JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: GOP Might Find That Their Message Of Bigotry & Racism Eventually Will Have Diminishing Returns!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/donald-trump-bigotry-midterms.html

Jamelle Bouie writes in Slate:

Donald Trump runs on fear. Once again, he’s closing out an election season with a direct appeal to the darkest impulses of the American psyche. “The Democrats don’t care what their extremist immigration agenda will do to your communities,” he said at a rally in Arizona last week, packing xenophobia into the false assertion that “Democrats want to throw your borders wide open to deadly drugs and endless gangs.” On Monday, he did the same when talking about the caravan of Honduran migrants heading for the United States, falsely saying that “Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in” with the group.

Trump obviously believes his strategy of riling voters up with bigotry is effective. What’s striking is the political press agrees with him. “This pure brute force from Trump could work,” notes NBC News, “because there is no equal response from Democrats.” On Twitter, the New York Times’Maggie Haberman asserted similarly that this “controversial, race-baiting” rhetoric has been “effective for him politically.” And looking at these remarks in the context of the 2016 election, Axios asserts that “immigration and stoking fear about Mexican immigrants propelled Trump to the White House.”

But this conventional wisdom—that bigotry wins votes and elections—depends on imprecision around the idea of “effective.” The media has taken the fact that Trump became president aftermaking those appeals as evidence they broadly work; the fact that Republican primary voters endorsed Trump’s nativism and xenophobia has somehow become proof that it’s a viable election strategy whenever it’s deployed. But neither claim—and both are key assumptions made by political analysts in the Trump era—stands to serious scrutiny. And while Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric undoubtedly resonates with many Republicans, there’s no strong indication that it works on its own as an “effective” message among Americans writ large.

Republicans beyond Trump have made a similar gambit that racist insinuation will energize their supporters and move voters in their favor. In a predominantly white congressional district in upstate New York, GOP political groups have attacked Democrat Antonio Delgado, who is black, as a “big city rapper” who favors “handouts” from the government. In Florida, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis has attacked his black opponent, Andrew Gillum, in terms that evoke racist tropes. In California, Republican incumbent Rep. Duncan Hunter has attacked his Arab-American challenger, Ammar Campa-Najjar, as a “security risk” with potential ties to “radical Islam.”

The proof of concept behind this strategy is Trump’s successful election. Trump relied on racism and anti-immigrant sentiment to drive his message, the argument goes, and while it may have produced some defections among college-educated whites, it also attracted enough whites without degrees to win narrow victories in places where they formed a large share of the voting population, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But missing from this narrative is the critical influence of Trump’s extremely optimistic message on jumpstarting the economy, which co-opted and muddled Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric on issues like wages and infrastructure. To voters cross-pressured by cultural conservatism on one end and liberal economic views on the other, Trump promised a synthesis attuned to their identities as blue collar white Americans—they could have both.

It’s that synthesis which—along with Clinton’s stark unpopularity and extraordinary events like the FBI’s intervention—produced Trump’s victory. In its absence, Republicans have not fared nearly as well, even as they’ve tried to replicate the president’s strategy of open and explicit bigotry.

There’s concrete evidence of this. In the final weeks of the 2017 Virginia gubernatorial race, Republican Ed Gillespie remade himself as a demagogue by playing on white racial resentment with ads blasting Democrat Ralph Northam for “sanctuary cities” and the MS-13 gang. He promised to protect the state’s Confederate monuments and tried to tie Northam to professional football player Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality. Gillespie lost by 9 percentage points, and Virginia Republicans came one seat from losing an almost 20-year majority in the House of Delegates.

Alabama Republicans similarly chose an authentically Trump-like figure, Roy Moore, to replace Jeff Sessions in the Senate. He ran a Trump-like campaign of dishonesty, demagoguery, and casual bigotry. He was even accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women who alleged inappropriate behavior when they were teenagers and he was an attorney in his 30s. Despite this controversy, he was favored to win, running in an electorate that hadn’t chosen a Democrat for statewide office in more than a decade. But a Democratic surge, and Republican disenchantment, produced a surprise win for Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee.

Most recently, the Republican candidate in the special election for Pennsylvania’s 18^thCongressional District, Rick Saccone, described himself as “Trump before Trump was Trump.” He ran as an acolyte of the president in a district that politically and demographically favored the Republican Party. He lost by a slim margin to Democrat Conor Lamb.

The key difference between Trump and these candidates? Economic messaging. Trump rejected conservative economic wisdom on retirement spending and other social programs during his presidential campaign, but neither Gillespie nor Moore nor Saccone had an economic agenda distinct from the national Republican Party. (Saccone ran away from the president’s signature legislative accomplishment—the Tax Cut and Jobs Act—on account of its deep unpopularity.) So while they could mobilize core supporters with appeals to racial threat, they couldn’t reach those cross-pressured voters, compete with conventional Democratic candidates, or overcome an active and energized Democratic electorate.

For further evidence, you can look to Senate races in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. As a candidate, Trump promised to tailor his economic policy to their needs; as president, he pursued large, upper-income tax cuts and pushed deep cuts to Medicaid and other social insurance programs. The result has been backlash against the GOP as Democrats recover lost ground even in the face of the president’s racial demagoguery. Some of this is Democratic mobilization against the president and his constant presence in national life, and some of it reflects shifting partisan loyalties among white voters with college degrees. But some of the change is also Democratic improvement with voters who backed Trump two years ago.

Republican politicians wouldn’t be scrambling to announce their support for key parts of the Affordable Care Act—and President Trump wouldn’t have fabricated a middle-class tax cut—if the party weren’t aware of the necessity of a viable economic message. And the extent to which voters don’t believe Republican rhetoric on health care and taxes might actually explain the sudden increase in the intensity of the president’s attacks on undocumented immigrants and other marginalized groups, as well as his decision to embrace terms like “nationalist” to emphasize his commitment to a racialized vision of citizenship and belonging.
His economic bet is not working this time, so he’s leaning hard on what he perceives as his other strength.

The energy is so high and the political environment so unique that it’s difficult to project an outcome for November, even if polls continue to show a Democratic advantage in the race for the House and a Republican one in the race for the Senate. President Trump and his allies clearly hope that by stirring the demons of American life, they can create an electoral barrier high enough to stop any potential blue wave.

But the elements that rendered Trump effective in 2016—a heterodox economic message, an unpopular opponent, and outside influences—do not exist in 2018, and the media would do well to remember that. Republicans can still fan the flames of fear, but there’s no guarantee that won’t generate Democratic energy in opposition.

Racial hysteria has been a part of many winning campaigns in our country. But it’s rarely the only part. Trump is gambling that it, and it alone, can carry him and his party past the finish line for a second time. But this is a gamble, and one that is more likely to fail than they seem to realize.

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Yup. Ultimately, White Nationalism, no matter how viscous, dishonest, and toxic, can’t halt the march of demographics. And, Trump and the GOP are working hard at offending, insulting, and disrespecting virtually every group in the U.S. except straight, right-wing Christian White Males and the (mostly White) women who support them. Even voter suppression and gerrymandering can only do so much. “Bought and paid for” Federal Judges won’t live forever. Eventually, the screw will turn.

PWS

10-24-18

HON. JEFFREY CHASE & OTHERS: No Matter What The FBI Reports, Judge BKavs Has Already Shown That He Is An Angry, Belligerent, Political Partisan Unfit To Serve On High Court!

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2018/9/28/kavanaugh-and-judicial-impartiality

Sep 28 Kavanaugh and Judicial Impartiality

The standard to keep in mind regarding the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice is found in 28 U.S.C. section 455(a): “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

Let’s set aside for now the fact that as drafted, the statute seems to apply only to men (did Congress really not envision women judges?). Comments have been made recently about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh being “innocent until proven guilty.” That’s actually the standard for a defendant in a criminal trial. Because we as a society recognize how terrible it would be to send an innocent person to jail, possibly for many years, our legal system has established a standard that is willing to allow many who are guilty of crimes to go free, because we find that result preferable to ruining the life of an innocent person through wrongful conviction. Therefore, where the evidence establishes, for example, an 85 percent likelihood that the defendant committed the crime, a finding of not guilty is warranted, as the remaining 15% constitutes “reasonable doubt.” Of course, wrongful convictions still happen in practice, but nevertheless, the theory behind a presumption of innocence and a standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” in criminal proceedings remains a noble one.

Not being allowed to serve as a Supreme Court justice is a far, far cry from being convicted of a crime and sent to prison. Realize that there are only nine people in the whole country who are Supreme Court justices. Many who have never been appointed to the Supreme Court have nevertheless gone on to lead happy, productive lives; some have amassed significant wealth, others have even held positions of trust and respect in society.

In choosing a Supreme Court justice, the ideal candidate is not someone who hasn’t been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of some horrible act. Rather, it’s someone whose impartiality is beyond questioning. This is because in a democracy, faith in our judicial institutions is paramount. Society will abide by judicial outcomes that they disagree with if they believe that the “wrong” result was made by impartial jurists who were genuinely trying to get it right. Abiding by unpopular judicial decisions is the key to democracy. It is what prevents angry mobs from taking justice into their own hands. In the words of Balzac, “to distrust the judiciary marks the beginning of the end of society.”

A primary reason Republicans are so anxious to “plow through” (as Mitch McConnell, using the rapiest terminology imaginable, unfortunately phrased it) the nomination of Kavanaugh is because of how he might rule on abortion rights, an issue of great importance to the party’s base. Nearly all of the Republican Senators seem to believe that as long as Kavanaugh has not been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of attempted rape, then he is fully qualified to serve as the deciding vote in taking away a right that has been constitutionally guaranteed to women for the past 45 years.

However, the three Republican Senators who at the last second requested an FBI investigation into the charges against Kavanaugh may have realized that their colleagues were not applying the correct standard. Abortion rights involve a woman’s right to control her own body. Yesterday, the country heard very detailed and articulate testimony from a highly credible and courageous witness. What she described involved her being deprived of the right to control her own body, by a male who physically pinned her down, covered her mouth when she tried to scream for help, and tried to forcibly remove her clothing against her will. Her violator then added insult to injury by laughing at her in a way that still haunts her to this day. The credible witness stated that she was 100 percent certain that the male who violated her rights in this despicable way was Kavanaugh.

The evidence goes directly to the question of the candidate’s view of a woman’s right to control her own body. The question that Senators should be considering is how much public trust there will be in the impartiality of a decision that involves such right in light of the past actions of the justice casting the potential deciding vote.

Senators who will nevertheless vote for Kavanaugh will say that in spite of the testimony, they cannot be sure of his guilt. Or they may state that they are strongly convinced of his innocence. Regardless, many people might reasonably question Kavanaugh’s impartiality based on the evidence they have heard. (And remember, there have been two other women leveling similar accusations as well). Even those who believe him innocent should at this point realize that in light of public perception, the appearance of impropriety should disqualify Kavanaugh from consideration.

Should those Senators deciding the issue ignore the above, we will all likely live with the consequences for decades to come. Although it would not undo the damage, let us hope the public will respond quickly and decisively in voting the offenders out of office in November.

Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.

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Others agree with Jeffrey:

Here’s what the NY Times Editorial board had to say:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/opinion/why-brett-kavanaugh-wasnt-believable.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Why Brett Kavanaugh Wasn’t Believable

And why Christine Blasey Ford was.

Sept. 27, 2018

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

Pool photo by Saul Loeb

What a study in contrasts: Where Christine Blasey Ford was calm and dignified, Brett Kavanaugh was volatile and belligerent; where she was eager to respond fully to every questioner, and kept worrying whether she was being “helpful” enough, he was openly contemptuous of several senators; most important, where she was credible and unshakable at every point in her testimony, he was at some points evasive, and some of his answers strained credulity.

Indeed, Dr. Blasey’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday was devastating.

With the eyes of the nation on her, Dr. Blasey recounted an appalling trauma. When she was 15 years old, she said, she was sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh, then a 17-year-old student at a nearby high school and now President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court.

Her description of the attack, which she said occurred in a suburban Maryland home on a summer night in 1982, was gut-wrenchingly specific. She said Judge Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, both of whom she described as very drunk, locked her in a second-floor room of a private home. She said Kavanaugh jumped on top of her, groped her, tried to remove her clothes and put his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. She said she feared he might accidentally kill her.

“The uproarious laughter between the two and their having fun at my expense,” she said, was her strongest memory.

Judge Kavanaugh, when it was his turn, was not laughing. He was yelling. He spent more than half an hour raging against Senate Democrats and the “Left” for “totally and permanently” destroying his name, his career, his family, his life. He called his confirmation process a “national disgrace.”

“You may defeat me in the final vote, but you will never get me to quit,” Judge Kavanaugh said, sounding like someone who suddenly doubted his confirmation to the Supreme Court — an outcome that seemed preordained only a couple of weeks ago.

Pool photo by Erin Schaff

Judge Kavanaugh’s defiant fury might be understandable coming from someone who believes himself innocent of the grotesque charges he’s facing. Yet it was also evidence of an unsettling temperament in a man trying to persuade the nation of his judicial demeanor.

We share the sorrow of every sensible American who feels stricken at the partisan spectacle playing out in Washington. Judge Kavanaugh was doubtless — and lamentably — correct in predicting that after this confirmation fight, however it ends, the bitterness is only likely to grow. As he put it in his testimony, “What goes around, comes around,” in the partisan vortex that has been intensifying in Washington for decades now. His open contempt for the Democrats on the committee also raised further questions about his own fair-mindedness, and it served as a reminder of his decades as a Republican warrior who would take no prisoners.

Go beyond the headlines and behind the curtain with Frank Bruni’s candid reflections on politics, culture, higher education and more every week.

Judge Kavanaugh’s biggest problem was not his demeanor but his credibility, which has been called in question on multiple issues for more than a decade, and has been an issue again throughout his Supreme Court confirmation process.

On Thursday, he gave misleading answers to questions about seemingly small matters — sharpening doubts about his honesty about far more significant ones. He gave coy answers when pressed about what was clearly a sexual innuendo in his high-school yearbook. He insisted over and over that others Dr. Blasey named as attending the gathering had “said it didn’t happen,” when in fact at least two of them have said only that they don’t recall it — and one of them told a reporter that she believes Dr. Blasey.

Judge Kavanaugh clumsily dodged a number of times when senators asked him about his drinking habits. When Senator Amy Klobuchar gently pressed him about whether he’d ever blacked out from drinking, he at first wouldn’t reply directly. “I don’t know, have you?” he replied — a condescending and dismissive response to the legitimate exercise of a senator’s duty of advise and consent. (Later, after a break in the hearing, he apologized.)

Judge Kavanaugh gave categorical denials a number of times, including, at other points, that he’d ever blacked out from too much drinking. Given numerous reports now of his heavy drinking in college, such a blanket denial is hard to believe.

In contrast, Dr. Blasey bolstered her credibility not only by describing in harrowing detail what she did remember, but by being honest about what she didn’t — like the exact date of the gathering, or the address of the house where it occurred. As she pointed out, the precise details of a trauma get burned into the brain and stay there long after less relevant details fade away.

She was also honest about her ambivalence in coming forward. “I am terrified,” she told the senators in her opening remarks. And then there’s the fact that she gains nothing by coming forward. She is in hiding now with her family in the face of death threats.

Perhaps the most maddening part of Thursday’s hearing was the cowardice of the committee’s 11 Republicans, all of them men, and none of them, apparently, capable of asking Dr. Blasey a single question. They farmed that task out to a sex-crimes prosecutor named Rachel Mitchell, who tried unsuccessfully in five-minute increments to poke holes in Dr. Blasey’s story.

Eventually, as Judge Kavanaugh testified, the Republican senators ventured out from behind their shield. Doubtless seeking to ape President’s Trump style and win his approval, they began competing with each other to make the most ferocious denunciation of their Democratic colleagues and the most heartfelt declaration of sympathy for Judge Kavanaugh, in a show of empathy far keener than they managed to muster for Dr. Blasey.

