DAN RATHER & ELLIOT KIRSHNER: TRUMP’S VERSI0N OF A “WEST WING NUDIST CAMP” — CHECK YOUR DECENCY @ THE DOOR, ENTERING AN “ETHICS FREE ZONE!” — “The naked self-interest was so rampant that Trump’s West Wing could be considered a nudist colony where decency was shed instead of clothing.” 🏴‍☠️

Clothing/Ethics Optional in MAGALAND
Ethics Prohibited Beyond This Point! “The naked self-interest was so rampant that Trump’s West Wing could be considered a nudist colony where decency was shed instead of clothing.” CREATIVE COMMONS.

They Knew. They All Knew.

Cowardice, Cynicism, Contempt, Rationalizations

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

6 hr ago

1,403

476

Documents seized from Donald Trump’s Florida home (credit: Department of Justice)

Sometimes we write a lot of words on Steady. Today will be an exception. Because for all that there is to say, for all that needs to be said, for all that an accounting for history requires we say, the general sentiments are quite simple:

They knew. They all knew.

It was clear to anyone who had an ounce of appreciation for what the job of the presidency entails, to anyone who respected the constitutional order of our government, to anyone who worried about the health and safety of this nation, to anyone with a moral compass, to anyone who prizes the common sense of purpose that great leaders can summon, that Donald J. Trump had no business anywhere near the presidency.

Now, as he melts down in the face of a serious criminal investigation, as we see pictures of how he stored classified material and his utter disregard for our nation’s most sensitive secrets, as we are left to wonder what he was up to and what damage was done, we should recognize that we would not be where we are today without his enablers, apologists, and hangers-on.

They heralded his outrageousness in a chorus of sycophancy.
They feted his vileness.
They viciously attacked those who pointed out the obvious, that Trump was mentally, emotionally, intellectually, morally, and constitutionally unfit for his office.

And who are they? They are the Republican politicians, the so-called serious ones who expressed their concerns in private even as they used Trump to achieve their desired tax cuts and judges. They are the members of his administration — senior and junior — who jockeyed to maximize their career benefit at the expense of doing the necessary work for the American people. They are the lawyers who twisted themselves into pretzels to try to legalize his inherent lawlessness. They are the media personalities who saw Trump as a printing press for their accrual of wealth and power. They are the capitalists who put corporate earnings ahead of the well-being of the nation.

While Trump’s voters were primed with a toxic stew of hatred, bigotry, and divisiveness, the small cabal playing the inside game didn’t bother with the MAGA hats. They were too busy trading access for favors. The naked self-interest was so rampant that Trump’s West Wing could be considered a nudist colony where decency was shed instead of clothing.

But make no mistake…

In their cowardice, they knew.
In their cynicism, they knew.
In their contempt, they knew.
In their rationalizations, they knew.
In their acquittals of his conduct, even for impeachment, they knew.

They knew when they could have stopped him — before he became president, and once he was president.

But they didn’t stop him. And with their inaction, they encouraged him.

As the Trump bubble begins to pop, all these people who knew what he was all along will likely scurry like cockroaches when the lights go on. They will make all sorts of excuses for their complicity. They will gaslight, lie, and try to rewrite history. You can already see it in many of their so-called tell-all books. Except what they are telling is only the story they want people to hear. It is not the truth.

The truth is that they don’t dare say what we all know. They knew.

Note: If you are not already a subscriber to our Steady newsletter, please consider doing so. And we always appreciate you sharing our content with others and leaving your thoughts in the comments.

***********************
Throughout history, despots and would-be despots have surrounded themselves with motley crews of sycophants, toadies, and retainers. Trump has excelled at it!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-01-22

🤡 “BILLY THE BIGOT” BARR PULLED UP IN A CLOWN CAR 🤡🚗 & UNLOADED HIS CLOWN SHOW 🤡🎪 @ THE DOJ — Garland Has Chosen To Largely Leave The “Big Top” 🎪🤹‍♀️In Place!

Barr Departs
Lowering The Barr by Randall Enos, Easton, CT
Republished By License
Dana Milbank
Dana Milbank
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

From Dana Milbank @ WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/04/bill-barr-book-trump-clown-show/

 . . . .

In real time, Barr jettisoned Justice Department norms and authorized the department to open election-fraud investigations before the tallies were certified. Barr, who had falsely asserted that mail-in voting was vulnerable to counterfeit foreign ballots, did allow at one point that the Justice Department hadn’t found enough fraud to change the election outcome — “to date.” But his sycophantic departure letter (“you built the strongest and most resilient economy in American history”) said “these allegations will continue to be pursued.”

Had Barr spoken out publicly about Trump’s “clown show,” perhaps he could have punctured the “big lie” before it resulted in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Barr didn’t even speak out during Trump’s impeachment, instead offering his self-serving view 14 months later while hawking his book — after Trump managed to get the bulk of the Republican electorate to accept the “big lie” as an article of faith.

Barr is just the latest in the parade of former Trump officials to wash their hands of him long after their public condemnation would have done any good: John Bolton, John F. Kelly, Rex Tillerson, Jim Mattis, Reince Priebus, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, Omarosa Manigault Newman, Michael Cohen, Anthony Scaramucci, H.R. McMaster and many more.

But nobody in the administration did more to enable Trump’s deceptions and assaults on democracy than Barr. He buried the Mueller report while issuing a public summary that misrepresented it; he alleged the Obama administration “spied” on the Trump campaign, and he appointed a prosecutor who is, years later, still trying to prove true Trump’s paranoid fantasy; he scoured the world for evidence to discredit the Trump-Russia probe; his Justice Department gave credibility to Rudy Giuliani’s ravings about the Bidens in Ukraine; he tried to give favorable treatment to Trump cronies Michael Flynn and Roger Stone; he justified the violent assault on peaceful demonstrators in Lafayette Square; he made unfounded allegations against “antifa” and assembled a militia-like force of often-unidentified federal police in D.C. And on, and on.

Now Barr wants to be remembered as the brave figure who spoke truth to power? Talk about a clown show.

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤹‍♀️🤹‍♀️🤹‍♀️🤹‍♀️🤹‍♀️

Barr’s attempted self-justification would be funny if the consequences of his silence hadn’t been so dire. He allowed Trump to pull off a democracy-defying swindle.

. . . .

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

Read  Milbank’s full article at the link.

