases, immigration judges shall seek to re‐ solve the questions before them in a timely and impartial man‐ ner consistent with the Act and regulations.

The Attorney General’s brief in this court observes that §1003.10(b) does not delegate to IJs any power to waive an alien’s inadmissibility. Sure enough, it doesn’t. But §1003.10(a) does. It says that “[i]mmigration judges shall act as the Attorney General’s delegates in the cases that come before them.” This sounds like a declaration that IJs may ex‐ ercise all of the Attorney General’s powers “in the cases that come before them”, unless some other regulation limits that general delegation. The BIA in Khan did not identify any provision that subtracts from the delegation in §1003.10(a). Nor did the Third Circuit in Sunday. Indeed, neither the BIA nor the Third Circuit cited §1003.10(a). We therefore adhere to the view of LDG that IJs may exercise the Attorney Gen‐ eral’s powers over immigration.”

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

In the end, of course, the respondent didn’t win much. The 7th Circuit remanded the case to the BIA to “exercise Chevron authority” on the question of whether the Attorney General himself has been stripped of authority to grant these waivers by the legislation that established the DHS as a separate entity.

But, we already know the answer to that question. The BIA has no desire to exercise jurisdiction over this waiver. Indeed, to do so, could turn out to be “career threatening” if you work for notorious xenophobe Jeff Sessions.

Moreover, even before the advent of Sessions, the BIA abandoned any pretense of impartiality in exercising Chevron jurisdiction. The BIA usually looks for the interpretation least favorable to the respondent, that of the DHS, and adopts that as it “preferred interpretation.” To do otherwise could hamper any Administration’s efforts to achieve enforcement objectives, thereby endangering the BIA as an institution. Moreover, agreeing with the private litigant in a published decision could undermine the efforts of the DOJ’s Office of Immigration Litigation to facilitate successful defense of petitions for review removal orders in the Article III Courts.

If this sounds like a strange scenario for a supposedly fair, impartial, and unbiased “court” to adopt, that’s because it is! The BIA is there primarily to slap a “patina of due process” on removal orders without really interfering with the DHS’s “removal railroad.” And that’s useful because of Chevron and the ability of OIL and the DOJ to disingenuously claim that respondents receive “full due process” from the Immigration Courts and the BIA and that Article III Courts, therefore, ought not to worry themselves about the results. And, in a surprising number of cases, the Article IIIs oblige. They don’t want to be stuck having to redo tens of thousands of mass produced BIA appeals.

So, what’s not to like about this system? The Attorney General gets his wholly owned courts to churn out removal orders that look fair (but really aren’t in many cases). The BIA Appellate Judges get to keep their high paying jobs in the Falls Church Tower without having to personally “face up” to the poor folks they are railroading out of the country to places where their lives and futures are in danger. OIL gets to buttress its narrow readings of immigration statutes against immigrants with so-called “court decisions” from the BIA that really aren’t really decisions by independent decision makers. The DHS gets lots of removal orders to keep the “Enforcer In Chief” happy, plus they gain leverage to use against any U.S. Immigration Judge who keeps ruling in favor of respondents. “We’ll just take you to the BIA and get it reversed.” The Article IIIs get to largely avoid moral or legal responsibility for this facade of fairness and due process. Out of sight (which folks are when they get removed), out of mind. We’re just “deferring” to the BIA. Don’t blame us! And, don’t forget Congress! They get to pretend like none of this is happening and claim they are “solving” the problem just by throwing a few more positions and a little more money at EOIR. No need for meaningful oversight into the charade of due process in the U.S. Immigration Courts. And, there are a few guys over on the GOP side of the Hill who hate immigrants and despise due process as much as Sessions does. They undoubtedly see this as a model for the entire U.S. justice system, or better yet, have lots of ideas on how to avoid the Immigration Courts entirely and make the “removal railway” run even faster.

The only folks who aren’t served are the poor folks looking to the U.S. Immigration Courts as courts of last resort to save their lives, preserve their futures, or at least listen sympathetically to their case for remaining. Some of these poor fools actually believe all they stuff about Americans being fair and humane. Those guys were really discombobulated when I had to tell them that while I had absolutely no doubt that some very ”bad things” were going to happen to them upon return, that just doesn’t matter to the U.S. legal system. While I sometimes had the unenviable task of “telling it like it is,” the BIA, the DOJ, and the Federal Courts really couldn’t care less if migrants end up getting killed, raped, or maimed upon return or if their families in the U.S. have to go on welfare. There’s just no place for them in our system.

The other folks who might not come out so well are the rest of America — the non-xenophobes. Most Americans aren’t actually xenophobes in the Trump-Sessions-MIller-Bannon-GOP Restrictionist tradition. While those of us who know what’s happening might be powerless to stop it, we can document it for future generations. We’re making a record.

In the age of information, none of this is going away or going to be swept under an “eternal carpet.” Someday there will be a “day or recokening” for our descendants, just like the one for those of us whose current privilege was built on enslaved African American labor and its many benefits as well as by a century of “Jim Crow” laws which siphoned off African American Citizens’ Constitutional rights and human dignity and conferred them instead on undeserving white folks in both the South and the North.

We have certainly demonstrated that we can be “tone deaf” to both the motivations and the actual effects of our current broken immigration policies. Indeed, there can be no better evidence of that than the election of Trump and empowerment of his xenophobe racist cronies like Sessions and Miller.

