NY TIMES: David J. Bier @ CATO Tells How Trump is Skirting Congress & The Law To Destroy Legal Immigration & Darken The Future Of America!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/opinion/trump-legal-immigrants-reject.html

David J. Bier writes in the NY Times:

At his postelection news conference, President Trump said of immigrants traveling to the United States, “I want them to come into the country, but they need to come in legally.” Yet newly released government data show that so far in 2018, the Trump administration is denying applications submitted to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services at a rate 37 percent higher than the Obama administration did in 2016.

This makes no sense: Depriving immigrants of legal immigration options works against the president’s stated goal of increasing economic growth.

A new analysis for the Cato Institute has found that the Department of Homeland Security rejected 11.3 percent of requests to the immigration agency, which include those for work permits, travel documents and status applications, based on family reunification, employment and other grounds, in the first nine months of 2018. This is the highest rate of denial on record and means that by the end of the year, the United States government will have rejected around 620,000 people — about 155,000 more than in 2016.

This increase in denials cannot be credited to an overall rise in applications. In fact, the total number of applications so far this year is 2 percent lower than in 2016. It could be that the higher denial rate is also discouraging some people from applying at all.

In 2018, the D.H.S. turned away 10 percent of applicants for employment authorization documents compared with 6 percent in 2016, and it rejected applications for advanced parole — which gives temporary residents the authorization to travel internationally and return — at a clip of 18 percent, more than doubling the rate in 2016. Even skilled workers are being rejected at higher rates. The denial rate for petitions for temporary foreign workers shot to 23 percent from 17 percent. The application for permanent workers saw denials rise to 9 percent from 6 percent.

The largest increase in the denial rate for family-sponsored applications, for petitions for fiancés, rose to 21 percent from 14 percent.

Greg Siskind, a Memphis-based immigration attorney with three decades of experience, told me that these numbers back up the anecdotes that he has been hearing from colleagues across the country. The increase in denials, he said, is “significant enough to make one think that Congress must have passed legislation changing the requirements. But we know they have not.”

So what is going on?

Last year, the Trump administration increased the length of immigration applications by double, triple or even more, making them more time-consuming and complicated than ever. This made mistakes far more likely. This year, it also made it easier to deny applicants outright without giving them an opportunity to submit clarifying information. The agency has also made moves to police caseworkers who may be, in its view, too lenient.

Mr. Trump’s political appointees to the D.H.S. have also seized on his rhetorical attacks on immigrants, as well as executive orders like the “Buy American and Hire American” order and another mandating extensive vetting of foreigners, as a justification for a crackdown on legal immigration.

As a result of all this, total immigration to the United States has declined under President Trump, and fewer foreign travelers have been entering the country. These trends are surprising, because the economies of the United States and almost all other countries are growing, which usually generates more travel and immigration. The best explanation for this discrepancy is that the president’s policies are having their intended effect: reducing legal immigration to this country.

This is happening at a time when there are more job openings than job seekers in the United States. This month, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell stated that fewer immigrants and foreign workers would slow economic growth by limiting the ability of businesses to expand.

On some level, President Trump appears to understand this reality, but his policies are making the situation worse.

David J. Bier is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute.

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

The answer is actually pretty simple, David. Trump lies, particularly when he repeats the racist restrictionist disingenuous claim that he “just wants legal immigrants.” I call BS! His pejorative use of the term “chain migration” and his bogus proposals for a fake “merit based” (read “no”) immigration system clearly belies any such claim.

In addition to being a congenital liar and proudly ignorant in an intellectual sense, Trump is a White Nationalist racist who hates all immigrants except, perhaps, his current wife and a few White Christian guys from Europe with PhDs. (Although, he really doesn’t like Europeans, Canadians, or any other type of “foreigner” who isn’t a human rights violating despot, leading to the conclusion that he truly despises human rights of any kind.)

His policies are driven by a toxic combination of intentional ignorance, hatred, White Nationalism, and political opportunism. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that policies driven by such evil and irrational motives are going to produce irrational and highly counterproductive results.

Welcome to the Age of Trump & His GOP, David! Where’ve you been? What have you and your colleagues at CATO been doing to insure that Trump and the GOP are sent packing and replaced with leaders (e.g., Democrats, at least at present) who both understand and are willing to stand up for the national interest?

CATO is supported to a large extent by the Koch Bros. While I actually agree with some of their ideas, respect that they actually employ folks producing useful goods and apparently treat them reasonably well, and I occasionally attend CATO seminars, the “Bros” generally have been supporters and enablers of Trump, Pence, and the current GOP kakistocracy.

They helped prop up the truly reprehensible Scott Walker who wasted money, divided Wisconsin, demeaned education, tanked the infrastructure, screwed the environment, and diminished the state in almost every way. It turned what had been a fairly progressive, “midwest friendly,” and cooperative state into a leader in the “race to the bottom.” And, their support for the ugly and unprincipled opposition to Senator Tammy Baldwin was beyond despicable!

I think you and your CATO colleagues largely see where history is going. But, until you get out there and actively work for the Constitutional removal of Trump (and his toady Mike Pence), the defeat of the “Trump GOP,” and the return of “government for all the people” you will remain on the “wrong side of history.” Your dream of an economically prosperous and powerful America continuing to lead the world into the future will be just that — a dream that will never be fulfilled as long as racism and White Nationalism overrule reason!

America needs a two party system (or more). And, I believe there’s plenty of room and a need for a fiscally conservative, pro business, labor friendly, non-racist, non-White-Nationalist, non-homophobic party that challenges the idea that we can solve all problems by just throwing money at them. Not saying I’d join it, but I can see the need for it. But, the current GOP is nothing of the sort — talk about disingenuous rhetoric and total fiscal irresponsibility!

PWS

11-16-18

TRUMP LACKS EMPATHY, HONESTY, VALUES, & FUNDAMENTAL DECENCY: Bess Levin @ Vanity Fair On The Latest Escapades Of America’s Most Notorious Sociopath!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/donald-trump-puerto-rico-funding?mbid=nl_CH_5be9ce24cac6392da6572bd6&CNDID=48297443&utm_source=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=vyf_vanityfair_news_newdb_active_20181112%20(1)&bxid=MjMzNDQ1MzU1ODE2S0&hasha=8a1f473740b253d8fa4c23b066722737&hashb=26cd42536544e247751ec74095d9cedc67e77edb&spMailingID=14604914&spUserID=MjMzNDQ1MzU1ODE2S0&spJobID=1520941540&spReportId=MTUyMDk0MTU0MAS2

Bess writes:

Donald Trump has never had a particularly good track record when it comes to Puerto Rico. After Hurricane Maria ravaged the island in September 2017, the president took nearly a week to even mention the catastrophe, and when he did, it was to scold the U.S. territory for owing Wall Street money. A short time later, he deemed it appropriate to publicly trashthe mayor of San Juan, for the crime of requesting more relief funds. When he finally saw fit to visit the disaster zone, he told the locals that their hurricane wasn’t “a real catastrophe like Katrina.” In September, to commemorate Maria’s one-year anniversary, he smeared 3,000 dead Puerto Ricans by claiming that the death count was a hoax cooked up by Democrats to make him look bad. And now, he’s reportedly decided to really cement his legacy in the territory by trying to end relief funding, despite the fact that the situation remains dire.

Axios reports that Trump told senior White House officials last month that he wants to “claw back” some of the federal money Congress has set aside for Puerto Rico’s recovery, claiming that the local government has been “mismanaging” it. The basis for such a claim? Apparently Baby Huey read an article in The Wall Street Journal noting that “Puerto Rico bond prices soared . . . after the federal oversight board that runs the U.S. territory’s finances released a revised fiscal plan that raises expectations for disaster funding and economic growth,” and got it in his head, sans any evidence, that Puerto Rico has been using disaster funds to pay down its debt. That naturally lead to an utterly baseless tweet about “inept politicians . . . trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations,” and a threat to cut off funding. Shortly thereafter, the perennial bankruptcy artist reportedly let it be known that he didn’t want to include any additional money for Puerto Rico in future spending bills and wanted to try and take back funding that had already been allocated by Congress.

Luckily, despite Trump’s wishes, he can’t actually take away disaster funds that have already been approved by Congress. But he could refuse to sign future spending bills that include more money for Puerto Rico’s recovery. To put that possibility into perspective, the federal government has thus far spent more than $6 billion on relief funding for Puerto Rico, which is a drop in the bucket compared to relief for the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, which received $10 billion four days after the hurricane hit, another $50 billion six days later, and, more than a decade later, is still receiving monetary assistance. But in Trump’s mind, Puerto Rico has already received too much money. Cutting off funding to—what is, as a reminder!—a U.S. territory now would be a slap in the face regardless, but particularly so given that it’s based on our not-very-bright commander in chief’s poor reading comprehension. As Axios points out, not only is there zero evidence of Puerto Rico’s officials funneling disaster funds toward debt repayment, but Congress put steps in place “to keep disaster relief funds from being used to pay down the island’s debt.” As Bloomberg reported in 2017, “neither the island’s leaders—nor the board installed by the U.S. to oversee its budget—are proposing using disaster recovery aid to directly pay off bondholders or other lenders.” But Trump has “always been pissed off by Puerto Rico,” so here we are.