There were plenty of folks @ DOJ who “went along to get along” with the Sessions/Barr radical right-wing scheme to deconstruct justice with a series of lies, racially charged false narratives, questionable, arguably frivolous, presentations to Federal Courts, use of pretexts, discrediting of civil rights and free and fair elections, and undermining or outright violations of both domestic laws and international conventions protecting the human rights of migrants.

Others were installed or promoted within Justice because of their actual or perceived willingness to run over the law, truth, and often human dignity, to further the far-right agenda. In other words, they would elevate loyalty to the Trump agenda over their duty to the U.S.  Constitution!

What, exactly, has AG Garland done to “clean house”🧹 and restore the rule of law, Government ethics, fundamental fairness, and due process for migrants? Good question!🤨

In the meantime, notwithstanding his pathetic, outrageous, disingenuous, attempt at rehabilitation “BTB” Barr should go down in history as exactly the divisive, dishonest, neo-fascist, theocrat sleaze-ball that he is!🤮

And, Garland will be judged by what he does to reject and reform the mess @ Justice left by his predecessors. In that respect, “Miller Lite” won’t do it.

Miller Lite
This might be Garland’s vision for justice, but to the NDPA, “no way!” 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-06-22

🏴‍☠️HISTORY & THE GOP PARTY OF TREASON — “The lie outlasts the liar.” — Historian Professor Timothy Snyder On Why The GOP Is, & Will Remain, A Repudiation Of & An Existential Threat To Truth & Our Democracy!

Timothy Snyder (Professor für Geschichte, Yale University), Foto: www.stephan-roehl.de
Timothy Snyder (Professor of History, Yale University), Photo: www.stephan-roehl.de
Creative Commons License

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html?referringSource=articleShare

From The NY Times:
. . . . .

  The lie outlasts the liar. 

The idea that Germany lost the First World War in 1918 because of a Jewish “stab in the back” was 15 years old when Hitler came to power. How will Trump’s myth of victimhood function in American life 15 years from now? And to whose benefit?

On Jan. 7, Trump called for a peaceful transition of power, implicitly conceding that his putsch had failed. Even then, though, he repeated and even amplified his electoral fiction: It was now a sacred cause for which people had sacrificed. Trump’s imagined stab in the back will live on chiefly thanks to its endorsement by members of Congress. In November and December 2020, Republicans repeated it, giving it a life it would not otherwise have had. In retrospect, it now seems as though the last shaky compromise between the gamers and the breakers was the idea that Trump should have every chance to prove that wrong had been done to him. That position implicitly endorsed the big lie for Trump supporters who were inclined to believe it. It failed to restrain Trump, whose big lie only grew bigger.

The breakers and the gamers then saw a different world ahead, where the big lie was either a treasure to be had or a danger to be avoided. The breakers had no choice but to rush to be first to claim to believe in it. Because the breakers Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz must compete to claim the brimstone and bile, the gamers were forced to reveal their own hand, and the division within the Republican coalition became visible on Jan. 6. The invasion of the Capitol only reinforced this division. To be sure, a few senators withdrew their objections, but Cruz and Hawley moved forward anyway, along with six other senators. More than 100 representatives doubled down on the big lie. Some, like Matt Gaetz, even added their own flourishes, such as the claim that the mob was led not by Trump’s supporters but by his opponents.

Trump is, for now, the martyr in chief, the high priest of the big lie. He is the leader of the breakers, at least in the minds of his supporters. By now, the gamers do not want Trump around. Discredited in his last weeks, he is useless; shorn of the obligations of the presidency, he will become embarrassing again, much as he was in 2015. Unable to provide cover for their gamesmanship, he will be irrelevant to their daily purposes. But the breakers have an even stronger reason to see Trump disappear: It is impossible to inherit from someone who is still around. Seizing Trump’s big lie might appear to be a gesture of support. In fact it expresses a wish for his political death. Transforming the myth from one about Trump to one about the nation will be easier when he is out of the way.

As Cruz and Hawley may learn, to tell the big lie is to be owned by it. Just because you have sold your soul does not mean that you have driven a hard bargain. Hawley shies from no level of hypocrisy; the son of a banker, educated at Stanford University and Yale Law School, he denounces elites. Insofar as Cruz was thought to have a principle, it was that of states’ rights, which Trump’s calls to action brazenly violated. A joint statement Cruz issued about the senators’ challenge to the vote nicely captured the post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud, only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations, allegations all the way down.

Image

The big lie requires commitment. When Republican gamers do not exhibit enough of that, Republican breakers call them “RINOs”: Republicans in name only. This term once suggested a lack of ideological commitment. It now means an unwillingness to throw away an election. The gamers, in response, close ranks around the Constitution and speak of principles and traditions. The breakers must all know (with the possible exception of the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville) that they are participating in a sham, but they will have an audience of tens of millions who do not.

If Trump remains present in American political life, he will surely repeat his big lie incessantly. Hawley and Cruz and the other breakers share responsibility for where this leads. Cruz and Hawley seem to be running for president. Yet what does it mean to be a candidate for office and denounce voting? If you claim that the other side has cheated, and your supporters believe you, they will expect you to cheat yourself. By defending Trump’s big lie on Jan. 6, they set a precedent: A Republican presidential candidate who loses an election should be appointed anyway by Congress. Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B, to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by faith.

Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.

Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.

Our big lie is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four years courts terrorism and assassination.

When that violence comes, the breakers will have to react. If they embrace it, they become the fascist faction. The Republican Party will be divided, at least for a time. One can of course imagine a dismal reunification: A breaker candidate loses a narrow presidential election in November 2024 and cries fraud, the Republicans win both houses of Congress and rioters in the street, educated by four years of the big lie, demand what they see as justice. Would the gamers stand on principle if those were the circumstances of Jan. 6, 2025?

To be sure, this moment is also a chance. It is possible that a divided Republican Party might better serve American democracy; that the gamers, separated from the breakers, might start to think of policy as a way to win elections. It is very likely that the Biden-Harris administration will have an easier first few months than expected; perhaps obstructionism will give way, at least among a few Republicans and for a short time, to a moment of self-questioning. Politicians who want Trumpism to end have a simple way forward: Tell the truth about the election.

America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

Timothy Snyder is the Levin professor of history at Yale University and the author of histories of political atrocity including “Bloodlands” and “Black Earth,” as well as the book “On Tyranny,” on America’s turn toward authoritarianism. His most recent book is “Our Malady,” a memoir of his own near-fatal illness reflecting on the relationship between health and freedom. Ashley Gilbertson is an Australian photojournalist with the VII Photo Agency living in New York. Gilbertson has covered migration and conflict internationally for over 20 years.