But, in the end, we won’t escape the judgement of history, nor will they. The ugliness of our current immigration policies and practices, and the “false debate” about them (there, in fact is no legitimate case for the “restrictionist agenda” — just a racial and cultural one), might be buried in a barrage of alt-right media and “Sessions bogus law and fact free pronouncements.” But, someday, those are going to look just as “legit’ as Conferederate broadsides or the racially hateful rhetoric of Jefferson Davis do today outside the membership of various hate groups and the alt-right.

PWS

10-07-17

GONZO’S WORLD: SESSIONS’S LATEST MEMO ENCOURAGES DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY AND WOMEN BASED ON A BOGUS RELIGIOUS RATIONALE!

5https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/06/jeff-sessions-issues-directive-undercutting-lgbtq-protections?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The Guardian reports:

The attorney general, Jeff Sessions, on Friday issued a sweeping directive that undercuts federal protections for LGBT people, telling agencies to do as much as possible to accommodate those who claim their religious freedoms are violated.

Trump substantially weakens Obamacare contraception mandate
Read more
In response, one LGBT rights advocate called the directive a “license to discriminate” and “an attack on the values of freedom and fairness that make this nation great”.

Also on Friday, the Trump administration issued a new rule that substantially undermines women’s access to birth control under the Affordable Care Act.

The Sessions directive, an attempt to deliver on Donald Trump’s pledge to evangelical supporters that he will protect religious liberties, effectively lifts a burden from religious objectors to prove their beliefs about marriage or other topics are sincerely held.

A claim of a violation of religious freedom will now be enough to override many anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people, women and others.

The guidelines are so sweeping that experts on religious liberty called them a legal powder keg that could prompt wide-ranging lawsuits against the government.

“This is putting the world on notice: you better take these claims seriously,” Robin Fretwell Wilson, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told the Associated Press. “This is a signal to the rest of these agencies to rethink the protections they have put in place on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Rebecca Isaacs, executive director of the Equality Federation, said in a statement: “This license to discriminate is an attack on the values of freedom and fairness that make this nation great. It opens the door for discrimination in the workplace and public services, flying in the face of the majority of Americans of whom over 70% believe laws should protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.

“The Trump administration’s ongoing attempts to undermine LGBTQ Americans’ ability to provide for themselves and their families without fear of discrimination highlights the urgent need for national nondiscrimination protections, which are supported by the vast majority of Americans.”

Trump announced plans for the directive last May in a Rose Garden ceremony, surrounded by religious leaders. Since then, religious conservatives have awaited the justice department guidance, hoping for greatly strengthened protections for their beliefs amidst a rapid national acceptance of LGBT rights.

Religious liberty experts said they would have to see how the guidance would be applied by individual agencies, both in crafting regulations and deciding how to enforce them. But experts said the directive clearly tilted the balance very far in favor of people of faith who do not want to recognize same-sex marriage.

“Except in the narrowest circumstances, no one should be forced to choose between living out his or her faith and complying with the law,” Sessions wrote. “To the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law, religious observance and practice should be reasonably accommodated in all government activity.”

The document lays the groundwork for legal positions the Trump administration intends to take in religious freedom cases, envisioning sweeping protections for faith-based beliefs and practices in private workplaces and government jobs and even in prisons.

In issuing the memo, Sessions, a deeply devout Methodist from Alabama, is injecting the department into a thicket of highly charged legal questions that have repeatedly reached the US supreme court, most notably in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case that said corporations with religious objections could opt out of a health law requirement to cover contraceptives for women.

The memo makes clear the justice department’s support of that opinion in noting that the primary religious freedom law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, protects the rights not only of people to worship as they choose but also of corporations, companies and private firms.

The document also says the government improperly infringes on individuals’ religious liberty by banning an aspect of their practice or by forcing them to take an action that contradicts their faith. As an example, justice department lawyers say government efforts to require employers to provide contraceptives to their workers “substantially burdens their religious practice”.

The document also calls into question the Johnson amendment, which bars churches and tax-exempt groups from endorsing political candidates. Trump in May signed an executive order aimed at weakening the enforcement of that law, which he has said penalizes people for protected religious belief.

The justice department, in the document, says the Internal Revenue Service may not enforce the Johnson amendment “against a religious non-profit organization under circumstances in which it would not enforce the amendment against a secular non-profit organization”.

The department’s civil rights division will now be involved in reviewing all agency actions to make sure they don’t conflict with federal law regarding religious liberty.“

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

Gonzo is trying to ram his own homophobic brand of Christian theology down the throats of the vast majority of Americans who don’t want to live in a Theocracy. Can you believe this this Dude has the audacity to lecture folks on the First Amendment? He is a walking perversion of true religious freedom! Religious freedom is the freedom of Americans in the LGBTQ community not to be harmed or denigrated by Sessions’s perverted minority interpretation of Christianity.

While Gonzo might claim to be a “devout Methodist,” he certainly practices a brand of Methodism and Christianity that I don’t recognize and I doubt that Jesus would either. Our Methodist Church “welcomes all people as they are” — even Sessions would be accepted if not his rhetoric of hate, discrimination, and intolerence. Jesus Christ was about love, self-sacrifice, inclusion, and forgiveness concepts that Jeff Sessions sadly has never understood and apparently never will. I feel pity for him as a human being, but that doesn’t entitle him to use his position to preach hate and intolerence.

Liz was right.