Pressed over and over by Democratic senators, Judge Kavanaugh never could come up with a clear answer for why he wouldn’t also want a fair, neutral F.B.I. investigation into the allegations against him — the kind of investigation the agency routinely performs, and that Dr. Blasey has called for. At one point, though, he acknowledged that it was common sense to put some questions to other potential witnesses besides him.

When Senator Patrick Leahy asked whether the judge was the inspiration for a hard-drinking character named Bart O’Kavanaugh in a memoir about teenage alcoholism by Mr. Judge, Judge Kavanaugh replied, “You’d have to ask him.”

Asking Mr. Judge would be a great idea. Unfortunately he’s hiding out in a Delaware beach town and Senate Republicans are refusing to subpoena him.

Why? Mr. Judge is the key witness in Dr. Blasey’s allegation. He has said he has no recollection of the party or of any assault. But he hasn’t faced live questioning to test his own memory and credibility. And Dr. Blasey is far from alone in describing Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge as heavy drinkers; several of Judge Kavanaugh’s college classmates have said the same.

None of these people have been called to testify before the Senate. President Trump has refused to call on the F.B.I. to look into the multiple allegations that have been leveled against the judge in the past two weeks. Instead the Republican majority on the committee has scheduled a vote for Friday morning.

There is no reason the committee needs to hold this vote before the F.B.I. can do a proper investigation, and Mr. Judge and possibly other witnesses can be called to testify under oath. The Senate, and the American people, need to know the truth, or as close an approximation as possible, before deciding whether Judge Kavanaugh should get a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court. If the committee will not make a more serious effort, the only choice for senators seeking to protect the credibility of the Supreme Court will be to vote no.

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Emily Bazelon of the NY Times Sunday Magazine wasn’t convinced by BKavs either:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/opinion/kavanaugh-blasey-ford-investigation.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

The Senate’s Failure to Seek the Truth

It is impossible to justify the lack of a neutral investigation into the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.

Sept. 28, 2018

By Emily Bazelon

Ms. Bazelon is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.

Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Twice as a reporter, I’ve interviewed women who have accused men of sexual assault and the men they accused. In both cases, the women looked me in the eye and told me about how they’d been raped, and then the men looked me in the eye and told me they’d never raped anyone. All four people spoke with force and emotion. In the moment, I wanted to believe each one. It’s uncomfortable to imagine that someone who seems wholly sincere is not. It’s confusing — it seems unfeeling — to turn away from someone who makes a vehement claim of truth.

If you watched Thursday’s hearing, in particular Christine Blasey Ford’s opening statement and Brett Kavanaugh’s, maybe you know what I mean. So then what? As a reporter, I looked for corroborating evidence as a means of assessing each person’s veracity. What else could I find out, and how did their accounts stack up against that? This is how investigators do their work. They find out as much as they can about the surrounding circumstances. Then it’s up to judges to weigh the facts and decide which account is most credible.

Judge Kavanaugh didn’t sound as if he was thinking like a judge. His partisan attack on Democrats wasn’t judicial, in any sense of the word. His approach to evidence wasn’t either.

The difficulty for holding Judge Kavanaugh accountable for what Dr. Blasey says was her assault is the lack of a certain kind of corroboration for her account. The other people she has named who were at the small gathering where she says the assault took place don’t remember such a gathering. Two of them are Judge Kavanaugh’s high school friends. One of them is Dr. Blasey’s friend.

But there’s no reason any of them would have remembered such a gathering. She says it was a spur-of-the-moment get-together, after swimming and before a party to come. And it took place 36 years ago. The gathering she describes is also consistent with one of Judge Kavanaugh’s calendar entries about drinking with his friends.

We also have more than Dr. Blasey’s word. Years ago, she talked about this assault, and named Judge Kavanaugh, with her husband and her therapist, and at a later time, she told a few close friends. They back her up on this. One memorable detail from her testimony has the ring of truth, in its specificity: Her assault came up in couples therapy with her husband because the traumatic memory triggered anxiety and claustrophobia, and that made her insist on adding a second front door to her house, to his understandable confusion. This is not the kind of fact a person makes up.

Dr. Blasey was firm about closing a door that would allow us to reconcile her accusation and Judge Kavanaugh’s denial. She is not mixed up about the identity of her assailant, she said. She is “100 percent certain” it was Judge Kavanaugh. The comfortable path for the judge’s supporters — believe she was assaulted, disbelieve he committed the assault — is gone. Her certainty was a pillar of the testimony she put the full weight of herself behind — her professional identity, her character, the careful consideration and precision about facts that was evident as she spoke.

Judge Kavanaugh refused to open another door that would allow the public, and the Senate, to reconcile these accounts of accusation and denial. He ruled out the possibility that he could not remember assaulting Dr. Blasey because he blacked out or was otherwise incapacitated by drinking. He was just as adamant about categorically denying the other sexual misconduct he has been accused of by two other women.

Judge Kavanaugh also didn’t much back off his denials of being a hard drinker or an aggressive drunk. This is his big weakness, stacked against other facts that have been gathered. Several classmates from his college days at Yale paint an entirely different picture of him as a drinker than the innocent one he offered of being a person who “likes beer.” So do his own yearbook entries and speeches. If you’re a judge who believes in strictly reading a text for its plain meaning, as Judge Kavanaugh says he is, his dismissals and wispy explanations aren’t persuasive.

If you’re thinking like a judge aiming to discover the truth, it’s also hard (impossible?) to justify the lack of a neutral investigation and the absence of other witnesses, beginning with Mark Judge, the friend of Judge Kavanaugh’s, whom Dr. Blasey says saw and participated in the assault, but not ending with him.

The task of a judge or a Supreme Court justice is to seek the truth. The most important qualities for the job are probity and veracity. Nobody was on trial at the Senate Judiciary Committee. But only one person — Judge Kavanaugh — was asking to be elevated to the highest court in the land.

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

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at the magazine and the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School. She is also a best-selling author and a co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest, a popular podcast.

@emilybazelon • Facebook

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Meanwhile, over at Slate, Will Saletan wasn’t buying BKavs performance either:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/kavanaugh-lied-senate-judiciary-committee.html

POLITICS

Kavanaugh Lied to the Judiciary Committee—Repeatedly

Thursday’s hearing didn’t prove whether Kavanaugh assaulted Ford. But we do know the Supreme Court nominee wasn’t honest in his testimony.

By WILLIAM SALETAN

SEPT 28, 201810:44 AM

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

Jim Bourg/AFP/Getty Images

On Thursday, after listening to testimony from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, several Republican senators said they would vote to confirm the nominee because it’s impossible to determine which witness—Ford or Kavanaugh—is telling the truth. Actually, it’s easy. We don’t know for certain whether Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Ford. But we do know that Kavanaugh lied repeatedly in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here are some of his lies.

1. “It’s been investigated.” The White House has ignored multiple requests from Democratic senators to authorize FBI interviews with the alleged witnesses in the case. In particular, there has been no FBI or Judiciary Committee interview with Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s accused accomplice in the alleged assault. In fact, Judge has fled to a hideout in Delaware to avoid being called to testify.

During the hearing, several Democratic senators pleaded with Kavanaugh to call for FBI interviews so that the truth could be resolved. Kavanaugh refused. When Sen. Chris Coons pointed out that the FBI had needed only a few days to complete interviews in the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill case, Kavanaugh said even that was too much, because the Judiciary Committee had already examined his case. “It’s been investigated,” he told Coons.

No honest judge would say that. None of the alleged witnesses, other than Ford and Kavanaugh, has been interviewed. Instead, the alleged witnesses have issued short statementsof nonrecollection and have asked not to testify. The committee’s Republican majority, eager to brush the case aside, has accepted these statements and has refused to ask further questions. In his testimony, Kavanaugh falsely claimed that FBI interviews would add nothing. Agents would “just go and do what you’re doing,” he told the senators.

Kavanaugh claimed that a vague statement of nonrecollection from Judge’s lawyer was sufficient “testimony.” He dismissed calls for Judge to appear before the committee, arguing that his own testimony was adequate. But Kavanaugh also mocked the committee’s Democrats, who lack the power of subpoena, by telling them to go talk to Judge. When Sen. Patrick Leahy asked whether Bart O’Kavanaugh, a drunken character in Judge’s book, was meant to represent Brett Kavanaugh, the nominee passed the buck to his testimony-evading friend: “You’d have to ask him.”

2. “All four witnesses say it didn’t happen.” Each time senators pleaded for an FBI review or a more thorough investigation by the committee, Kavanaugh replied that it wasn’t necessary, since all the people Ford claimed had been at the gathering where the alleged assault occurred had rejected her story. Eight times, Kavanaugh claimed that the witnesses “said it didn’t happen.” Three times, he said the witnesses “refuted” Ford’s story. Four times, Kavanaugh claimed that “Dr. Ford’s longtime friend,” Leland Keyser, had affirmed that the gathering never occurred.

That’s a lie. Keyser has stated that she doesn’t recall the gathering—she was never told about the attack, and she was supposedly downstairs while it allegedly occurred upstairs—but that she believes Ford’s story. That isn’t corroboration, but it isn’t refutation or denial, either. During the hearing, Sen. Cory Booker pointed this out to Kavanaugh, reminding him that in an interview with the Washington Post, Keyser “said she believes Dr. Ford.” Kavanaugh ignored Booker’s correction. Ninety seconds later, the nominee defiantly repeated: “The witnesses who were there say it didn’t happen.”

3. “I know exactly what happened that night.”Kavanaugh made several false or widely contradicted statements about his use of alcohol. This is significant because Judge has admitted to drunken blackouts, which raises the possibility that Judge and Kavanaugh don’t remember what they did to Ford. During the hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked about Kavanaugh’s participation in a night of drunken revelry at Yale Law School. Kavanaugh assured Blumenthal, “I know exactly what happened the whole night.” Later, Booker asked Kavanaugh whether he had “never had gaps in memories, never had any losses whatsoever, never had foggy recollection about what happened” while drinking. Kavanaugh affirmed that he had never experienced such symptoms: “That’s what I said.”

These statements contradict reports from several people who knew Kavanaugh. Liz Swisher, a friend from Yale, says she saw Kavanaugh drink a lot, stumble, and slur his words. “It’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess,” she told the Washington Post. And in a speech four years ago, Kavanaugh described himself and a former classmate “piecing things together” to figure out that they’d “had more than a few beers” before an alcohol-soaked banquet at Yale Law School.

4. “I’m in Colorado.” As evidence that the charges against him were ludicrous, Kavanaugh told the committee that he had been falsely accused of committing an assault more than 1,500 miles away. He claimed that according to his accusers, “I’m in Colorado, you know, I’m sighted all over the place.” But a transcript of Kavanaugh’s Sept. 25 interview with Judiciary Committee staffers shows no claim of an offense in Colorado. The transcript says that according to a woman from Colorado, “at least four witnesses” saw Kavanaugh shove a woman “up against the wall very aggressively and sexually” in 1998. But Kavanaugh was specifically told during the interview that the scene of the alleged incident was in D.C., where he was living at the time.

Kavanaugh also told other whoppers. He claimed that his beer consumption in high school was legal because the drinking age in Maryland was 18. In reality, by the time he was 18, the drinking age was 21. He claimed that his high school yearbook reference to the “Beach Week Ralph Club” referred in part to his difficulty in holding down “spicy food.” He claimed that the entry’s jokes about two sporting events he and his high school buddies had watched—“Who won that game, anyway?”—had nothing to do with booze. And he defended his refusal to take a polygraph test on the grounds that such tests aren’t admissible in federal courts—neglecting to mention that he had endorsed their use in hiring and law enforcement.

Maybe Kavanaugh is an honest man in other contexts. Maybe he’s a good husband, a loving dad, and an inspiring coach. And maybe there’s no way to be certain that he assaulted Ford. But one thing is certain: He lied repeatedly to the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Some of his lies, about the testimony of witnesses and the integrity of investigations, go to the heart of our system of justice. Any senator who votes to put this man on the Supreme Court is saying that such lies don’t matter.

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Also at Slate, Yascha Mounk predicts lasting damage to our Republic if BKavs is confirmed:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-confirmation-consequences-democracy-partisanship.html

THE GOOD FIGHT

The Kavanaugh Stakes Just Got Higher

To confirm him now would be dangerous to the survival of our democratic institutions.

By YASCHA MOUNK

SEPT 28, 20184:54 PM

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Drew Angerer/Getty Images and Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images.

At this moment of feverishly intense partisanship, it takes a great deal of courage to tiptoe away from your own tribe. Sen. Jeff Flake has not yet announced that he is willing to part for good; in the end, he may yet betray his professed principles and cast his vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. And yet, we should not underestimate how much strength it took for him to demand an investigation into Christine Blasey Ford’s serious allegations of sexual assault and delay the judge’s confirmation by at least a week. For now, he has proved to be one of the few people in the Senate—and perhaps one of the few in the whole country—who have insisted on taking Ford’s allegations seriously even though he actually shares most of Kavanaugh’s judicial views.

For the sake of our country, all of us should now hope that the FBI manages to uncover conclusive evidence that either supports or dispels Ford’s accusations. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely. So the big risk we now face is that the same hell we have lived through for the past 48 hours will be repeated in even more farcical form next week. And that is why it’s very important to use this time to reflect seriously on how judicious people—and perhaps especially senators like Flake who profess to be conscientious conservatives—should vote if they have not made up their mind about the allegations.

It is painfully obvious that most Republican senators will vote to confirm Kavanaugh if the allegations against him are anything short of iron-clad; indeed, one shocking poll suggests that a majority of Republicans voters, and nearly half of evangelicals, would support his confirmation even if they did believe that he is guilty. It is also obvious that most Democrats will vote against his confirmation even in the unlikely case that the FBI should somehow manage to disprove Ford’s allegations; indeed, Kavanaugh’s extreme views on executive power provide a strong reason for any defender of liberal democracy to oppose his nomination. And yet, I think that one very important consideration has largely been overlooked.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Kavanaugh is an innocent man. If that’s the case, the raw anger he displayed during Thursday’s confirmation hearing is certainly understandable. While we might wish for a public figure to keep his poise even when his reputation is being impugned, it is perfectly human to lose your countenance under such circumstances.

But even under that charitable interpretation, Kavanaugh’s performance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee makes him eminently unfit to sit on the highest court of the land.

A justice on the Supreme Court has to rule on a whole host of issues that are of huge partisan significance: If he is confirmed, he will have to settle substantive questions of public policy—from abortion rights to the health care mandate—on which Democrats and Republicans have hugely differing preferences. Just as importantly, he will also help to set the parameters that are supposed to ensure that Democrats and Republicans can appeal for the votes of their fellow citizens on fair terms.

But how can somebody who has accused Democrats of a “calculated and orchestrated political hit” be seen as impartial when he rules on a gerrymandering case that could deliver a huge advantage to Republicans? How can somebody who describes serious allegations of sexual assault as “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” be expected to give both sides a fair hearing if the outcome of a presidential election should once again be litigated in front of the Supreme Court? And how can somebody who denounces the “frenzy on the left” to derail his nomination be trusted to ensure that the left’s most vocal enemy, Donald Trump, does not overstep the bounds of his constitutional authority?

Because of Mitch McConnell’s refusal to hold hearings on the confirmation of Merrick Garland during the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency, the current composition of the Supreme Court is already tainted. Now, the confirmation of as nakedly partisan a jurist as Kavanaugh would go a long way toward destroying whatever remains of the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. And this would not only tank the trust Americans have in the last branch of government that has, according to polls, consistently been more popular than secondhand car salesmen; it also significantly raises the likelihood that Democrats will engage in yet another round of tit for tat.