**********

Read Professor Snyder’s entire, rather lengthy, analysis at the link.

Democracy is under attack from one of our two major parties. It will take a concerted effort, determination, and courage by the majority of us to preserve our nation in the face of GOP led and enabled treason and insurrection that is fueled by their web of lies, racism, selfishness, and false narratives,

Tour the Holocaust Museum for a glimpse of the future of our nation if the GOP prevails!

Also, remember that as all the GOP-induced distracting disorder of this week roil Washington, 4,000 plus Americans a day, disproportionately African Americans and Latinos, continue to die, many unnecessarily, as a result of the “malicious incompetence,” false narratives, and anti-science, anti-American lies actively promoted and endorsed by Trump and his GOP party of treason!

Professor Snyder’s last sentence encapsulates my own view of what 21st Century American Democracy should look and act like:

We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

I still hear GOP politicos falsely claim that “nobody could see this coming.” What total unadulterated BS! 💩 Trump planned and instigated this insurrection of thugs in public, even while his goons Cruz, Hawley, and McCarthy were actively promoting it in Congress and Moscow Mitch was more or less “in his shell” looking the other way. Many of us have been “calling out” GOP fascism for the last four years. A party that thrives on lies can’t survive truth!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️Due Process Forever! The GOP 🥷🏻⚰️☠️Never!

PWS

01-11-21

NEWS FROM THE FASCIST ☠️CLOWN🤡 — “After Multiple Deaths And A Mob Riot, Trump Finally Admitted His Presidency Is Ending”

Storming The Capitol by Randall Enos, Easton, CT
Storming The Capitol by Randall Enos, Easton, CT
Republished under license
Trump Regime Emoji
Trump Regime
Trump Clown
Donald J. Trump
Famous American Clown
(Officially titled “Ass Clown”)
Artist: Scott Scheidly
Orlando, FL
Reproduced by permission

In a video otherwise filled with lies and inaccuracies, the president said a new administration would take over on Jan. 20.

Read the report from Matt Berman @ BuzzFeed News here:

After Multiple Deaths And A Mob Riot, Trump Finally Admitted His Presidency Is Ending

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

After four years of non-stop lies, malicious incompetence, unbridled racism, cruelty, stupidity, sedition, corruption, grift, graft, unnecessary deaths, and other “crimes against humanity,” the evil 🦹🏿‍♂️ clown show 🤡 pulls out of town leaving Joe, Kamala, and the decent folks in America (their supporters — i/o/w, us) to deal with The Party of Treason, its scumbag “core traitors,” (Cruz, Hawley, McCarthy, et al), toady enablers of treachery (McConnell, Graham, et al), and anti-American supporters.

🗽⚖️🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-07-21

🤮GRIFTER GOLFS⛳️, TWEETS 🐥WAY THROUGH CHRISTMAS DAY, AS AMERICANS CONTINUE TO SUFFER🤮, DIE⚰️, DESPAIR😰 UNDER HIS CRUEL, STUPID, CORRUPT MISRULE🏴‍☠️!

 

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

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=76ac9ea9-44ee-42d2-8687-9a29216e9507

AP reports:

. . . .

The bipartisan compromise was considered a done deal and won sweeping approval in the House and Senate after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it.

If he refuses to sign the deal, which is attached to a $1.4-trillion government funding bill, it will force a federal government shutdown, in addition to delaying aid checks and halting unemployment benefits and eviction protections in the most dire stretch of the pandemic.

“Made many calls and had meetings at Trump International in Palm Beach, Florida. Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?” he tweeted after leaving the golf course Friday afternoon. “It wasn’t their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!”

Trump’s attack on the bill has been seen, at least in part, as punishment for what he considers insufficient backing by congressional Republicans for his push to overturn the Nov. 3 election results with unfounded claims of fraud.

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

Read the full article at the link.

Of course it’s not about China; it’s about the worst President in history and his totally worthless party of sycophants, bigots, and anti-American “situational skinflints.” 

Plenty of public funding for tax breaks, unneeded walls, environmental destruction, and abusive “law enforcement.” Not so much for American workers, small businesses, essential workers, teachers, civil servants, and others struggling to survive during the crisis unnecessarily deepened by the “malicious incompetence” of the “Evil Clown Prez”🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ and his anti-democracy party.

BTW, is Lindsay “Scumbag” Graham 🤮going for the title of “third worst human on the public dole” — right behind the “ECP”🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ & the Grauleiter☠️? 

26 days and counting to the end of the kakistocracy🏴‍☠️!

PWS

12-26-20

🤮NO PEACE ON EARTH GOODWILL TOWARD MEN (WOMEN, OR ESPECIALLY CHILDREN) FROM REGIME OF “BAD SANTAS” 🦹🏿‍♂️🎅🏻— Illegally Separated Families Continue To Suffer Irreparable Trauma, 😰 Volunteer Groups 😇🗽⚖️ Left To Pick Up Pieces — A Reminder That Defeated Regime Has Mocked, Disparaged, & Trashed Christ’s Values & Assaulted Humanity Over Four Christmases!🏴‍☠️🤮☠️⚰️👎🏻

Jacob Soboroff
Jacob Soboroff
NBC Correspondent
Jacob Soboroff at the ABC News Democratic Debate
National Constitution Center. Philadelphia, PA.
Creative Commons License

Jacob Soboroff reports for NBC News:

Inside the effort to provide mental health care to migrant families

  • SHARE THIS –
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Seneca Family of Agencies provides mental health care to migrant families separated by the Trump administration. NBC News’ Jacob Soboroff reports on the obstacles faced by the nonprofit in locating families.

Dec. 22, 2020

Watch Jacob’s report here.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/inside-the-effort-to-provide-mental-health-care-to-migrant-families-98295877800

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

Jacob and his terrific NBC News colleague Julia Edwards Ainsley have been at the forefront of exposing the irreparable human carnage and lasting trauma caused by the regime’s unlawful, racist, White Nationalist immigration policies (some of which were unconscionably “greenlighted” by an immoral and irresponsible Supremes GOP majority that views themselves and their rotten to the core, inhumane, right-wing ideology as above the needless human suffering they further and encourage).

The “perps” like,”Gonzo” Sessions, Grauleiter Miller, Kirstjen Nielsen, “Big Mac With Lies” McAleenan, Noel Francisco, Rod Rosenstein, et al, walk free while the victims continue to suffer and others, like the Christ-like folks at Seneca Family of Agencies, are left to pick up the pieces! How is this “justice?”  