PWS

TAL KOPAN AT CNN: Alarm Bells Ring As DACA Renewals Lag At Deadline! — Administration Refuses To Extend Deadline Despite Hurricanes & Inadequate Publicity! — Politico Reports That White House Racist Stephen Miller Planning To Torpedo Dreamer Relief — Immigration System & Country Facing Chaos!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/05/politics/daca-renewal-deadline-immigration/index.html

Tal reports:

“Washington (CNN)Democrats are raising alarms that more than a quarter of eligible recipients under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program have not yet filed to renew their status ahead of Thursday’s deadline.

According to data provided Wednesday by a senior Democratic congressional staffer and confirmed to CNN by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, 42,669 individuals nationwide — or 27.7% of the 154,234 people eligible — had not submitted their applications. That was slightly down from roughly 48,000 that the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday hadn’t yet submitted.
When President Donald Trump announced the end of the program, known as DACA, a month ago, he put in place a six-month delay on expiring protections by allowing any recipient whose DACA expires by March 5 until Thursday to apply for a two-year renewal. Otherwise, the program that protects young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation will begin to end on March 5, as the two-year permits of nearly 700,000 active protectees begin to run out.
Democrats have repeatedly implored DHS to extend the deadline, saying one month to gather paperwork — and the roughly $500 application fee — is not long enough for those affected.
Trump sketches out DACA deal with Republicans at White House dinner
They’ve been especially critical of DHS for not making special consideration for DACA recipients in states hit by hurricanes Irma and Harvey, though DHS did announce Tuesday it would make case-by-case decisions for recipients in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands affected by Maria.
The frustration bubbled up at a Senate hearing Tuesday, where Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin cited considerations the Internal Revenue Service was making for Texas, Louisiana and Florida residents.
“May I implore you, implore you, to do the same thing at DHS that our own Internal Revenue Service is doing,” Durbin said to the DHS officials testifying. “If it’s good enough for our tax collectors to have a heart, isn’t it good enough for DHS to have a heart?”
Senators’ frustration with Trump on DACA bubbles up at hearing
According to the Wednesday data, more than 2,600 of eligible recipients in Texas had yet to submit renewals, 28% of the total eligible in that state. In Florida, more than 2,000, or 35% of those eligible, had yet to renew. In the US islands hit by Irma, 16 of the 37 eligible hadn’t yet renewed.
Democrats have also been frustrated with DHS over its notification process, saying without individual notifications to those eligible for renewal, the administration should extend the deadline.
“We are very concerned that because DACA recipients were not individually notified of their eligibility for renewal, tens of thousands of DACA recipients could lose their work authorization and DACA status protections,” Congressional Hispanic Caucus leaders wrote in a letter to acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke on Tuesday repeating a request to meet about extending the deadline.
Trump said he was putting in place the six-month window to give Congress a sense of urgency to put the Obama administration executive action into law.
But despite Tuesday’s hearing, multiple working groups and meetings the President has had with lawmakers at the White House, little substantive progress has been made.
The fault lines have remained consistent. Democrats support the bipartisan Dream Act that would protect eligible young immigrants who arrived as children and put them on a path to citizenship. They say they could accept border security as a compromise with it, but insist they will not vote for anything that could put the families and friends of those protected at greater risk of deportation.
DACA deal: A list of just some of the things that could go wrong
But Republicans are also insistent that any DACA deal must include border security and likely immigration enforcement measures, and the more conservative members of the party are suggesting policies — like mandatory worker verification, cuts to the legal immigration system and expanded deportation authority — that would be almost impossible to get Democrats to agree to.
Any solution would likely have to include Democrats, as they’ll be needed for passage in the Senate and to make up for Republicans in the House who would never vote for any DACA deal. But House Speaker Paul Ryan has also pledged not to move any bill that doesn’t get the votes of a majority of Republicans, limiting the options.
Durbin was joined on Tuesday at the hearing by Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, in urging lawmakers and the White House to not try to concoct too big a compromise. Tillis has sponsored legislation similar to Durbin’s Dream Act that he bills as a conservative DACA solution.
Responding to a wish list articulated by a DHS senior staff member testifying about the White House’s aims, Tillis grew frustrated and urged members to focus on a narrow deal as a starting point.
“It reads like a laundry list for comprehensive immigration reform, and if Congress has proven an extraordinary ability to do anything, it’s to fail at comprehensive immigration reform,” Tillis said.”

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

Bad news on all fronts for Dreamers, and for America. Over at the White House, notorious White Nationalist xenophobe racist and Sessions confidante Stephen Miller is plotting to destroy any chance of compromise legislation to aid Dreamers by attaching reductions in legal Immigraton and other parts of the White Nationalist agenda to the bill.

Politico reports:

“The White House is finalizing a plan to demand hard-line immigration reforms in exchange for supporting a fix on the DACA program, according to three people familiar with the talks — an approach that risks alienating Democrats and even many Republicans, potentially tanking any deal.

The White House proposal is being crafted by Stephen Miller, the administration’s top immigration adviser, and includes cutting legal immigration by half over the next decade, an idea that’s already been panned by lawmakers in both parties.

The principles would likely be a political non-starter for Democrats and infuriate Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who have negotiated with President Donald Trump on immigration and left a White House meeting last month indicating a solution was near. They could also divide Republicans, many of whom oppose cutting legal immigration.

Miller was upset after Trump’s dinner last month with Schumer and Pelosi and has been working since to bring the president back to the tougher stance he took during his campaign.

Miller has begun talking with Hill aides and White House officials about the principles in recent days. The administration is expected to send its immigration wish-list to Congress in the coming days, perhaps as soon as this weekend, said the people familiar with the plan, who include two administration officials. They requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations.

