#prosecute stephen miller

[yesornopolls]

Let states monitor pregnancies and prosecute women who get abortions Give the president unchecked power over federal agencies Restore the president’s authority to bypass Congress Appoint a special prosecutor to ‘go after’ Biden Use the Justice Department to get revenge on all of his enemies Expand presidential immunity Purge the civil service Install thousands of loyalists throughout the federal government Fill his Cabinet with people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon Round up, detain, and deport millions of undocumented immigrants Deploy U.S troops for ‘war’ on southern border End birthright citizenship Reinterpret anti-racism protections to benefit white people Construct ‘Freedom Cities’ Put flying cars in Americans’ driveways

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Taft at The Guardian:

Republicans responded to Hunter Biden’s conviction on Tuesday of lying about his drug use to buy a gun by doubling down on conspiracy theories that many senior party figures have been using to try and damage his president father. Despite the fact that Joe Biden’s son could now face a hefty jail sentence, Donald Trump’s election campaign and its surrogates repeated unfounded attack lines that the conviction was part of a conspiracy to deflect attention from more serious crimes and represented the use of the Department of Justice (DoJ) as a political weapon.

Republicans have long sought to use Hunter Biden’s woes and business dealings as a political weapon against Biden, ignoring the fact that Trump himself is also now a convicted felon whose own business empire has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for fraudulent practises.

That tactic continued in the wake of Hunter’s guilty verdict. “This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. Matt Gaetz, the far-right congressman from Florida, was distinctly dismissive, posting on X: “The Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb tbh.” That was echoed by Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, who derided the conviction as a distraction from worse crimes he claimed have been committed by the president’s family. “Hunter Biden guilty. Yawn,” Kirk wrote. “The true crimes of the Biden Crime Family remain untouched. This is a fake trial trying to make the Justice system appear ‘balanced.’ Don’t fall for it.” Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman for South Carolina, implied that the verdict was a sham. “Timing is everything. The veil of fairness in the justice system under Potus,” she wrote.

Stephen Miller, one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers during his first presidency, went further still, posting: “[The] DoJ is running election interference for Joe Biden – that’s why DOJ did NOT charge Hunter with being an unregistered foreign agent (FARA) or any crime connected with foreign corruption. Why? Because all the evidence would lead back to JOE.” The negative drumbeat underscored how the prosecution – and now conviction – of Hunter Biden has undermined a Republican narrative that the justice department has been “weaponised” by Biden’s administration to pursue a vendetta against Trump, who was last month convicted of 34 counts of document falsification to conceal hush-money payments to an adult actor. Trump’s case was led by a New York state prosecutor, who does not work under the department’s jurisdiction, while Hunter Biden was prosecuted by the DoJ, which is part of his father’s administration.

Wah wah wah!!! Republicans whine about the 3 Hunter Biden guilty convictions (even after hoping and praying for him to be guilty) and play poutrage games in order to hurt his father Joe’s election chances.

See Also:

HuffPost: Republicans Complain About Hunter Biden Guilty Verdict

Daily Kos: Hunter Biden is convicted, but the GOP is still big mad

Public Notice: Hunter Biden's conviction destroys key MAGA conspiracy theory

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson Editorial Cartoons Page

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 31, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 01, 2024

Today felt as if there was a collective inward breath as people tried to figure out what yesterday’s jury verdict means for the upcoming 2024 election. The jury decided that former president Trump created fraudulent business records in order to illegally influence the 2016 election. As of yesterday, the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States of America is a convicted felon. 

Since the verdict, Trump and his supporters have worked very hard to spin the conviction as a good thing for his campaign, but those arguments sound like a desperate attempt to shape a narrative that is spinning out of their control. Newspapers all over the country bore the word “GUILTY” in their headlines today.

At stake for Trump is the Republican presidential nomination. Getting it would pave his way to the presidency, which offers him financial gain and the ability to short-circuit the federal prosecutions that observers say are even tighter cases than the state case in which a jury quickly and unanimously found him guilty yesterday. Not getting it leaves Trump and the MAGA supporters who helped him try to steal the 2020 presidential election at the mercy of the American justice system.  

After last night’s verdict, Trump went to the cameras and tried to establish that the nomination remains his, asserting that voters would vindicate him on November 5. But this morning, as he followed up last night’s comments, he did himself no favors. He billed the event as a “press conference,” but delivered what Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times described as “a rambling and misleading speech,” so full of grievance and unhinged that the networks except the Fox News Channel cut away from it as he attacked trial witnesses, called Judge Merchan “the devil,” and falsely accused President Joe Biden of pushing his prosecution. He took no questions from the press.

Today the Trump campaign told reporters it raised $34.8 million from small-dollar donors in the hours after the guilty verdict, but observers pointed out there was no reason to believe those numbers based on statements from Trump’s campaign. Meanwhile, Trump advisor Stephen Miller shouted on the Fox News Channel that every Republican secretary of state, state attorney general, donor, member of Congress must use their power “RIGHT NOW” to “beat these Communists!” 

The attempt of MAGA lawmakers to shape events in their favor seemed just as panicked. Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) posted on social media that “New York is a liberal sh*t hole,” and Jim Jordan (R-OH) today asked Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case against Trump, to testify before the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about “politically motivated prosecutions of…President Donald Trump.” Representative Dan Goldman (D-NY) noted that Trump is a private citizen and Congress has no jurisdiction over the case, but that Jordan is using his congressional authority illegally to defend Trump. 

MAGA senators were even more strident. Republican senator Mike Lee of Utah melted down on X last night over the verdict, and today he led nine other Republican senators in a revolt against the federal government. Lee, J. D. Vance of Ohio, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rick Scott of Florida, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin issued a public letter saying they would no longer pass legislation, fund the government, or vote to confirm the administration’s appointees because, they said, “[t]he White House has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways. As a Senate Republican conference,” they said, although there were only 10 of them, “we are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart.” 

It was an odd statement seemingly designed to use disinformation to convince voters to stick with them. Ten senators said they would not do the federal jobs they were elected to do because private citizen Trump was convicted in a state court by a jury of 12 people in New York, a jury that Trump’s lawyers had agreed to. The senators attacked the rule of law and the operation of the federal government in a demonstration of support for Trump. A number of the senators involved were key players in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

Awkwardly, considering the day’s news, a video from 2016 circulated today in which Trump insisted that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who he falsely insisted had committed crimes even as he was the one actually committing them, “shouldn’t be allowed to run.” If she were to win, Trump then said, “it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.” 

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo put it correctly: this is not an “outpouring of rage and anger,” so much as “an overwhelming effort to match and muffle the earthquake of what happened yesterday afternoon with enough noise and choreography to keep everyone in Trump’s campaign and on the margins of it in line and on side.”

Still, there is more behind the MAGA support for Trump than fearful political messaging. Trump has been hailed as a savior by his supporters because he promises to smash through the laws and norms of American democracy to put them into power. There, they can assert their will over the rest of us, achieving the social and religious control they cannot achieve through democratic means because they cannot win the popular vote in a free and fair election. With Trump’s conviction within the legal system, his supporters are more determined than ever to destroy the rules that block them from imposing their will on the rest of us. 

Today the Federalist Society, which is now aligned with Victor Orbán’s Hungary, flew an upside-down U.S. flag as a signal of national distress. Their actions were in keeping with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s statement that Trump is being persecuted “for political reasons” and that the cases show “the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.”

Ryan J. Reilly of NBC News reported today on a spike in violent rhetoric on social media targeting New York judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s Manhattan election interference trial, and District Attorney Bragg. Users of a fringe internet message board also shared what they claimed were the addresses of jurors. “Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote. Another wrote, “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to [W]ashington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution.”