And now California—where 31 people are dead, 228 are missing, 6,453 homes have been destroyed, and only 25 percent of the fire has been contained thus far—is getting a taste of the fun, too:

[Tweet Omitted]

Of course, out here in reality, the compelling evidence is that a little thing called climate change contributed to both disasters, but that’s something Trump would rather not discuss.

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

Bess really has Trump “pegged.” His stunning lack of humanity, knowledge, compassion, and any qualifications for the position he holds continue to amaze!

There are natural disasters and then there are man-made disasters like the Trump kakistocracy.

Trump’s vile and ignorant attack on American victims of natural disaster earns him a “Five Clowns.”

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

PWS

11-13-18

CRUEL, INHUMANE, INEFFECTIVE, WASTEFUL: New Report From CMS, KBI, & CBE Shows How Trump’s Racist Immigration Enforcement Policies Are Destroying & Dividing America, Not Protecting Us!

FINAL-Communities-in-Crisis-Report-ver-5

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

A report of the , Center forMigration Studies, and Office of Justice and Ecology

Section 1: Introduction

A woman and her child waiting at the port of entry in Nogales, Sonora to be processed into the US asylum system. Photo: Greg Constantine.

KBI, CMS, and OJE Report November 2018Communities in Crisis: Interior Removals and

Their Human Consequences

“My oldest son asks, ‘Where are my rights as a US citizen? Where is my right to live with my family and have a home?’”

— Mother of three US citizen children and wife of detained immigrant

“My husband called and said that he had a normal check-in like every year. He went like always, but this time they arrested him. I asked why if everything was going well. He had a clean record. He is a good father. He is working to help our kids get ahead. We have two children who are citizens and we are fighting for them, so that they are good people and professionals. I didn’t see any reason for him to get arrested.”

— Woman whose husband was deported

“In my preaching, I guide and insist that it is important to be aware of our rights, to not have fear, and to know that we all are God’s children and need a piece of land in this planet. I try to remind them that they are immigrants but also human beings before anything else and that all human beings have rights.”

— Priest

Executive Summary

In late 2017, the Kino Border Initiative (KBI), the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS), and the Office of Justice and Ecology (OJE) of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States initiated a study to examine the characteristics of deportees and the effects of deportation, and to place them in a broader policy context (Attachment A).1

The CRISIS Study (Catholic Removal Impact Survey in Society) included both quantitative and qualitative elements. During the first five months of 2018, KBI staff surveyed 133 deportees from the United States at its migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora. Survey respondents were all Mexican nationals, all but one were men, and each had been living for a period of time in the United

1 KBI, which operates in Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora, seeks “to promote US/Mexico border and immigration policies that affirm the dignity of the human person and a spirit of binational solidarity.” KBI provides humanitarian assistance and accompaniment to migrants; social and pastoral education with communities on both sides of the border; and research and advocacy. CMS is a think tank and an educational institute devoted to the study of international migration, to the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and to public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees, and newcomers. CMS is a member of the Scalabrini International Migration Network (SIMN), a global network of migrant shelters, service centers, and other institutions, and the Scalabrini Migration Study Centers. OJE of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and United States seeks to foster reconciliation on issues such as refugee protection, immigration, and economic, criminal, juvenile, and environmental justice.

2

KBI, CMS, and OJE Report November 2018

States.2 They had resided in 16 US states, the majority in Arizona, followed by Nevada, California, and Utah. The survey sought information on their US lives, the removal and detention process, and the impact of removal on them and their families (Attachment B).

The study also included one interview with a deportee (via Skype) and 20 interviews with the family members of deportees and other persons affected by deportation in Catholic parishes in Florida, Michigan, and Minnesota. The parishes — which the report will not identify in order to ensure the interviewees’ anonymity — were chosen based on their geographic, demographic, and sociopolitical diversity, their connections to the agencies conducting the study, and their ability to facilitate access to deportees, their families, and others impacted by deportation.

The interviews explored: (1) the impact of removals on deportees, their families, and other community members; (2) the deportation process; and (3) the relationship between deportees and their families (Attachment C). They provided an intimate, often raw look at the human consequences of deportation.

Long Tenure, Homeownership, Legal Status, and Community Engagement

By and large, survey respondents had built their lives, made their homes, and established long and deep ties in the United States.

On average, they had lived in the United States for 19.9 years.

More than half (56 percent) first entered the country as minors (below age 18), and 21 percent below age 10.

Thirty-eight percent reported having legal status in the United States, including 14.3 percent who were lawful permanent residents (LPRs).

Twenty-six percent had been US homeowners.

Fifty-two percent had participated in church activities, 34.1 percent regularly attended church services, and 9 percent had participated in community organizations.Family and Economic Ties and the Consequences of DeportationSurvey respondents had established strong family and economic ties in the United States. Deportation mostly severed these ties, and divided, devastated, and impoverished the affected families.

Seventy-eight percent of survey respondents had US citizen children.3

The average age of respondents’ children living in the United States was 14.9 and 33 percent were 10 years old or less.

Forty-two percent had US citizen spouses or partners.4

Ninety-six percent had been employed in the United States.2 The report uses the phrase “interior removals” to refer to the deportation of persons who have been living in the United States for a period of time.
3 Respondents were asked to list the age, residency, and citizenship status of up to five children.
4 This figure refers to respondents with spouses or domestic partners.

Communities in Crisis: Interior Removals and Their Human Consequences

On average, they had worked nearly 10 years in the same job and earned roughly $2,800 per month.

Respondents had an average of $142 in their possession at the time of their deportation.5

Deportees reported that they needed employment (78.2 percent), financial (68.4 percent), housing (56.4 percent), emotional (56.4 percent), and social integration (54.9 percent) assistance.

Most survey respondents reported that their spouse or partner in the United States did not have enough money to support their children (74 percent) or to live on (63 percent).

Respondents identified a range of close family members who depended on them financially prior to their deportation, including their mothers (72 percent), fathers (57 percent), and siblings (26 percent).

Forty percent reported having dependents with chronic health or psychological conditions, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and autism.

Nearly one-half (48.1 percent) said that their children — some of whom lived in the United States and some in Mexico — were experiencing difficulties in school.Plans to Return to the United StatesGiven the strong ties binding survey respondents to the United States, it comes as little surprise that:

Three-quarters (73.5 percent) reported that they planned to return to the United States.

Forty-five percent identified only a little or “not at all” with their country of birth.

Only one-third (35.4) percent reported feeling safe since their deportation.The Criminalization of DeportationThe Trump administration has regularly portrayed undocumented residents, migrants seeking to request asylum at the US-Mexico border, and deportees as criminals and security threats. Most survey respondents either had not been convicted of a crime or had committed an immigration or traffic offense prior to their deportation. Nevertheless, study participants described a deportation system that treated them as criminals and instilled fear in their communities.

Nearly one-half of respondents said they had not been convicted of a crime prior to their deportation.

Of the 37 respondents (51.4 percent) who reported having been convicted of a crime,6 more than one-third (35.1 percent) had been convicted of a traffic or immigration offense, 21.6 percent of a drug-related crime (including possession), and another 21.6 percent of a violent crime.75 Mexican pesos were converted into dollars using prevailing exchange rates on August 19, 2018.
6 Only 72 respondents answered this question.
7 The study classified these self-reported crimes based on the National Crime Information Center’s (NCIC) uniform offense codes.

3

4

KBI, CMS, and OJE Report November 2018

A high percent of respondents (65.2) reported that their deportation began with a police arrest, 30.3 percent reported having been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and less than 1 percent by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The majority of apprehensions took place while respondents were driving (36.1 percent), at home (26.3 percent), or at work (6 percent).

Survey respondents spent an average of 96 days in immigrant detention. Most were detained for 30 days or less, and 17 percent were detained for 180 days or more.

Only 28 percent were able to secure legal counsel.

Roughly one-fourth of survey respondents reported spending no time in criminal custody and 22.6 percent spent a week or less prior to their deportation. However, 17.3 percent spent more than one year.RecommendationsThe CRISIS Study provides a snapshot of the Trump administration’s deportation policies and their effect on established US residents (deportees), families, and communities. In order to mitigate the harsh consequences of these policies and promote the integrity of families and communities, we make the following recommendations.
To the Department of Homeland Security:

Issue prosecutorial discretion guidelines that de-prioritize the arrest and removal of long- term residents; persons with US family members; and those without criminal records or with records for only minor offenses.