A White House official cautioned that the plans have not been finalized and could still change. Miller didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Unless they change dramatically from their current form, the immigration principles could short-circuit congressional negotiations aimed at finding a fix to DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — the Obama-era initiative that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as minors.

“Handing Stephen Miller the pen on any DACA deal after the revolt from their base is the quickest way to blow it up,” said a senior Democratic Senate aide.

Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol panned an earlier White House immigration proposal spearheaded by Miller, the RAISE Act, when the White House rolled it out in August. Republicans including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ron Johnson .)of Wisconsin all but declared the proposal dead on arrival.

Trump announced last month that he would end the DACA program, but he said he’d give Congress six months to come up with a legislative solution.

Despite Trump’s efforts to make nice with Schumer and Pelosi, Republican lawmakers signaled this week that the president is prepared to demand tough immigration measures as part of the negotiations.

In addition to provisions in the RAISE Act, the White House’s immigration principles also include parts of the Davis-Oliver Act, including measures that would give state and local law enforcement power to enforce immigration laws, allow states to write their own immigration laws and expand criminal penalties for entering the U.S. illegally.

The principles would also incorporate a provision from the Davis-Oliver Act that puts the onus on Congress to designate Temporary Protected Status, which allows immigrants to temporarily stay in the United States because they are unable to return to their home country as a result of a natural disaster or other dangerous circumstances.

The Davis-Oliver Act gives Congress 90 days to approve a measure extending TPS protections to a foreign state. If Congress does not act, the designation will be terminated. Lawmakers have raised concerns that Congress will be unable to agree on the designations, effectively killing the program.

In addition, the principles call for billions of dollars in border security, as well as money for detention beds and more immigration judges, according to the people familiar with them. Republicans are likely to support those moves.”

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

Miller’s proposals are right out of the White Nationalist restrictionist playbook. It will be a non-starter for Democrats. Additionally, no decent human being of any party should ever be associated, in any way, with any idea emanating from the arrogant racist Miller.

If Miller is involved, Dreamer relief is DOA. That means that Dreamers are likely to be left to fight out their future one case at a time in the Federal Courts and in the Immigraton Courts. Given the existing 630,000+ case backlog in the U.S. Imigration Courts, and the relatively cumbersome process for restoring “Dreamer” cases to the Immigraton Court Docket, not many will actually be removed from the United States before 2000.

I also think that Dreamers will have a reasonable chance of succeeding in the Article III Courts in barring DHS from relying on any evidence furnished as part of the DACA application and interview process as evidence of removability. That’s likely to throw a further monkey wrench into any enforcement initiative aimed at Dreamers.

So, the best strategy might prove to be working hard to remove the Trump regime and enough White Nationalist GOPers through the ballot box to create a climate for reasonable immigraton reform in 2021.

Sad, but probably true. A country that mistreats its youth in this manner can expect “very bad things” to happen in the future.

PWS

10-05-17

GONZO’S WORLD: HOMOPHOBIC AG ATTACKS LGBTQ COMMUNITY WITH BOGUS LEGAL MEMO STRIPPING TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUALS OF CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/dominicholden/jeff-sessions-just-reversed-a-policy-that-protects

Dominic Holden reports for BuzzFeed News:

“US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reversed a federal government policy that said transgender workers were protected from discrimination under a 1964 civil rights law, according to a memo on Wednesday sent to agency heads and US attorneys.

Sessions’ directive, obtained by BuzzFeed News, says, “Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination encompasses discrimination between men and women but does not encompass discrimination based on gender identity per se, including transgender status.”

It adds that the government will take this position in pending and future matters, which could have far-reaching implications across the federal government and may result in the Justice Department fighting against transgender workers in court.

“Although federal law, including Title VII, provides various protections to transgender individuals, Title VII does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity per se,” Sessions writes. “This is a conclusion of law, not policy. As a law enforcement agency, the Department of Justice must interpret Title VII as written by Congress.”

But Sharon McGowan, a former lawyer in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and now an attorney for the LGBT group Lambda Legal, countered that Sessions’ is ignoring a widespread trend in federal courts.

“It’s ironic for them to say this is law, and not policy,” McGowan told BuzzFeed News. “The memo is devoid of discussion of the way case law has been developing in this area for the last few years. It demonstrates that this memo is not actually a reflection of the law as it is — it’s a reflection of what the DOJ wishes the law were.”

“The sessions DOJ is trying to roll back the clock and pretend that the progress of the last decade hasnt’ happened,” she added. “The Justice Department is actually getting back in the business of making anti-transgender law in court.”

“The Justice Department is actually getting back in the business of making anti-transgender law in court.”
The memo reflects the Justice Department’s aggression toward LGBT rights under President Trump and Sessions, who reversed an Obama-era policy that protects transgender students after a few weeks in office. Last month, Sessions filed a brief at the Supreme Court in favor of a Christian baker who refused a wedding cake to a gay couple. And last week, the department argued in court that Title VII doesn’t protect a gay worker from discrimination, showing that Sessions will take his view on Title VII into private employment disputes.

At issue in the latest policy is how broadly the government interprets Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which does not address LGBT rights directly. Rather, it prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an independent agency that enforces civil rights law in the workplace, and a growing body of federal court decisions have found sex discrimination does include discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex stereotyping — and that Title VII therefore bans anti-transgender discrimination as well.

Embracing that trend, former attorney general Eric Holder under President Obama announced the Justice Department would take that position as well, issuing a memo in 2014 that said, “I have determined that the best reading of Title VII’s prohibition of sex discrimination is that it encompasses discrimination based on gender identity, including transgender status. The most straightforward reading of Title VII is that discrimination ‘because of … sex’ includes discrimination because an employee’s gender identification is as a member of a particular sex, or because the employee is transitioning, or has transitioned, to another sex.”