Our national policies  have truly abandoned Christ’s values of self-sacrifice, mercy, generosity in spirit and deed, courage in the face of oppression, human compassion, justice, and assistance  for the most vulnerable among us under the perverted and immoral “leadership” of a man and his party without humane values or respect for truth who stand for absolutely nothing that is decent in the world.

As Americans suffer and die from the pandemic he mocked, downplayed, and mishandled; unemployed Americans are dissed and shortchanged by his party of underachieving, out of touch fat cats, liars, cowards, and truth deniers; asylum seekers needlessly suffer in squalid camps in Mexico; refugees scorned, unlawfully and immorally abandoned and abused by the world’s richest country face persecution, torture, despair, and death; and non-criminals rot in DHS’s “New American Gulag,” the immoral Grifter-in-Chief lives it up at taxpayer expense for one last Christmas at his Florida resort; fumes about a fair and square election that he lost big time; savors a rash of holiday executions; delays bipartisan COVID relief; ferments treason against our republic; and pardons a wide range of scumbags, felons, war criminals, family members, cronies, fraudsters, and other totally undeserving characters. 

But, there is hope for our world at Christmas: 27 days and counting to the end of the kakistocracy, expulsion of the unqualified con-man and his motley crew of criminals and cronies, and the ascension of a real President and Vice President, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, to lead us, and perhaps our world, out of the current mess to a kinder, brighter future. That might be the best present of all this Christmas.

Due Process Forever!⚖️🗽👍🏼

PWS🎅🏻🎄😎

12-24-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮👎🏻IN NYT OP-ED, FORMER TRUMP DOJ ATTORNEY ERICA NEWLAND ADMITS COMPLICITY! — Having Undermined Democratic Institutions, Sold False Narratives To (Too Often Willing) Federal Judges, & Participated In Racist-Inspired “Dred Scottification” (“Dehumanization”) Of the Other Is Actually a BIG Deal! — So Is The Destruction Of Due Process & Fundamental Fairness In The Immigration Courts (Now, “Clown Courts”🤡, or “America’s Star Chambers”☠️) 

Erica Newland
Erica Newland
Former DOJ Attorney
Photo source: lawfareblog.com

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/opinion/trump-justice-department-lawyer.html?referringSource=articleShare

. . . .

Watching the Trump campaign’s attacks on the election results, I now see what might have happened if, rather than nip and tuck the Trump agenda, responsible Justice Department attorneys had collectively — ethically, lawfully — refused to participate in President Trump’s systematic attacks on our democracy from the beginning. The attacks would have failed.

. . . .

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

Read the full op-ed at the link. That’s right Erica. Lack of ethics, morality, and failing to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law have consequences. Helping to “custom design” obvious pretexts for racist and hate inspired policies, for consumption by right-wing judges who only seek “cover” for going along  to get along with fascism, is wrong. Duh!

It’s no surprise that the clearly unconstitutional and racially and religiously bigoted “Travel Ban,” willingly embraced by an intellectually dishonest and morally compromised Supremes majority, was first on the list in Erica’s “confession.” 

But, don’t expect any apologies from the vast majority of Trumpist lawyer/enablers who violated their oaths of office or from the big time law firms (one where I was formerly a partner) who have granted them undeserved refuge at fat salaries! Nor should we expect large-scale redemption from the legions of Government lawyers in DOJ, DHS, and elsewhere who will assert the “Nuremberg defense” of “just following orders.”  But, that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t demand some accountability for participation in  what are essentially “crimes against humanity.” 

Erica’s article largely echoes what my friend and colleague Judge Jeffrey Chase, many of our colleagues in the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, ⚔️🛡 and numerous members of the New Due Process Army (“NDPA”) have been saying throughout this Administration. Indeed, I frequently have noted that the once-respected Solicitor General’s Office and EOIR operated as basically “ethics free zones” under the disgraced “leadership” of Sessions, Whitaker, and Barr.

It’s also why the the Biden-Harris team that takes over at DOJ must: 

  1. immediately remove all the current “executives” (and I use that term lightly) at EOIR as well as all members of the BIA and transfer them to positions where they can do no further damage to asylum seekers, migrants, their (often pro bono or low bono) lawyers, or the rest of humanity; 
  2. replace them with qualified individuals from the NDPA; and 
  3. be circumspect in eventually making retention decisions for Immigration Judges, taking into account public input as to the the degree to which each such judge’s jurisprudence during the Trump kakistocracy continued to reflect adherence to constitutionally required due process and fundamental fairness to migrants, respect for migrants and their representatives, best practices, and interpretations that blunted wherever reasonably possible the impact of the kakistocracy’s xenophobic, racist, White Nationalist policies. 

American justice has been ill-served by the DOJ and the Immigration Courts over the past four years. That’s something that must not be swept under the carpet (as is the habit with most incoming Administrations). 

The career Civil Service overall, and particularly complicit and often ethics-free government lawyers,  failed to put up the necessary resistance to an overtly anti-American regime with an illegal and immoral agenda. Lives were lost or irreparably ruined as a result. That’s a big-time problem that if not addressed and resolved will likely make continuance of our national democratic republic impossible.

⚖️🗽🧑🏽‍⚖️👍🏼🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Complicity Never☠️🤮🏴‍☠️👎🏻!

PWS

12-21-20

EOIR Clown Show Must Go T-Shirt
“EOIR Clown Show Must Go” T-Shirt Custom Design Concept

   

START YOUR HOLIDAY 🎄 WEEK OFF RIGHT WITH THE “DUH” ARTICLE OF THE DAY: Bad Things Happen 🤮☠️⚰️ To Nations That Put Criminals, Incompetents, & Toadies (a/k/a “The Kakistocracy”) In Charge — “There is the dereliction of duty in the response to the pandemic, and then there is the original dereliction of duty in placing a dime-store gauleiter like Stephen Miller anywhere close to a center of power.”

Charles P. Pierce
Charles P. Pierce
American Writer & Journalist
Photo source: Charles pierce.net

https://apple.news/Au2L4FahYQKqPiFqdxmwdaA

Charles P. Pierce in Esquire:

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”

—A Christmas Carol, Stave III

The Ghost of Grifters Not Yet Past was everywhere over the weekend. In the New York Times, we read about how the Ghost had arranged for a meeting of the political Chronic Ward in the White House. In the Washington Post, we read about how the Ghost had visited his feral children, Ignorance and Want, upon the land by giving them national political leaders who couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel, and, worse, had no desire to learn how, even in the midst of the greatest public health crisis in a century. 