Use detention only as a “last resort” and employ the least restrictive means necessary — including supervised release and other alternatives to detention (ATDs) — to ensure appearances in court, check-ins with immigration officials, and possible removal.

Adhere to ICE’s National Detention Standards, which recognize the need for access to legal counsel, generous family visitation guidelines, transparency regarding the location of detainees, and humane conditions of confinement.To Congress:

Pass broad legislation to reduce family-based visa backlogs; to align US legal immigration policies with the nation’s economic, family, and humanitarian interests; to legalize the undocumented parents of US citizens and LPRs and undocumented persons who entered as children; and to expand equitable relief from removal.

Appropriate funding to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice at levels that align with the recommendations in this report and that, in particular, assume the principled exercise of prosecutorial discretion, reduced use of detention, and expansion of community-based ATDs and legal orientation programs.

Reduce funding to ICE in light of its indiscriminate enforcement policies and their negative impact on the safety and integrity of US families and communities.

Communities in Crisis: Interior Removals and Their Human Consequences

• Provide greater oversight of formal partnerships and collaboration between state and local police and ICE and CBP to ensure that these arrangements do not undermine community safety or lead to racial profiling.

To state and local police:

Collect data to measure the prevalence of pretextual police stops and arrests (intended to lead to removal) for minor criminal violations, with a focus on the extent to which such stops involve racial and ethnic minorities.

Limit collaboration with ICE and CBP to prevent local police from acting as immigration agents, to promote public safety, and to ensure that no group of residents fears reporting crimes or otherwise cooperating with the police.

Strengthen policies against racial bias in policing, and regularly train and evaluate law enforcement officers on adherence to these policies.

Adopt and implement policies — like municipal identification cards and driver’s licenses for the undocumented — that treat immigrants as full members of their communities.To faith communities:

Address the urgent priorities of immigrants, including the need for safe and welcoming spaces, deportation planning, transportation, access to legal representation, public safety, access to the police, and accompaniment to places where they might be vulnerable to arrest.

Prioritize pastoral service to immigrants and their families; fully incorporate them into all faith institutions, ministries, and programs; and educate nonimmigrant members and the broader public on the immense challenges facing immigrants.

Identify, collect, disseminate and implement best pastoral practices for accompanying and supporting deportees and their families at all stages of the removal process.

Advocate for the generous exercise of prosecutorial discretion; humane enforcement policies that prioritize family unity and cohesive communities; expanded legal avenues to regularized status; and strong citizenship policies.

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

Takeaways:

DHS must reinstate the use of prosecutorial discretion (“PD”) (of the type heavily used by every other law enforcement agency in America) in both enforcement actions and Immigration Courts;
- Under the toxic “leadership” of former AG Jeff Sessions the discretion of both DHS and EOIR to use sensible “PD” was basically eradicated;
DHS Enforcement is over funded to the point where money and resources are routinely wasted on counterproductive politically motivated initiatives;
- Congress should resist any further increases in DHS Enforcement funding until DHS shows better management, accountability, and reasonable use of existing resources.

PWS

11-13-18

TRUMPED: Nielsen Is A Sycophant Who Lied To Cover Her Boss’s Stupid, Cruel, & Often Illegal Antics On Immigration – Reportedly, She’s About To Learn That There’s No “Graceful Exit” From The Kakistocracy – “Trump puts people like Nielsen in the position of accounting for his whims and his counterfactual claims. His expectations for how much someone like Nielsen could accomplish when it comes to securing the border were almost definitely unreasonable. She tried to compensate for those shortcomings by saying things she couldn’t possibly have believed to boost Trump.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/13/kirstjen-nielsen-repeatedly-did-trumps-bidding-her-reward-an-unceremonious-impending-exit/?utm_term=.2e8283f31a2a

Aaron Blake reports for WashPost:

We may not be there yet, but there may come a point at which it’s very difficult to find well-qualified people willing to serve in President Trump’s Cabinet. And if we do, we’ll look back on Kirstjen Nielsen’s tenure as an early indicator.

The homeland security secretary appears set for an unceremonious exit less than one year after taking over the nation’s third-largest agency, report The Post’s Nick Miroff, Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker. The writing has been on the wall for months — and her departure could ostensibly be delayed further — but Trump’s long-standing frustration with Nielsen and the freedom he now has with the 2018 elections behind him seem to be bringing this situation to a head. Trump has previewed a potential shake-up in recent weeks, and Nielsen was always among the most endangered top officials.

The looming decision is about Nielsen’s failure to meet Trump’s expectations when it comes to curtailing illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. An uptick in border apprehensions in recent months and the caravan of migrants coming up from Honduras have probably sealed Nielsen’s fate.

But she seems to be a victim of irrational expectations more than anything. And she has spent much of her tenure tolerating Trump’s whims and even putting her reputation on the line in the name to keeping her job. No amount of public fealty, it seems, has been enough.

Nielsen has repeatedly fed Trump’s narrative about the Russia investigation with misleading or incorrect comments. Like Trump, she declined to directly blame Vladimir Putin for Russia’s 2016 election interference, even though the U.S. intelligence community does. Months earlier, she was asked about that same conclusion and said: “I do not believe that I’ve seen that conclusion. . . . That the specific intent was to help President Trump win? I’m not aware of that.”

She also suggested that Russia’s attacks an American election infrastructure weren’t necessarily aimed at helping Trump, even though the intel community says the broader effort was — a bizarre delineation clearly aimed at appeasing the boss, who has asserted that Russia actually favored Hillary Clinton.

During testimony in January, Nielsen declined to confirm Trump’s closed-door remarks describing African nations, Haiti and El Salvador as “shithole countries” — even though she was present. Then, in an exchange that followed, she was asked to account for Trump saying the United States needed more immigrants from Norway, an overwhelmingly white country. She even tried to pretend that she wasn’t sure Norway was an overwhelmingly white country and that Trump was referring to work ethic:

LEAHY: What does he mean when he says he wants more immigrants from Norway?

NIELSEN: I don’t believe he said that specifically. . . . What he was specifically referring to is, the prime minister telling him that the people of Norway work very hard. And so, what he was referencing is, from a merit-based perspective, we’d like to have those with skills who can assimilate and contribute to the United States, moving away from country quotas and to an individual merit-based system.

LEAHY: Norway is a predominantly white country, isn’t it?

NIELSEN: I actually do not know that, sir, but I imagine that is the case.

By far the most controversial chapter of Nielsen’s tenure, though, has been the separation of migrant families at the border — a policy that led to the detention of children in large cages and the government’s failure to promptly reunite them with their families. Nielsen reportedly resisted the policy behind the scenes. But publicly, she boosted it and even made implausible arguments in favor of it. She even went so far as to argue that it wasn’t an actual policy.

“We do not have a policy of separating families at the border, period,” she said, laughably. A DHS inspector general’s report last month contradicted this and other claims Nielsen made about the policy’s implementation.

And that’s the thread that runs through all of this. Trump puts people like Nielsen in the position of accounting for his whims and his counterfactual claims. His expectations for how much someone like Nielsen could accomplish when it comes to securing the border were almost definitely unreasonable. She tried to compensate for those shortcomings by saying things she couldn’t possibly have believed to boost Trump.

If and when she is finally ousted, it should serve as notice to anybody who would succeed her, or anyone else in the administration, that fealty is a necessary but not sufficient part of the job. And there’s no guarantee that sacrificing your own reputation for Trump will be rewarded.

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

As I said in connection with the recent Sessions firing, nobody should be surprised by these totally irrational moves against his own loyal toadies. Trump and his policies are failures; so, he obviously needs someone else to blame because he isn’t man enough to take accountability for his own mistakes. It might be hard to find such complete lackeys for these key jobs, but maybe not in today’s GOP.

(I note that Sessions only recused himself from the Russia probe because failure to do so could have been a clear ethical breach that could well have cost him his law license. While Sessions is definitely a sleazy character, for the top law enforcement official in the country to willingly ignore advice of his own ethics officials would take sleaze to an even higher and much more publicly obvious level.)

As I have said before, while public humiliation of loyal toadies is never a pretty sight, nobody should shed tears for either Sessions or Nielsen. They weren’t required to take these jobs and Trump’s lack of character and willingness to bully and publicly humiliate those who had loyally worked for him were well-known long before he became President. He might value sycophantic loyalty (see Mike Pence), but he has none to give. It’s the victims for whom we should feel sorry — families, immigrants, communities, and others who have been hurt by Nielsen’s willingness to ignore the law, human decency, and rational policies in a vain effort to hold onto her job.