Precisely because partisans need to be able to trust that courts can enforce the rules for fair political competition between them and their adversaries, attempts by a political party to change the ideological makeup of the judiciary are extremely dangerous to the survival of democratic institutions. That’s why (direct or indirect) court-packing schemes have been key elements of the authoritarian takeovers in Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela. And it’s also why the current governments in Poland and Hungary are playing constitutional hardball to ensure that judges they appoint command a majority on the most important courts in their respective countries.

There can therefore be little doubt that any attempt by Democrats to pack the Supreme Court, for example, by expanding its size, would be another step in a tit-for-tat spiral at whose end autocracy awaits. And yet, recent events will make it very hard for those voices within the Democratic Party that recognize this danger to prevail. If one side is so willing to abuse precedent and decency to, as Kavanaugh might put it, screw the libs, it becomes very difficult for the other side not to reciprocate in kind.

This is why Kavanaugh’s confirmation would not just be a disaster in itself; it would also be a strong reason to become even more pessimistic about the future of American politics. The GOP and Trump are now more fully aligned than ever. Our country’s partisan divide is deeper than it has been in living memory. The mutual hatred and incomprehension is more acute than it has been in decades. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, it’s very, very difficult to envisage what path could possibly lead us out of this nightmare.

Jeff Flake has acted with much more courage and decency than most liberals care to admit. But the responsibility that now rests on his—and Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s and Sen. Susan Collins’—shoulders is even greater than he might realize.

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

Dahlia Lithwick @ Slate is also no BKavs fan:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/christine-blasey-ford-hearing-fear-a-justice-brett-kavanaugh.html

JURISPRUDENCE

Fear a Justice Brett Kavanaugh

As his confirmation steamrolls ahead, Americans should be terrified.

By DAHLIA LITHWICK

SEPT 28, 201812:16 PM

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images and Gabriella Demczuk-Pool/Getty Images.

When Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh was over, it wasn’t quite clear what had hit those of us who’d been sitting in the room. The hearing room in Dirksen is tiny, and while the slammed binder and the escalating shouting of the nominee might have looked pretty dramatic on TV, inside the chamber, the effect was that of an out-of-control house party. Too loud, too scary, too close, too real. Like being locked inside something terrible with the music cranked up.

Anita Hill once told me that, in 1991, Clarence Thomas had race and she had only gender. But now, in 2018, Brett Kavanaugh had rage and Christine Blasey Ford had only gender. With the Senate Judiciary Committee moving on Friday to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination to the full Senate without any further inquiry around Blasey Ford’s damning and plainly credible testimony that Kavanaugh had gleefully and drunkenly sexually assaulted her at a 1982 house party as his buddy Mark Judge watched, it appears as though his rage alone will have been enough to earn him life tenure on the highest court in the land.

The dynamic of Thursday’s hearing was consistent: He had fury, and contempt, and seething threats that the republic would pay if he were thwarted. She had to functionally lie back and try not to infuriate anyone, as Republicans cowered behind the female prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, they had brought on to interrogate her. That was until it was Kavanaugh’s turn to speak, when they quickly jettisoned that paper-thin pretense of investigative “independence” and joined Kavanaugh to form a chorus of angry shouting men. They towered silently over Mitchell for the first half of the hearing, then summarily ignored her when she wasn’t offering questions fast or furious enough to protect their nominee.

At least Anita Hill was insulted, demeaned, and discredited to her face. Ford was patronized, thanked, and told that she was very, very credible. Over and over she was told she’d been given a “safe space” to tell her story; as if a safe space substitutes for reasoned process and investigation. She was given a safe space and then dismissed as though she were some character in a very sad French movie that had been very affecting indeed but had nothing to do with the great man and his destiny. After presenting an undeniable narrative—and one the nobody ever really attempted to specifically refute—she was told that her credibility didn’t count for anything because a man was bellowing and injured, that whatever had happened to her was not as important as his pain. And Senate Republicans—having tucked Mitchell back into her naughty chair—were delighted to bellow and yelp of horrid injuries they too had sustained alongside their guy.

Of course, the purported wrong was the process. Again, the villain of the piece was Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had kept Ford’s July letter outlining one of Kavanaugh’s alleged crimes in confidence at her request until eventually forwarding it to the FBI for inquiry earlier this month. Don’t be fooled, though: Feinstein would have been screamed at just as furiously had she come forward weeks or months earlier with Ford’s report, and another pretext for dismissing Ford and her witnesses would have been concocted.

As GOP rage gathered steam, we were told that this needed to be treated as a criminal proceeding—innocent until proven guilty—and the Republicans contended that there was no evidence of criminal conduct. But, of course there was evidence: compelling firsthand testimony and numerous supporting accounts. And of course, they refused to subpoena the key witness to the event, opting instead for the “we take his word for it” route of investigation by registered letter. The “hearing,” as expected, had been staged as a puppet show of “credibility.” And absent witnesses, or evidence, or any mechanism for fact finding, both sides could be called credible and Brett Kavanaugh could still be confirmed. On Friday, Sen. Jeff Flake—perhaps the Senate’s greatest profile in cowardice masquerading as courage—said that he would cast the key vote to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination out of the committee. Despite the lack of anything resembling a meaningful investigation, which Ford and the other women who have accused Kavanaugh of sexual violence have repeatedly requested, and the judge has repeatedly declined to request, it now appears Kavanaugh will be confirmed. His fate rests in the hands of Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Joe Manchin.* Given her mind-bending bravery and likely folk-hero status, one hopes that Ford will not now come to believe that her decision was made in vain. But it was impossible on Friday morning not to think of her own description of her reluctance to come forward out of fear that she would “just be jumping in front of a train that was headed to where it was headed anyway.”

Ultimately, he had rage and she had gender, and a “job interview” was recast as though it would result in a lifelong criminal conviction with a death sentence on the line for the man in the dock. Calling no witnesses and accepting no supporting testimony were a perfect way to ensure that he would be innocent of all charges. She had gender. They were sorry for her loss.

Brett Kavanaugh is never going to understand that women don’t sort themselves into those upon which he bestows his munificence (clerks, girls in plaid skirts) and those he can shout at, and bully, like Feinstein and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Feminism doesn’t mean you get to pick which women you patronize and which you can insult. Brett Kavanaugh is also unlikely to understand that justice doesn’t mean demanding your lifetime appointment because it’s your time.

Put aside whether any sane litigant can have any confidence in the justice system after the man who will be the decisive vote on the court made it manifestly clear that he believes half the country, and the media, and liberal dark money were all in on a conspiracy to take him out. Because of the Clintons. This wasn’t ultimately a hearing about whether Kavanaugh deserved to be elevated to the high court. It was a blind partisan tantrum in which he dragged the judicial branch down to a place of ugliness and rancor from which it will not soon recover.

Others have detailed the incomplete answers, the fact that he wasn’t questioned correctly about his calendar, the ways in which his claims that he had been exonerated by other witnesses were absolutely distorted, and the laughable claims about his well-documented and widely known drinking and his “sensitive stomach.” While Ford offered exacting answers, Kavanaugh repeated half-truths and conspiracy theories and sneered and slammed through a fog of rage. It was a perfect contrast not just to Ford’s conduct, but to that of Merrick Garland, who never said a word when the seat to which he was entitled was yanked away.

There were two distinct moods in the Kavanaugh hearing: Ford evoked undistilled sadness and vulnerability; Kavanaugh evoked raw fear that if he were ever crossed, he would lose control. Do. Not. Make. Him. Angry. is the new judicial temperament. It is the perfect metaphorical springboard to the highest court in the land, where he will say he’s calling balls and strikes while he froths with contempt at those he believes coordinated against him: Be very afraid. This is what we will call “justice” now.

Correction, Sept. 28, 2018: Due to an editing error, this post originally misstated that Collins, Murkowski, and Manchin were said to be voting in a bloc with Flake.

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

Think that a Justice BKavs won’t be a threat to the Constitution, precedent, Due Process, abortion, and women’s rights? Check out my earlier post from “Courtside” on how BKavs “swallowed the whistle” on a clear constitutional violation by the Administration directed at a vulnerable migrant girl. http://immigrationcourtside.com/2017/10/24/goin-down-again-dc-cir-rejects-trump-administrations-position-orders-usg-to-permit-undocumented-teens-abortion/

At the time, I surmised (quite correctly in retrospect) that BKavs’s willingness to distort the law was motivated to some extent by his desire to burnish his reactionary credentials for the Supreme Court appointment for which he was groomed by the GOP right wing and to which he and his supporters have always believed he is entitled. Nothing comes through from BKavs and the GOP Senators supporting him more than an arrogant sense that he is absolutely entitled to this appointment.

So, how do I come down on the BKavs mess? Well, I suspect that the results of the FBI investigation will be inconclusive. That being the case, the GOP will confirm him and he will become Justice Kavanaugh.

That being said, I thought that his emotional partisan attack on Democratic Senators, his overt rudeness to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and his unsupported “conspiracy theory” re the Clintons showed that he is exactly what his critics have been saying all along: an injudicious and disingenuous partisan.

No matter what really happened with Ford, he is “damaged goods” who can’t credibly serve on the Supremes. A decent person would withdraw at this point for the good of the country.

Certainly, Trump can find a reactionary GOP female judge with no personal baggage to carry the flag. He was actually pretty stupid to nominate BKavs in the first place rather than a female vetted by the Heritage Foundation whom the Dems couldn’t have touched.

I assume that Senator L. Graham is auditioning for Gonzo’s job after the midterms. He seems to forgotten what he and his GOP buddies did to Judge Merrick Garland — a very decent person and good jurist who never even got a chance to be heard at all. The GOP just decided that “advice and consent” meant “stonewall if you don’t like the President.” And as a moderate and polite “center left” jurist, Judge Garland certainly would have been a more appropriate pick for the Supremes than BKavs! But, power is power, and the GOP has it right now — the Dems don’t.

Nothing is likely to stop Judge’s Kavanaugh’s elevation at this point. But, as Jeffrey suggests, getting to the ballot box could make BKavs the last such appointment for some time.

Best,

PWS

09-30-18

THE UGLY TRUTH REVEALED: THERE ARE NO ADULTS IN THE ROOM: “Trump is a racist; . . . he will continue putting into effect racist policies; and that focusing, as the people around Trump do, on ensuring that the words of his speeches are inoffensive is really just a way of helping Trump politically so he can carry out his policies with less opposition.”

https://slate.com/culture/2018/09/bob-woodwards-new-book-fear-trump-in-the-white-house-reviewed.html

Isaac Chotiner writes in Slate:

Nearly 300 pages into Bob Woodward’s new book, Fear: Trump in the White House, a West Wing aide named Zach Fuentes cautions fellow staffers. With depressingly familiar words, Fuentes informs his colleagues, “He’s not a detail guy. Never put more than one page in front of him. Even if he’ll glance at it, he’s not going to read the whole thing. Make sure you underline or put in bold the main points … you’ll have 30 seconds to talk to him. If you haven’t grabbed his attention, he won’t focus.” Some subjects, such as the military, do engage him, but the overwhelming picture is worrying and dire. Still, one could finish this passage and feel at least slightly relieved that people like Fuentes are aware of the reigning deficiencies in the White House, and doing their best to mitigate them.

Fuentes is merely an assistant to John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, but Kelly and James Mattis, the secretary of defense, are presented throughout Woodward’s book as being cognizant of the president’s extreme limitations and authoritarian instincts, and rather boldly willing to push back against their boss. This is why it’s probably worth mentioning that Fuentes wasn’t talking about Donald Trump; no, he was talking about John Kelly. And Woodward’s book—which arrived at around the same time as the already infamous, still-currently anonymous New York Times op-edabout the men and women in the executive branch supposedly working to protect America from Donald Trump—is as much a portrait of the craven, ineffective, and counterproductive group of “adults” surrounding Trump as it is a more predictable look into the president’s shortcomings. It’s not entirely clear how aware Woodward is of what he has revealed about the people he’s quoting at length. (Sources tend to come off well in his books.) But intentionally or not, Fear will make plain to the last optimist that, just as Republicans in Congress are unlikely to save us, neither are the relative grown-ups in the Trump administration.

Is Woodward the last optimist? He quite obviously believes that Trump is unfit to be president, but a reader can’t quite shake the sense that he somehow thinks maybe, just maybe, things could be different with the right coaching or incentives. Fear is a book full of stories about Trump being contained; his instincts being thwarted; his worst qualities being slightly minimized by people who claim to be afraid of what would happen if they weren’t there. “It’s not what we did for the country,” former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn says early on. “It’s what we saved him from doing.” Quotes like this aim to settle the ethical debate—which has been going on from the start of the Trump presidency—over whether anyone should be working for a bigoted and corrupt president with no respect for democracy, even if they are planning to, in that most tiresome phrase, contain his worst impulses. But that conversation has obscured the more pressing question of what those supposedly well-intentioned individuals can actually accomplish from the inside. Even allowing for the self-serving nature of the accounts that Woodward offers here, the answer appears to be: not much.

Indeed, the near-misses Woodward writes about feel particularly insubstantial, in part because very few of these aides and appointees seem to really grasp the nature of the man they are serving (no matter how much they talk about his stupidity and recklessness), and in part because Trump himself is so clueless and aimless that he rarely seems to follow through on his worst ideas anyway. (The terrible things he has followed through on, such as various immigration policies, are not really discussed at length, and on these matters a good chunk of his staff appear to agree with him.) Moreover, many of these aides are tasked with—or see their roles as—not preventing policy decisions, but instead as putting the nicest, non-Trumpy face on Trumpism; the ethics of this deserves its own debate.

Perhaps the biggest non-hinge moment in the book occurs in July 2017, six months after Trump has taken office and two years since he emerged as a presidential candidate by offering his thoughts on Mexican rapists. “Mattis and Gary Cohn had several quiet conversations about The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy, and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments.” The two men decide to meet to “develop an action plan,” which consists of getting the president in the Tank, “the Pentagon’s secure meeting room for the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” because it might “focus him.” But when they do, and succeed in telling him about the value of allies and diplomacy, Trump ignores them and proceeds to rant and rave on a variety of subjects. The meeting wraps up after accomplishing precisely nothing. (This is the event that caused Rex Tillerson to call Trump a “fucking moron.”)

What remains astonishing about the meeting is not that Trump is an idiot. It’s that Mattis and Cohn seemed to have hopes for their plan, believing they could use the sit-down to really turn a corner. The book is so full of scenes like this because the people around Trump seem to have less feel for the president than a politically astute person who spends 20 minutes a day reading the newspaper. It’s not that hard to grasp that Trump’s authoritarian leanings condition him to distrust democratic allies; nor is it a secret that he has utter contempt for America’s intelligence agencies. An earlier passage in the book has Mattis telling a NATO-skeptical Trump that, “If you didn’t have NATO, you’d have to invent it” and “there’s no way Russia could win a war if they took on NATO,” which left me wondering if Mattis could have chosen an argument that would be less likely to appeal to the president, and why anyone who has paid even glancing attention to Trump’s behavior toward Russia would think it would be effective.

Woodward conveys all this in his typically matter-of-fact style, with dialogue heavy-scenes, and with his sources sounding reasonable and frustrated. He rarely tips his hand or offers critiques of those who talked to him, but his narrative does allow for them to come across as ill-equipped. Take former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who Woodward presents as a thoughtful enough guy simply unwilling or unable to contain his pedantic lecturing style, even though it is clearly irking the president. This leads McMaster to get involved in stupid, inevitably doomed spats stemming from Trump’s childishness, including one over precisely where the president and the Indian prime minister will dine that is too dreary to recount. Of course, McMaster doesn’t last long, in large part because of this type of nonsense; meanwhile, he can’t get along with Mattis or Tillerson, two other guys who apparently pride(d) themselves on being the last line of defense. And yet, they do everything they possibly can to undermine McMaster, and make his job more difficult. “McMaster considered Mattis and Tillerson ‘the team of two’ and found himself outside their orbit, which was exactly the way they wanted it,” Woodward writes. Now the national security adviser is John Bolton. Good job, everyone.