While the Times’ account of the Mad Hatter’s seditious tea party is the flashier story, it is the Post’s deep spelunking into the administration*’s brutal (and quite deliberate) mishandling of the pandemic that is more likely to resound in historical memory as the most criminal dereliction of duty in the history of the American presidency. By comparison, Herbert Hoover at the onset of the Great Depression and James Buchanan as the nation slid toward the Civil War were positive pikers in their disregard for the office they held and the country they were chosen to lead.

. . . .

And then there’s the Dauphin Prince, who apparently had some power and almost no respect, possibly because he was marginally less of a fck-up than everyone else was.
. . . .

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

Read Charlie’s complete article at the link.

The Moron-in-Chief, the Party of Putin, and their rabidly anti-American followers and fellow travelers must have exceeded Vladimir’s wildest expectations. 

And, at what a bargain price: no need for huge investments in the military, expensive weapons of mass destruction, complicated spy networks, or even major payment of bribes. Just find enough greedy, selfish, delusional, resentful, racist, dim-witted folks willing to betray our nation. Then, invest modest amounts in misinformation, flattery, fanning White Supremacy, and cyber espionage, and “puff” you’re inside the U.S. security, intelligence, and essential infrastructure system with your traitors and dupes installed throughout government and society. Heck, you own a major political party and didn’t even have to contribute billions to do it!

30 days and counting till the end of the kakistocracy and the return of hope, sanity, and competence to our national government. Let’s just hope that it’s not too late for those of us who still believe in America and for our world that is hurting for rational, far-sighted, values-based leadership!

PWS

12-21-20

🎶MUSIC FOR THE TRUMP 🏴‍☠️ ERA: Nancy Sanchez & Demi Lovato Bring Regime’s Unrestrained Cruelty, Corruption, Immorality, Racism, Hate, & Stupidity To Life In Song On You-Tube!

AMERICA ON RED ALERT🆘🏴‍☠️🤮☠️: Theocrat, Autocrat, Liar, Race Baiter, Anti-Democracy Activist Billy The Bigot Barr Conspires With “His Don” To Annihilate Our Constitutional Republic, Says Former GOP Deputy AG Don Ayer  — Trump and Barr: “Really an unholy alliance working for the two of them and against the country,” Ayer Tells Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick on Amicus Podcast!

Don Ayer
Don Ayer
American Lawyer
Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General — Photo www.ali.org
Dahlia Lithwick
Dahlia Lithwick
Supreme Court Reporter
Slate
Wikimedia Commons — Public Domain

Has Bill Barr Broken the Department of Justice Forever?

Bill Barr is not simply doing the president’s bidding, he is following his long-held beliefs about America.

Read in Slate: https://apple.news/Aj7921kJPQbWnLPJtiLhThA

Shared from Apple News

Bill Barr’s American Carnage

The attorney general is not just a Trump enabler, he has his own agenda.

SEPTEMBER 12 2020 10:00 AM

Listen to the episode here.

What is Bill Barr doing, and why is he doing it? Donald Ayer, former U.S. attorney and principal deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, on the attorney general’s ideology, how it predates Trumpism, and why it’s so dangerous.

In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern breaks down the latest voting breakdown in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, the latest Census case dead end, and the stupidity of Trump’s latest SCOTUS list.

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

How timely! Just yesterday on Courtside, I gave Billy the Bigot the nod over Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions and “John the Con” Mitchell in the hotly contested race for “The Worst AG in Modern American History.” 

I still think that Gonzo could have pulled it out if he had only been given some more time! His overt racism, misogyny, intellectual dishonesty, fraud, stupidity, bias, and “crimes against humanity” set a standard for morally corrupt officials that seemed unassailable until Billy the Bigot went into “full destructo mode.”  

As someone who started working at the DOJ in 1973, I witnessed (if only from the crowd standing outside the Great Hall) the “voluntary departure” of Elliot Richardson following the “Saturday Night Massacre,” where he resigned rather than carry out President T. Dick Nixon’s inappropriate demand that he fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor. Could you imagine Billy the Bigot refusing any demand from “His Don,” no matter how illegal, unethical, and/or outrageous? When it comes to the history of Government corruption and the DOJ, I know what I’m talking about. 

Heck, I even survived long enough to get “purged” myself by Ashcroft in 2003, during my “DOJ reincarnation.” So, I’m no stranger to the imperfections and shortcomings in the supposed “independence” of the DOJ. 

Nevertheless, I heartily agree with Don Ayer that the dishonesty, deceit, bias, bigotry, racism, and scofflaw attitudes installed into DOJ operations by Gonzo and Billy are light years beyond prior abuses I have witnessed during my nearly five decades in the law.

Don Ayer, my former DOJ colleague and partner at Jones Day DC, confirms what I have been saying for a long time on Courtside about Billy the Bigot’s unconstitutional and unethical control of the Immigration Courts.

Listen to this podcast and ask yourself: “How could any foreign national, particularly an asylum seeker, non-Christian, or person of color get a fundamentally fair and impartial hearing before ‘judges’ selected, directed, evaluated, and governed by Billy?” If that’s not enough, if the foreign national does happen to win, Billy just unilaterally intervenes and changes the results, even in cases completed back in the Bush II Administration!

Obviously, this isn’t justice; to use Don Ayer’s term, this is “Banana Republic” authoritarian injustice.

So, how have Congress and the Roberts-led Supremes let Billy get away with this disgraceful unconstitutional mockery of everything our nation stands for?  Good question with no happy answer.

During Watergate, it took a concerted effort by a bipartisan Congress, the Federal Courts including the Supremes, and independent lawyers and investigators working for the Watergate Special Prosecutor within the DOJ to bring about Nixon’s forced resignation in the face of inevitable impeachment and conviction.

By contrast, today’s GOP Senate and the GOP-appointed “JR Five” on the Supremes have shown themselves to be shameless toadies, sycophants, and enablers in the face of clearly abusive Executive overreach and tyranny. The post-Watergate ethical reforms, checks, and balances put in place by former GOP-appointed AG Ed Levi, cited by Don, have been completely dismantled in broad daylight by the Trump regime with no pushback from Congress or the Supremes. This serious, entirely preventable, deterioration and abandonment of the rule of law and ethical norms cuts across all three Branches of Government and threatens the very foundations of our democracy.