But Sessions said in his latest policy that he “withdraws the December 15, 2014, memorandum,” and adds his narrower view that the law only covers discrimination between “men and women.”

“The Department of Justice will take that position in all pending and future matters (except where controlling lower-court precedent dictates otherwise, in which event the issue should be preserved for potential future review),” Sessions writes.

Sessions adds: “The Justice Department must and will continue to affirm the dignity of all people, including transgender individuals. Nothing in this memorandum should be construed to condone mistreatment on the basis of gender identity, or to express a policy view on whether Congress should amend Title VII to provide different or additional protections.”

Devin O’Malley, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, explained the decision to issue the memo, telling BuzzFeed News, “The Department of Justice cannot expand the law beyond what Congress has provided. Unfortunately, the last administration abandoned that fundamental principle, which necessitated today’s action. This Department remains committed to protecting the civil and constitutional rights of all individuals, and will continue to enforce the numerous laws that Congress has enacted that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”

McGowan, from Lambda Legal, counters, “The memo is so weak that analysis is so thin, that it will courts will recognize it for what it is — a raw political document and not sound legal analysis that should be given any weight by them.”

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

Virulent homophobia has always been a key element of the “Gonzo Apocalypto Agenda.” Check out this report from Mark Joseph Stern at Slate about how when serving as Alabama’s Attorney General Gonzo attempted to use an Alabama statute that had been ruled unconstitutional by a Federal Judge to both publicly demean LGBTQ students and stomp on their First Amendment rights. (So much for the disingenuous BS speech that Gonzo delivered on Free Speech at Georgetown Law last week.) Here’s what happened:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered a speech at Georgetown University Law Center in which he argued that “freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack.” As my colleague Dahlia Lithwick explained, the attorney general said this in “a room full of prescreened students who asked him prescreened questions while political demonstrators outside were penned off in ‘free speech zones.’ ” Ensconced in a safe space of his own, Sessions blasted the notion that speech can be “hurtful,” criticizing administrators and students for their “crackdown” on “speech they may have disagreed with.”

Mark Joseph Stern
MARK JOSEPH STERN
Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

Sessions’ hypocrisy on speech issues is not a new development. In 1996, the then–attorney general of Alabama used the full power of his office to try to shut down an LGBTQ conference at the University of Alabama. Sessions took his battle to court, asking a federal judge to let him block the conference altogether—or, at the very least, silence students who wished to discuss LGBTQ issues. He ultimately failed, but his campaign reveals a great deal about his highly selective view of free expression. Sessions claims to support freedom for “offensive” speech, but when speech offends him, he is all too happy to play the censor.

When Sessions served as Alabama attorney general, the state still criminalized sodomy. A 1992 law, Alabama Education Code Section 16-1-28, also barred public universities from funding, recognizing, or supporting any group “that fosters or promotes a lifestyle or actions prohibited by” the sodomy statute, either “directly or indirectly.” The law also forbade schools from allowing such organizations to use public facilities. Sessions’ predecessor, Jimmy Evans, had interpreted the statute to effectively outlaw the discussion or promotion of gay rights on public campuses, with that prohibition even extending to AIDS awareness campaigns.

In 1995, the University of South Alabama’s Gay Lesbian Bisexual Alliance sued in federal court to block Section 16-1-28. That summer, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that, under the First Amendment, public universities may not deny access to facilities or funding for student organizations on the basis of their viewpoints. This decision, the GLBA asserted, rendered Section 16-1-28 unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson agreed, holding the law to be invalid in a January 1996 ruling.

This decision was excellent news for the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Alliance at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. The GLBA had planned to host the Fifth Annual Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual College Conference of the Southeastern United States in February 1996. Sessions, by now attorney general, was trying his hardest to shut it down.

“University officials say they’re going to try to obey the law,” Sessions said at the time, as CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski reported in December of last year. “I don’t see how it can be done without canceling this conference. I remain hopeful that if the administration does not act, the board of trustees will.” Sessions didn’t give up even after Judge Thompson struck down the law. “I intend to do everything I can to stop that conference,” he said.

In a last-ditch effort, Sessions returned to Thompson’s court and asked permission to ban the conference. “The State of Alabama,” he explained in court filings, “will experience irreparable harm by funding a conference and activities in violation of state law.” Failing a total ban, Sessions implored Thompson to let him censor any discussion of “safe sex and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.” Sessions claimed that, by talking about LGBTQ issues, conference attendees were essentially conspiring to promote criminal activity, and Alabama should not be obligated to support their criminality. Predictably, Thompson rejected Sessions’ arguments, writing that the attorney general was endeavoring to violate students’ free speech rights. Sessions then appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which unanimously ruled against Alabama. The conference went on as planned.

Cathy Lopez Wessell, a lead organizer and spokeswoman for the conference, told me Sessions’ intervention “was incredibly stressful. We got threatening phone calls. We were attacked from all sides.” She continued, “We were the abomination of the month. I didn’t feel safe in the world for a while. I started to internalize some of the judgment leveled at our group. I thought, there must be something deeply wrong with you if you need to be silenced.”

Lopez Wessell explained that Sessions’ campaign against the conference registered as a broader attack on LGBTQ students.

“If we can’t talk, do we have a right to exist?” Lopez Wessell asked. “If our speech is so dangerous that it needs to be stopped, then are we dangerous? We weren’t promoting any particular activity; we just wanted to talk—about our experiences, about our existence.”