The story in the book about Mattis that has gotten the most attention concerns his decision to quietly counter Trump on Syria after the president reportedly screamed “let’s fucking kill him” over the phone about Bashar al-Assad. According to Woodward, Mattis hung up and stated to an aide, “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.” A victory for common sense, you might say. A couple pages later, we read that “Trump had stepped back from his initial desire to kill Assad.” But did he step back or just forget? Immediately afterward, Trump asks McMaster for some Syria hypotheticals, which McMaster can’t answer because he is being ignored by Mattis and Tillerson. Thankfully, Woodward concludes, “Trump soon forgot his questions.” It’s certainly possible that Mattis or Tillerson or McMaster stopped Trump from doing something truly terrible or illegal over the past nearly 20 months, but if so we are not told what it was. Despite all the self-aggrandizing quotes from the so-called moderating influences in the White House, the upshot of Woodward’s own reporting is that if we end up riding out this term free of a foreign policy catastrophe, it is more likely to be the result of Trump’s incuriosity and short attention span than a bold act of bravery by one of the grown-ups.

The possible exception is Cohn’s already famous decision to steal a paper from Trump’s desk that would have removed the United States from a trade deal with South Korea, and thus possibly impacted national security by undermining the Washington-Seoul alliance. This at least counts as a staff member taking strong action, although, as Woodward acknowledges, it’s “an administrative coup d’etat,” and neither Woodward nor Cohn (quoted as saying, “got to protect the country”) convincingly show that the stakes were high enough to warrant such a step. Tellingly, and predictably, Trump keeps bringing the pact up but can’t seem to remember that he was just about to pull out of the deal, which makes you wonder if he was really on the verge of doing so.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair.

Nevertheless, there is a strong argument to be made that someone like Mattis should stay in his job, and the person who wants to see him resign in protest is braver than I am. But the case to keep working in the Trump administration is much weaker if your job isn’t a matter of life and death, and some of the examples in the book meant to highlight the good deeds of the people around Trump are extremely thin. After Trump’s disgraceful response to Charlottesville, staff secretary Rob Porter apparently cajoled the president into giving a less grotesque speech about what occurred. Porter, who appears to be Woodward’s biggest source and therefore comes across relatively well—his resignation after allegations of domestic abuse is afforded less than a page—“felt it was a moment of victory, of actually doing some good for the country. He had served the president well. This made the endless hours of nonstop work worth it.” Naturally, within a day, Trump had backtracked and surprised precisely no one by making clear that he doesn’t actually have a problem with Nazis, leaving Porter feeling that “Charlottesville was the breaking point” and wondering “if trying to repair [racial divisions] after Charlottesville was almost a lost cause.”

Unless Woodward is winking at readers with that “lost cause” reference, he doesn’t betray any acknowledgement of how absurd Porter’s musings seem, coming as they did years or months after birtherism, blatant bigotry, and a ban on certain Muslims from being allowed to enter the country. Nor does it ever seem to occur to Porter—or Gary Cohn, whose supposedly tortured post-Charlottesville dilemma is afforded considerable space—that Trump is a racist; that he will continue putting into effect racist policies; and that focusing, as the people around Trump do, on ensuring that the words of his speeches are inoffensive is really just a way of helping Trump politically so he can carry out his policies with less opposition.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Chotiner’s article at the above link.

It’s painfully clear that the white (almost all) men surrounding Trump don’t have much real problem with his overt bigotry, racism, immorality, misogyny, and lawlessness except when revealing it gets in the way of their policies.

After all, it’s important to the country that we have more tax breaks for the rich, less health care for the general populace, dirtier air, polluted rivers and lakes, fewer National monuments, more black lung, reduced worker protections, fewer voters of color, almost no refugees, only white immigrants, more abused children, a generation of young people who are barred from reaching their full potential, dumber schools, religious bigotry and hate speech, homophobia, a subservient, non-professional Civil Service and Foreign Service composed of political hacks, more racial and religious resentment, less free press, etc.

These dudes don’t really want to change the toxic agenda that is destroying our democracy. No, they just want to make sure that Trump’s stunning incompetence and unsuitability for office is mitigated enough that they can carry out their nasty anti-democratic policies without his interference. That’s what passes for “courage” and “true patriotism” in today’s GOP.

The only way to save our republic is to throw every Republican out of office and force the party to either ditch its White Nationalist base or split into two parties — a legitimate conservative opposition party and a far right White Nationalist party.

Trump is the end product of a GOP that just doesn’t believe in 21st Century America as a diverse, multi-racial, multi-cultural nation of immigrants and the strength and power that gives all of us. We need regime change. This November is the time to start that process at the ballot box! Don’t wait until it’s too late!

PWS

09-10-18

THE FAKE CIVILITY OF THE UNCIVIL GOP: “Sometimes calls for institutional decency and civility mask institutional cowardice and opportunism. The first day of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings was one of those times.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/kavanaugh-confirmation-hearing-senate-judiciary-grotesque-decency.html

Dahlia Lithwick writes in Slate:

If we learned anything at all from John McCain’s funeral over the weekend it’s this: The more buffeted we are by the hourly insanity that emanates from the Trump White House, the more likely we are to get bleary-eyed drunk on episodes of public sobriety, dignity, and seriousness. As Michelle Goldberg aptly noted, “For many who detest Donald Trump, the spectacle of the country’s former leaders championing embattled American principles—principles once shared by even the bitterest political enemies—was fiercely moving.” Moving, yes, but at what cost?

The more corruption, incompetence, and recklessness we witness spewing out of the White House, the more inclined we are to cling tightly to the blanket of institutional integrity, normalcy, and civility. It’s not just that it’s nuts out there. It’s almost as if the nuttier it gets, the more we need to pretend that wherever it is we’re sitting at the moment is a safe place in which the norms of dignity, respect, and goodwill are still in force. And if John McCain’s funeral was a symbol of that, so too is all the talk of “decorum” and “civility” in the U.S. Senate.

And so, Republicans spent the first day of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings telling us that nothing that’s happening in here has anything to do with the fact that Donald Trump is the president. None of the concern around this Supreme Court seat has anything to do with the fact that the president himself is under investigation for corruption and campaign finance violations, or that his personal lawyer swore under oath that Trump instructed him to commit crimes, or that a foreign power is currently interfering with our election systems. All of that is about a different thing. This hearing is about something stable and immutable and good. And anyone who implies that anything is abnormal is a hysteric or an opportunist or an attention-seeker.

Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse can go so far as to express mild concern about Trump’s assaults on the rule of law and his own attorney general because none of that has anything to do with Brett Kavanaugh. And Lindsey Graham can splutter about Hillary Clinton because that also has nothing to do with Kavanaugh. And Chuck Grassley can snarl that this is akin to attacking the president because it has nothing whatsoever to do with the president.

We take so much visceral succor in public performances of bipartisanship and decency that we can blinker ourselves to genuineinjustice.

If you followed Tuesday’s events on a split screen, you’d know that in addition to issuing threats to his own attorney general and making claims that Republicans running for office deserve different legal treatment than Democrats, Trump was also the subject of jaw-dropping leaks in Bob Woodward’s new book, leaks suggesting his own aides must take documents off his desk in order to keep the United States safe from his rampant incompetence. But inside the cocoon of the Senate Judiciary Committee, none of that matters at all. Moreover, for legal luminaries like Ted Cruz, this hearing is an extraordinary opportunity to celebrate the greatness of Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. This is still a safe space, of civility and decorum, and the Democrats who squawk about documents being withheld have descended into “mob rule” and incivility.

The White House (the White House!) was tweeting indignantly about interruptions. By the end of the day Trump himself was tweeting that all Senate Democrats were “mean, angry, and despicable.” But even with the president forcing himself into the Senate’s aperture yet again, by no means should anyone who works there take any steps to rein him in. That would be weird. And while most of the senators had the good graces on Tuesday to pretend that Trump was not really the president, some evinced a kind of nagging low-level worry that someone somewhere should really address the problem of a chief executive who doesn’t believe in law or courts or justice. But who? Who could possibly do it?Flake described “concern” about Donald Trump’s attacks on the rule of law. And Sasse deplored the do-nothing Congress. And Chuck Grassley (yes, this Chuck Grassley) bemoaned the fact that Senate Democrats were taking advantage of his “decency and integrity.” But everyone on the Republican side of the aisle felt confident that it was Democrats who were breaking the Senate on Tuesday.

On the Democratic side, Dick Durbin decried the fact that a Republican lawyer was vetting all of the Kavanaugh documents, and Amy Klobuchar expressed the sentiment that nothing about this hearing was regular. “This is not normal,” she said. “You have a nominee with excellent credentials, with his family behind him. You have the cameras there. You have the senators questioning. But this isn’t normal.” Mazie Hirono made the same point: “These are not normal times.”

Indeed, for a brief time on Tuesday morning as the Democrats demanded postponement and adjournment, it appeared they might walk out of the chamber altogether. But ultimately, the need for regularity and normalcy overmastered even them, and so while their opening statements grew longer and more irate, the decision to stick around and litigate this thing on the merits proved too tempting. It was left to the protesters, one after another in unprecedented numbers and with unprecedented ferocity, to voice their disgust and dismay. The more furious the calls for “decorum” and “rules” and “politeness,” the more enraged the protesters became. The opposite of civility isn’t always civil disagreement.

In the furious national quest for decency and normalcy, the day ended as a parody of itself—with Kavanaugh feted by a “liberal feminist” lawyer for his legal greatness that transcends all politics and ideology, and the judge himself offering his girls’ basketball coaching as an argument about human decency in a cruel and frightening world.

If the McCain funeral proved anything, it’s that we take so much visceral succor in public performances of bipartisanship and decency that we can blinker ourselves to genuine injustice, injustice we don’t see because it happens outside our scope of vision. We need balanced, functioning institutions so desperately that we gorge ourselves on performances of friendship and family and civility.

We must be extra cautious, now more than ever, about institutions that substitute talk of norms and civility for actual justice. Senate Republicans are rushing the Kavanaugh hearing, and blocking access to his record, precisely because they would rather prey on the national need for normalcy and dignity than do anything to reaffirm the rule of law as it applies to this presidency. Yet again the crumbling of democratic safeguards is someone else’s problem. Sometimes calls for institutional decency and civility mask institutional cowardice and opportunism. The first day of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings was one of those times.

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Basically, the Democrats need to win elections, not count on the civility, honesty, commitment to “norms,” or for that matter commitment to the rule of law of the GOP. Failure to win elections is why we have Justice Neil Gorsuch rather than Justice Merrick Garland and why we soon will have Justice BKavs.

Those who believe in the Constitution and the continuation of our republic need to get to the polls this fall, get others of like mind out too, and begin the difficult but essential process of taking back our country from Trump and his GOP.

PWS

09-05-18

THE UGLY ABOMINATION OF CHILDREN BEING DOPED & ABUSED IN DETENTION BEGAN IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION – TRUMP & SESSIONS DOUBLED DOWN ON THAT TARNISHED LEGACY – IT’S PAST TIME FOR BIPARTISAN ACTION IN CONGRESS TO END THIS GROTESQUE BLOT ON OUR NATIONAL CHARACTER!

https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/immigrant-children-abuse-drugged-shiloh-treatment-center.html

Daniel Engber reports for Slate:

A federal court has given the Trump administration until Friday, Aug. 10, to figure out a plan for the 28 immigrant children still detained at the Shiloh Treatment Center in southeast Texas. Any child who is not deemed to pose “a risk of harm to self or others” must be transferred to a less restrictive facility, per Judge Dolly Gee’s July 30 ruling in a lawsuit filed earlier this year. She also addressed the lawsuit’s claims that residents at Shiloh have been given forced injections and prescribed antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotic drugs without consent. The government must stop this practice, she determined, and make sure that psychotropic drugs are given to detainees at Shiloh only in accordance with Texas child welfare laws and regulations.

For weeks now, this misuse of psychiatric medications has been cited as a prime example of the White House’s “despicable,” “reprehensible,” “inhumane and unconscionable” border policies. “President Donald Trump’s zero tolerance policy stands to create a zombie army of children forcibly injected with medications,” said the article from the Center for Investigative Reporting that first brought the allegations to light. “The president has to be ordered not to give children psychotropic drugs, but I’m the one that’s tripping?” one Democratic candidate for Congress said a few days ago, in defending progressives’ call to defund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The standard gloss on this medication scandal—that the Trump administration isn’t merely ripping children from their parents but turning all those children’s brains to mush—is substantially misleading. It makes it sound as though the problem was created by our current president when the blame could just as well be placed on the Obama administration. Unaccompanied immigrant children first arrived at the Shiloh Treatment Center in 2009, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting, despite the fact that three children had already died at Shiloh and affiliated centers while being physically restrained by staffers. These were not the only horrific incidents on record. Another time, for example, staff encouraged a group of girls with cognitive disabilities to fight each other gladiator-style for after-school snacks. And while Trump is now responsible for the children in federal custody, and certain medication-related abuses appear to have continued under his watch, most of the cases of abuse included in the lawsuit occurred before he set foot in the Oval Office.

If a child can be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, then medications aren’t likely to be the most useful form of treatment.

The suspect framing of the Shiloh scandal as a cause for partisan anti-Trump outrage also serves to minimize the problem. When commentators link the overmedication of child immigrants to Trump’s zero tolerance policy at the border, they imply that the children who were forcibly separated from their parents earlier this year are the only ones at risk for this abuse—or, at the very least, that these kids are at higher risk than others in residential treatment. That’s wrong. The 2,500 kids subject to family separation are just a subset of the children held around the country by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. ORR already oversees the placement of some 10,000 minors who arrived at the border on their own, without parents or guardians—and the Shiloh Treatment Center has been housing, treating, and potentially abusing detainees from this larger population for about a decade now.

But even that doesn’t capture the full scale of the problem, which affects not just immigrants but kids throughout the nation’s child welfare system. The court exhibits from the recent lawsuit suggest a scene out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: In addition to receiving forced injections of antipsychotic drugs to calm them down, former residents say they were dosed with as many as nine different pills at a time without being told what they were taking or why. These medications were allegedly prescribed without consulting the children’s parents or their other adult relatives or otherwise securing a court order. Children who refused to swallow their pills, the lawsuit says, were physically made to do so or were coerced in other ways. “They told me … that the only way I could get out of Shiloh was if I took the pills,” one child explained. “I have not refused taking the pills because I was told that … would make me stay at Shiloh longer,” said another.

As awful as these details sound, they’re not unique. Experts on the use of psychotropic drugs in foster care and residential treatment settings say overmedication is widespread. Studies find that foster kids are given psychotropic drugs at least twice as often as other children served by Medicaid, despite a lack of solid evidence for these drugs’ efficacy in children and little knowledge of what long-term hazards they might pose to developing brains. (Most such medications are FDA-approved only for adults, so their use with children is off-label.)

The prescription of several different psychotropic drugs to children at the same time doesn’t represent some new perversion of psychiatry cooked up by the Trump administration or put in place by reckless doctors at a converted trailer park in Texas. Rather, “polypharmacy” is a mainstream approach to medicating children in residential treatment settings. In responding to the recent lawsuit, an ORR official informed the court that Shiloh follows Texas state guidelinesfor the use of such drugs in foster care—which means, she said, that they “strive to use no more than four [psychotropic] medications concurrently.” Again, there’s a lack of data to support this standard practice. “Very few studies have shown safety and efficacy for two or more psychotropics used concurrently in children, and none, virtually, have shown safety or efficacy using three or more,” says Erin Barnett, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth who studies evidence-based practices for traumatized children. “Yet this kind of bad treatment is going on all over the country.”