PWS

11-13-18

THE HILL: NOLAN SAYS TRUMP’S BORDER ORDER IS NQRFPT!

“NQRFPT” = “Not Quite Ready for Prime Time” (as some might remember from my days on the bench)

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/416195-trump-should-withdraw-his-asylum-proclamation

Nolan writes:

. . . .

Detention will continue to be a major problem, regardless.

Under the proclamation, DHS would not have to screen aliens to determine whether they have a credible fear of persecution for asylum purposes, but it would have to screen them to determine if they have a reasonable fear of persecution.

The United States is a signatory to the Refugee Convention, which prohibits expelling a refugee to a country where it is likely that he will be persecuted. Asylum just requires a well-founded fear of persecution.

This condition is met with the withholding of deportation provision in the INA for aliens who establish that it is more likely than not that they will be persecuted.

America also is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture (CAT), which provides that, “No State Party shall expel … a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”

Relief under these provisions is limited to sending the alien to a country where he would not be persecuted or tortured.

The proclamation should be withdrawn until these problems can be resolved.

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

Go on over to The Hill at the link to read Nolan’s complete article (I have just reprinted the concluding section above). It also was a “headliner” at ImmigrationProf Blog: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2018/11/president-trump-should-withdraw-his-asylum-proclamation.html

Nolan’s conclusion ties in nicely to my preceding posts that confirm, as Nolan points out, that CBP, the Asylum Office, the Immigration Courts, and probably the Federal Courts are woefully unprepared for the additional chaos and workload that is likely to be created by Trump’s shortsighted actions. Like most of what Trump does in the immigration areas it demonstrates a chronic misunderstanding of the laws, how the system operates, the reality of what happens at the border, and ignores the views of career civil servants and experts in the area. In other words, a totally unprofessional performance. But, that’s what “kakistocracy” is all about.

We’ll see what happens next. I expect a U.S. District court ruling on the ACLU’s suit to stop implementation of the Executive Order and the “Interim Regs” to be issued in the near future.

PWS

11-13-18

JULIA PRESTON @ THE MARSHALL PROJECT: Unfinished Business – Sessions Leaves Behind An Unprecedented Man-Made Human Rights Disaster & A Demoralized, Rapidly Failing U.S. Immigration Court — “I’ve never seen an attorney general who was so active in the immigration sphere and in a negative direction,” said Daniel Kowalski!”

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/11/07/the-immigration-crisis-jeff-sessions-leaves-behind

Julia writes:

ANALYSIS

The Immigration Crisis Jeff Sessions Leaves Behind

Assessing the ousted attorney general’s legacy on President Trump’s favorite issue.

By JULIA PRESTON

Graphic by YOLANDA MARTINEZ

“I don’t have an attorney general,” President Donald Trump said in an interview recently, venting his frustration with Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

But anyone who was following Sessions’ actions on immigration had no doubt that he was working hard. Before he was forced to resign on Wednesday, Sessions was exceptionally aggressive as attorney general, using his authority to steer the immigration courts, restrict access for migrants to the asylum system and deploy the federal courts for immigration enforcement purposes.

Under American law, the attorney general has broad powers over the immigration courts, which reside in the Justice Department not in the independent federal judiciary. Sessions, who made immigration a signature issue during his two decades as a Republican senator from Alabama, exercised those powers to rule from on high over the immigration system.

While Trump complained about Sessions, on immigration he was an unerringly loyal soldier, vigorously executing the president’s restrictionist policies.

Sessions made it his mission to reverse what he regarded as a failure to enforce order in the system by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress, despite plunging numbers of illegal border crossings and record deportations under the previous administration.

“No great and prosperous nation can have both a generous welfare system and open borders,” Sessions told a gathering of newly-appointed immigration judges in September. “Such a policy is both radical and dangerous. It must be rejected out of hand.”

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A primary goal he declared was to speed the work of the immigration courts in order to reduce huge case backlogs. But according to a report this week by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, the backlogs increased during his tenure by 49 percent, reaching an all-time record of more than 768,000 cases. That tally doesn’t include more than 330,000 suspended cases, which justice officials restored to the active caseload.

“I’ve never seen an attorney general who was so active in the immigration sphere and in a negative direction,” said Daniel Kowalski, the editor of Bender’s Immigration Bulletin, a widely-used reference for lawyers. Kowalski said he’s been practicing immigration law for 33 years.

Here are some of Sessions’ measures that shaped the crisis the next attorney general will inherit:

He imposed case quotas on immigration judges, which went into effect Oct. 1, demanding they complete at least 700 cases a year. With compliance becoming part of a judge’s performance evaluation, the immigration judges’ association has said the quotas impinge on due process.

He made frequent use of the attorney general’s authority to decide cases if he doesn’t like opinions coming from the immigration courts. Sessions used that authority to constrain judges’ decision-making. He made it more difficult for them to grant continuances to give lawyers time to prepare, and he limited judges’ options to close cases where they concluded deportation was not warranted, as a way to lighten overloaded court dockets.

Sessions discouraged immigration judges from allowing prosecutors to exercise their discretion to set aside deportations for immigrants with families or other positive reasons to remain in the United States.

He issued decisions that made it far more difficult for migrants, like those coming in recent years from Central America, to win asylum cases based on fears of criminal gang violence, sexual abuse or other persecution by “private actors,” rather than governments.

In a policy known as zero tolerance, in April Sessions ordered federal prosecutors along the southwest border to bring charges in federal court against migrants caught crossing the border, for the crime of illegal entry. The policy resulted in parents being separated from their children, in episodes last summer that drew outrage until Trump ordered the separations to stop. But the prosecutions continue for illegal crossers who aren’t parents with children, swelling federal dockets and making it harder for prosecutors to pursue other border crimes, like narcotics and human trafficking, weapons offenses and money-laundering. In September, according to TRAC, 88 percent of the prosecutions in the Southern District of Texas were for an illegal entry misdemeanor; 65 percent of the cases in the Southern District of California were for the same minor crime.

Zero tolerance at the border

Under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, federal prosecutors in five border districts significantly ramped up the number of misdemeanor cases they filed against migrants crossing illegally this year, particularly in south Texas.

Sessions took the position that a program initiated by Obama, which gave protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants who came here as children, was an overreach of executive authority. He declined to defend the program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and praised Trump’s decision last year to cancel it. After federal courts allowed the program to continue, the Justice Department fought to bypass the appeals courts and get a hearing before the Supreme Court for its efforts to terminate the program.

Even though his relations with Trump soured early in his tenure, Sessions maintained a line of communication to the White House through Stephen Miller, a senior adviser. Miller was a senior staff member for Sessions in the Senate, and the two share similar views and goals for clamping down on immigration.

Lawyers and advocates say Sessions’ actions have politicized immigration court proceedings. “He stripped the judges of the authority to ensure due process and demonstrated how susceptible the courts are to the whim of politics,” said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, based in Chicago.

Advocates for immigration reform said a new attorney general should restore the flexibility of immigration judges to manage their own dockets to find efficient ways to reduce their caseloads. But they said Sessions’ tenure provided new arguments for Congress to move the immigration courts out of the Justice Department to the federal judiciary.

Gregory Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said, “The aggressive nature of his actions infringing on the independence of the courts has made the need for a new court system even more urgent.”

ORIGINALLY FILED Wednesday, November 7, 2018 at 9:35 p.m. ET

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Go to Julia’s article at the above link to get the accompanying graphics and pictures.

The Immigration Court backlog reported by TRAC now is over 1.1 MILLION cases, with no end in sight. More disturbingly, there is no coherent plan for addressing these cases in anything approaching a rational manner, nor is there a plan for restoring some semblance of due process and functionality to the Immigration Courts. Like most Trump/Sessions initiatives, it’s “we’ll create the problem, make it much worse, then hinder the efforts of others to fix it.”

Three “no-brainers ” that Sessions wouldn’t do:

Working with the private bar, NGOs, states, and localities to make legal representation available to everyone in Immigration Court who wants it;
Letting U.S. Immigration Judges control their own dockets and make independent decisions, free from political interference; and
Removing hundreds of thousands of older cases of individuals eligible to apply for “Cancellation of Removal For Non-Lawful Permanent Residents” from the Immigration Courts’ active dockets and having them adjudicated by USCIS in the first instance.

Of course an independent Article I Immigration Court is an absolute necessity. But, that will take legislation. In the meantime, the foregoing three administrative steps would pave the way for an orderly transition to Article I status while promoting Due Process, fairness, and efficiency in the system.

But, I wouldn’t count on anyone in the “Current Kakistocracy” doing the right thing or actually implementing “good government.” If the Article IIIs don’t put an end to this travesty, it will continue to get worse and pull them down into the muck until we get “regime change.”