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

Denying the humanity as well as the human rights of those he is biased against is a staple of the Gonzo Apocalypto agenda. Just look at his constant attempts to tie all members of the Hispanic ethnic community to crime, drugs, and gangs (even though all credible studies show that immigrants or all types have markedly lower crime rates than native-born U.S. citizens) and his false and gratuitous attempts to tie “Dreamers” to crime, terrorism, and loss of jobs!

There is no more certain way of knowing that a DOJ “legal” memo is all policy and no law than the statement: “This is a conclusion of law, not policy.“ In other words, “Don’t you dare accuse me of doing what I’m actually doing!”

Since assuming the office of Attorney General for which he is so spectacularly unqualified, here’s a list of the folks whose rights or humanity Sessions has attacked or disparaged:

Hispanics

African Americans

LGBTQ Individuals

Dreamers

Immigrants

Refugees

Asylum Seekers

Poor People

Undocumented Migrants

Women

Muslims

Civil Rights Protesters

Black Athletes

City Officials Seeking To Foster Community Law Enforcement

Prisoners

Immigration Detainees

Forensic Scientists

State Governors Who Disagree With Him

Federal Judges Who Find Trump Policies Illegal

State & Federal Judges Who Object To Migrants Being Arrested At Their Courts

Convicts

Liberal Students & College Administrators

Anti-Facists

Anti-Hate-Group Activists

Reporters

Unaccompanied Migrant Children

President Obama

Whistleblowers (a/k/a “Leakers” in “Gonzopeak”)

DOJ Career Attorneys

I’m sure I’ve left a few out. Feel free to send me additions. The list just keeps getting longer all the time.

The only group that appears to be “A-OK” with Gonzo is “White straight Christian male Republican ultra rightists.”

Liz was right!

PWS

10-05-17

TAL KOPAN FOR CNN: SENATE HEARING WITH ADMINISTRATION ON DACA SOWS CONFUSION! — Only One Thing Clear: Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) Knows That Sessions’s White Nationalist Narrative On Dreamers Is A Lie — And, He’s Anxious To Have A Crack At “Gonzo-Apocalypto” Under Oath!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/politics/daca-hearing-lawmakers-frustrated/index.html

Tal reports:

There were other tense exchanges as well, including from the former top Democrat on the committee, Vermont Sen. Pat Leahy, who especially took issue with the Justice Department representative. At the outset of the hearing Chairman Chuck Grassley noted that DOJ had not submitted written testimony for the hearing, and acting Assistant Attorney General Chad Readler, of the civil division, said he was limited in speaking outside of what was already public because of ongoing lawsuits over the administration’s termination of DACA.

Leahy pressed Readler on Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ letter about the rescission of DACA, which suggested lax immigration enforcement was responsible for crime, violence and even terrorism.
“Can you provide this committee with any examples of Dreamers being involved in terror activity? … You don’t have to give me hundreds, just give me one!” Leahy said, raising his voice.
“I’m not aware of any examples,” Readler said.
“Neither is the attorney general when he said that,” Leahy said.
After further back-and-forth about what Sessions meant, Readler noted he would be testifying before this committee himself this month.
“He’s taken longer than any attorney general since I’ve been here, but I’ve only been here 42 years,” Leahy said.
Under questioning from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, who has co-sponsored Durbin’s bill, the DHS officials did say they supported a pathway to citizenship for DACA-eligible individuals in an eventual solution — and said they were largely the type of people the US should want.
“They’re a benefit to the country as are many immigrants coming in,” Dougherty said. “They are a valuable contribution to our society, we need to regularize their status through legislative means.”
He also said DHS did not support the notion of creating a permanent visa status that would never allow people to be naturalized — saying the White House would be of the same mind.
“I think creating second-class citizens or people who are never able to naturalize is not a good model,” Dougherty said, adding “I do” when asked if he thinks the President agrees.”

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

Read the rest of Tal’s article at the link.

Pretty obvious why Gonzo would rather spend his time spreading lies and bogus, alarmist narratives about American young people and immigrant communities rather than facing Sen. Leahy under oath.

Liz was right!

PWS

10-03-17

GONZO’S WORLD: COMING TO THE SUPREMES THIS FALL: Jeff Sessions v. United States of America! – White Nationalist AG Takes On 21st Century America In Concerted Effort To Recreate “The Bad Old Days” Of Maximo Bias & Inequality!

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/trumps-justice-department-is-taking-on-other-federal-agencies-in-court/

Pena Levy reports for Mother Jones:

“The first day of the Supreme Court’s new term on Monday will feature a rare legal showdown: The Justice Department will face off against another federal agency. It’s unusual for the Justice Department, representing the United States government, to disagree with an executive agency, much less send its top lawyer to try to defeat that agency before the Supreme Court—but it’s only the first of several such confrontations in the Trump administration.

There are currently three major cases in which the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a position in opposition to another executive agency. The nation’s top court will referee one of these disagreements on Monday, and the other two are likely to reach the Supreme Court next year. The situation is partially explained by politics: The department is opposing agencies whose missions—protecting the interests of workers and consumers—are less likely to align with the goals of a conservative administration. But it’s also a signal of how aggressive the Justice Department plans to be in pursing its conservative agenda through the courts.

“It’s highly unusual to have two lawyers, both representing the federal government, taking opposite positions in a court,” says Deepak Gupta, an appellate lawyer who has filed briefs in two of the cases opposing the Justice Department’s positions. “The fact that it’s happening in multiple instances across a broad range of issues is really remarkable and is a sign of how aggressively the Trump administration is flipping positions on a broad range of issues.”