There are some specific ways in which the methods reportedly used by Shiloh Treatment Center do stand apart. Even when a given child’s parents were reachable, the lawsuit says, the center did not bother to reach out to them regarding the use of drugs. (This apparent indifference to informed consent provoked a major portion of the judge’s recent ruling.) In practice, though, adherence to the rules on consent does not prevent the overuse of medications in residential treatment settings. Many parents and guardians acquiesce to polypharmacy when it’s recommended by a doctor, and officials tasked with overseeing wards of the state may also sign off on a smorgasbord of psychotropics provided that a child has been diagnosed with several different mental health conditions.

It’s also not enough to have a relative’s informed consent when treating psychiatric issues in these settings. The kids themselves should also give “assent” to treatment, which means they’re willing to accept the drugs. That’s often not the case in residential treatment settings, though. Kids who have been placed in these facilities tend to have long, complicated histories of treatment and may be suspicious of whatever care they’re being offered. When they do refuse their medication, their behavior is often chalked up to emotional problems—an “oppositional defiant disorder,” perhaps. According to both Barnett and Robert Foltz, a clinical psychologist and member of the board for the Association of Children’s Residential Centers, health care providers will at times cajole these children into taking meds, perhaps by threatening to “remove their privs”—which is to say, depriving them of activities they enjoy. Barnett cites a study of 50 adolescents taking psychotropic drugs, which found that nearly half reported feeling “forced or pushed” to take their medications.

The use of psychotropic drugs with kids detained at the border raises unique concerns. For one thing, we might guess that these children’s mental health issues stem, in large part, from whatever troubling events led them to leave their home countries, combined with the stress of being held in custody and—for those detained this year under Trump’s family-separation policy—the trauma of having been pried away from their parents. If it is possible to identify clear environmental causes of their distress, or if a child can be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, then medications—even when they’re ethically applied—aren’t likely to be the most useful form of treatment. According to Foltz, psychotropic drugs barely work for PTSD and are not considered front-line treatments; the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommends cognitive behavioral therapy instead. Another problem arises from the fact that, in most cases, health care providers for these children won’t have access to their patients’ detailed case histories, so whatever psychiatric diagnoses they make will be off the cuff.

There are many reasons to be furious and fretful over what’s gone on at Shiloh and how the alleged abuse of children there could and should have been avoided. Over the past nine years, the federal government has paid tens of millions of dollars to house troubled detainees at a residential treatment facility with a well-earned, highly suspect reputation. But if there’s any bigger lesson to what happened at this 43-bed facility in rural Texas, it’s not that Trump’s border policies are inhumane. (There are plenty of other, better ways to come to that conclusion.) Nor does it suggest that “anti-child” ideologues have somehow come to power in Washington. No, this ugly scandal spanning two administrations should be taken as a sign of what can happen to the nation’s most damaged and defenseless kids no matter who’s in power.

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There’s more than enough blame to go around on this one. But, blame solves nothing. What needs to happen is for a bipartisan Congress to step up to the plate and end the abuse that Executive officials of two consecutive Administrations have lacked the ethics, common sense, and human decency to do the right thing and stop.

PWS

08-12-18

DAHLIA LITHWICK @ SLATE: THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT THE “LAST MODERATE” JUSTICE KENNEDY – HE ALWAYS HAD A DARK SIDE & HIS TOADYING TO TRUMP THIS TERM WILL ENSURE A TARNISHED LEGACY!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/anthony-kennedy-retirement-why-he-joined-team-trump.html

In his last year on the bench, the lifelong devotee of dignity and the rule of law joined Team Trump. What happened?

By DAHLIA LITHWICK

JUNE 27, 20187:14 PM

Justice Anthony Kennedy delivers speaks at the White House on April 10, 2017, in Washington.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

It was always more fan fiction than reality that Justice Anthony Kennedy was a moderate centrist. Democrats liked to soothe themselves with the story that Kennedy was a moderate because he’d provided the fifth vote to support continued affirmative action, reproductive rights, and gay rights and had strung the left along with the tantalizing promise of someday finding an unconstitutional political gerrymander. But we always knew that Kennedy was a conservative, indeed a very conservative conservative. Recall that in the famous study done in 2008 by Richard Posner and William Landes, “Four of the five most conservative justices to serve on the Supreme Court since the time of Franklin Roosevelt, including [John] Roberts and [Samuel] Alito, are currently sitting on the bench today.” And Kennedy? He was ranked in that study as the 10^th most conservative justice in the past century.

To the extent we wrote paeans to Kennedy, it was for his occasional defections in areas that materially affect the lives of millions of people—women, minorities, LGBTQ couples, voters, Guantanamo detainees. And to be sure, each of those votes was well worth it. But we knew that for each such vote, there was a Bush v. Gore, a Citizens United, a Shelby County. And this term ended, perhaps fittingly, with Kennedy voting with the conservatives to hobble public-sector unions, to support mandatory arbitration clauses and voter purges, and to increase the unchecked power of an already imperial presidency. As Richard Hasen noted on Tuesday, Kennedy’s work here was clearly done. His concurrence in the Muslim ban case essentially signaled that Kennedy had all but given up on the notion of the judiciary as a meaningful check on the other two branches. As Hasen correctly called it, that concurrence landed as “a general statement of judicial powerlessness to solve social problems and an abdication of responsibility on the part of the courts to enforce key parts of the Constitution, in favor of a plea for self-restraint on the part of elected officials.” From a man who devoted a career to the proposition that the courts alone could fix things, it sounded in the key of “I’m out.”

There will be myriad theories and hypotheses about why Kennedy all but gave up on his project of centrism, civility, norm preservation, and institutional self-preservation this year. I’ve never heard him speak so eloquently as when he was defending those values and celebrating the extraordinary role American courts and judges have played to foster such values in democracies around the world. One senses in his cri de coeur in NIFLA, Tuesday’s abortion-speech case, that he is viscerally bothered by progressive states like California attempting to be “forward thinking” (read: authoritarian) when it comes to truth in advertising around reproductive options. One senses in his vision of uncivil discourse in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case a growing frustration with what he sees as impolite discussions about religious liberty issues he wanted us to discuss civilly. One senses in his concurrence in the travel ban case a sort of stutter-step apology to “an anxious world” that watches the norms and institutions of constitutional democracy crumble.

As Mark Stern and I noted on Tuesday, it was hard to see Kennedy’s concurrence in that case as anything more than a concession that the last adult in the room was now leaving the building. Maybe it’s a fitting end to his career to say that the man who wanted everyone to speak to one another civilly and respectfully did what everyone else has done this year and threw in the towel. It’s hardly a stretch to say that Kennedy’s lasting caution from Obergefell—the marriage equality decision—was his request that the nation resolve the oncoming conflict between gay rights and religious dissenters by “engag[ing] those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate.”

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

And so the formerly “centrist” Anthony Kennedy ended his Supreme Court career by taking sides, not simply in the spate of bombshell 5–4 decisions that came out in recent weeks. He took sides in a rhetorical war about the suffering of Christian bakers and pregnancy centers, and the language of “no you’re the radical” he now directs at liberals with whom he could once find common cause. It wasn’t so much that Kennedy ever represented the “center” of the court. He was no more the center than John Roberts will be the center of a vastly more conservative post-Kennedy Supreme Court. But Kennedy did become, for a time, a symbol of certain values around judging and justice—of acute concern that both sides be heard, of respect for the rule of law, and of solicitude for at least some communities that were invisible to his colleagues on the right. And to the extent that this was the center, it is perhaps apt that it falls away at the end of this term. Those institutional and rhetorical values feel like the relic of another time. Neither Sonia Sotomayor nor Samuel Alito has any patience for that kind of signaling anymore.

Democrats should rightly be terrified that Kennedy’s legacy around gay rights, reproductive rights, affirmative action, some kinds of racial justice, and student prayer are in immediate peril. And Democrats can now be fully assured that the Supreme Court will not step in to stop Donald Trump’s excesses. And to be sure, the reason the court will not stand up to future acts of Trumpism is that Kennedy, who tried to be the bridge at the court for so many decades, gave up and joined Team Trump.

Many of us predicted that Kennedy would not allow Trump to replace him with someone who would dismantle his legacy. We were wrong. Many of us believed that a lifelong devotee of dignity, civility, and the rule of law would not want his work tarnished by a president who routinely attacks individual judges and the very notion of an independent judiciary. We were wrong. That two of Anthony Kennedy’s last judicial acts included a letter that opened “My dear Mr. President” and a vote to grant that same president a virtual blank check on the national security front certainly suggests that nothing about a president who lies, bullies, and destabilizes the rule of law was any kind of real impediment to Kennedy’s departure.

We will debate in the coming months whether Kennedy tacked back to the right this year or if he was never anything but a staunch conservative who enjoyed occasional casual day trips to the left side of the bench. But one thing is beyond doubt: If there was anything like a “moderate center” inside the only branch of government not broken by polarization, it’s gone. Even the idea of such a thing is gone. For any of us who clung to such symbols, it’s a bracing reminder that there is no longer a center, or even a center built of make-believe.

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Trump diminishes and corrupts every sycophant and toady, robed or not, who associates with, supports, or helps enable him and his White Nationalist Empire. Kennedy is no exception. Law is in the here and now. Actions speak louder than words. A judge is part of the problem or part of the solution. Kennedy has cemented his position among the former by failing to take action to be part of the latter.

PWS

06-29-18

INSIDE THE CHILD ABUSE CONSPIRACY: LIKE MANY CRIMINALS, TRUMP’S “GANG OF SIX” CAN’T KEEP THEIR STORIES STRAIGHT — But, There Is One Consistency — Everything These “Kakistocrats” Say Is A Lie!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/how-the-trump-administration-is-defending-its-indefensible-child-separation-policy.html

Dahlia Lithwick reports for Slate:

Photos by Win McNamee/Getty Images, Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images, Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Leon Neal/Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, and Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

COVER STORY

POLITICS

How They Defend the Indefensible

The Trump administration is playing a game of choose your own facts, but every single version of this story ends with screaming children in cages.

By DAHLIA LITHWICK

JUNE 19, 20181:32 PM

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You can call it a “policy” (Jeff Sessions) or you can call it a not-policy (Kirstjen Nielsen) or you can call it a “law” (Sarah Huckabee Sanders). You can say that yes it’s a policy but nobody likes it (Kellyanne Conway) or you can say it’s a “zero-tolerance” enforcement of a Democratic law (Donald Trump) or a zero-tolerance enforcement of an amalgam of various congressional laws (Nielsen) or a zero-tolerance enforcement of the Department of Justice’s own preferences with respect to enforcing prior laws (Sessions).

You can say the purpose of the Justice Department’s family separation policy is deterrence (Stephen Miller, John Kelly) or you can claim that asking if the purpose of the policy is deterrence is “offensive” (Nielsen). You can claim in your legal pleadings that the family separation policy is wholly “discretionary” and thus unreviewable by any court, meaning that only the president can change it (Justice Department in Ms. L v. ICE). Or you can claim that only Congress can “fix loopholes” (Nielsen) or you can say that Congress as a whole can’t fix anything because congressional Democrats are entirely to blame (Trump, Mike Huckabee).

You can blame all this newfound “loophole” action on a consent decree from 1997 in a case called Flores (Sessions, Paul Ryan, Chuck Grassley) or on a 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that interpreted Flores (Nielsen) or on a 2008 law called the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (Nielsen). Better yet, you can fault some magical mashup of “the law” that forces you to defend every statute to its most absurd extreme (Sanders). By this logic, you can also claim that Korematsu—the case authorizing the removal and detention of Japanese Americans during World War II—is still on the books and thus needs to be enforced because it’s also “the law,” but that would be insane. Oh, but wait. Trump proxies made that very claim during the campaign (Carl Higbie).

You can pretend that by turning every adult who crosses the border into a presumptive criminal your hands are tied, so you need to jail children to avoid jailing children (Nielsen). You can insist that the vast majority of children who cross the border are being smuggled in by gang members (Nielsen) or that all asylum-seekers are per se criminals (which they are not) or that lawful asylum-seekers should just come back at a better time (Nielsen). You can claim you never intended your policy (if it is in fact a policy) to have any impact on asylum-seekers at all (Nielsen) but of course it would turn out you were lying and this has been the plan all along (John Lafferty, Department of Homeland Security asylum division chief).

You can say the Bible wants you to separate children from parents (Sessions). You can say again, incredibly, that the Bible wants you to separate children from parents (Sanders). But that would be pathetic (Stephen Colbert).

You can blame the press for the photographs they take (Nielsen) and for the photographs they don’t take (Nielsen). You can suggest that the children in cages are not real children (not linking to Ann Coulter) or that the cages are not in fact cages (Steve Doocy) even though government officials admit that they are cages. You can claim that the detention facilities are “summer camps” or “boarding schools” (Laura Ingraham). You can take umbrage that the good people of DHS and CBP and ICE are being maligned (Nielsen).

You can say that separating children from their parents is a strategic move to force an agreement on Trump’s wall, which would make the children purely instrumental (Trump). Or you could say that this is a way to protect children by deterring their parents, which would also make the children purely instrumental (Kelly). Or you can instead say you are protecting the children from all the harm that happens to children transported over borders by doing untold permanent damage to them as they scream in trauma (Nielsen). Because the best way to deter child abuse is through child abuse.

You can fight to the death about comparisons to Nazis or you can celebrate a candidate (Corey Stewart) who is a hero to Nazis or you can merely show a staggering lack of comprehension about what Nazis actually did (Sessions).

You can fact check and fact check and fact check these claims and it won’t matter that they are false. And the fact that nobody in this administration even bothers to coordinate their cover stories at this point reflects just how pointless it is to fact check them anyhow. It’s an interactive game of choose your own logic, law, facts, and victims, but every single version of this story ends with screaming children in cages, sleeping under foil blankets as strangers change their diapers. The trick is twisting and dodging and weaving until you get to that final page.

It is very sad (Melania Trump). Something should be done (Ted Cruz). If only there were some mechanism to stop torturing children. If only there were some way to stop litigating why we’re doing it and who is doing it and just stop doing it.

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http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/19/politics/fact-check-trump-family-separations-immigration/index.html

Tal Kopan reports for CNN:

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered a stream-of-consciousness-style speech on immigration as furor over his administration’s separation of families at the border reaches a fever pitch.

But his speech at a small business event in Washington contained several factual inaccuracies.

White House says family separations at the border are a ‘binary choice,’ but stats say otherwise

Here is what Trump said, and what the reality is.

False claim: Family separations are Democrats’ fault

Trump said the family separations at the border are “a result of Democrat-supported loopholes in our federal laws” that he said could be easily changed.

“These are crippling loopholes that cause family separation, which we don’t want,” Trump said.

The reality: Trump’s administration made a decision to prosecute 100% of adults caught crossing the border illegally even if they came with children, and thus are separating parents from their kids at the border with no clear plan to reunite them after the parents return from jail and court proceedings.

The administration has long wanted to roll back a law unanimously passed under President George W. Bush and a court settlement dating back decades but most recently affirmed under the Obama administration — citing those two provisions as “loopholes.” Both were designed to protect immigrant children from dangers like human trafficking and to provide minimum standards for their care, including turning them over to the Department of Health and Human Services for resettlement within three days of arrest, as opposed to being held in lengthy detention, and dictating that children with their families also cannot be held in detention or jail-like conditions longer than three weeks.

The administration has complained the laws make it harder to immediately deport or reject immigrants at the border, and that they are not able to detain families indefinitely.

False claim: Thousands of judges

Trump said his administration was hiring “thousands and thousands” of immigration judges, that the US already has “thousands” of immigration judges and that other countries don’t have immigration judges.

Trump to huddle with Republicans during crucial week on immigration

In reality, there the Justice Department’s immigration courts division has 335 judges nationwide, with more than 100 more judges budgeted for, according to a DOJ spokesman.