Ironically, Trump isn’t the only one who “hasn’t had an Attorney General over the past two years.” The majority of Americans haven’t had one either; while he might be on the verge of getting “his” Attorney General, the rest of us can only look forward to more pain and misery!

PWS

11-12-18

WASHPOST: ANY WAY YOU SAW IT, THIS DUDE’S A HACK – Trumpism Continues To Demean & Destroy Our Most Precious Democratic Institutions!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/there-is-no-way-this-man-should-be-running-the-justice-department/2018/11/09/f4a2ee60-e45e-11e8-8f5f-a55347f48762_story.html

The Post Editorial Board writes:

IS MATTHEW G. WHITAKER the legitimate acting attorney general? From approximately the second President Trump ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions and tapped Mr. Whitaker to temporarily exercise the office’s vast authority, legal experts have sparred over whether Mr. Trump can unilaterally elevate someone from a role that does not require Senate confirmation to one that does. But regardless of whether the promotion is legal, it is very clear that it is unwise. Mr. Whitaker is unfit for the job.

Several prominent legal scholars point out that the Constitution demands that “principal officers” of the United States must undergo Senate confirmation. A 19th-century Supreme Court case suggeststhere may be limited room for temporary fill-ins, but Mr. Whitaker’s appointment is hardly so temporary; he could serve for most of the rest of Mr. Trump’s first term. Even if Mr. Whitaker’s promotion is constitutional, Congress passed a law governing Justice Department succession that also seems to prohibit Mr. Whitaker’s ascent. The department has a capable, Senate-confirmed deputy attorney general in Rod J. Rosenstein; he should be running the department in the absence of a permanent replacement.

The Senate above all should be offended by the president’s end run around its authority. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should demand hearings and consider filing a lawsuit. Instead, he is helping to establish a troubling precedent, saying only that he expects Mr. Whitaker to be a “very interim AG.” Yet no random official should be endowed with all the powers of an office as powerful as attorney general, meant for a Senate-vetted individual, even for a relatively short time.

And Mr. Whitaker is worse than random. It took less than 24 hours for material to emerge suggesting he could not survive even a rudimentary vetting.

First, there are Mr. Whitaker’s statements criticizing the Russia probe of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. At the least, they require him to consult Justice Department ethics counsel about whether he can oversee the inquiry with a plausible appearance of evenhandedness. He will do immediate and lasting harm to the Justice Department’s reputation, and to the nation, if he assumes the role of president’s personal henchman and impedes the Mueller probe.

Then there is Mr. Whitaker’s connection to a defunct patent promotion company the Federal Trade Commission called “an invention-promotion scam that has bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars.” Mr. Whitaker served on its board and once threatened a complaining customer, lending the weight of his former position as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa to the company’s scheme.

Finally, and fundamentally most damning, is Mr. Whitaker’s expressed hostility to Marbury v. Madison, a central case — thecentral case — in the American constitutional system. It established an indispensable principle: The courts decide what is and is not constitutional. Without Marbury, there would be no effective judicial check on the political branches, no matter how egregious their actions.

If the Senate were consulted, it is impossible to imagine Mr. Whitaker getting close to the attorney general’s office. He should not be there now.

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There’s no doubt whatsoever that Whitaker is spectacularly unqualified for the job. But so was Sessions. And so were Pruitt and Price. And, so are Carson, DeVos, Nielsen, Zinke, and a host of Senate-confirmed underlings like L. Francis Cissna at USCIS.

Sadly, the point is that the GOP Senate lacks the integrity, backbone, and decency to perform their “advise and consent” function in a credible manner. So, I think the Post might be unduly optimistic in assuming that the GOP-controlled Senate would reject Whitaker merely because he is totally unqualified. Doesn’t seem to have bothered them before; no reason to believe that it will in the future. That’s one reason why our nation is “on the rocks.”

PWS

11-09-18

STORM RISING: WSJ Says NY Prosecutors Have Evidence Implicating Trump In Daniels & McDougal Payoffs That Violate Campaign Finance Laws!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-wsj-payments-stormy-daniels-karen-mcdougal_us_5be5d3a4e4b0769d24cce81c

Sebastian Murdock @ HuffPost reports:

President Donald Trump played a key role in silencing porn star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal, who both claimed to have had affairs with the president.

Media executive David Pecker met with Trump multiple times to discuss using the National Enquirer tabloid to buy the silence of women he allegedly slept with, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The publication said it spoke to three dozen people with direct knowledge of the payments.

The U.S. Attorneys Office in Manhattan now has evidence of Trump’s role in the hush payments, according to the WSJ. He previously denied having knowledge about the payments.

In October 2016, when discussing making a payment to Daniels, Trump told his then-attorney Michael Cohen to “get it done.”

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal.

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”President Pinocchio” and the regime of sleaze. Always thought Stormy was much more credible and a heck of a lot smarter than Trump. Just can’t figure out how a smart fundamentally nice person like her got mixed up with a total creep like Trump. But, it was consensual, and they are both into self promotion. Still, Trump’s lies about both his obvious involvement with Daniels & McDougal, combined with the stupidity of getting himself in that position in the first place, earns him a mixed “Three Pinocchio/Two Clown” Award!

Go figure,

PWS

11-09-18

🤥🤥🤥🤡🤡

ACTING AG MATT WHITAKER IS AN UNQUALIFIED, UNETHICAL, UNCONFIRMED TRUMP SYCOPHANT, MAKING HIM A WORTHY SUCCESSOR TO JEFF “GONZO APOCALYPTO” SESSIONS — But, Neal Katyal and George Conway Say He’s Also Serving Illegally – What Effect Could That Have On Removal Orders (& “Precedents”) Issued During His Tenure?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/opinion/trump-attorney-general-sessions-unconstitutional.html

Katyal (former Acting Solicitor General) and Conway (Husband of Kelleyanne Conway) write in the NY Times:

What now seems an eternity ago, the conservative law professor Steven Calabresi published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in May arguing that Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional. His article got a lot of attention, and it wasn’t long before President Trump picked up the argument, tweeting that “the Appointment of the Special Counsel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!”

Professor Calabresi’s article was based on the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. Under that provision, so-called principal officers of the United States must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate under its “Advice and Consent” powers.

He argued that Mr. Mueller was a principal officer because he is exercising significant law enforcement authority and that since he has not been confirmed by the Senate, his appointment was unconstitutional. As one of us argued at the time, he was wrong. What makes an officer a principal officer is that he or she reports only to the president. No one else in government is that person’s boss. But Mr. Mueller reports to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. So, Mr. Mueller is what is known as an inferior officer, not a principal one, and his appointment without Senate approval was valid.

But Professor Calabresi and Mr. Trump were right about the core principle. A principal officer must be confirmed by the Senate. And that has a very significant consequence today.

It means that Mr. Trump’s installation of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general of the United States after forcing the resignation of Jeff Sessions is unconstitutional. It’s illegal. And it means that anything Mr. Whitaker does, or tries to do, in that position is invalid.

Much of the commentary about Mr. Whitaker’s appointment has focused on all sorts of technical points about the Vacancies Reform Act and Justice Department succession statutes. But the flaw in the appointment of Mr. Whitaker, who was Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff at the Justice Department, runs much deeper. It defies one of the explicit checks and balances set out in the Constitution, a provision designed to protect us all against the centralization of government power.

If you don’t believe us, then take it from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whom Mr. Trump once called his “favorite” sitting justice. Last year, the Supreme Court examined the question of whether the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board had been lawfully appointed to his job without Senate confirmation. The Supreme Court held the appointment invalid on a statutory ground.

Justice Thomas agreed with the judgment, but wrote separately to emphasize that even if the statute had allowed the appointment, the Constitution’s Appointments Clause would not have. The officer in question was a principal officer, he concluded. And the public interest protected by the Appointments Clause was a critical one: The Constitution’s drafters, Justice Thomas argued, “recognized the serious risk for abuse and corruption posed by permitting one person to fill every office in the government.” Which is why, he pointed out, the framers provided for advice and consent of the Senate.

What goes for a mere lawyer at the N.L.R.B. goes in spades for the attorney general of the United States, the head of the Justice Department and one of the most important people in the federal government. It is one thing to appoint an acting underling, like an acting solicitor general, a post one of us held. But those officials are always supervised by higher-ups; in the case of the solicitor general, by the attorney general and deputy attorney general, both confirmed by the Senate.

Mr. Whitaker has not been named to some junior post one or two levels below the Justice Department’s top job. He has now been vested with the law enforcement authority of the entire United States government, including the power to supervise Senate-confirmed officials like the deputy attorney general, the solicitor general and all United States attorneys.