Assuming (by no means a certainty) that our nation puts it together this Fall to remove the Trump kakistocracy, we need a careful and thoughtful re-examination of the types of individuals we are rewarding with life-tenured judicial appointments and why those now on the bench, as a group, failed so miserably to uphold the Constitution, protect human dignity and decency, and thwart the outrageous scofflaw agenda of Trump and his cronies like Billy the Bigot and neo-Nazi Stephen Miller.

Don Ayer specifically mentions the outrageous “Wall Charade” where Trump illegally and unethically steamrolled legislation, the Constitution, the public purse, and common sense to divert money to his “Political Wall” using a patently bogus and fabricated “national security” pretext.

But, here’s the rest of the story: When Trump-owned Solicitor General Noel Francisco presented this  “false claim” to the Supremes, disingenuously asserting a clearly fabricated “emergency” he got the JR Five to roll over! Instead of upholding the lower court’s correct injunction and referring Francisco to bar authorities for unethical conduct, they actually approved this farce, by a 5-4 “party line vote.” Of course, that spineless performance has greenlighted other racist-driven White Nationalist policies and an aura of impunity among the Trump regime kakistocracy.

Gee wiz, a Federal Court actually determined some time ago that DHS honchos Chad “Wolfman” Wolf and Ken “Cooch Cooch” Cuccinelli are both illegally serving in their current positions. But, in the “no consequences no accountability” atmosphere established by the Roberts Court, Cooch and Wolfie continue to abuse migrants with arrogant impunity. They obviously have no fear of accountability. Even if  they got in trouble, Trump would simply run over the Constitution to pardon them.

As I constantly say, “it’s not rocket science.” There are scores of talented courageous lawyers out there in the private, NGO, and academic sectors who could have out-performed the “JR Five” in protecting our republic. Why are they stuck in the trenches rather than sitting on the Federal Benches?

When Congress and the Executive fail, the nation turns to the supposedly independent Article III Courts as democracy’s last defender. But, Roberts & Co. have been more than “MIA” — they have actively contributed to the downfall with outrageous derelictions of duty on voting rights, civil rights, and grotesque, unconstitutional “Dred Scottifiction” of migrants of color that actually harms, maims, and kills innocent humans almost every day.

Think that “Dred Scottification” couldn’t happen to you? Guess again! Don Ayer says all of our freedoms and democratic norms will be on the line if Billy and “His Don” get another four years to complete their destruction. Believe him!

This Fall, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!

PWS

9-13-20

🏴‍☠️🤮👎🏻BILLY THE BIGOT GOES “FULL MAFIA” ON YOUR NICKEL!   — “Don The Con’s” Idea Of Pro Bono Legal Services — YOU Pay For His Crimes! — By Pat Bagley @ Salt Lake Tribune

Bill Barr Consigliere Artist: Par Begley Salt Lake Tribune Reproduced under license, Large
Bill Barr Consigliere
Artist: Pat Bagley
Salt Lake Tribune
Reproduced under license

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

Says it all about Billy the Bigot. His “downward sprint to the finish” has rocketed him past “John the Con” Mitchell and Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions as the most corrupt AG in modern American history. 

That’s, of course, not to minimize or trivialize the crimes committed by either of the other contenders. I suspect we’ll still be unpacking the full extent of Gonzo’s “crimes against humanity” decades from now, as the uglier and uglier truth about this “21st Century Jim Crow” dribbles out a bit at a time

Gee, even the “Afternoon Neighborhood Dog Walking Club” — comprised of neither lawyers nor hard core liberals, can’t understand why Barr, this walking, talking ethics cesspool is 1) still in office; 2) not in jail; and 3) still licensed to practice the law. Here’s hoping that all three of these unfathomable mysteries are resolved favorably to the public interest in the near future! In the meantime, Billy serves as a stark reminder of what’s wrong with legal ethics and our justice system at present.

With all the hard-working, talented, pro bono lawyers out there working overtime to save lives and our democracy, it’s simply a national disgrace and a travesty that unqualified, corrupt, unethical creeps like Billy and Gonzo have been “rewarded” with the an office that is supposed to function as “The People’s Lawyer.”

The Don’s felons and fellow conspirators against America get free passes; meanwhile, Americans of color can’t catch a break from a system loaded against them. Go figure!

Due Process Forever! Billy the Bigot, Never!

PWS

09-12-20

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️👎🏻CRIME & (NO) PUNISHMENT: Not An Administration, An Ongoing Criminal Conspiracy, Says Max Boot!

Max Boot
Max Boot
Columnist
Washington Post
Trump Regime Emoji
Trump Regime

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/31/this-isnt-an-administration-its-an-ongoing-criminal-conspiracy/

Max Boot in WashPost:

It is entirely fitting that Donald Trump — the least law-abiding president in our history — was renominated at a convention that was itself a seeming cavalcade of crime. Every night featured apparent violations of the 1939 Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities “in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an individual employed or holding office in the Government of the United States.”

The White House certainly qualifies as such a facility. Yet Trump used it as a convention prop, even going so far as to televise a naturalization ceremony for immigrants — some of whom did not realize they would be shown at the Republican convention — as part of the nightly show. Trump not only flouted the law but also reveled in doing so. During his acceptance speech, he boasted, “We’re here — they’re not,” and the New York Times reported that Trump “relished the fact that no one could do anything to stop him.”

While the president is exempt from the civil provisions of the Hatch Act, he could be subject, once he leaves office, to criminal penalties if he should “intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce … any employee of the Federal Government … to engage in … any political activity.” That is a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.

This is, of course, barely scratching the surface of an administration that should more accurately be described as an ongoing criminal conspiracy. While many of Trump’s awful acts — e.g., confining children in cages or unleashing riot police on peaceful protesters — are merely violations of democratic norms, there is also plentiful evidence of lawbreaking on his part.

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has identified Trump as “Individual-1” in a conspiracy with his attorney Michael Cohen to violate campaign finance laws by secretly paying off two women with whom Trump allegedly had affairs. Cohen went to prison; Trump, who as president claims immunity from prosecution, wasn’t indicted.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III uncovered a great deal more potential illegality. He found 10 instances when Trump might have obstructed justice, and in at least four of those cases he found evidence that Trump’s conduct met all three elements of the obstruction-of-justice statute. Each violation carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The recent report from the Senate Intelligence Committee suggests that Trump also lied to Mueller when, in written testimony, he claimed not to remember speaking to Roger Stone about WikiLeaks. If he committed perjury, that would subject him to up to five years’ imprisonment.