This attack on our democracy was the central message of a crucially important story from yesterday that got buried under the news of Trump’s conviction. In The New Republic, Ken Silverstein reported on a private WhatsApp group started last December by military contractor Erik Prince—founder of Blackwater and brother of Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos—and including about 650 wealthy and well-connected “right-wing government officials, intelligence operatives, arms traffickers, and journalists,” including Representative Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who served as Trump’s secretary of the interior. 

Called “Off Leash,” the group discussed, as Silverstein wrote, “the shortcomings of democracy that invariably resulted from extending the franchise to ordinary citizens, who are easily manipulated by Marxists and populists,” collapsing Gaza into a “fiery hell pit,” wiping out Iran, how Africa was a “sh*thole of a continent,” and ways to dominate the globe. Mostly, though, they discussed the danger of letting everyone vote. “There is only one path forward,” Zinke wrote. “Elect Trump.” Another member answered, “It’s Trump or Revolution” “You mean Trump AND Revolution,” wrote another. 

And yet the frantic MAGA spin on the verdict reveals that there is another way to interpret it. Americans who had lost faith that the justice system could ever hold a powerful man accountable as Trump’s lawyers managed to put off his many indictments see the verdict as a welcome sign that the system still works. 

“The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” Biden said today. “Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case. And it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you. Like millions of Americans who served on juries, this jury is chosen the same way every jury in America is chosen. It was a process that Donald Trump's attorney was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence…. After careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts. Now he’ll be given the opportunity as he should to appeal that decision just like everyone else has that opportunity. That's how the American system of justice works. And it's reckless, it's dangerous, and it's irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don't like the verdict. Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years and it literally is the cornerstone of America…. The justice system should be respected, and we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s as simple as that. That's America. That's who we are. And that's who we will always be, God willing.”

Today the publisher of Dinesh D’Souza’s book and film 2000 Mules, which alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election, said it was pulling both the book and film from distribution and issued an apology to a Georgia man who sued for defamation after 2000 Mules accused him of voting illegally.  

MAGA Republicans confidently predicted yesterday that the stock market would crash if the jury found Trump guilty. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained almost 600 points.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[meret118]

However, he nonetheless makes the case at The Dispatch that former President Donald Trump's "utter moral corruption" is such a threat to the American republic that he must reluctantly hold his nose and back Biden.

The logic, he says, is that while he intensely dislikes many of Biden's policies, he believes that Biden will willingly leave office in 2028 -- and that he does not have the same confidence in Trump.

"The question isn’t 'Biden or Trump?' so much as it’s 'Should we continue with the constitutional order as we’ve known it or try something radically different?'" he contends. "I’ll guarantee here and now that if Trump becomes president again and remains in good health he’ll try to extend his term in office past 2029. I won’t guarantee that he’ll succeed, but the attempt will be made as surely as you’re reading this."

Whatever his misgivings with Biden, Catoggio argues that he will not deploy the military against his fellow Americans who protest against him and he won't stock the Department of Justice with fanatics who are hellbent on prosecuting as many members of the opposing party as they can."All of that is on the table if Trump is reelected, along with even darker insanity that you and I can’t imagine but Stephen Miller assuredly can," he writes.

. . .

"No one is 'investing' in Joe Biden by supporting him," he writes. "They’re investing in keeping a fascist out of power."

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Newly-appointed special counsel Jack Smith is moving fast on a pair of criminal probes around Donald Trump that in recent months have focused on the former president's state of mind after the 2020 election, including what he knew about plans to impede the transfer of power, people familiar with the matter tell CNN.

Though he remains in Europe recovering from a biking accident, Smith has made a series of high-profile moves since he was put in charge last month, including asking a federal judge to hold Trump in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena ordering him to turn over records marked classified.

Since Thanksgiving, Smith has brought a number of close Trump associates before a grand jury in Washington, including two former White House lawyers, three of Trump's closest aides, and his former speechwriter Stephen Miller. He has also issued a flurry of subpoenas, including to election officials in battleground states where Trump tried to overturn his loss in 2020.

Smith takes over a staff that's already nearly twice the size of Robert Mueller's team of lawyers who worked on the Russia probe.  A team of 20 prosecutors investigating January 6 and the effort to overturn the 2020 election are in the process of moving to work under Smith, according to multiple people familiar with the team.

Smith will also take on national security investigators already working the probe into the potential mishandling of federal records taken to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.

Together, the twin investigations have already established more evidence than what Mueller started with, including from a year-long financial probe that's largely flown under the radar.

"Mueller was starting virtually from scratch, whereas Jack Smith is seemingly integrating on the fly into an active, fast-moving investigation," said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor and senior CNN legal analyst.

Smith also won't be constrained in the same way as Mueller, who deferred decisions on whether to charge Trump because he was a sitting president.

VIEW INSIDE TRUMPWORLD

While Trump lambasted Smith's appointment on social media, some of the former president's attorneys think it could've been worse, according to people familiar with the matter. Those lawyers maintain the former president is unlikely to be indicted, according to two sources familiar. They also believe Smith's appointment is a good thing because he is "not emotionally attached" to the original case and can look at it "dispassionately and factually," one of the sources said.    

"The fact that they found a guy who has been Europe for the past several years, without his brain marinating in the soup of January 6th coverage, that's a good thing," the source said.   

But others on Trump's team are concerned that Smith's appointment signals a more aggressive stance from Attorney General Merrick Garland, characterizing him as a "hit man" who is likely to bring a prosecution, people familiar with their thinking said.

On Friday, the Justice Department's approach in the Mar-a-Lago case hit a small bump, with a federal judge declining to hold Trump in contempt of court and urging DOJ and Trump's team to work out a resolution as investigators attempt to make sure all national security records are back in the possession of the federal government.

Behind the scenes, in separate sealed proceedings related to January 6, Smith has already told the federal court he is in charge of the investigation, according to some of the sources. And while Trump lawyers on the January 6 probe have not been in touch directly with Smith at this point, according to some of the sources, they anticipate they will eventually speak with him once he returns to the US.

It's unclear how long Smith may continue to work before deciding on any charges in either probe. While both investigations may result in charges within months, Smith could still spend time organizing and expanding his team, and continuing to pick through information that's been collected, according to people familiar with parts of the probe.

"It could well be that Jack Smith moves more quickly than Merrick Garland would and forces a decision to Merrick Garland's desk more quickly than it might have otherwise," said Honig.

COMPARISONS TO MUELLER

According to a handful of people familiar with the probe, there is still work to be done to centralize all the moving parts of large prosecution teams under the new special counsel's office.    

Smith is expected to set up a physical office for the two investigative teams away from the downtown Justice headquarters, as Mueller did for his probe and as did John Durham, who is nearing the end of his examination of 2016 Trump-Russia investigation.

According to several people familiar with his appointment, Smith will operate more like a US Attorney -- managing an existing team of career prosecutors already working on the cases, and signing off on evidence they bring him -- rather than as a de facto-department head like Mueller, who tapped several lawyers from outside the Justice Department to pursue parts of the Russia investigation from scratch.  

Mueller also had his own set of legal advisers akin to a shadow Justice Department appeals and policy team. Smith likely won't have the same set-up -- with lawyers from throughout the Department assisting as needed, according to multiple people familiar with the office's development.

Garland already turned to a long-time criminal appellate section leader, Patty Stemler, who retired earlier this year from DOJ, to advise as a consultant on the January 6 investigations throughout this year. 

Others from Stemler's former unit and other sections are likely to shepherd cases and policy issues as needed, in a departure from Mueller's soup-to-nuts approach of preparing for thorny Constitutional issues and appeals in the Russia investigation, some of the sources said.

A spokesman for the Justice Department didn't provide any comment for this story. 