We cannot tolerate such an evasion of the Constitution’s very explicit, textually precise design. Senate confirmation exists for a simple, and good, reason. Constitutionally, Matthew Whitaker is a nobody. His job as Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff did not require Senate confirmation. (Yes, he was confirmed as a federal prosecutor in Iowa, in 2004, but Mr. Trump can’t cut and paste that old, lapsed confirmation to today.) For the president to install Mr. Whitaker as our chief law enforcement officer is to betray the entire structure of our charter document.

Related

Another view on the legality of Whitaker’s appointment

Opinion | Stephen I. Vladeck

Whitaker May Be a Bad Choice, but He’s a Legal One

Nov. 9, 2018

In times of crisis, interim appointments need to be made. Cabinet officials die, and wars and other tragic events occur. It is very difficult to see how the current situation comports with those situations. And even if it did, there are officials readily at hand, including the deputy attorney general and the solicitor general, who were nominated by Mr. Trump and confirmed by the Senate. Either could step in as acting attorney general, both constitutionally and statutorily.

Because Mr. Whitaker has not undergone the process of Senate confirmation, there has been no mechanism for scrutinizing whether he has the character and ability to evenhandedly enforce the law in a position of such grave responsibility. The public is entitled to that assurance, especially since Mr. Whitaker’s only supervisor is Mr. Trump himself, and the president is hopelessly compromised by the Mueller investigation. That is why adherence to the requirements of the Appointments Clause is so important here, and always.

As we wrote last week, the Constitution is a bipartisan document, written for the ages to guard against wrongdoing by officials of any party. Mr. Whitaker’s installation makes a mockery of our Constitution and our founders’ ideals. As Justice Thomas’s opinion in the N.L.R.B. case reminds us, the Constitution’s framers “had lived under a form of government that permitted arbitrary governmental acts to go unchecked.” He added “they knew that liberty could be preserved only by ensuring that the powers of government would never be consolidated in one body.”

We must heed those words today.

Neal K. Katyal (@neal_katyal) was an acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama and is a lawyer at Hogan Lovells in Washington. George T. Conway III(@gtconway3d) is a litigator at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

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Of course, not everyone agrees with Conway and Katyal. But, no matter how you slice it, the appointment of the obviously unqualified political hack Whitaker and his acceptance of the job notwithstanding his ethical conflicts and lack of qualifications is just another step in the total destruction of the US Department of Justice and the “Clowning of America!”

For that, both Trump and Whitaker get the coveted “Courtside Five Clown Award” (Trump winning for the second time this week!)

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

PWS

11-09-18

TRUMP CELEBRATES MIDTERM “VICTORY” WITH BOLD FOUR-PRONGED ATTACK ON CONSTITUTION AND RULE OF LAW! — Trump Earns Courtside’s Coveted “Five Clown Rating!”

First, he trashed the 1^stAmendment by attacking, insulting, demeaning, and revoking the White Press credentials of CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta while fabricating an alleged “incident” involving Acosta that both national TV recordings and dozens of eye-witnesses testify never happened;
Second, he fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions (no tears, please, for this corrupt public official and immoral person) and appointed sycophantic Acting Attorney General (and former right-wing commentator and established Trump suck-up) Matt Whitaker, a sleazy maneuver which now gives Trump control over the Mueller investigation through Whittaker (indeed, some legal experts say this maneuver in and of itself could easily be construed as an obstruction of justice);
Third, while half-heartedly saying he would be willing to work with House Democrats, he then threatened them with retaliation if they had the audacity to exercise their Constitutional authority to investigate him and his corrupt Administration;
Finally, he reportedly plans on Friday to illegally overrule the Refugee Act of 1980 for asylum seekers through an “Executive Order” – a mean-spirited, controversial, and unnecessary move that almost certainly will be blocked by the Federal Courts therefore touching off yet another round of acrimonious and largely frivolous litigation. You can read Vivian Salama’s account about Trump’s latest plans to thumb his nose at the law in pursuit of his racist agenda in the WSJ here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-sign-immigration-directive-revamping-asylum-system-1541629100?emailToken=00b769f8b7a4e89eba0f99cf5b2477154uBTkiIEqaA4RxhOj6r+MwpvKdjXbRWeUanRuOJdVFK4XBp2y4cx7py6fMlif4uGIYfAXBjcnBluaPYf4RL4PppT8TfGt2sTJrEbTE781qozrIjvN+p3sEae+AYFLY5x&reflink=article_email_share

And, remember folks, this is just “Day One of Phase II” of America’s Continuous National Clown Show! Stay tuned for more daily clown performances and hilarious degradations of America, our laws, human rights, and our values from under the Big Top! Today’s Trump performance get Courtside’s coveted “Five Clown” rating!

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

PWS

11-06-18

MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/jeff-sessions-donald-trump-resign-disgrace.html

Stern writes:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned on Wednesday at the request of Donald Trump. He served a little less than two years as the head of the Department of Justice. During that time, Sessions used his immense power to make America a crueler, more brutal place. He was one of the most sadistic and unscrupulous attorneys general in American history.

At the Department of Justice, Sessions enforced the law in a manner that harmed racial minorities, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. He rolled backObama-era drug sentencing reforms in an effort to keep nonviolent offenders locked away for longer. He reversed a policy that limited the DOJ’s use of private prisons. He undermined consent decrees with law enforcement agencies that had a history of misconduct and killed a program that helped local agencies bring their policing in line with constitutional requirements. And he lobbied against bipartisan sentencing reform, falsely claiming that such legislation would benefit “a highly dangerous cohort of criminals.”

Sessions’ attack on immigrants was equally ruthless. He compelled immigration judges to order the deportation of more unauthorized immigrants and punished them when they did not. He barred most victims of domestic violence from seeking asylum in the United States, deporting survivors back to their persecutors. He attempted to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, subjecting hundreds of thousands of young immigrants to deportation but was too inept to do so lawfully. He tried to prevent states and cities from protecting immigrants within their borders. And he implemented the “zero tolerance” family separation policy, imprisoning thousands of individuals at the border for the misdemeanor of unlawful entry, then seizing their children and locking them in cages. (Hundreds of these kids are still separatedfrom their parents.)

Meanwhile, Sessions mobilized the DOJ’s attorneys to torture immigrant minors in other ways. He fought in court to keep undocumented teenagers pregnant against their will, defending the Trump administration’s decision to block their access to abortion. His Justice Department made the astonishing claim that the federal government could decide that forced birth was in the “best interest” of children. It also revealed these minors’ pregnancies to family members who threatened to abuse them. And when the American Civil Liberties Union defeated this position in court, his DOJ launched a failed legal assault on individual ACLU lawyers for daring to defend their clients.

As he oversaw family separation, forced birth, and mass incarceration, Sessions found time to degrade LGBTQ Americans and their families. He issued a memo alleging that federal civil rights laws do not protect transgender employees, a position the Justice Department recently reiterated to the Supreme Court. He also argued that these civil rights laws do not protect gay people. His DOJ defended Trump’s ban on open transgender military service by claiming that trans people are disordered deviants. Under his leadership, the DOJ also asked the Supreme Court to rule that many businesses have a First Amendment right to turn away same-sex couples. (Sessions gave a speech to the anti-LGBTQ group that brought that case to SCOTUS, thanking them for their “important work” on behalf of religious liberty.)

The guiding principle of Sessions’ career is animus toward people who are unlike him. While serving in the Senate, he voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act because it expressly protected LGBTQ women. He opposed immigration reform, including relief for young people brought to America by their parents as children. He voted against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He voted against a federal hate crime bill protecting gay people. Before that, as Alabama attorney general, he tried to prevent LGBTQ students from meeting at a public university. But as U.S. attorney general, he positioned himself as an impassioned defender of campus free speech.

While Sessions doesn’t identify as a white nationalist, his agenda as attorney general abetted the cause of white nationalism. His policies were designed to make the country more white by keeping out Hispanics and locking up blacks. His tenure will remain a permanent stain on the Department of Justice. Thousands of people were brutalized by his bigotry, and our country will not soon recover from the malice he unleashed.

His successor could be even worse.

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Can’t overstate the intentional damage that this immoral, intellectually dishonest, and bigoted man has done to millions of human lives and the moral and legal fabric of our country. “The Father of the New American Gulag,” America’s most notorious unpunished child abuser, and the destroyer of Due Process in our U.S. Immigration Courts are among a few of his many unsavory legacies!

The scary thing: Stern is right — “His successor could be even worse.” If so, the survival of our Constitution and our nation will be at risk!