. . . .

Trump could try to short-circuit justice by seeking to pardon himself before he leaves office — or even by resigning a few hours early and having Vice President Pence sworn in to issue a pardon (as President Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon). In that case, the special counsel would be limited to investigating Trump’s accomplices (unless they are also pardoned) and helping state prosecutors. But the special counsel should still issue a comprehensive report on Trump’s lawbreaking. We must expose and root out this ethical rot before it eats away at the foundations of our democracy.

**********

Read the rest of Boot’s article at the link. Actually, Max understates the case. Trump long ago ate the ethical underpinnings of American democracy for lunch, with the “JR Five” providing “table service.”

Under “normal” circumstances, the scenario outlined by Boot in his final paragraph would be beyond preposterous! But, in the failed state of American democracy under Trump, it’s perfectly plausible. Whose going to stop him from the “final abuse and mockery of our republic?” Feckless Congress? The Supremely and Serenely Complicit ones? No way. Trump will exploit the moral cowardice and spinelessness of the other failed two branches of Government until the end!

It started about the time that Roberts and his colleagues threw Muslims, refugees, and migrants under the bus in their ridiculously wrong and intellectually dishonest “Travel Ban Fiasco.” The “Dred Scottification” of migrants and people of color and open corruption, aided and abetted by Roberts and his gang, have continued largely unabated since then. 

Max’s use of the term “rot” brings to mind the refugees from many nations, most people of color, rotting in Mexico, futilely waiting for “asylum hearings” that might never come and where denial without due process has been predetermined. This is what “American Justice” has become under Trump, Billy the Bigot, Wolfman the Illegal, and Roberts the Complicit!

Actually, separating families, misrepresenting the policy to Federal Courts, and long-term “civil” detention of families in life-threatening conditions as a “deterrent” to exercising important, fundamental legal and human rights might well be criminal violations in a functioning justice system. Sadly, America basically lacks the latter these days because of the Supremes’ coddling of the “crimes against humanity” committed by Trump, Miller, Barr, Wolf, Cooch, and their co-conspirators.

As those of us with experience adjudicating asylum cases know, lack of accountability before the courts and failure of the judiciary to exercise independent judgment to control a corrupt and tyrannical executive are hallmarks of failed states and banana republics. 

Let’s see! America’s founders created an independent judiciary to insure the right of the “King” to use the Government as his personal servants to violate the Bill of Rights, exploit the nation for his own gain, and create “alternate Kings’ Courts” where the “judges” are his employees, he makes the rules, the results are largely preordained by the King’s personal biases and the interests of his royal cronies, and the penalty can be “death without due process.” Not likely! 

But, that’s what happens when judges’ fealty to ideology, party, or personality often exceeds their loyalty to the Constitution and to the human rights and human dignity of their fellow men, women, and children. It happens when we create an elitist, right-leaning judiciary, out of step with and non-representative of the majority of Americans, where actual knowledge and experience defending the human rights of individuals against Government overreach, courage to speak truth to power, and demonstrated unswerving commitment to equal justice under law is far, far undervalued, even intentionally ignored. Where practical problem-solving skills and human empathy, perhaps the two most important qualities for fair and honest judging, are all too often disrespected and even demeaned.

Better Federal Judges for a better, fairer, functional America! One where the humanity of all persons is honored and respected, rather than being mocked by those in positions of power and privilege. One where the highest Court finally stands up for and enforces the hard-fought Constitutional right to vote, regardless of skin color or ethnicity, rather than aiding and abetting the blatant schemes of the GOP to suppress voting and deny deserved political power to Americans of color. One where an honest Court enforces to the maximum degree the Voting Rights Act rather than intentionally and disingenuously gutting it at the demand of some in the White power structure. 

These travesties have unfolded right in front of us. Yet, even so called “liberal-progressive” commentators largely shrug them off as somehow “normal” or “just the way the system functions.” That’s BS! It’s “judicial malpractice.” It’s a major reason why two centuries after our founding we have not yet achieved racial justice and why our nation is coming apart at the seams under grotesque misgovernance and judicial complicity.

The current Federal Judiciary has facilitated the takeover of our Government by an ongoing criminal conspiracy, as described by Boot. We need change! Sooner rather than later! And, it can’t and won’t happen with the current cast of characters in the Executive, the Senate majority, and the Article III Judiciary.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-04-20

🤯🤯🤯👽💩🤖👾THE TWILIGHT ZONE “PRESIDENCY” — “There are times I get online, see the latest news, and wonder how we are living in a world where Kafka writes for the Twilight Zone starring the Marx Brothers!” — Dan Rather

Click here for the “Trump Regime/GOP Theme Song:”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b5aW08ivHU

Amen!

This is what American “Government” is these days. An absurdist parody where the architect of death, disorder, hate, inequality, international ridicule, unemployment, and White Supremacist violence blames a former Vice President for the absolute mess the incumbent has made of our nation! And, guess what — a crowd of sycophants actually has the audacity to cheer and (apparently) believe this evil, absurdist fantasy and to claim that their selfish, tone-deaf, dishonest minority views represent the “real America!”

In other words, Trump is essentially “running against his own record” while taking no responsibility for the mess he has made. In a pure Kafka/Twilight Zone moment, his GOP toadies let him get away with it. Worse yet, they contemptuously and arrogantly think the rest of us are stupid or clueless enough to believe this fantastic nonsense!

But, maybe there is some historical reason for this contempt. Trump’s mess is also to some extent the fault of the majority of us who “failed to make the sale” and get out the vote in 2016. We won a clear majority of the votes, but were’t smart, motivated, or diligent enough to turn our majority into political power. Some would call that the height of ineptitude and failure of resolve! That, in turn, has unleashed great, unnecessary, pain, suffering, death, and despair on America and the world.

Even allowing for the unreliability of polls, Trump apparently has never had the support of the majority of Americans, let alone voters. Yet, he “governs” as if the minority he represents are the only Americans! And, the rest of us have let him get away with it!

Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that ended “The American Experiment” and replaced it with “The American Kakistocracy?” We have a chance this Fall to get it right and to put America back on track to fairness, decency, humanity, equality, and a better life for all Americans — to take America to another level and to resume a positive position of world leadership. To address racial and economic inequality and to improve and value the lives of all Americans (including, of course, Trump supporters). The chance might not come again. 