CIRCLING TRUMP 

Publicly released court filings have already made clear Trump is under investigation for the mishandling of national security secrets after his presidency.    

But the other investigative team, looking at efforts to block the transfer of power from Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election, had even a year ago been given the greenlight by the Justice Department to take a case all the way up to Trump, if the evidence leads them there, according to the sources. Work that's been led by the DC US Attorney's Office into political circles around Trump related to January 6 now will move under the special counsel.

Partly led by former Maryland-based federal prosecutor Thomas Windom, DOJ has added prosecutors to the January 6 team from all over the Department in recent months. Windom and the rest are also expected to move over to the special counsel's office. Some, like Mary Dohrmann, a prosecutor who's worked on several other Capitol riot cases already, appear to be reorienting, according to court records of open Capitol riot cases.   

Another top prosecutor, JP Cooney, the former head of public corruption in the DC US Attorney's Office, is overseeing a significant financial probe that Smith will take on. The probe includes examining the possible misuse of political contributions, according to some of the sources. The DC US Attorney's Office, before the special counsel's arrival, had examined potential financial crimes related to the January 6 riot, including possible money laundering and the support of rioters' hotel stays and bus trips to Washington ahead of January 6.

In recent months, however, the financial investigation has sought information about Trump's post-election Save America PAC and other funding of people who assisted Trump, according to subpoenas viewed by CNN. The financial investigation picked up steam as DOJ investigators enlisted cooperators months after the 2021 riot, one of the sources said.

In interviews with people in Trump's orbit over the past several months, some of the DOJ focus has been on the timeline leading up to January 6 and Trump's involvement and knowledge of potential events that day, according to a source familiar with the questioning.

Trump allies have consistently maintained that nothing Trump did related to the election and January 6 itself amounts to a crime. They have also suggested that if Trump were to ultimately face an indictment, the bar to prove he committed a crime is extremely high, and that a jury would hear he was getting conflicting advice from different lawyers. For example, Trump allies point out, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told Trump that Vice President Mike Pence couldn't block the election certification on January 6, while Rudy Giuliani and others believed he could.

Even earlier this year, federal prosecutors were specifically asking witnesses whether there was a plan to steal the election and for Trump not to concede, according to a source with knowledge of the questions posed during this stage of the DOJ criminal probe.  

The DOJ probe has evolved significantly since that time, but sources familiar with testimony before the grand jury in recent months have told CNN that prosecutors are still focused on the core question of whether there was a plan to steal the election and Trump's understanding about the relevance of January 6.  

[newsbooklive24]

'Sugar daddy' sex scandal case heading to trial

A Michigan woman, deemed the "head slave" of a Greenwich investor's online fantasy world, rejected a plea deal Tuesday in an extortion case and is planning to fight the charges.

Patricia Miller, 45, of Cassopolis, Mich., appeared in state Superior Court, where she told a judge she would not accept a plea agreement on felony charges that would have allowed her to avoid jail time.

Miller is charged with first-degree conspiracy to commit larceny, first-degree criminal attempt at larceny and second-degree larceny for allegedly using various Internet personas to blackmail DuPont heir and Riverside resident Stephen Dent.

Assistant State's Attorney David Applegate told Judge Richard Comerford the sides have been unable to reach an agreement to resolve the case Tuesday.

Comerford asked Miller if she understood that by not accepting the plea deal she could be facing nearly 50 years in jail if convicted.

"I take it you are not intending to avail yourself of the state's offer," Comerford said.

After her hearing, Miller said she was taking the case to trial because she wanted justice and felt her side of the story had yet to be told.

"Basically, I am trying to clear my name," said Miller, who is married and has one daughter and two grandchildren. "I feel this is a selective prosecution. I think it's very unfair."

Dent, who viewed himself a "slave master," had a network of women he chatted with on the "sugar daddy" dating site SeekingArrangement.com. Miller is the fourth person charged by Greenwich police with attempting or successfully extorting the millionaire as a result of these online relationships.

The Michigan woman is described in police reports as the "harem mother" who would call Dent's "slaves" to make sure they were fulfilling their end of the arrangement, which entailed getting breast implants and sending the investor sexually explicit pictures and chats.

[lawbyrhys]

Ari Melber FACT-CHECKS Stephen Miller LIVE

Everybody knows I love "The Beat with Ari Melber," but tonight's segment was so damn frustrating due to Stephen Miller's raging that I have to vent about it to my brilliant audience.

Let's break down the bullshit we bore witness to, and how well Melber handled said bullshit.

Tonight, I watched Trump-affiliate Stephen Miller yell at Ari Melber on the latter's own show, put loosely, about how it was election deniers' legal right to deny the results of the 2020 election. Imagine berating a bright legal mind like Ari Melber, calling the just prosecution of seditious insurrectionists a "clear cut case of government against innocent people," as if those people were innocent in any way. Especially those in power who pulled the strings around that time. He went on to berate the processes in place, saying that what the MAGA team urged Pence to do was somehow just and legal. He claimed that remanding votes to the six swing states and flipping the results would have been a perfectly normal, legal thing to do; electon fraud is a serious crime. As if Stephen Miller knows shit about the law, let alone the law at hand. He went on to scream about Republicans lawyers being prosecuted for their "Good, sound legal advice," as if that's true in any way. We all know why Trump's counsel always face the utmost in legal consequence; they are the legitimate definition of malpractice. It was aggravating, to say the least, and Miller's inability to speak in any variation of a calm tone was even more so—props to Melber for being the professional he is the entire interview. He's my favorite anchor.

More was said—well, screamed—but I digress.

The real kicker—one of them, at least—was when Melber questioned Miller on his own fucked way of thinking. Essentially, if what they wanted Congress and Pence to do in putting an alternate slate through and overturning the results was legal and just, then surely it'd be so if Harris were to do the same thing this time. Of course, Miller wasn't having any of it, going on to trip over every word through the remainder of the interview to somehow justify getting caught. It was a messy interview, but it had to be done.

It was beautiful to see Melber be so calm and assertive, though. He's a prime example of what I'm talking about when I give advice on arguing. He barely had to say a word besides pointing out the fallacies and thanking Miller for his time. Sometimes, all it takes to win an argument is to be the sane one, and Melber did an excellent job. That's not all he did, but that would have been enough. A stellar performance from him.

I also appreciate Ari Melber for platforming the ideas of the far-right to remind those of us who may have forgotten how legally and ethically unsound they are. I believe in each and every one of our rights to free speech and expression; even if what's expressed is objectively wrong.

You have to be willing to face the consequences for what you say and do, though, i.e. defamation suits, which Melber reminded Miller are a thing.

I really don't want this blog to be a partisan one since the law doesn't have a political leaning, and in no way would I ever prescribe it one. That being said, though, I can't just sit back and watch this breed of weirdos tear apart the law and act like that's totally normal. As long as they shit on what I swore to uphold, I'm going to do just that in every capacity—even on this blog.

Believe what you want, but believe in the law.

[wwarborday]

Project 2025 isn’t gonna throw you into a concentration camp day 1, but it does want to get rid of the entire department of education, make schooling a state issue, give free school vouchers to anyone who asks (essentially paying state money to send kids to religious and private school, rather than pay public teachers better), and uh. Ban? Free? Lunch? Programs?

The forward says that the Constitution’s “pursuit of happiness” should be interpreted as “pursuit of blessedness,” and, “an individual must be free to live as his creator ordained.”

You? Making no money and living paycheck to paycheck? They want you taxed at 30%. They want corporate taxes to be lowered to 18%. They want work requirements for people on SNAP/food stamps. Abortion will be officially declassified as healthcare, and federal insurance will not cover it.