Because of a massive backlog in the immigration courts, it can take years for those cases to work their way to completion, and many immigrants are allowed to work and live in the US in the meantime, putting down roots. The funding for immigration courts and judges has increased only modestly over the years as funding and resources for enforcement have increased dramatically. A proposal from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to address the family separation issue would double the number of judges to 750.

Trump’s comments Tuesday echoed remarks he made last month. In a May Fox News interview, he claimed the United States was “essentially the only country that has judges” to handle immigration cases. But that is incorrect.

A number of other countries have immigration court systems or a part of the judiciary reserved for immigration and asylum cases, including Sweden, the United Kingdom and Canada.

False claim: Virtually all immigrants disappear

Trump also claimed falsely that when immigrants are let into the country to have their cases heard by a court, they virtually all go into hiding.

“And by the way, when we release the people, they never come back to the judge, anyway. They’re gone,” Trump said. “Do you know if a person comes in and puts one foot on our ground, it’s essentially, ‘Welcome to America, welcome to our country.’ You never get them out because they take their name, they bring the name down, they file it, then they let the person go. … Like 3% come back.”

In reality, the number of immigrants who don’t show up to court proceedings is far lower. And many of the immigrants released from detention are given monitoring devices such as ankle bracelets to ensure they return.

Republicans craft bill to keep detained families together

According to the annual Justice Department yearbook of immigration statistics from fiscal year 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, 25% of immigration court cases were decided “in absentia” — meaning the immigrant wasn’t present in court. In that year, there were 137,875 cases. The number of cases decided “in absentia” between fiscal year 2012 and fiscal year 2016 was between 11% and 28%.

When White House legislative chief Marc Short made a similarly inaccurate claim on Monday, the White House pointed to a statistic about the high percentage of deportation orders for undocumented children that were delivered in absentia, but amid total case completions for minors, the number of in absentia orders has ranged from 40% to 50% in recent years.

Advocates for immigrants attribute some of the missed hearings to often not receiving a court notice mailed to an old address or not having an attorney who can adequately explain the process to the child. Studies have shown that with legal advice and guidance, immigrants are far more likely to show up for hearings and have their claims ultimately be successful.

False claim: Countries are sending bad eggs to the US

Trump said that countries deserve to be punished for illegal immigration, and that they “send” bad eggs to the US.

“They send these people up, and they’re not sending their finest,” Trump said.

He continued: ‘When countries abuse us by sending people up — not their best — we’re not going to give any more aid to those countries.”

In fact, there is no evidence that countries “send” anyone in particular to the US — rather analyses of recent immigration flows have shown that in recent years, a much higher number of Central Americans have come to the US fleeing rampant gang violence and instability in especially the countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Experts who study the countries agree that cutting aid would only further destabilize the region, likely making illegal immigration worse, not better.

Though gang members do cross the border illegally alongside those fleeing violence, the administration has never been able to provide numbers showing that those are a large percentage of the cases. Only a handful of such prosecutions occur a year, while more than 300,000 people were apprehended trying to cross the border illegally last fiscal year. Nearly 120,000 defensive asylum applications were filed last year, according to government data, meaning those individuals believed they were fleeing violent situations back home.

False Claim: Mexico isn’t helping the US

Mexico, Trump said, “does nothing for us.”

As for Mexico’s contribution, experts say the country’s crackdown on immigrants within its borders has been a major help to the US in recent years. According to statistics from the US and Mexican governments compiled by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute and shared with CNN, over the past three years, Mexico has deported tens of thousands more migrants back to the primary countries in Central America that drive immigration north. Each of the last three years, Mexican removals exceeded US removals to those countries.

Mexico is also apprehending tens of thousands of Central Americans before they reach the US. According to the data, Mexico intercepted 173,000 Central Americans in fiscal year 2015, 151,000 in fiscal year 2016 and just under 100,000 in fiscal year 2017.

In the past two years, Mexico has lagged behind the US in apprehensions, but Migration Policy Institute President Andrew Selee, an expert on Mexican policy, said that could be due to a number of factors including smugglers successfully changing their routes to avoid detection or relations with Trump.

CNN’s Catherine Shoichet and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

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Join the New Due Process Army today!

Free the children.

Require Due Process and real justice for refugees.

Hold the lying child abusers in the kakistocracy accountable for their indefensible actions.

Remove the abusers and their enablers from office and political power.

Welcome more immigrants and refugees.

End racism masquerading as “government policy” or the “rule of law.”

Time for the decent, tolerant, majority to take back our country from the forces of darkness, evil, and dishonesty.

PWS

06-20-18

LAW YOU CAN USE FROM COURTSIDE: HERE’S HOW THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY CAN FIGHT AGAINST THE NEW AMERICAN GULAG, GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED CHILD ABUSE, & OTHER DUE PROCESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST OUR MOST VULNERABLE BY OUR “JIM CROW” ATTORNEY GENERAL AND OUR WHITE NATIONALIST, SCOFFLAW REGIME!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/how-you-can-fight-family-separation-at-the-border.html

POLITICS

Here’s How You Can Help Fight Family Separation at the Border

Lawyers, translators, donations, protest.

By DAHLIA LITHWICK and MARGO SCHLANGER

JUNE 15, 20185:09 PM

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Members of a caravan of migrants from Central America wait to enter the United States border and customs facility, where they are expected to apply for asylum, in Tijuana, Mexico, on April 29.

Edgard Garrido/Reuters

If you’re horrified by news of families being separated at the borders, here’s a bit of news you can use.

First, the policy: It helps to be incredibly clear on what the law is, and what has and has not changed. When Donald Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders say that the policy of separating children from their parents upon entry is a law passed by Democrats that Democrats will not fix, they are lying.

There are two different policies in play, and both are new.

First is the new policy that any migrant family entering the U.S. without a border inspection will be prosecuted for this minor misdemeanor. The parents get incarcerated and that leaves children to be warehoused. The parents then typically plead guilty to the misdemeanor and are given a sentence of the few days they served waiting for trial. But then when the parents try to reunite with their children, they are given the runaround—and possibly even deported, alone. The children are left in HHS custody, often without family.

Second is a new and apparently unwritten policy that even when the family presents themselves at a border-entry location, seeking asylum—that is, even when the family is complying in all respects with immigration law—the government is snatching the children away from their parents. Here, the government’s excuse seems to be that they want to keep the parents in jaillike immigration detention for a long time, while their asylum cases are adjudicated. The long-standing civil rights case known as Flores dictates that they aren’t allowed to keep kids in that kind of detention, so the Trump administration says they have to break up the families. They do not have to break up families—it is the government’s new choice to jail people with credible asylum claims who haven’t violated any laws that is leading to the heartbreaking separations you’ve been reading about.

So that is what is happening. Whether or not that is what the Bible demands is the subject of a different column. Good explainers on what is and is not legal detention of immigrants and asylum-seekers can also be found here and here and here

Next: Which groups to support.

• The ACLU is litigating this policy in California.

• If you’re an immigration lawyer, the American Immigration Lawyers Association will be sending around a volunteer list for you to help represent the women and men with their asylum screening, bond hearings, ongoing asylum representation, etc. Please sign up.

• Al Otro Lado is a binational organization that works to offer legal services to deportees and migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, including deportee parents whose children remain in the U.S.

• CARA—a consortium of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the American Immigration Council, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association—provides legal services at family detention centers.

• The Florence Project isan Arizona project offering free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children in immigration custody.

• Human Rights First is a national organization with roots in Houston that needs help from lawyers too.

• Kids in Need of Defense works to ensure that kids do not appear in immigration court without representation, and to lobby for policies that advocate for children’s legal interests. Donate here.

• The Legal Aid Justice Center is a Virginia-based center providing unaccompanied minors legal services and representation.

• Pueblo Sin Fronteras is an organization that provides humanitarian aid and shelter to migrants on their way to the U.S.

• RAICES is the largest immigration nonprofit in Texas offering free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children and families. Donate here and sign up as a volunteer here.

• The Texas Civil Rights Project is seeking “volunteers who speak Spanish, Mam, Q’eqchi’ or K’iche’ and have paralegal or legal assistant experience.”

• Together Rising is another Virginia-based organization that’s helping provide legal assistance for 60 migrant children who were separated from their parents and are currently detained in Arizona.

• The Urban Justice Center’s Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project is working to keep families together.

• Women’s Refugee Commission advocates for the rights and protection of women, children, and youth fleeing violence and persecution.

• Finally, ActBlue has aggregated many of these groups under a single button.

This list isn’t comprehensive, so let us know what else is happening. And please call your elected officials, stay tuned for demonstrations, hug your children, and be grateful if you are not currently dependent on the basic humanity of U.S. policy.

Update, June 17, 2018: Thanks to readers who updated us with more organizations fighting this policy. Other good work is being done by the following:

• American Immigrant Representation Project (AIRP), which works to secure legal representation for immigrants.

• CASA in Maryland, D.C., Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They litigate, advocate, and help with representation of minors needing legal services.

• Freedom for Immigrants (Formerly CIVIC), which has been a leading voice opposing immigrant detention.

• The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center represents all of the immigrant kids placed by the government in foster care in Michigan (one of the biggest foster care placement states). About two-thirds are their current clients are separation cases, and they work to find parents and figure out next steps.

• The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project is doing work defending and advancing the rights of immigrants through direct legal services, systemic advocacy, and community education.

• Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights works for the rights of children in immigration proceedings.

• The Women’s Refugee Commission has aggregated five actions everyone can take that go beyond donating funds.

• And finally, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)—which organizes law students and lawyers to develop and enforce a set of legal and human rights for refugees and displaced persons—just filed suit challenging the cancellation of the Central American Minors program.

One more thing

Since Donald Trump entered the White House, Slate has stepped up our politics coverage—bringing you news and opinion from writers like Jamelle Bouie and Dahlia Lithwick. We’re covering the administration’s immigration crackdown, the rollback of environmental protections, the efforts of the resistance, and more.

Our work is more urgent than ever and is reaching more readers—but online advertising revenues don’t fully cover our costs, and we don’t have print subscribers to help keep us afloat. So we need your help.

If you think Slate’s work matters, become a Slate Plus member. You’ll get exclusive members-only content and a suite of great benefits—and you’ll help secure Slate’s future.

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Donald Trump Immigration Protests

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Wow! Dahlia and Margo are absolutely awesome!

DUE PROCESS FOREVER! JEFF SESSIONS NEVER! JOIN THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY TODAY!

PWS

06-06-18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank You,

Andrea C. Martinez, Esq.

Attorney/Owner

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

7000 NW Prairie View Road, Suite 260

Kansas City, MO 64151

(816) 491-8105: phone

(816) 817-2480: fax

info@martinezimmigration.com

www.martinezimmigration.com

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Thanks Andrea!

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

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**Here’s another from JRube in the WashPost:**

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faith leaders’ statement on family separation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, June 7, 2018

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

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

FAITH LEADERS’ STATEMENT ON FAMILY SEPARATION

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

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

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

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

Mr. Azhar Azeez
President
Islamic Society of North America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Glen Guyton
Executive Director
Mennonite Church USA

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

Rabbi Rick Jacobs
President
Union for Reform Judaism

Mr. Anwar Khan
President
Islamic Relief USA

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

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

Rabbi Jonah Pesner
Director
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

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

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

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

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

###

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

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

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

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

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

By Ed Kilgore

Share

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By MARISSA MARTINELLI

JUNE 15, 201811:33 AM

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s a link to the video:

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

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A NOTE TO MY WAYWARD CHILD, JEFF

I am very concerned about our relationship, Jeff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wise up, Jeff, before it’s too late.

Your Lord & Would Be Savior,

J.C.

Get out the vote! Remove the kakistocracy!

PWS

06-13-18

JEREMY STAHL @ SLATE: THE BIG UGLY – SEPARATION OF FAMILIES & DETENTION — TRUMP, SESSIONS, NIELSEN = LIES, IMMORALITY, ILLEGALITY!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/trumps-child-separation-policy-is-a-moral-and-constitutional-abomination.html

JURISPRUDENCE

A Moral and Legal Abomination

The government has offered no substantive legal justification for the Trump administration’s policy of indefinitely separating children from their parents at the border.

By JEREMY STAHL

JUNE 03, 20187:30 PM

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On Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed a law that would bar the intentional separation of asylum-seeking parents from their children when they cross the border. “It’s hard to conceive of a policy more horrific than intentionally separating children from their parents as a form of punishment,” the California Democrat said in a statement publicizing the move.

Affidavits from a February lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union show precisely what Feinstein describes. The Congolese asylum-seeker at the center of the case, known as “Ms. L,” described having her 6-year-old daughter taken away by the U.S. government without explanation. “She was taken into another room and then I heard her screaming: Don’t take me away from my mommy!” the woman wrote. In court filings, the government questioned whether Ms. L was in fact her child’s mother. The woman had her child returned only after the suit was filed and the government was made to conduct a DNA test that proved her parentage.

“[T]hese terrible policies call into question whether we are in violation of our own laws and our obligations under international law,” Feinstein said in proposing a law to stop the practice of splitting up families at the border. Feinstein is right: There seems to be no coherent legal justification for separating children from their parents, some of whom—like Ms. L—presented themselves at a port of entry as asylum-seekers and have not been charged with any crimes.

The rationale top Trump administration officials have stated publicly—that such a practice will deter undocumented immigrants from seeking asylum at the border—appears to be so patently unconstitutional that the government’s own lawyers have renounced it in court. If the broad outlines here sound familiar, that’s because the legal fight over the policy is shaping up as a replay of the battle over President Donald Trump’s disastrous first travel ban, which was quickly struck down as a blatant violation of due process rights.

A federal judge in San Diego is set to rule any day on the question of whether the government is lawlessly abducting immigrant children at the border. The ACLU is seeking a classwide preliminary injunction to put a stop to the practice. Based on a close reading of legal filings in the case, the public statements of policymakers, and a transcript from a critical hearing last month, it’s difficult to fathom how the judiciary could possibly rule in favor of the government.

In court proceedings last month, Judge Dana Sabraw indicated that the case, Ms. L v. ICE—filed by the ACLU on behalf of Ms. L and other asylum-seeking parents who have had their children taken away—should hinge on the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Under a series of Supreme Court precedents, family integrity has long been considered a “fundamental” due process right. Among other rulings, the ACLU’s lawsuit cited the Supreme Court’s opinion in 2000’s Troxel v. Granville, which stated that there is “a fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child.” This precedent mandates both that the government show a compelling government interest in separating a child and parent—preventing child abuse, for instance—and that it is using the least restrictive means to fulfill that interest.

In the ACLU’s case, the government has not shown a lawful basis for its policy of indefinitely separating immigrant children from their parents at the border. In fact, government lawyers have denied the existence of any such policy at all. In response to Sabraw’s question about whether the government “has a practice, or perhaps even a policy, of separation of families as a deterrence mechanism,” Justice Department attorney Sarah B. Fabian asserted, “There is not such a policy.”

This claim directly contradicts the administration’s publicly stated reasoning. When asked by CNN in March 2017 about the possibility of separating children from their parents at the border, then–Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said, “I am considering, in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network, I am considering exactly that.”

Per the New York Times, that policy was put on hold at the time because it was deemed too controversial. But in the last several months, as Trump has reportedly put intense pressure on his Cabinet to reverse an uptick in border crossings by undocumented immigrants, such a policy appears to have been put into place. Last month, the Washington Post reported that a pilot version of a program of separating families had occurred “in the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector, which includes New Mexico, between July and November 2017, and [the administration] said the number of families attempting to cross illegally plunged by 64 percent.” And in a pair of speeches last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions seemed to herald the launch of a formal policy, calling it a “zero-tolerance” immigration measure. “If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally,” Sessions said. “It’s not our fault that somebody does that.” Kelly, now Trump’s chief of staff, stated again last month in an interview with NPR that the purpose of “family separation” is deterrence. “The name of the game to a large degree … a big name of the game is deterrence,” he said.