The case going before the court on Monday concerns workers’ right to collective action. The other two will decide whether the creation of the agency in charge of protecting consumers violates the Constitution and whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees from being fired because of their sexual orientation. The Justice Department’s willingness to take on other agencies is even more notable because in two of the cases, the department’s top lawyers had to change the department’s position in order to oppose the agencies. Such changes are generally not made without serious deliberation and restraint because the department is expected to have a consistent position on legal issues.

“You would expect the justices to perhaps want to look a little bit more closely at precisely what the government’s position is,” says Jonathan Adler, a professor of constitutional and administrative law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, “to make sure that any change is in fact well considered and not something that’s being done cavalierly or superficially.”

On Monday, the US solicitor general, a Republican lawyer named Noel Francisco who was confirmed by the Senate earlier this month, will argue against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which his office was representing until a few months ago. Under President Barack Obama, the solicitor general prepared to represent the NLRB, the federal agency charged with protecting workers from unfair labor practices, before the Supreme Court. But in June, the solicitor general’s office switched sides. “After the change in administration, the Office reconsidered the issue and has reached the opposite conclusion,” the office announced in a brief. The NLRB would now need to represent itself, and the solicitor general would appear in court on the other side. Labor advocates say they have to go back to the Reagan administration to find an analogous situation, in which a new administration changed its position before the Supreme Court for what appeared to be largely political reasons.

“This is not normal, even in a change of administration,” says Celine McNicholas, a labor attorney at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, and a former counsel at the NLRB. Politics always affect agencies’ agendas, she says, but for the solicitor general to change his office’s stance before the Supreme Court for what appear to be political reasons “is a significant shift.”

The stakes in the NLRB case are high. The question is whether employment contracts can prohibit employees from joining together to seek better working conditions or higher wages or to address grievances, instead forcing them into secret, individual arbitration proceedings. Since 2012, the NLRB has held that these increasingly common mandatory arbitration clauses are illegal because they violate employees’ right to join together, which is enshrined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. The Justice Department has taken the position that in order to get a job, workers can be forced to waive any right to petition collectively in the future. If the department and the employers it is siding with prevail, such employment contracts are likely to proliferate further, giving every employer the ability to escape any chance of a class-action lawsuit or other type of collective agitation.

In March, the Justice Department filed a motion before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in which it agreed with PHH. A “removal restriction for the Director of the CFPB is an unwarranted limitation on the President’s executive power,” the department wrote in a court filing announcing its new position.The Justice Department has also switched positions in a case over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the agency created after the financial collapse in 2008 to protect consumers from predatory mortgages, credit cards, student loans, and other financial products. The agency, the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has been a target of Republicans since its inception. Now the Trump administration has seized on a chance to weaken it. The case originated when the CFBP levied a $109 million fine against PHH Corporation, a mortgage services provider that it alleged was referring customers to specific insurers in what was tantamount to a kickback scheme. PHH sued, claiming that in creating the CFPB’s leadership structure, Congress made the agency more independent from the president than is allowed under the Constitution. The agency’s director serves a five-year term and can only be fired by the president for cause.

Gupta, a former top official at the CFPB, sees this case as the most troubling of the three because, rather than execute the laws passed by Congress as required by the Constitution, the administration has opted to argue against an act of Congress. This is not unheard of; in 2011, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer defend a federal law that banned the recognition of same-sex marriages. But in announcing that decision, then-Attorney General Eric Holder explained that it was made in consultation with Obama and after an extensive review of the issue.

In contrast, the Trump administration’s decision to flip its position on the constitutionality of the CFPB seemed to lack serious deliberation. Three weeks before the administration announced its new position in a court filing, the department took the opposite position in a case that raised the same constitutional objection to another agency—the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)—with the same leadership structure as the CFPB. In February, the department filed a brief, signed by acting assistant attorney general Chad Readler, in which it argued that the challenge to the FHFA’s structure was an “illogical thesis” and “wholly without merit.” Three weeks later, Readler made the opposite argument about the CFPB. Acknowledging the conflict, Readler advised the court retroactively in the FHFA case that the government “does not urge reliance” on the argument it had previously advocated.”

. . . .

But under Sessions, the Justice Department has decided not only to take on other executive agencies, but also to switch positions in a number of other cases, including multiple voting rights cases. How judges will react to this fickleness—particularly in the coming Supreme Court term—could affect the Trump administration’s ability to uphold its broader agenda in the courts. “Of all the offices in the federal government,” says Adler, “we tend to expect the solicitor general’s office to be the most candid about what the law requires versus what’s a policy judgment, and to really not overplay that or overstate that.”

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

Read the complete article at the link.

“This is not normal.” That pretty much sums up the Trump Administration and the entire career of “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions in a nutshell! The worst thing is that U.S. taxpayers are being ripped off for clowns like Sessions and his fellow travelers who are out to trash the rights and interests of the majority of Americans and to rip apart the rule of law and decency in Government at the same time.

It’s sorta like when guerrillas support themselves by extorting their political enemies or perceived enemies (something that the BIA in its wrong-headed rush to restrict asylum protection doesn’t recognize as “persecution,” even though it’s one of the oldest and most classic forms of political persecution). Make no mistake about it, Gonzo and his team of politicos are waging “guerrilla warfare” against career lawyers and the rule of law at the U.S. Department of Justice and in the Federal Courts. And, to date, they have largely gotten away with it.