There are, currently, tens of thousands of federal civil servants—post office workers, White House staff (staff, like cleaners, security, gardeners), EPA workers, NASA, Social Security—people who work in federal government, in what are, hypothetically, non-partisan positions. Current policy is to, uh, keep those people around through administrative changes, so that they can do their jobs.

Project 2025 would re-instate what Trump did in his first term, and class many of these jobs as “Schedule F” workers. (Biden eliminated this in his first term.) The administration would then, uh, fire those people, and rehire people who pass a “loyalty test,” because if government works too well, then we have socialism, and big business can’t thrive. Deporting illegal immigrants would become a top priority, but seeking fees from asylum seekers would become top priority, which the project calls “an opportunity for a significant influx of money.”

Jesus Christ.

Related to the above, but last month, June 2024, 2025 launched “Project Sovereignty 2025,” which aims to list 100 people who would oppose Trump. (Not project 2025, or a hypothetical candidate; Trump.) These names will apparently be listed publicly.

The DOJ would, I shit you not, “prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers” who participate in DEI or affirmative action programs, since those are anti-white racism.

Like—even if you take away the, yes, idea that trans people are inherently pornographic, this is a plan designed to, essentially, kill the government. The issue isn’t “big government,” the issue is fucking OSHA, and the EPA, and protections for queer people and POC, because what conservatives really want, is the ability to make as much money as possible, by exploiting as many people as they can.

“Trump hasn’t said he’s gonna do project 2025” yeah my bad man, it’s just made by people like Jeffrey Clark (from Trump’s DOJ), Stephen Miller (created immigration policy for Trump), and Russel Vought (policy director for the Republican National Committee).

If you want to scoff at the idea of the military being deployed against civilians on day one, sure, fine, kinda outlandish, but like. This is still, bad? This is still really bad? “The white liberals are scared of the bogeyman” is something I keep seeing, “oh, project 2025, it’s soooo scary,” dude! You should be fucking concerned about anyone wanting to dismantle public education and implement a loyalty test before you can work at the post office!

I find it consistently and endless frustrating, this condescending idea of, “Oh, okay, sure, just one more vote and we’ll defeat fascism…. Why do we still have to vote, then? Idiots .” My guy!! My man!! My dude!! I love having food and safety laws! Big fan of environmental laws that keep lead out of my water! I want OSHA to exist forever! I will kiss social security on the mouth! People wanna get rid of them forever!! I’d love that to not happen!! Gonna vote about it!! If these fuckers would stop trying to dismantle the current government so that they can work me to death, I wouldn’t have to keep asking people to vote!!

“The Democrats should be doing more and Biden sucks” yup!! Gonna vote anyway! Super quick and easy way to keep this from happening in a year! Gives me time to organize with others and create a more systemic solution!

[ravenkings]

[...]

The intensity of anger and open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics. What is different now is the range of Republicans who are saying retaliation is necessary and who are no longer cloaking their intent with euphemisms.

Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump who still helps guide his thinking on policy, blared out a directive on Fox News after a jury found Mr. Trump guilty of falsifying financial records to cover up a 2016 campaign hush-money payment to a porn actress. Mr. Miller posed a series of questions to Republicans at every level, including local district attorneys.

“Is every House committee controlled by Republicans using its subpoena power in every way it needs to right now?” he demanded. “Is every Republican D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?”

“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe with Marxism and beat these Communists,” Mr. Miller said, using the catchall slurs Trump allies routinely use against Democrats.

Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist to Mr. Trump, said in a text message to The New York Times on Tuesday that now was the moment for obscure Republican prosecutors around the country to make a name for themselves by prosecuting Democrats.

“There are dozens of ambitious backbencher state attorneys general and district attorneys who need to ‘seize the day’ and own this moment in history,” Mr. Bannon wrote.

And Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee who is in contention to be Mr. Trump’s running mate, wrote on X that President Biden was “a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people” and it was now time to “fight fire with fire” — using flame emojis to represent the fire.

[...]

While president, Mr. Trump repeatedly told aides he wanted the Justice Department to indict his political enemies. The Justice Department opened various investigations of Mr. Trump’s adversaries but did not ultimately bring charges — infuriating Mr. Trump and contributing to a split in 2020 with his attorney general, William P. Barr. Last year, Mr. Trump promised that if elected again, he would appoint a “real special prosecutor” to “go after” Mr. Biden and his family.

Now, it remains unclear whether calls for legal retribution will amount to much in the way of actual prosecutions, at least in the short term. Without control of the White House, people close to Mr. Trump are urging district attorneys and attorneys general in red states to start aggressively targeting Democrats for unspecified crimes.

A central tenet of their argument is that the four criminal cases in four different jurisdictions against Mr. Trump are illegitimate and nothing more than political weaponization of the justice system. They continue to put forward the theory, without evidence, that all four cases are the result of a conspiracy by Mr. Biden — implicitly or explicitly rejecting the notion that Mr. Trump has been charged with crimes based on evidence.

But based on their premise that the charges — and now convictions in the fraudulent business records case — are baseless and were invented for political reasons, they are arguing that Republican prosecutors not only should but can do the same thing to Democrats. In short, having accused Democrats of “lawfare” — or using the law to wage war against political opponents — Republicans are saying they should respond in kind.

Some veteran Republican lawyers have sought to dress up the need for such retribution as a matter of constitutional principle. Among those calling for eye-for-an-eye prosecutions is John C. Yoo, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor best known as the author of once-secret Bush administration legal memos declaring that the president can lawfully violate legal limits on torturing detainees and wiretapping without warrants.

“In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents,” Professor Yoo wrote in an essay published by The National Review.

He added: “Only retaliation in kind can produce the deterrence necessary to enforce a political version of mutual assured destruction; without the threat of prosecution of their own leaders, Democrats will continue to charge future Republican presidents without restraint.”

[...]

Speaker Mike Johnson went on Fox News and called on the Supreme Court to “step in” and overturn the Manhattan conviction, granting Mr. Trump immunity from prosecution. In the Senate, a group of Trump allies signed a letter declaring that they will oppose major legislation and Biden administration nominees, although they tend not to vote for Biden policies and nominees anyway.

But the more extreme calls for not just oversight scrutiny and political obstructionism but revenge prosecutions are coming from former senior Trump administration officials and people close to the former president who are expected to play even larger roles in a potential second term. Their message is often apocalyptic.

There is no longer any room, they argue, for weaklings who fetishize decency and restraint.

Mike Davis, a former top Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer who is a close associate of Mr. Trump, is calling for an investigation of the investigators, similar to how the Justice Department under Mr. Trump used the special counsel investigation led by John Durham in a yearslong, unsuccessful attempt to find a basis to accuse high-level Obama administration officials of a crime because of the Russia investigation.

“The Republican attorneys general in Georgia and Florida and the county attorney in Maricopa County, Ariz., need to open investigations” into the prosecutors and investigators pursuing the indictments of Mr. Trump and his allies, Mr. Davis said. He added, “Then on Day 1, when he wins, President Trump needs to open a criminal civil rights investigation.”

Jeff Clark, a former Trump Justice Department official who has been indicted in the Georgia election case for his role in helping Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 vote in that state, has offered another suggestion. He has called for “brave” district attorneys in conservative areas to file lawsuits in federal court against people involved in criminal cases against Mr. Trump, under federal laws that allow people to seek monetary damages from government officials who violate their constitutional rights.

His theory is that the cases are a conspiracy to prevent Mr. Trump from effectively running for president. It remains unclear, however, why local criminal prosecutors would have legal standing to go into federal court and bring such lawsuits. A spokeswoman for Mr. Clark’s employer, the Center for Renewing America, a pro-Trump think tank, did not respond to a request for comment.

[...]