The current secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, did not provide a direct answer when asked by NPR if “family separation at the border … [was] meant to act as a deterrent,” explaining that it’s very common for adults to get separated from their children when they commit crimes. In testimony before Congress in April, Nielsen said, “When we separate, we separate because the law tells us to, and that is in the interest of the child.”

In April, the Post reported that portions of the separation policy had been memorialized in a memo—a document that described the maneuver’s deterrent effect:

In a memorandum that outlines the proposal and was obtained by The Washington Post, officials say that threatening adults with criminal charges and prison time would be the “most effective” way to reverse the steadily rising number of attempted crossings. Most parents now caught crossing the border illegally with their children are quickly released to await civil deportation hearings.

“Such a policy would mean separating parents and children, because the parents would be placed in criminal detention, where children cannot be held,” the Post noted.

In a statement provided to the Post, Homeland Security spokeswoman Katie Waldman said, “DHS does not have a policy of separating families at the border for deterrence purposes.” Waldman did justify the splitting of families, though, by claiming it was necessary to combat child smuggling as well as to “protect” children from their own “nefarious” border-crossing parents. “DHS does … have a legal obligation to protect the best interests of the child whether that be from human smugglings, drug traffickers, or nefarious actors who knowingly break our immigration laws and put minor children at risk,” she said.

While the government denies the existence of a concrete policy, the numbers tell a different story. “Customs and Border Protection informed me that 658 children were taken from 638 parents during a 14-day period in May,” Feinstein reported on Thursday. This is a huge uptick from the six-month period between October and April, when the New York Times reported that “more than 700 children”—roughly 120 per month, as compared to 658 in 14 days—were reportedly separated “from adults claiming to be their parents.”

Let’s imagine that, based on all this evidence, Judge Sabraw—who was appointed by George W. Bush—determines there is in fact a new government policy of separating children and parents at the border. The court would then need to examine the government’s stated rationale for enacting such a rule. For the policy to pass constitutional muster, the government needs some legal justification for the indefinite separation of parents from children, even when the parents and children are undocumented immigrants. The Supreme Court held in 2000’s Zadvydas v. Davis that due process rights apply to undocumented immigrants. This holding suggests the government may not separate asylum-seekers from their children indefinitely and without cause. During last month’s arguments, it sounded like the judge believed the policy justification stated by Kelly—deterrence of illegal immigration—was clearly unconstitutional. “A policy of deterring families from entering the United States by separating them … would [that not be] a clear substantive due process violation?” Judge Sabraw asked of Fabian, the government attorney.

“If it was done without any otherwise authority to cause the separation, I think, we might be closer to that problem,” she acknowledged, claiming the government does have such authority stemming from the Immigration and Nationality Act. When Sabraw responded that the government still hadn’t presented a substantive due process rationale, Fabian said the government has a right to separate parents who are jailed for violating the law from their children while those parents are behind bars. The ACLU, in this lawsuit, is not contesting that fact. What it is contesting is the government’s apparent policy of refusing to return children to parents once they’ve served their time—generally around a month for misdemeanor illegal entry—and of taking children from parents who present themselves at a U.S. port of entry seeking asylum and have not been charged with any crime.

When confronted about the legality of these practices, the government has merely asserted they are legal without providing a substantive justification. “They can’t come up with a justification because the truth is that the only justification that makes sense is their perceived view of the deterrence value,” Lee Gelernt, the ACLU attorney litigating the case, told me.

Having reviewed the transcript from the hearing, and having read the government’s legal filings, Gelernt appears to be correct. At May’s hearing, the judge repeatedly questioned Fabian about whether a substantive due process violation had occurred. Fabian asserted it had not. The judge then made clear that the government had to offer an actual argument. “Simply saying there is detention and … therefore the family integrity gives way doesn’t address specifically what’s happening in this case,” Sabraw said. “Doesn’t there have to be some determination in order to comply with Fifth Amendment rights before separately detaining family members?”

Fabian, at this point, simply stated: “We don’t agree that that has to be made.” She then said that when a minor and parent are separated, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act dictates that the minor be placed with another custodian. But she didn’t explain why the decision to indefinitely separate the minor from the parent would be made in the first place.

Later, the judge specifically addressed those situations in which a person has been convicted of an unlawful entry misdemeanor, had their child lawfully separated from them while they were incarcerated, and then been detained by immigration officials separately from their children while awaiting asylum. “Is there any process that [the Department of Health and Human Services] has or DHS has where after a person has served their time, efforts or a process exists to explore the lawful options of reuniting the parent with the child?” Sabraw asked. “There is not a process that would reunite them at that time because she is in ICE custody and remains unavailable,” Fabian responded. “Shouldn’t there be” some process for reuniting “after a person does their time?” the judge asked. Fabian then argued that it is in the best interests of children to remain separated from their detained parent because such a parent is “not going to be a suitable custodian.”

The notion that a child is better off without his parent not only flies in the face of logic, it also contradicts government policies that allow the detention of some undocumented asylum-seekers with their children. If such parents have historically been considered suitable custodians—and in some cases are still considered suitable custodians—how can other similarly situated parents not be considered suitable custodians?

The government ultimately leaned on the argument that DHS must make decisions in a hurry. “The goal is not to prolong that process but to get folks to the location where they can be housed long-term if that is what is going to happen,” Fabian argued. Again, this argument is illogical: It wouldn’t take any longer to decide to keep parents and children together than it would to decide to separate them. Sabraw also asked if DNA testing might help the government distinguish biological parents from child smugglers, as it had in the case of Ms. L. Fabian said she didn’t know if that was “a feasible option.”

The ACLU has asked the court to allow it to add more plaintiffs to Ms. L v. ICE, which was previously filed with two plaintiffs. One of the motions seeking class certification includes affidavits from several other immigrants who’ve had their children taken away at the border. Those affidavits offer more examples of what it looks like when kids as young as 18 months old are literally ripped away from their parents.

Testimony of Mr. U:

All I can remember is how much my son and I were both crying as they took him away. I do not recall anyone questioning whether I am really his biological father or whether I was a danger to him or abusive in any way. I even had my son’s birth certificate proving I am his father. … It has been six months since I last saw my son.

Testimony of Ms. G:

Shortly after arriving, I was told that I was going to be separated from my daughter. There were no doubts expressed that I was my daughter’s biological mother and I have a birth certificate to show our relationship. They did not say that I was a danger to my daughter or was abusive. … I know that [my children] are having a very hard time detained all by themselves without me. They are only six and four years old in a strange country and they need their parent. I hope I can be with my children very soon. I miss them and am scared for them.

Testimony of Ms. J. I. L.

That day, March 13, a woman came to pick up my kids. I was given only five minutes to say goodbye before J.S.P.L. and D.A.P.L. were torn from me. My babies started crying when they found out we were going to be separated. It breaks my heart to remember my youngest wail, “Why do I have to leave? Mami, I want to stay with you!” … In tears myself, I asked my boys to be brave, and I promised we would be together again soon. I begged the woman who took my children to keep them together so they could at least have each other. She promised she would, and she left with my boys. … I am particularly worried about my older son J.S.P.L. who was not doing well back in El Salvador after he saw MS gang members beat me and threaten me. He did not even want to leave my side to go to the restroom. … Both of my sons need their mother. I do not know if they are eating, sleeping, or even going to the restroom.

Testimony of Mirian:

The U.S. immigration officers then told me that they were taking my [18-month old] son from me. They said he would be going to one place and I would be going to another. I asked why the officers were separating my son from me. They did not provide any reason. … The immigration officers made me walk out with my son to a government vehicle and place my son in a car seat in the vehicle. My son was crying as I put him in the seat. I did not even have a chance to comfort my son, because the officers slammed the door shut as soon as he was in his seat. I was crying too. I cry even now when I think about that moment when the border officers took my son away.

Nielsen has said the government is acting as expeditiously as possible in such cases. “It’s not our intent to separate people one day longer than is necessary to prove that there is in fact a custodial relationship,” she told NPR last month. These affidavits call that claim into question.

Gelernt added that he has never seen anything this dramatic in his many years of working on immigration cases and doesn’t believe the public outrage has been nearly commensurate with the actions taking place.

“I just feel like the debate has become so abstract,” Gelernt told me. “If any policymaker could sit in that room for a day and watch these kids begging and screaming not to be taken away, I don’t know how they could continue this practice.” He says he fears the general population is already forgetting about the stakes of this case: “Roseanne will make another comment and the kids will be sitting there for another eight months, and no one will remember them.”

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

Join the New Due Process Army. Fight the Trump/GOP Immigration Abomination!

PWS

06-04-18

THE SUPREME UGLINESS OF AMERICAN SPORTS: RACISM, TRUMPISM, EXPLOITATION, & THE NFL – Do The Players Have The Guts & Self-Confidence To Pull Together & Shut Down The Corrupt NFL Forever, If Necessary?

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/nfl-anthem-policy-league-sides-with-donald-trumps-campaign-against-black-political-power.html

Jamelle Bouie reports for :

It was the silence and simplicity of Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality that make the response now so striking. Kaepernick’s decision to quietly take a knee during the anthem, to recognize those who still struggle for equality before the law, has caused him to be all but blacklisted from the NFL, blasted by right-wing commentators for perceived disrespect, and condemned by Republican politicians, including the president of the United States.

For Donald Trump, who ran on a platform of stoking white racial resentment, the attacks were predictable. What’s more striking is that the NFL has decided to oblige. On Wednesday, team owners voted to fine teams whose players do not stand for the anthem. Those who want to kneel can stay in the locker room during pregame ceremonies. If the league can’t persuade Kaepernick and others like him to give up their protests, then it will try to compel them into standing, or at least, hide them away from view and relieve the pressure placed by the president.

This entire spectacle—of a white, racially demagogic president demanding punishment of protesting black players—is part of a history of rebuke and outrage against black athletes who challenged American racism, like Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith. It also echoes an even older dynamic in American life: the country’s fraught relationship to black political activity. From his attacks on Barack Obama to his broadsides against Kaepernick, Donald Trump has always been on the side of those who see a threat in black advocacy and power.

Trump built his whole political brand on attacking prominent black Americans as illegitimate holders of status and influence, so Kaepernick was a natural target. To attack him—and other kneeling players—was to play the old hits, priming and harnessing the anger of those who view these vocal blacks as ungrateful and presumptuous—in other words, uppity. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired,’ ” Trump told a sea of white supporters at a campaign-style rally in Alabama last September.

After the NFL announced its new rule, Trump voiced his support and even floated exile for players who don’t conform. “You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade. “You shouldn’t be there. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”

Trump might speak the language of patriotism and respect, but what he wants is obedience. If players won’t bend their knees to his will—if they act as free citizens and not supplicants—then, by his lights, they forfeit their place in this country. The NFL has indulged the attitudes of an authoritarian, leaning further into the jingoism and militarism that it has cultivated for decades.

The president’s attacks are part of an old strategy against advocates of black equality. Explaining the backlash against black political activity in the years after Reconstruction, W.E.B Du Bois described the limits placed on blacks who wanted to survive, much less thrive: “Negroes who wanted work must not dabble in politics. Negroes who wanted to increase their income must not agitate the Negro problem. Positions of influence were only open to those Negroes who were certified as being ‘safe and sane,’ and their careers were closely scrutinized and passed upon.” When a conservative commentator like Laura Ingraham tells NBA player LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” after he criticized the president, she is reaching back to something quite old in the nation’s history.

Perhaps due to the demographics of its fan base—which skews both younger and less white than the NFL’s—the NBA has taken a different approach to both police violence and political expression. In January, Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown was arrested after he was questioned for a potential parking violation. Police quickly dropped charges, and on Wednesday, the Milwaukee Police Department released body camera footage of the arrest, which shows multiple officers wrestling Brown to the ground and using a stun gun on him. Not only has Brown been outspoken about the incident, but the Bucks also released a statement in support of their colleague: “The abuse and intimidation that Sterling experienced at the hands of Milwaukee Police was shameful and inexcusable. Sterling has our full support as he shares his story and takes action to provide accountability.”

In fairness, it was just last year that the NFL had a similar response to an incident involving one of its own players. In September, after Michael Bennett was allegedly profiled and harassed by police in Las Vegas, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Bennett, who often sat during the anthem last season, “represents the best of the NFL” and “that the issues Michael has been raising deserve serious attention from all of our leaders in every community.” Goodell went on to say the league would “support Michael and all NFL players in promoting mutual respect between law enforcement and the communities they loyally serve and fair and equal treatment under the law.” But with the president ratcheting up the pressure throughout the fall, and NFL viewership reportedly on the decline, the league appears to have changed its tune.

There is already backlash to the NFL’s new rule. New York Jets chairman Christopher Johnson told reporters that he would not discipline a player who protests and would pay the league’s fine. The NFL Players Association announced it would challenge any aspect of the policy that it found to be in violation of its collective bargaining agreement. “The vote by NFL club CEOs today contradicts the statements made to our player leadership by Commissioner Roger Goodell and the Chairman of the NFL’s Management Council John Mara about the principles, values and patriotism of our League,” it said in a statement.

This space—what players can and cannot do on the field—is still contested and the resolution is far from clear. What can be said, however, is that the NFL’s move—an attempt to satisfy the president’s demands for conformity—is a dangerous attack on political expression, even if it’s ultimately fair play in the eyes of the law.

There are real threats to free speech in this country. But the culprits aren’t college students or overzealous young activists, they are those who use wealth and power—or control of the state itself—to punish political dissenters and advocates for justice. While this abuse may begin by targeting the most unpopular groups and individuals, it’s rare in history that it stops there.

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

Probably not!

But, it would be a chance for athletes to stand up for our Constitution and social justice — to do something that will fundamentally change American society as well as standing up against the Trump/GOP racist, anti-union, anti-American agenda.

Do athletes really have the ability to make a living doing something other than getting their brains disabled for the entertainment of a predominantly White “fake patriot” audience who has no respect for their rights or status as human beings and which falsely equates brainless rituals for meaningful commitment to a Constitutional society? Do “owners” who can’t play the game themselves really have the right to tell “their” players whether they can assert their First Amendment rights to political expression? Does a President who routinely violates Constitutional rights and societal norms have the right to tell private citizens how they must think and express themselves to conform to his perverted political agenda?

What about it AR? Is there life beyond the gridiron (and Danica)?

PWS

05-27-18

GONZO’S WORLD: DEEP IRONY – He Might Have Fired McCabe Over Alleged “Lack Of Candor,” But Apocalyoto’s Own Lies, Misrepresentations, And Unlikely “Memory Lapses” Might Finally Catch Up With Him!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/sessions-firing-of-mccabe-violated-his-promise-to-recuse.html

Ryan Goodman reports for Slate:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to fire former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe appears to directly violate the promise Sessions made, under oath, to recuse himself from such matters.

Some might contend that Sessions’ recusal covered only the Clinton and Trump campaigns, and that McCabe’s firing involved the Clinton Foundation investigation as a separate matter. But Sessions unequivocally assured senators of his intentions during his January 2017 confirmation hearings in response to a clear and specific question from the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley. Sen. Grassley asked a follow-up question that went right to the point. In response, Sessions very clearly said his recusal would cover any matters involving the Clinton Foundation.

Here is the full exchange:

Grassley: During the course of the presidential campaign, you made a number of statements about the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, relating to her handling of sensitive emails and regarding certain actions of the Clinton Foundation. You weren’t alone in that criticism. I was certainly critical in the same way as were millions of Americans on those matters, but now, you’ve been nominated to serve as attorney general. In light of those comments that you made, some have expressed concerns about whether you can approach the Clinton matter impartially in both fact and appearance. How do you plan to address those concerns?