PWS

11-06-18

ROQUE PLANAS @ HUFFPOST: TRUMP’S BOGUS CARAVAN THREAT MIGHT BE HIS MOST OUTRAGEOUS SCAM YET! — GOP’S Racist Commercial So Vile That Even Fox Pulls It!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fabricating-border-crisis-before-election_us_5be0a522e4b09d43e321d731

Roque Planas writes in HuffPost:

Almost every day last week, the White House thrust immigration to the center of national politics. The Pentagon announced plans to dispatch some 5,200 troops to the border with Mexico. Trump said he planned to eliminate the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship by executive fiat. He announced a coming plan to bar migrants who cross illegally from claiming asylum and to detain them indefinitely in tent cities. To hear him speak at a press conference on Thursday, it would appear the United States faces an onslaught of illegal immigration.

None of this reflects reality. For the last eight years, arrests for illegal border crossing have been at their lowest levels since the 1970s.

But it does jibe with the strategy of a president who propelled himself to the White House by making specious immigration claims. Facing an election cycle that imperils the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, the president’s message is clear: Voters should blame Democrats for a nonexistent catastrophe at the border.

The ad — which NBC abandoned, along with Fox and Facebook, after a major backlash — is part of Trump’s strategy to drum up fears of the caravan among his base. CNN declined to air it, calling it “racist.”

It’s also flatly false.

Luis Bracamontes, the unauthorized immigrant in Trump’s ad, was convicted in 2014 for killing two Sacramento police officers and has nothing to do with the caravan.

The original version of the ad that Trump posted to Twitter was even more blatantly dishonest. After showing clips of a deranged Bracamontes ranting in court about how he would escape and kill others, it claimed that Democrats let him into the country and that they let him stay. It then it cuts to video of the caravan, giving the impression that it’s composed of similar fiends.

In fact, no one let Bracamontes in. He was deported twice, once in 1997 and again in 2001.

Some critics of the ad have noted that the last time he entered the country illegally appears to have been during the presidency of George W. Bush. He didn’t let Bracamontes in either, though. The fact is that Bracamontes evaded law enforcement, which is not in itself noteworthy. The rate of success for people who attempt to enter the country illegally multiple times never dipped below 96 percent until 2008, according to the Mexico Migration Project, the most comprehensive sociological database to track migration across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Implying that the migrant caravan is consists of dangerous criminals like Bracamontes is just as untenable as the claim that Democrats let him in. Among the several thousand people traveling through Mexico in the main caravan are 2,300 kids, according to UNICEF USA. The migrants are banding together in caravans not as some kind of invading force but as a way to seek protection in numbers from human traffickers.

The major challenge that the U.S. faces at the border is how to process efficiently an uptick in the number of Central American families and children who make asylum claims or ask for other forms of humanitarian relief from deportation. But that trend dates from 2014, so it’s hardly new.

It won’t be clear until after the midterm elections whether Trump will follow through on his barrage of immigration promises. But with less than 24 hours to Election Day, the more immediate question is how voters will react to his statements.

Mass migration from Mexico had petered out seven years before Trump launched his campaign for the presidency by vilifying Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists and blaming “open border” Democrats for an immigration crisis that didn’t exist. The strategy helped get him elected in 2016. On Tuesday, we’ll see if it works for him again.

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Lies, knowingly false narratives, corruption, scams on the American people, racism, intolerance, disrespect for millions of Americans and our Constitution — that’s just business as usual for the Trump Administration.

Truth is, the “Caravans” are doing favors for the US Government in a number of ways:

Easy to track;
Plenty of advance notice;
Reduces danger and deaths along the way;
Takes business away from professional smugglers;
Almost all “Caravan” members who actually reach the border (only a fraction of those who begin the thousand mile plus journey) are processed in an orderly fashion, either waiting patiently at ports of entry or turning themselves in to the Border Patrol immediately upon entry;
There is no evidence of significant numbers of “Caravan” members disappearing into the interior of the US without some type of inspection and screening — almost all those who are not summarily returned have gone through credible fear screenings and are either detained or released on bond after the Government confirms their identity and reasons for coming, and determines that they have credible cases for protection under our laws;
There is no record that I’m aware of that any “Caravan” has attempted to “storm the border” or violently attacked US border authorities en masse — why would they, since their only chance for survival is to hope and pray that the US authorities will actually live up to our legal responsibilities and give them a chance to seek legal protection under our laws?

However, if the Trump Administration continues to ignore our laws and to mount bogus attacks on fleeing refugees, they probably will be able to convince many of those folks that our legal system is a fraud and they had best employ the services of a professional smuggler to get them into the interior of the US where they can lose themselves in the crowd and probably save their lives — a sort of “do it yourself asylum.” And, while wasting taxpayer money on the “border hoax,” this Administration is failing to fund and intentionally ignoring international efforts to address the dangerous and chaotic conditions in the Northern Triangle that causes these refugee flows in the first place — and will continue to cause them until we put wiser and more honest policies into effect.

The real threat to our country’s security and future is Trump and his willfully blind or in some cases outright White Nationalist, racist, or purposefully racially tone-deaf supporters and enablers.

If that’s not the America you want and want for future generations, get out the vote to start regaining control of our country from a misguided yet loud and active minority trying to shove their lack of values down the rest of our throats! America is for all Americans, not just the “Trump Base” and their fellow travelers!

PWS

11-06-18

MAX BOOT WITH SOME GREAT ADVICE FOR SAVING AMERICA: VOTE AGAINST EVERY GOP CANDIDATE!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/sick-and-tired-of-trump-heres-what-to-do/2018/10/31/72d9021e-dd26-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html

“I am sick and tired of this administration. I’m sick and tired of what’s going on. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I hope you are, too.”

— Joe Biden

I’m sick and tired, too.

I’m sick and tired of a president who pretends that a caravan of impoverished refugees is an “invasion” by “unknown Middle Easterners” and “bad thugs” — and whose followers on Fox News pretend the refugees are bringing leprosy and smallpox to the United States. (Smallpox was eliminated about 40 years ago.)

I’m sick and tired of a president who misuses his office to demagogue on immigration — by unnecessarily sending 5,200 troops to the border and by threatening to rescind by executive order the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

I’m sick and tired of a president who is so self-absorbed that he thinkshe is the real victim of mail-bomb attacks on his political opponents — and who, after visiting Pittsburgh despite being asked by local leaders to stay away, tweeted about how he was treated, not about the victims of the synagogue massacre.

Opinion | Trump owns the Republican Party, and there’s no going back

Donald Trump has irreversibly changed the Republican Party. The upheaval might seem unusual, but political transformations crop up throughout U.S. history. (Adriana Usero, Danielle Kunitz, Robert Gebelhoff/The Washington Post)

I’m sick and tired of a president who cheers a congressman for his physical assault of a reporter, calls the press the “enemy of the people” and won’t stop or apologize even after bombs were sent to CNN in the mail.

I’m sick and tired of a president who employs the language of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish financier George Soros and “globalists,” and won’t apologize or retract even after what is believed to be the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history.

[Americans will head to the polls in less than a week. Here’s why some won’t.]

I’m sick and tired of a president who won’t stop engaging in crazed partisanship, denouncing Democrats as “evil,” “un-American” and “treasonous” subversives who are in league with criminals.

I’m sick and tired of a president who cares so little about right-wing terrorism that, on the very day of the synagogue shooting, he proceeded with a campaign rally, telling his supporters, “Let’s have a good time.”

I’m sick and tired of a president who presides over one of the most unethical administrations in U.S. history — with three Cabinet members resigning for reported ethical infractions and the secretary of the interior the subject of at least 18 federal investigations.

I’m sick and tired of a president who flouts norms of accountability by refusing to release his tax returns or place his business holdings in a blind trust.

I’m sick and tired of a president who lies outrageously and incessantly — an average of eight times a day — claiming recently that there are riots in California and that a bill that passed the Senate 98 to 1 had “very little Democrat support.”

I’m sick and tired of a president who can’t be bothered to work hardand instead prefers to spend his time watching Fox News and acting like a Twitter troll.

And I’m sick and tired of Republicans who go along with Trump — defending, abetting and imitating his egregious excesses.

I’m sick and tired of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) acting like a caddie for the man he once denounced as a “kook” — just this week, Graham endorsed Trump’s call for rescinding “birthright citizenship,” a kooky idea if ever there was one.

I’m sick and tired of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who got his start in politics as a protege of the “bleeding-heart conservative” Jack Kemp, refusing to call out Trump’s race-baiting.

I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once complained about the federal debt adding $113 billion to the debt just in fiscal year 2018.

I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once championed free trade refusing to stop Trump as he launches trade wars with all of our major trade partners.

I’m sick and tired of Republicans who not only refuse to investigate Trump’s alleged ethical violations but who also help him to obstruct justice by maligning the FBI, the special counsel and the Justice Department.