[justiceheartwatcher]

America First Legal releases bombshell memo that upends classified documents case

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Law Dork: Project 2025's plans for the Justice Department

Chris Geidner at Law Dork (07.08.2024):

Project 2025 is a frightening, authoritarian missive with Christian nationalism values at its core that aims to dismantle large swaths of the federal government and transform that which remains into a politicized right-wing machine. It opposes diversity as a value, aggressively so in its anti-woman, anti-Black and anti-brown, anti-immigrant, and anti-LBGTQ proposals. I have had Project 2025 on my mind for a while, but the truth is that I didn’t want to write about it until I could actually start giving it the attention it deserves. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has released its final opinions of the term — including several making Project 2025 easier to implement — I have been able to start my work on this. Today, I start with a look through the Justice Department section, which is highlighted throughout with what I saw as key aspects. There will be much more, taking different forms, over the summer. Dig into the Mandate for Leadership with me. Pay attention. This matters — regardless of what Donald Trump might say.

1. This is not a plan that Trump can “torch,” “disavow,” or whatever Mike Allen is editing his Axios headline to say today. These are Trump’s people, up and down the line. Yes, it is true that no plans designed ahead of time would be implemented in precisely that way — but that is true of Trump’s own statements about his plans, too. He has no principles, so his plans are always flexible. That said, these are the plans being created for him by his people. The section is written by Gene Hamilton, a former senior official in the Trump administration whose name is all over litigation across the country today because he is the legal director of America First Legal. America First Legal is, in essence, the MAGA legal organization. It is run by Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller, despite his not being a lawyer, and Hamilton is the second-in-command. After Trump feigned ignorance about Project 2025 (leading to the Axios kerfuffle), Miller lapdoggingly followed on, insisting, “I have never been involved with Project 2025, not one word.” One, I maintain (and have long maintained) that Miller is the worst person who served in the Trump administration, so, forgive me if I believe him even less than I believe Trump.

2. The 28-page Justice Department section has a primary purpose of turning DOJ into an aggressive enforcer of the Trump agenda across the federal government and down into state and local governments. “Ensure the assignment of sufficient political appointees throughout the department,” the plan states outright, noting that the number of political appointees serving in past administrations — including “particularly” during the Trump administration — was not enough “to stop bad things from happening through proper management or to promote the President’s agenda.” The program explicitly questions how the new administration should relate to other branches, asserting that the administration should “use its independent resources and authorities to restrain the excesses of both the legislative and judicial branches.” Goals include ending independence of the Justice Department from the White House, ending the ability of divisions and offices within DOJ to exercise independent judgment, and ending respect for federalism where there is disagreement with Trump policies.

[...] 5. The plan calls for vigorous enforcement of the Comstock Act, including specifically calling for a “campaign” to prosecute attempts to mail abortion medication. This is explicit, specific, and there is no reason to be secure that this U.S. Supreme Court would block such a move. 6. The plan attacks diversity efforts as being backed by “an unholy alliance of special interests, radicals in government, and the far Left.” Yes, “unholy.” After describing “so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices” as “vehicles for unlawful discrimination, it calls for turning the Civil Rights Division into a bastardization of itself. It would, essentially, turn this pillar of the department into a governmental America First Legal.

Chris Geidner writes in Law Dork the harmful impacts that Project 2025 will do to the independence of the US DOJ from partisan political influence.

[n0thingiscool]

Trump's Disgusting Zero Tolerance Policy

tldr:

US home grown stages of fascism and population abuses implemented mainly by Jeff Sessions, Steven Miller, Gene Hamilton, and Tom Homan.

- These cunts ignored their colleague's concern for ethics and process in order to justify kidnapping asylum seeking children from their parents, including taking infants from their breast feeding mothers, immediately.

- They ignored the pre-emptive warnings given by Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona Marshals and district attorneys at the borders telling them border patrol didn't have the facilities or staff capacity to handle the increased prosecutions.

- They didn't even bother to consider what they would do with the kids once they stole them. They barely notified DHS of the plan and didn't tell HHS at all. Therefore the was no way to track or document the stolen children.

- All of these assholes knew Trump was too stupid to comprehend the reality of the policy, knew all he was was a dipshit reactionary, and colluded to take advantage of this fact

- The rest of the rank and files had their heads so far up their asses it took thousands of displaced children, stories of parents suffering from grief, and actual leaked audio before they accepted what they were doing was wrong and/or what the news was reporting wasn't liberal bias

The full story:

"Trump-administration officials insisted for a whole year that family separations weren’t happening. Finally, in the spring of 2018, they announced the implementation of a separation policy with great fanfare—as if one had not already been under way for months. Then they declared that separating families was not the goal of the policy, but an unfortunate result of prosecuting parents who crossed the border illegally with their children. Yet a mountain of evidence shows that this is explicitly false: Separating children was not just a side effect, but the intent. Instead of working to reunify families after parents were prosecuted, officials worked to keep them apart for longer."

------------------------

"Elizabeth Neumann, Nielsen’s deputy chief of staff, told me she was shaken by the nonchalance with which McAleenan and Homan had proposed taking vast numbers of children away from their parents. “They were not grasping the humanity of the situation; they were just all about ‘I need Stephen [Miller] off my back. I need the president off my back,’ ” she said. (McAleenan denies this account.) Nielsen’s deputy chief of staff, told me she was shaken by the nonchalance with which McAleenan and Homan had proposed taking vast numbers of children away from their parents. “They were not grasping the humanity of the situation; they were just all about ‘I need Stephen [Miller] off my back. I need the president off my back,’ ” she said. (McAleenan denies this account.)"

----------------------------------------------

"In February 2018, Gelernt met a woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo who had been separated from her 6-year-old daughter. The girl had spent several months in an HHS shelter in Chicago; her mother was being held in an immigration detention center in the desert on the outskirts of San Diego. When she walked into a cinder-block room to meet Gelernt, she appeared gaunt and confused—“almost catatonic from what had happened to her,” Gelernt told me. "

------------------------

"The brutality of Zero Tolerance was immediately evident. The father of a 3-year-old “lost his s—,” one Border Patrol agent told The Washington Post. “They had to use physical force to take the child out of his hands.” The man was so upset that he was taken to a local jail; he “yelled and kicked at the windows on the ride,” the agent said. The next morning, the father was found dead in his cell; he’d strangled himself with his own clothing."

-------------------------

"González said that at the height of Zero Tolerance, about 300 children were separated each day at her facility and crammed into caged enclosures. She spent most of her time inside the enclosures, helping children call their relatives. Sometimes the younger children didn’t seem to fully understand what was going on."

--------------------------

"Recently disclosed internal emails from that time help explain what Bash, Patrick, and the other U.S. attorneys couldn’t figure out—why the plan for reunifying families was faulty to the point of negligence. Inside DHS, officials were working to prevent reunifications from happening. Within days of the start of Zero Tolerance, Matt Albence, one of Tom Homan’s deputies at ICE, expressed concern that if the parents’ prosecutions happened too swiftly, their children would still be waiting to be picked up by HHS in Border Patrol stations, making family reunification possible. He saw this as a bad thing."

-------------------------

"as the trump administration sought to defuse the anger over Zero Tolerance, White House officials proposed blaming separated families for what had happened to them. A damage-control working group developed fact sheets suggesting, without evidence, that most of the separated children were trafficking victims, according to two people who were present. At one meeting, one of these officials told me, “they were like, ‘Why don’t we just show these women throwing their children over the wall, and then people will think, How could they do this?  ’ ”"

(Two things I would to see after reading this all center around witnessing Steven Miller and his cunt wife, Kate Waldman getting their asses physically beat on public access. Absolute fascists.)