So, don’t blow it! Put Joe Biden in office, a decent, experienced, highly competent, thoughtful, caring, forward looking human being with a positive vision for all Americans and a commitment to a better world. Give Joe and his able and inspirational partner Kamala Harris a Democratic-led Senate that will help them govern for the common welfare, rather than for the benefit of one family and a few of their cronies at their top!

This November, vote like your life and the world’s future depend on it! Because they do!

Due Process Forever! Kafka, The Twilight Zone, and the Marx Brothers, Never!

PWS

08-28-20

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮👎🏻THE GOP HAS A PLAN FOR YOU: “plunder, theft and extraction!”

Jamelle Bouie
Jamelle Bouie
Columnist
NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/opinion/trump-convention-platform.html

Jamelle Bouie in The NY Times:

. . . .

It is not news that the Republican Party has a stagnant governing agenda cobbled together from the long-discredited dogmas and shibboleths of the conservative movement. “The current iteration of the G.O.P. is indifferent to the substance of government,” Steve Benen, a political writer and producer for The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, writes in “The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics”:

It is disdainful of expertise and analysis. It is hostile toward evidence and arithmetic. It is tethered to few, if any, meaningful policy preferences. It does not know, and does not care, about how competing proposals should be crafted, scrutinized or implemented.

What is news is the extent to which the Republican Party has embraced the trappings of its leader, which is to say, the trappings of a right-wing cable news network: a nonstop parade of conspiracy, demagogy and grievance, in service to a cult of personality, all for the sake of a politics of plunder, theft and extraction.

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

Read the rest of Jamelle’s op-ed at the link.

Pretty good explanation of The Party of Trump (formerly known as “The Party of Lincoln”). 

My question is why the so-called “mainstream media” (excluding Jamelle and a few others) handles with “kid gloves” folks like Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Melania, who go on national TV and present knowingly bogus, totally disingenuous, fabricated portraits of Trump as a benign presence in U.S. politics. In a vain, continuing search for “normalization” of overt 21st century Jim Crow nationalist fascism, the “mainstreams” appear ready to credit speaking in complete, largely grammatical, sentences in the English language and not screaming racist tropes or absurdist internet conspiracy theories as all that is necessary to be considered “credible” and a “moderating force” in today’s “Trumpized” GOP!

The disingenuous treatment by the “mainstreams” of dishonest attempts to “soften” Trump’s true “Mini-Mussolini” persona as election-season gimmick is a gross dis-service to the public welfare and the abdication of the duty of courageous independent journalism to provide critical coverage — not just regurgitate RNC propaganda!

Why are “the mainstreams” rolling over for the RNC?

This November, vote like your life and the future of the world depend on it! Because they do!

PWS

08-26-20

🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎KAKISTOCRACY KORNER: SPOTLIGHT ON AMERICA’S MOST DANGEROUS HATE GROUP: THE RNC!

 

Paul,

This past weekend, the Republican National Committee caved to white supremacist and other hate groups by adopting a resolution titled Refuting the Legitimacy of the Southern Poverty Law Center to Identify Hate Groups.

The focus of the resolution is that “the SPLC is a radical organization” that harms conservative organizations and voices through our hate group designations.

This attack on our work is an attempt to excuse the Trump administration’s pattern and practice of working with individuals and organizations that malign entire groups of people — immigrants, Muslims and the LGBTQ community — while promoting policies that undermine their very existence. It comes from the same vein as Trump’s claim that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Simply put, it’s an audacious attempt by Trump and the GOP to paper over the bigotry and racism that has been allowed to infect their policies.

This resolution comes at a moment when Trump will argue at the Republican National Convention that he will combat hate and bigotry, despite welcoming the support of QAnon. It also comes days after the indictment of Stephen Bannon, reminding us that Bannon was once the White House chief strategist and senior counselor and CEO of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. And it comes just after our special investigation shined a light on One America News Network’s Jack Posobiec, a reporter at Trump’s favorite network who is aligned with white supremacy and has used his platform to further hate speech and propaganda.

Trump should sever these ties to hate groups and extremists instead of doubling down through this RNC resolution.

The Trump administration has filled its ranks and consulted with alumni and allies from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigrant hate group that has ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists. They include Julie KirchnerKris KobachJeff Sessions and, most notably, Stephen Miller.

The Trump administration has worked with hate groups like the Family Research Council (FRC) to roll back LGBTQ rights. FRC was designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group for decades of demonizing LGBTQ people and spreading harmful pseudoscience about them. Over the years, the organization has published books, reports and brochures that have linked being LGBTQ to pedophilia, claimed that LGBTQ people are dangerous to children and claimed that LGBTQ people are promiscuous and violent.

Anti-Muslim groups have also been welcomed into the administration, including the Center for Security Policy (CSP)Fred Fleitz, a longtime staffer, was appointed the executive secretary and chief of staff of the National Security Council. For decades, CSP has peddled absurd accusations that shadowy Muslim Brotherhood operatives have infiltrated all levels of government.

These extremists are seeking a license to continue spreading their bigotry and will do anything to undermine those — like the SPLC, which tracks and monitors hate groups — who expose their extremist views and oppose their attacks on communities. With this resolution, Trump and members of the GOP have shown the extent to which they will carry their water.

This past weekend, the RNC also released a resolution titled Resolution to Conserve History and Combat Prejudice – Christopher Columbus. It’s a remarkably transparent statement that hate and bigotry stem from Black Lives Matter protesters. The RNC and Trump did not denounce organizations that promote antisemitism, Islamophobia, neo-Nazis, anti-LGBTQ sentiment or racism. It only criticized the SPLC for challenging those groups.

Outraged? Here are two ways to take action today:

1.     Sign up for our next Power Hour Virtual Phone Bank on August 27. We’ll be calling likely unregistered voters of color in Georgia to share information on how they can register to vote.

2.    Listen and subscribe to our new podcast, Sounds Like Hate. Episode 2 is about the connections between extremists and the Trump administration.

Onward,

Margaret Huang
SPLC President & CEO

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Copyright 2020

 

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

Pretty much says it all about today’s GOP and the Trump Administration.

·      No platform

·      No values

·      No truth

·      No humanity

·      No decency

·      No America

·      No inclusion

·      The party of “Dred Scottification,” Jim Crow, and White Supremacy

Sure “Sounds Like Hate” to me!

This November, vote like your life and the future of our world depend on it! Because they do!

PWS

08-25-20