Sessions: Mr. Chairman, it was a highly contentious campaign. I, like a lot of people, made comments about the issues in that campaign. With regard to Secretary Clinton and some of the comments I made, I do believe that that could place my objectivity in question. I’ve given that thought.

I believe the proper thing for me to do, would be to recuse myself from any questions involving those kind of investigations that involve Secretary Clinton and that were raised during the campaign or to be otherwise connected to it.

Grassley: OK. I think, that’s—let me emphasize then with a follow-up question. To be very clear, you intend to recuse yourself from both the Clinton email investigation and any matters involving the Clinton Foundation, if there are any?

Sessions: Yes.

This exchange has two implications for how one understands the scope of Sessions’ recusal. First, it goes to defining the scope of the recusal that Sessions made on March 2, 2017. If it is a close call whether the Clinton Foundation matter is sufficiently connected to the Clinton campaign for the purpose of understanding Sessions’ recusal, it should be deemed to be sufficiently connected. After all, that’s essentially what Sessions told Sen. Grassley. Second, if the Clinton Foundation matter is deemed outside the scope of the recusal statement that Sessions made back in March last year, then his decision to fire McCabe shows that he failed to honor the promise for a broader recusal which he clearly made to the Senate in its decision to confirm him as attorney general. The same goes for Hillary Clinton’s emails. Sen. Grassley’s questions and Sessions’ answers specifically covered any matters involving that investigation as well.”

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

Meanwhile, over at Reuters, Karen Freifeld, Sarah N. Lynch, Mark Hosenball have uncovered some evidence that contradicts Gonzo’s “revised account” of his meeting at which George Papadopoulos’s proposed “Russia contacts” were discussed with Trump campaign officials including Gonzo. It now appears that Gonzo’s story that he immediately and strongly denounced them could be a fabrication. Or just another “memory lapse.”

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ testimony that he opposed a proposal for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team to meet with Russians has been contradicted by three people who told Reuters they have spoken about the matter to investigators with Special Counsel Robert Mueller or congressional committees.

Sessions testified before Congress in November 2017 that he “pushed back” against the proposal made by former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos at a March 31, 2016 campaign meeting. Then a senator from Alabama, Sessions chaired the meeting as head of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy team.

“Yes, I pushed back,” Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 14, when asked whether he shut down Papadopoulos’ proposed outreach to Russia.

Sessions has since also been interviewed by Mueller.

Three people who attended the March campaign meeting told Reuters they gave their version of events to FBI agents or congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election. Although the accounts they provided to Reuters differed in certain respects, all three, who declined to be identified, said Sessions had expressed no objections to Papadopoulos’ idea.

One person said Sessions was courteous to Papadopoulos and said something to the effect of “okay, interesting.”

The other two recalled a similar response.

“It was almost like, ‘Well, thank you and let’s move on to the next person,’” one said.

However, another meeting attendee, J.D. Gordon, who was the Trump campaign’s director of national security, told media outlets including Reuters in November that Sessions strongly opposed Papadopoulos’ proposal and said no one should speak of it again. In response to a request for comment, Gordon said on Saturday that he stood by his statement.

Sessions, through Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores, declined to comment beyond his prior testimony. The special counsel’s office also declined to comment. Spokeswomen for the Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee did not comment.

Reuters was unable to determine whether Mueller is probing discrepancies in accounts of the March 2016 meeting.

The three accounts, which have not been reported, raise new questions about Sessions’ testimony regarding contacts with Russia during the campaign.

Sessions previously failed to disclose to Congress meetings he had with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and testified in October that he was not aware of any campaign representatives communicating with Russians.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Justice Department on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 14, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Some Democrats have seized on discrepancies in Sessions’ testimony to suggest the attorney general may have committed perjury. A criminal charge would require showing Sessions intended to deceive. Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee that he had always told the truth and testified to the best of his recollection.

Legal experts expressed mixed views about the significance of the contradictions cited by the three sources.

Sessions could argue he misremembered events or perceived his response in a different way, making any contradictions unintentional, some experts said.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said Sessions’ words might be too vague to form the basis of a perjury case because there could be different interpretations of what he meant.

United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions visits families of opioid overdose victims at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. March 15, 2018. REUTERS/John Sommers II

“If you’re talking about false statements, prosecutors look for something that is concrete and clear,” he said.

Other legal experts said, however, that repeated misstatements by Sessions could enable prosecutors to build a perjury case against him.

“Proving there was intent to lie is a heavy burden for the prosecution. But now you have multiple places where Sessions has arguably made false statements,” said Bennett Gershman, a Pace University law professor.

The March 2016 campaign meeting in Washington was memorialized in a photo Trump posted on Instagram of roughly a dozen men sitting around a table, including Trump, Sessions and Papadopoulos.

Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty in October to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his Russia contacts, is now cooperating with Mueller.

According to court documents released after his guilty plea, Papadopoulos said at the campaign meeting that he had connections who could help arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Papadopoulos continued to pursue Russian contacts after the March 2016 meeting and communicated with some campaign officials about his efforts, according to the court documents.

Trump has said that he does not remember much of what happened at the “very unimportant” campaign meeting. Trump has said he did not meet Putin before becoming president.

Moscow has denied meddling in the election and Trump has denied his campaign colluded with Russia.

Reporting by Karen Freifeld, Sarah N. Lynch and Mark Hosenball; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington and Jan Wolfe in New York; Editing by Anthony Lin, Noeleen Walder and Jeffrey Benkoe”

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Like Trump, Gonzo is a congenital liar who has been pushing his “White Nationalist alternate world view” for so long that he wouldn’t recognize truth if it hit him in the face. I don’t know if he will ever be held accountable for all of his biased disingenuous deeds. But, at some future point, someone will “unpack” all of Gonzo’s disastrous abuses — immigration, civil rights, criminal justice, prisons — of justice at the Department of Justice and preserve them for history.

03-19-18

THE SLATEST FROM THE SPORTS WORLD — #16 UMBC Pulls “Upset For The Ages” Over #1 UVA In March Madness! — 135 Game Losing Streak For #16 Seeds Ends In Emphatic Fashion! 🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀

https://slate.com/culture/2018/03/how-no-16-seed-umbc-beat-virginia-and-made-the-mount-rushmore-of-sports-upsets.html

Nick Greene reports for Slate:

“Yes, Virginia, There Is a Cinderella

How No. 16 seed UMBC pulled off the biggest upset in NCAA Tournament history.

By NICK GREENE

MARCH 17, 201812:06 AM

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Jairus Lyles #10 of the UMBC Retrievers reacts after a score against the Virginia Cavaliers during the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

It happened. It actually happened. At the 136th time of asking, a No. 16 seed finally beat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. And it wasn’t even close. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County Retrievers absolutely pantsed the top-ranked Virginia Cavaliers, 74-54.

How did this happen? Forgive me for getting technical, but the Retrievers kicked Virginia’s butt.

Virginia plays slow. No one in the country plays at a slower tempo. Given the environmental predicament in which we currently find ourselves, calling them “glacial” would be woefully inappropriate. They operate on a cosmic timeline. They grind you into dust with defense and wait for that dust to evaporate. But the Retrievers were impatient. They were having none of Virginia’s slow-cooked nonsense.

Teensy Retrievers point guard K.J. Maura kept pushing the pace and setting up his teammates in rhythm for three-pointers. Against Virginia’s all-universe defense, UMBC went 12 for 24 from behind the arc.

There was no shortage of great individual performances. Forward Arkel Lamar scored 12 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. Joe Sherburne added 14.

And then there’s Jairus Lyles. The senior guard was nothing short of heroic. He went 9 for 11 from the field, drove at will, and finished a variety of circus shots at the rim. Lyles played through cramps throughout the second half, but he still finished with 28 points. All that’s left is to figure out who will play him in the movie.

I mean, just look at this guy.

The game was tied at halftime, 21-21, but it only took four minutes for the Retrievers to burst to a 14-point lead in the second half. It was the biggest deficit Virginia had faced all season. That deficit would get bigger. The Cavaliers are supposed to be the boa constrictor, not the hare—forgive me, Aesop—and they had no clue how to catch up. UMBC was relentless, and it was a joy to watch.

Sure, Virginia played without the injured De’Andre Hunter, the Cavaliers’ most versatile defender, but cutting them any slack would be needlessly charitable. They came in as the tournament’s overall No. 1 seed, yet you’d struggle to pick a single moment from Friday night in which the Cavaliers looked to be worthy of sharing the floor with the mighty Retrievers, who needed a last-second shot against Vermont to even make it to the NCAA Tournament. In the end, the Cavs were lucky to only lose by 20.

After the game, Virginia coach Tony Bennett said his team, which finished the year 31-3, had a “historic season.” If there’s a bright side for Virginia, it might be that the Cavaliers had already suffered what’s widely considered the biggest upset in college basketball history, losing to tiny Chaminade as the nation’s top-ranked team in 1982. Naturally, a storied institution like Virginia will take pride in honoring such a cherished tradition.

With its win on Friday night, UMBC improved to 25-10, and they’ll have a chance to make the Sweet 16 with a win over Kansas State on Sunday. Going into the tournament, you would’ve been hard pressed to pick the Retrievers’ best games of the season. Yes, that three-point win over Vermont in the America East title game was nice. But what else? That squeaker against Northern Kentucky in December? Their well-rounded effort against Coppin State?

Now, UMBC can claim the most amazing performance in NCAA Tournament history. But even that’s not going far enough. After the game, TNT’s Kenny Smith compared UMBC over Virginia to Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson and the Miracle on Ice. That’s not hyperbole. The Retrievers just made the Mount Rushmore of sports upsets. Hell, let’s put them on there twice.”

Read the rest of Slate’s coverage of the 2018 NCAA Tournament.

• We Failed Grayson Allen by Not Hating Him More

• How Good Was Loyola-Chicago’s Last-Second Game Winner?

• Cody or Caleb? How to Tell Nevada’s Twin Basketball Stars Apart.

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What a “bracket busting stunner!” Go Retrievers!

It’s been a “different” March Madness this year. For the first time in about two decades, my Wisconsin Badgers are “out of the dance” — quite properly since they had their first losing season in about 20 years. Wait till next year!

The good part, is that I’ve been able to follow the NCAA Men’s BB Tournament with a little more “objectivity” and less stress than usual. And, one of the many “bennies” of being a Federal retiree is that I can now 1) watch every game live on TV, and 2) enter any pool I want to without any of those tiresome (but necessary, I guess) Ethics Office warnings about all the potential civil and criminal penalties for getting “March Madness” at the office! I guess stuff like that doesn’t apply if you’re employed by someone like Warren Buffet. But, hey, want does he know? At any rate, at least Warren’s potential million dollars annually for life payout for the perfect bracket is safe for another year, thanks to the Retrievers! And, “Luna the Dog” our curly coated retriever was pleased with the outcome.

PWS

03-18-18

DAHLIA LITHWICK @ SLATE: The Anti-Due-Process President!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/trump-uses-due-process-to-mean-bonus-protections-for-his-white-guy-buddies-nobody-else.html

Dahlia Lithwick In Slate:

Donald Trump has an interesting history with the notion of “due process,” and his position on the subject seems to have been updated again this week,

this time in reference to gun ownership. As he explained, in an extremely twirly gun control meeting at the White House on Wednesday, due process in dealing with people who might have mental illnesses is, in fact, overrated. Just as Vice President Mike Pence was advocating “gun violence restraining orders” with the caveat that we should “allow due process, so no one’s rights are trampled,” the president broke in to note that actually due process is maybe crap.

“Or, Mike,” he blurted. “Take the firearms first and then go to court. … Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures. I like taking the guns early. Take the guns first, go through due process second.

“They have so many checks and balances that you can be mentally ill and it takes you six months before you can prohibit it,” the president added.

Conservative media acted with horror and alarm. Trump boosters like Sean Hannity pretended it didn’t happen. Then everyone pretended it didn’t happen. Then Trump and the NRA reunited Thursday night to let us know it wasn’t really true. Perhaps for the first time in history, Second Amendment fantasists can now understand where having a loaded gun in the hands of a truly unstable person can lead.

More interesting, though, than the president’s vague and unbankable policy pronouncements is this further evolution in our possible understanding of his understanding of what “due process” might mean.

This is the same Trump who can’t stop talking about executing suspected drug dealers. It’s the same Trump who pardoned convicted former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the same Trump who persistently threatened to jail his political opponents, including Hillary Clinton, if he won the presidency. This is the man who spent a small fortune taking out ads seeking the death penalty for the Central Park Five before they had even been tried and refused to acknowledge when they were exonerated

So, when it comes to “due process,” I don’t think those words mean what he thinks they mean.

What due process rights actually mean is that the state can’t take away someone’s “life, liberty or property” without adequate legal safeguards and protections. That’s what Trump was belittling this week—the silly “checks and balances” that get in the way of confiscating guns without notice or an opportunity to be heard. When the president talks about using the force of the state to seize property or incarcerate someone without any legal recourse, he is attacking a core pillar of legal and constitutional law. The government can’t take your stuff away just because the president feels like it.

Now consider the many times Trump has used the absence of “due process” to justify his own action and inaction. The most famous recent example would be after his former staff secretary, Rob Porter, resigned following accusations by two ex-wives of domestic violence. Trump—who has himself been accused multiple times of sexual assault and abuses—tweeted his sympathy: for men who are accused of harming women.

“Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation,” he tweeted. “Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused – life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?”

Later Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney suggested that the tweet was likely referencing Steve Wynn, the casino mogul who had to step down as finance chairman for the Republican National Committee when it was reported that he also allegedly sexually harassed female employees over years. While we may never know which of these two alleged predators had so moved the president to remember that due process is an actual thing, it wasn’t hard to miss the fact that for Trump it is something the world—not just the state—owes powerful white men who stand to lose their jobs.

There’s an obvious pattern here. It was only recently that the president defended and endorsed Roy Moore, who was credibly accused by multiple women of committing sexual misconduct against them when they were children and young adults. In that case, Trump wanted due process to protect Moore not from incarceration or unjust loss of property, but from the chance that he might lose a Senate seat. Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered the White House line in defending Moore, doing grotesque backflips to protect a credibly accused child abuser with claims that mere allegations can destroy entire (men’s) lives.

“Like most Americans,” she said at the time, “the president does not believe we can allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a person’s life. However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.”

There’s also the time that Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was caught on tape assaulting a female reporter. Trump’s answer then: “How do you know those bruises weren’t there before?”

“Due process” to Trump, then, is mostly just something owed by newspapers, complaining women, or voters to his buddies. This definition is what the rest of us might legally define as “blind and unflinching fealty.” But there’s a different lesson to be gleaned from his revelatory gun discussion this week. In an inadvertent gaffe, he used the words due process correctly, meaning taking guns from people without legal protections or procedures in place. He also used checks and balances disparagingly to mean actual constitutional protections against what is considered government overreach.

When Donald Trump misuses legal language to manipulate law and misrepresent truth, it’s easy to see how the rule of law means nothing to him. Funnily, when he uses legal language precisely and correctly to assert that he wants to use state authority to impair the rights of gun owners, he’s actually revealing a much more potent and frightening disdain for the rule of law and the Constitution. And honestly, no more due process is necessary to understand that.

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Generally, this Administration has taken the position that rights only apply to them and their buddies. A confederation of scofflaws!

PWS

03-04-17

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One more thing

Wow! Dahlia and Margo are absolutely awesome!

DUE PROCESS FOREVER! JEFF SESSIONS NEVER! JOIN THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY TODAY!

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

Thanks Andrea!

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

Here’s another from JRube in the WashPost:

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

Faith leaders’ statement on family separation

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

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

A NOTE TO MY WAYWARD CHILD, JEFF

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**Here’s another from JRube in the WashPost:**