[toshootforthestars]

From the report by Roger Sollenberger, posted 22 Nov 2023:

The nonprofit, called American Compass, included the names of five donor organizations on a schedule in its 2022 tax statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Beast. The page header says, “Do Not File” and “Not Open to Public Inspection,” indicating the donors may have been accidentally disclosed. Of the five groups, two stand out for their prominent histories of supporting liberal causes—the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Omidyar Network Foundation.

* * * *

The donations are striking because American Compass is a partner organization in Project 2025, a controversial right-wing think tank that has been building the policy and personnel firmament for a second Trump administration. Project 2025 is an arm of the Heritage Foundation and it has been criticized for its hard-right, authoritarian agenda—including “dehumanizing” rhetoric towards the LGBTQ community, re-upping Trump’s attempt to include citizenship on the census, leveraging the power of the Justice Department to crack down on critics, and a potentially unconstitutional plan to sic U.S. troops on domestic protesters. Project 2025 backers include xenophobic Trump advisers Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, as well as Christian nationalist and former Trump budget chief Russ Vought, one of the group’s top advisers. According to The Washington Post, Project 2025 has been crafting “specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents,” with Trump himself “naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute.” The group is also “drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations,” the Post reported. American Compass—whose specific political allegiances lie with the so-called “New Right”—boasts other ties to anti-democratic, pro-Trump luminaries. For instance, the address on its tax filing is inside the Conservative Partnership Institute, which employs Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and political attorney Cleta Mitchell, another architect of Trump’s potentially criminal plot to overturn the 2020 election. CPI is another key force behind Project 2025.

* * * *

American Compass founder Oren Cass—a former Bain executive and adviser to Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 presidential bid—has staked out what he casts as a more labor-friendly economic conservatism. While he has advocated for “genuine” bipartisanship, Cass is also aligned with the New Right. He rejects many of the absolutist tenets of laissez-faire capitalism that the GOP has held dear for so long, arguing that free-market fundamentals have failed the American worker. Last year, Cass drew a salary of $275,000 from his nonprofit—more than one out of every four dollars raised. Writing about Cass and his New Right peers in June, New York Times columnist David Leonhardt emphasized the caveat that, while these Republicans rage against the free market, “they really are conservative.” This movement, Leonhardt cautioned, should not be mistaken for “disaffected right-wingers who have become moderates without admitting it,” noting that they “support abortion restrictions and oppose gun laws” and “make excuses for Donald Trump’s anti-democratic behavior or even spread his falsehoods.” The departures from traditional conservatism are indeed stark enough to be deceptive, or at least distracting. For instance, while American Compass criticized the Trump and Bush tax cuts, the group has also called to abolish corporate income tax altogether, replacing it with a tax on asset trading in the secondary market. But the rhetoric has apparently been good for fundraising. In 2020, the group’s founding year, Cass trashed free-market absolutism in a Hewlett Foundation interview; that year, Hewlett donated $611,000 to American Compass—nearly half the group’s total founding revenue, and half of what Hewlett gave NPR in 2020. About $198,000 of American Compass’ 2020 revenue went to Cass’ salary. While Cass delivers sharp, almost heretical rebukes of historical conservative economic principles, he also carries conservative banners—for instance, cultural and economic criticism of college education and student debt relief, for instance. He and his New Right cohort are not inclusive, pushing a fierce nationalism with an illiberal agenda of its own. (Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and J.D. Vance (R-OH) are all seen as flag bearers.) That position has been most broadly articulated by a group called American Moment, a conservative nonprofit that is close with Cass and has featured him in its lecture series. (American Moment’s board includes hard-right up-and-comers like Ryan Girdusky and anti-LGBTQ activist Terry Schilling. The board also has strong ties to the right-wing Clermont Institute.) As analysts unravel Project 2025’s 902-page “Mandate for Leadership,” they’ve found something of an underlying Christian nationalist manifesto.

[socialjusticeartshare]

Stephen Miller and those who enabled him must be investigated and prosecuted

At the meeting, Miller accused anyone opposing zero tolerance of being a lawbreaker and un-American, according to the two officials present.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, “Conspiracy” is a 2001 BBC/HBO film addressing the infamous 1942 Wannsee Conference in which General Reinhard Heydrich, upon orders of Adolf Hitler, convened a group of fifteen high-ranking German officials to set forth the parameters of what became known as “The Final Solution,” the comprehensive and systematic plan to exterminate all Jews from the continent of Europe. Only one written record of the proceedings at Wannsee, a locality abutting a lakeside in Western Berlin, survived the war, and it is largely from this written summary (prepared from transcripts of the meeting by Adolf Eichmann) that the film is based.

The most chilling aspect of this film is the banal manner in which the subject is discussed, the euphemisms employed (“evacuation” rather than “extermination” being a typical example), the jocular mannerisms of several of the participants and in particular, their susceptibility to the intimidation of Heydrich as well as representatives of the Nazi SS present at the conference, held in a beautiful lakeside villa and catered with liveried servants.

The juxtaposition of fifteen men sitting around an oval-shaped conference table, alternately breaking for refreshments and wine, then returning to discuss the logistical necessities, facts and figures relating to the identification and classification of Jews, the proposed means of transport for their “evacuation” and ultimately the efficiencies of various means of murdering them, is beyond jarring—it’s fairly horrifying. The acting (Heydrich is played by Kenneth Branagh; Wilhelm Stuckart, the author of the Third Reich’s racial laws, is played by Colin Firth, and Adolf Eichmann by Stanley Tucci) is superior and riveting; you forget rather quickly that the entirety of the action revolves around a seemingly dry bureaucratic discussion around a conference table.

But probably the most unnerving thing, chills aside, about the film is the degree to which a group of people can come to a mutual accommodation towards evil, when that evil is presented and explicated as a means to an end that all of them desire.

In the Trump administration we are not, as far as is currently known, dealing with anything anywhere close to the realm of evil that occurred at Wannsee, but as the media fixate obsessively on the aftermath of the 2020 election and the continuing antics of Donald Trump and other Republicans denying the result of that election, certain things done, and certain actions taken by this administration in our name over the past four years, actions which likewise had their genesis in dry, bureaucratic conferences between highly placed American officials, should not be forgotten or allowed to “slip through the cracks.’ Because the evil that they represent—though not on the par with systematic genocide of the Nazis���should be no less unforgivable and intolerable.

In 2018, the current administration held a meeting, doubtlessly around an oblong conference table, in which it was calmly determined to forcibly and permanently separate children, many as young as babies, from their parents after those parents had been stopped following unlawfully crossing– or attempting to cross–over the border into the United States from Mexico.

As reported by NBC News:

WASHINGTON — In early May 2018, after weeks of phone calls and private meetings, 11 of the president’s most senior advisers were called to the White House Situation Room, where they were asked, by a show-of-hands vote, to decide the fate of thousands of migrant parents and their children, according to two officials who were there.

The meeting was held at the instigation of one of Donald Trump’s senior policy advisors, Stephen Miller, who was unquestionably operating to implement the specific policy aims of Donald Trump. Miller’s rabid xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric had by that time (and has still) conferred upon him the unusual distinction of being one of the few members of Trump’s inner circle to have kept his position throughout Trump’s entire tenure.

As the NBC news report explains, the U.S. Justice Department under the orders of Jeff Sessions had already implemented Miller’s preferred “zero tolerance” policy towards prosecuting any undocumented immigrants captured crossing the U.S. border, a radical departure from decades of prior practice covering multiple U.S. administrations. Yet, as Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff of NBC News reported, the forced separation between parents and their young children had not yet been put into place.  According to the report, Miller was “furious at the delay,” and had convened a meeting to emphasize his authority.

Those present at the meeting were Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. According to NBC’s sources,  other participants may have included White House counsel Don McGahn, Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Liddell, and representatives of Vice President Pence’s office.