These unquestionably are “law-free” bias-driven policy decisions by Gonzo. I’ve never seen any evidence whatsoever that Sessions actually reads or has even basic knowledge of American law. It’s just not necessary for a lifelong member of “The Wrecking Crew.” What is clear, however, is that he arrived at DOJ not with legal books, but with “cue cards” prepared for him by the Heritage Foundation, restrictionist immigration groups, and his White Nationalist buddies Miller and Bannon. His memoranda and briefs are studies in disingenuous doublespeak, complete nonsense, White Nationalist myths, and an overall intellectual shallowness that almost matches that of Trump.

It also shows why nobody should take seriously Gonzo’s disingenuous babbling about the Constitution or the “Rule of Law,” both of which he mocks nearly every day he remans in the high office for which he is so spectacularly unqualified. Liz was definitely right!

The good news, if any, is that by the time this disaster is over, the Solicitor General’s Office will have lost its last shred of credibility in the Article III Federal Courts. And, perhaps it will be a good thing for American justice when the “SG” loses his or her “privileged position” and is finally viewed as just another suspect and self-interested litigant in court. And, not a very smart or very well-qualified litigant at that.

Once lost, credibility can seldom be regained. Think about that one, Noel Francisco, before you and your subordinates become complete shills for the legally and morally bankrupt positions of Gonzo and Trump.

PWS

10-02-17

BHUTANESE REFUGEES REJUVENATING AKRON, OHIO — Refugees Are People, Adjusting To A New Life, And Making America A Better Country — “We understand that it’s not just the right thing to do as human beings,” she said, “but it has amazing social and economic consequences.” — AMERICA NEEDS MORE REFUGEES, LESS TRUMP, LESS SESSIONS, LESS MILLER, LESS BANNON, LESS “AYATOLLAH ROY!”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/akron-ohio-bhutanese-refugees_us_59ca88cfe4b0cdc773353640

M.L. Schultze reports for HuffPost:

Thanks “AKRON, Ohio ― Akron owes its only population growth since the turn of the century to a kingdom on the other side of the Earth. As many as 5,000 Nepalis, who held onto their culture during centuries in Bhutan and decades in refugee camps in Nepal, have made their way here during the last decade.

They went to work in the Gojo plant, enrolled their kids in public schools and learned how to navigate roads, snow and U.S. society. But real success in resettling refugees “means moving people from surviving to thriving,” says Eileen Wilson, who runs refugee outreach for a Cleveland agency called Building Hope in the City.

MADDIE MCGARVEY FOR HUFFPOST
Family Groceries in Akron, Ohio.
Thriving means different things to different people. In Akron, it’s come to mean a dozen Nepalese shops and restaurants in what were once abandoned storefronts on North Hill. It means neighborhoods where long-slumping home sales are recovering. It means a cricket pitch in the park, a Nepalese bed-and-breakfast, and the migration of refugees from Houston, Atlanta, Chicago and New York ― the kinds of places Akron is used to losing people to.

It also means that a once alarmingly high suicide rate among refugees has dwindled.

Akron has declared itself a “Welcoming Community,” and Deputy Mayor Annie McFadden says the city and its newest residents are establishing a synergy.

Listen to America, a HuffPost Road Trip
HuffPost is hitting the road this fall to interview people about their hopes, dreams, fears ― and what it means to be American today.
Thirty-nine-year-old Amber Subba has lived the Akron migration story from the beginning. On his Facebook page, he introduces himself as Bhutanese-Nepali-American.

Subba and his family came to Akron in 2008. They’d spent more than 17 years in a refugee camp in Nepal. They’d been forced there when he was 11 by the Bhutanese government’s campaign for a national identity ― one that had no room for people of Nepalese descent who held onto their language and culture.

As refugee camps go, Subba says, the seven clustered in southwest Nepal weren’t bad: Refugees organized systems of commerce, education and self-governance. But more than 100,000 people were also living with annual monsoons and periodic fires, little privacy and constant uncertainty, including how much longer Nepal would let them stay.

In late 2006, President George W. Bush surprised the refugee resettlement world by announcing the U.S. would accept up to 60,000 Bhutanese refugees. Most of America barely noticed, but local, federally chartered agencies like the International Institute of Akron started to make plans.

Subba acknowledges his adopted city wasn’t exactly prepared.

Jobs were scarce. Language was the great isolator. The laws and customs were unknown.

Practically “nobody had a car,” Subba said. “Nobody had driver’s licenses and we didn’t have proper training about how to use the bus. And we didn’t know about snow and things like that.”

Still, he said, “we survived.”

In fact, Subba did quite a bit more than survive. He rose from interpreter to case manager at the institute, became a U.S. citizen and was president of the Bhutanese Community Association of Akron. He composes folk music ― love songs played on streaming radio and easily recognized in the world of the Nepalese diaspora.

His was the first marriage outside the tight circle of Akron’s Bhutanese community. His wife, Tiffany Ann Stacy, enjoys their definition of family that extends well beyond their two children.

As with most families in their culture, Subba’s parents live with them. “It’s really nice, because my kids don’t go to day care,” she said. “They spend the day in the garden digging in the dirt, growing vegetables and learning two languages.”

“The best thing is I’m never lonely,” she joked. “The worst thing is, I’m never alone.”

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

Read the rest of the story at the link.

Compare the human decency and humanity described in this article with the selfishness, grotesque cowardice, prejudice, and indecency of the Trump Administration. Refugees make us better; Trump makes us worse!

PWS

10-02-17

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