Most of all, I’m sick and tired of Republicans who feel that Trump’s blatant bigotry gives them license to do the same — with Rep. Pete Olson (R-Tex.) denouncing his opponent as an “Indo-American carpetbagger,” Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis warning voters not to “monkey this up” by electing his African American opponent, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.) labeling his “Palestinian Mexican” opponent a “security risk” who is “working to infiltrate Congress,” and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) accusing his opponent, who is of Indian Tibetan heritage, of “selling out Americans” because he once worked at a law firm that settled terrorism-related cases against Libya.

If you’re sick and tired, too, here is what you can do. Vote for Democrats on Tuesday. For every office. Regardless of who they are. And I say that as a former Republican. Some Republicans in suburban districts may claim they aren’t for Trump. Don’t believe them. Whatever their private qualms, no Republicans have consistently held Trump to account. They are too scared that doing so will hurt their chances of reelection. If you’re as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about what’s going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one. That’s the only message they will understand.

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Right on, Max! Take back our country!

PWS

11-01-18

HUFFPOST: HOW THE TRUMP-FOX CYCLE OF LIES, HATE, BIGOTRY, & RACISM IS DESTROYING AMERICA!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-caravan-fox-and-friends_us_5bd768c4e4b017e5bfd4c948?p9

Matt Gertz writes in HuffPost:

The role of President Donald Trump’s ominous warnings about the caravan of migrants headed toward the U.S. border from Central America in inspiring the virulent anti-Semite who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday highlights the destructive consequences of Fox News’ grip on the president.

While Robert D. Bowers, the man accused of carrying out the mass shooting, had criticized Trump for being insufficiently anti-Semitic, critics pointed out that president had “stoked the fears of the Bowerses among us,” deploying incendiary and false rhetoric about the migrant caravan in hopes of bolstering the Republican Party’s standing. “The shooter might have found a different reason to act on a different day,” Adam Serwer wrote for The Atlantic. “But he chose to act on Saturday, and he apparently chose to act in response to a political fiction that the president himself chose to spread and that his followers chose to amplify.”

Trump, in turn, came into contact with that fiction via Fox’s fearmongering. The president’s first public statements about the caravan came in response to a segment he watched on the Fox News morning show ”Fox & Friends,” and in the weeks that followed, his rhetoric and that of the conservative network escalated at pace.

For more than a year, I’ve been studying the Trump-Fox feedback loop, my term for the way Fox News at times is able to set the national media agenda because the president watches the network’s programming, tweets about it in real time and adopts its particular fixations. As the rest of the press scrambles to cover Trump’s comments, Fox’s right-wing obsessions consume the news cycle, whether or not they were originally newsworthy. In this case, Fox News urged him to whip his followers into a frenzy over the caravan, and he did it. There’s no indication that either Fox News or Donald Trump will cut off this campaign of fear.

The caravan formed in Honduras on Friday, Oct. 12. By Oct. 15, it was already receiving substantial coverage on Fox News. The next morning, in response to a report on ”Fox & Friends,” Trump issued his first public statement on the migrants, warning the Honduran government that he would cut its aid if the caravan was not stopped. Trump’s comment generated more coverage both on Fox News and at other media outlets. On Wednesday night, Oct. 17, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News and urged Republicans to make the caravan a key voting issue, claiming that “the left is eager” for the caravan to enter the United States.

The next morning, “Fox & Friends” repeatedly aired Gingrich’s comments and suggested that Republicans should take his advice. In response, Trump issued a series of tweets using the caravan’s advance to attack Democrats, saying they had “led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws)” an “assault on our country.”

The network and its most powerful viewer spent the next week raising the temperature, stoking fears about whether the migrants were criminals or terrorists, calling the caravan an “invasion” and describing its approach as a national emergency. Escalation bred response bred further escalation, with no sign of a line beyond which the president and his propagandists wouldn’t go.

Trump’s Fox-fueled commentary turned the caravan story into a major national news story as reporters sought to explain and contextualize what he was talking about. But the situation does not, on its face, justify the coverage the caravan has received. The migrants are currently in southern Mexico, their numbers are dwindling and, depending on which route the caravan chooses, they face a journey of 1,000 to 2,000 miles to the U.S. border that will take weeks or months. Those who make it to the border have the right to seek asylum, and those whose claims are rejected will be turned away. That’s what happened when a similar caravan ― which also drew vitriol from Fox News and then from Trump ― reached the U.S. border in May. The caravans have been going on for roughly a decade without issue. There is no crisis except for the one that Fox News and Trump have sought to create in order to get GOP voters to the polls.

I’ve written before of the perils of having a president who relies on conservative cable news hosts to help him understand current events. When federal policy and personnel shifts can be driven by a Fox-inspired presidential whim, the network’s influence is staggering. The greatest risk is that Trump could use his unilateral control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal in response to a Fox segment; Trump was reportedly unnerved by b-roll the network aired in March 2017 of a North Korean missile launch, convinced that it was happening live. But on a day-to-day basis, the major concern is that the president is a demagogue who constantly lashes out at his perceived enemies in order to secure his base’s support, and Fox News’ programming is providing him with targets for his ire, whether that’s protesting NFL players or recalcitrant Justice Department officials. That pattern has played out again and again since Trump ascended to the presidency.

“Ordinarily,” Serwer wrote, “a politician cannot be held responsible for the actions of a deranged follower.” So, too, it usually doesn’t make sense to attribute a president’s actions to a news network. But Trump is suggestible, he watches Fox News constantly, and the network’s commentators are aware of that. In lighter moments, the “Fox & Friends” hosts joke about the president’s tendency to watch the programs. In heavier ones, the program’s commentators openly offer him advice, telling him not to sit down with special counsel Robert Mueller or pull troops out of Syria.

But on the Monday after the synagogue murders, nothing had changed. The migrants were again drawing coverage on “Fox & Friends” (“Border Battle Rages as Caravan Heads to U.S.,” read one chyron). And hours later, Trump tweeted that the migrants were conducting “an invasion of our Country.”

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Thanks to Trump, the GOP, and their myriad of lies, distortions, false narratives, and hate rhetoric, our democracy is on the ropes. If we don’t start voting these misguided folks out of office, on all levels, we wont have any country left.

PWS

10-30-18

TRUMP PLANS HIS MOST OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON OUR CONSTITUTION AND RULE OF LAW – Says He Can Overrule 14th Amendment By “Executive Order!”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-eyeing-executive-order-to-end-citizenship-for-children-of-noncitizens-born-on-us-soil/2018/10/30/66892050-dc29-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html

John Wagner reports for the Washington Post:

President Trump is planning to sign an executive order that would seek to end the right to U.S. citizenship for children of noncitizens born on U.S. soil, he said in a television interview taped on Monday.

The move, which many legal experts say runs afoul of the Constitution, would be the boldest yet by a president elected to office pledging to take a hard line on immigration, an issue he has revived in advance of next week’s midterm elections.

“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump said during an interview with Axios scheduled to air as part of a new HBO series starting this weekend. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”

Trump, who has long decried “anchor babies,” said he has discussed the move with his legal counsel and believes it can be accomplished with executive action, a view at odds with the opinions of many legal scholars.

“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,” Trump told Axios.

When told that view is disputed, Trump asserted: “You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”

“It’s in the process. It’ll happen . . . with an executive order,” he said, without offering a time frame.

The move would be certain to spark a constitutional debate about the meaning of the 14th Amendment. It reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

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Constitution? What Constitution? Perhaps an “Executive Order” restoring slavery will be next!

The helpless “Caravan” members aren’t a threat to our national security. But, Trump and those who support his lawless and divisive antics are a “clear and present danger.”

If we don’t start the process to remove Trump and his GOP from office at all levels next week, it might be too late for out for our country!

PWS

10-3-18

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

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“NQRFPT” = “Not Quite Ready for Prime Time” (as some might remember from my days on the bench)

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The Immigration Crisis Jeff Sessions Leaves Behind

Assessing the ousted attorney general’s legacy on President Trump’s favorite issue.

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First, he trashed the 1stAmendment by attacking, insulting, demeaning, and revoking the White Press credentials of CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta while fabricating an alleged “incident” involving Acosta that both national TV recordings and dozens of eye-witnesses testify never happened;

Third, while half-heartedly saying he would be willing to work with House Democrats, he then threatened them with retaliation if they had the audacity to exercise their Constitutional authority to investigate him and his corrupt Administration;

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

PWS

11-06-18

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PWS

11-06-18

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If we don’t start the process to remove Trump and his GOP from office at all levels next week, it might be too late for out for our country!

Related posts:

First, he trashed the 1^stAmendment by attacking, insulting, demeaning, and revoking the White Press credentials of CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta while fabricating an alleged “incident” involving Acosta that both national TV recordings and dozens of eye-witnesses testify never happened;