Nielsen, much like several of the participants at Wannsee nearly eighty years ago, had some issues she wanted to air out concerning the logistics. Specifically, she bemoaned the fact that DHS had insufficient resources to implement the separation process, in which children so taken from their parents would be removed to isolated separate facilities. Hers were practical objections, and she noted that the ability of her agency to ultimately return these essentially kidnapped children to their parents was in doubt. She warned that the process could “get messy,” and could end up in children getting “lost” in a system of holding pens, without any recourse.

These complaints did not find a willing audience in Miller, who not only did not perceive any inherent moral issues with separating children from their parents, but in fact wanted to accelerate and expand the process, so that such separated children would ultimately number in the tens of thousands.

The NBC report gives no doubt as to who was in charge of driving the policy:

At the meeting, Miller accused anyone opposing zero tolerance of being a lawbreaker and un-American, according to the two officials present.

“If we don’t enforce this, it is the end of our country as we know it,” Miller said, according to the two officials. It was not unusual for Miller to make claims like that, but this time he was adamant that the policy move forward, regardless of arguments about resources and logistics.

Around the same time, the Justice Department was given a similar mandate by Attorney General Sessions, one which was echoed and embellished by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. As reported in October, 2020, by the New York Times:

“We need to take away children,” Mr. Sessions told the prosecutors, according to participants’ notes. One added in shorthand: “If care about kids, don’t bring them in. Won’t give amnesty to people with kids.”

Rod J. Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general, went even further in a second call about a week later, telling the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were. He said that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants.

Back at the Cabinet meeting, a frustrated and angry Miller accused Nielsen of “stalling” and demanded that all present demonstrate their loyalty to the policy by a show of hands. Incidentally, the participants at Wannsee were also required to voice their assent for “the policy,” which they dutifully affirmed with varying degrees of enthusiasm (this is one of the more gut-churning events in the film).

With the exception of Nielsen, who still clung to her logistical objections, all hands went up.

Spokesmen for both the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services have denied this “vote” actually occurred. NBC stands by its story. DHS and the State Department have referred all inquiries about the meeting to the White House, and the key Cabinet officials involved, Nielsen and Sessions have refused comment.

In other words, they can’t or won’t confirm one simple point—was there, in fact, such a vote?

Thus did our lawfully elected government enter on a course that at this count, has left over 600 children permanently separated from their parents, trapped in holding cells at locations scattered throughout the United States.

As reported by the NBC, that number is even higher than Trump administration officials previously acknowledged.

Lawyers working to reunite migrant families separated by the Trump administration before and during its “zero tolerance” policy at the border now believe the number of separated children for whom they have not been able to find parents is 666, higher than they told a federal judge last month, according to an email obtained by NBC News.

Nearly 20 percent, or 129, of those children were under 5 at the time of the separation, according to a source familiar with the data.

The issue of immigration has been the touchstone of this administration’s domestic policy since the days of the 2016 campaign. It has been used as both a weapon, an excuse and a bludgeon against Trump’s political opponents. The evidence clearly indicates that the policy of forcibly separating children from their parents was instituted and ordered by persons at the highest levels of this administration. They are therefore—in theory at the very least—amenable to prosecution, possibly for crimes against humanity.

At the very minimum, immediately upon the inauguration of Joseph Biden as President, the Congress should instigate hearings and the Justice Department should initiate an investigation for potential prosecution and criminal or civil liability of those responsible for this inhumane and abhorrent policy decision and its implementation.

Thank you to all who already support our work since we could not exist without your generosity. If you have not already, please consider supporting us on Patreon to ensure we can continue bringing you the best of independent journalism.

Article Source

[ukrfeminism]

A man gets a call from a police officer. He is told that, while he has done nothing criminal, his social media posts have offended someone, so the police have recorded them as a non-crime hate incident that may show up on criminal record checks. The officer warns that if he continues to “escalate” matters, the police may take criminal action against him, a message later reinforced by his superiors.

It may sound like something out of a police state. But this happened in Britain in 2019, in a case that led the high court judge who later ruled the actions of Humberside police force unlawful to warn them, “in this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi”. Despite there being no evidence that Harry Miller, the man in question, might ever stray into unlawful speech, the police took action that reasonably led him to believe that he was being warned not to exercise his right to freedom of expression on pain of potential criminal prosecution; they also opined to the press that Miller’s tweets were “transphobic”.

And just before Christmas, in a landmark judgment that has attracted surprisingly little commentary from human rights lawyers given its profound implications, the court of appeal went further in ruling that the College of Policing’s guidance that the police should record all non-crime hate incidents, as perceived by those taking offence at them, is an unlawful incursion on citizens’ freedom of expression.

How did we get to the position where an individual had to risk financial ruin to legally defend his right to free expression in the face of unlawful police actions? The well-intentioned roots of police recording non-crime hate incidents stem from the 1999 Macpherson report into Stephen Lawrence’s murder in 1993, which found institutional racism in the Metropolitan police. Macpherson recommended that the police adopt the definition of a racist incident as any “perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person” and that non-crime incidents should be reported, recorded and investigated with equal commitment to crimes. The aim was to help the police overcome their institutional racism and to build confidence within ethnic minority communities.

This has today evolved into a system of recording non-crime hate incidents that cover five of the nine protected characteristics in the Equality Act, including transgender identity (but not, bizarrely, sex). In a world where the police do not have the resources to investigate non-crime incidents, partly because of the volume of reports generated by social media, the College of Policing tells police officers to record as hate incidents all those perceived by the person reporting them as motivated by hostility, including unfriendliness or dislike.

This has become open to manipulation, with sinister consequences for freedom of expression. Anyone can complain to the police if they don’t like something someone says. It will get recorded as a hate incident, in a way that could significantly damage careers and reputations but with none of the due process of a criminal charge. And it is impossible to understate the chilling impact of getting a call from a police officer warning you off exercising your democratic rights.

Greater Manchester police social media accounts have used the derogatory term ‘terf’, associated with rape and death threats against women expressing gender-critical belief

Miller is chair of the Reclaim party, led by Laurence Fox; hardly a political ally of this newspaper. The judge noted his tweets were “for the most part, either opaque, profane or unsophisticated”. But that does not justify impeding his right to contribute to a live and contentious political debate on the relative importance of biological sex and self-declared gender identity in determining how society constitutes things such as single-sex spaces and sports. It is a far from settled matter with legitimate competing perspectives. Yet people (often women) of the “gender critical” view – that biological sex cannot be wholly replaced by gender identity in law and society – have been vulnerable to incursions on their free expression, because opponents have sought to misrepresent their position as so hateful that it is beyond the limits of legitimate discussion. (The absurdity of this mischaracterisation is shown up in the confirmation by the courts last year that the scientific understanding that biological sex is immutable is a protected belief under equalities law.)

There are several other cases where the police have acted inappropriately against people lawfully expressing this position. Some forces even have a track record of misstating the law to the public: last February, Merseyside police wrongly claimed “being offensive is an offence”, while the West Yorkshire police in 2018 threatened to prosecute anyone posting “insulting” messages on its Facebook page.

The police need to be politically impartial – they must not police people differently because of their political opinions. Yet there are numerous examples of police forces actively taking political sides in the sex and gender debate. Paul Giannasi, the national policing adviser for hate crime, has praised Lancashire police for expressing disappointment at lawful expressions of gender critical belief, congratulating them for their “initiative and empathy” in doing so. Several police forces pay the LGBT charity Stonewall for advice and training, despite Stonewall’s promotion of a contested political stance on gender identity.

The police officer who unlawfully warned off Miller told him, Miller said, that a foetus could have a female brain but grow male body parts, later confirming he learned this unscientific belief on a training course. Greater Manchester police social media accounts have used and defended the derogatory and misogynistic term “terf”, associated with rape and death threats against women expressing gender-critical beliefs. Several dreadful murder cases from the last year have served as a reminder that many police forces remain tarnished by institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia. But there are no shortcuts to the cultural change essential for the non-discriminatory policing all citizens have the right to expect. Telling the police to record all non-criminal hate incidents or to believe all victims despite their role as investigators are inappropriately blunt approaches that undermine fair and impartial policing.

The court of appeal judgment’s implications for free expression go way beyond policing: it observes “how quickly some involved in the transgender debate are prepared to accuse others with whom they disagree of showing hatred, or as being transphobic when they are not”. We see this everywhere: from Harry Potter actors condemning JK Rowling for her “hateful” views, to broadcasters saying interviewees should be “cancelled” for saying biological sex is immutable, to academics such as Kathleen Stock abused for wrongthink.

There is no democracy without freedom of expression. That the police have unlawfully acted to shut down legitimate political debate in 21st-century Britain should remind us that, even in mature democracies, the most basic human rights should never be taken for granted.

[artielu]

[Yes, this is long, but it is worth your time to read the whole thing.]

January 6, 2021 (Wednesday)

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

This morning, results from the Georgia senatorial runoff elections showed that Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff had beaten their Republican opponents—both incumbents—by more than the threshold that would require a recount. The Senate is now split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, so the position of majority leader goes to a Democrat. Mitch McConnell, who has bent the government to his will since he took over the position of majority leader in 2007, will be replaced.

With the Democrats in control of both Congress and the Executive Branch, it is reasonable to expect we will see voting rights legislation, which will doom the current-day Republican Party, depending as it has on voter suppression to stay in power.

Trump Republicans and McConnell Republicans had just begun to blame each other for the debacle when Congress began to count the certified electoral votes from the states to establish that Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. The election was not close—Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes and the Electoral College by 306 to 232—but Trump contends that he won the election in a landslide and “fraud” made Biden the winner.

Trump has never had a case. His campaign filed and either lost or had dismissed 62 out of 63 lawsuits because it could produce no evidence for any of its wild accusations. Nonetheless, radical lawmakers courted Trump’s base by echoing Trump’s charges, then tried to argue that the fact voters no longer trusted the vote was reason to contest the certified votes.

More than 100 members of the House announced they would object to counting the votes of certain states. About 13 senators, led by Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), agreed to join them. The move would slow down the count as each chamber would have to debate and take a separate vote on whether to accept the state votes, but the objectors never had anywhere near the votes they needed to make their objections stick.

So Trump turned to pressuring Vice President Mike Pence, who would preside over the counting, to throw out the Biden votes. On Monday, Trump tweeted that “the Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.” This would throw the blame for the loss onto Pence, but the vice president has no constitutional power to do any such thing, and this morning he made that clear in a statement. Trump then tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”

It seemed clear that the voting would be heated, but it was also clear that most of the lawmakers opposing the count were posturing to court Trump’s base for future elections. Congress would count Biden’s win.

But Trump had urged his supporters for weeks to descend on Washington, D.C., to stop what he insisted was the stealing of the election. They did so and, this morning, began to congregate near the Capitol, where the counting would take place. As he passed them on the east side of the Capitol, Hawley raised a power fist.

In the middle of the day, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke to the crowd, telling them: “Let’s have trial by combat.” Trump followed, lying that he had won the election and saying “we are going to have to fight much harder.” He warned that Pence had better “come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country.” He warned that Chinese-driven socialists are taking over the country. And he told them to march on Congress to “save our democracy.”

As rioters took Trump at his word, Congress was counting the votes alphabetically by state. When they got to Arizona, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stood up to echo the rhetoric radicals had been using to discredit the certified votes, saying that public distrust in the election—created out of thin air by Republicans—justified an investigation.

Within an hour, a violent mob stormed the Capitol and Cruz, along with the rest of the lawmakers, was rushed to safety (four quick-thinking staffers brought along the electoral ballots, in their ceremonial boxes). As the rioters broke in, police shot and killed one of them: Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran from San Diego, QAnon believer, and staunch Trump supporter. The insurrectionists broke into the Senate chamber, where one was photographed on the dais of the Senate, shirtless and wearing a bull costume that revealed a Ku Klux Klan tattoo on his abdomen. They roamed the Capitol looking for Pence and other lawmakers they considered enemies. Not finding them, they ransacked offices. One rioter photographed himself sitting at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk with his feet on it.

They carried with them the Confederate flag.

Capitol police provided little obstruction, apparently eager to avoid confrontations that could be used as propaganda on social media. The intruders seemed a little surprised at their success, taking selfies and wandering around like tourists. One stole a lectern.

As the White House, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security all remained silent, President-Elect Joe Biden spoke to cameras urging calm and calling on Trump to tell his supporters to go home. But CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins later reported that she spoke to White House officials who were “genuinely freaked… out” that Trump was “borderline enthusiastic” about the storming of the Capitol because “it meant the certification was being derailed.”

At 4:17, Trump issued his own video, reiterating his false claims that he had been cheated of victory. Only then did he conclude with: “Go home, we love you, you’re very special.” Twitter immediately took the video down. By nighttime Trump’s Twitter feed seemed to blame his enemies for the violence the president had incited (although the rhythm of the words did not sound to me like Trump’s own usual cadence): “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

Twitter took down the tweet and banned the president for at least twelve hours for inciting violence; Facebook and Instagram followed suit.

As the afternoon wore on, police found two pipe bombs near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., as well as a truck full of weapons and ammunition, and mobs gathered at statehouses across the country, including in Kansas, Ohio, Minnesota, California, and Georgia.

By 5:00, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller issued a statement saying he had conferred with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Vice President Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and had fully activated the D.C. National Guard.

He did not mention the president.

By late evening, Washington, D.C., police chief Robert J. Contee III announced that at least 52 people had been arrested and 14 law enforcement officers injured. A total of four people died, including one who died of a heart attack and one who tased themself.

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone urged people to stay away from Trump to limit their chances of being prosecuted for treason under the Sedition Act. By midnight, four staffers had resigned, as well as Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, with other, higher level officials also talking about leaving. Even Trump adviser Stephen Miller admitted it was a bad day. Quickly, pro-Trump media began to insist that the attack was a false-flag operation of “Antifa,” despite the selfies and videos posted by known right-wing agitators, and the fact that Trump had invited, incited, and praised them.

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis laid the blame for today’s attack squarely at the feet of Trump himself: “Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, and effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”

The attempted coup drew condemnation from all but the radical Trump supporters in government. Former President George W. Bush issued a statement “on insurrection at the Capitol,” saying “it is a sickening and heartbreaking sight.” “I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election,” he said, and accused such leaders of enflaming the rioters with lies and false hopes. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) was more direct: “What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States.”

Across the country tonight are calls for Trump’s removal through the 25th amendment, impeachment, or resignation. The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have joined the chorus, writing to Pence urging him to invoke the 25th. Angry at Trump’s sabotaging of the Georgia elections in addition to the attack on our democracy, prominent Republicans are rumored to be doing the same.

At 8:00, heavily armed guards escorted the lawmakers back to the Capitol, thoroughly scrubbed by janitors, where the senators and representatives resumed their counting of the certified votes. The events of the afternoon had broken some of the Republicans away from their determination to challenge the votes. Fourteen Republican senators had announced they would object to counting the certified votes from Arizona; in the evening count the number dropped to six: Cruz (R-TX), Hawley (R-MO), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), John Kennedy (R-LA), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).

In the House, 121 Republicans, more than half the Republican caucus, voted to throw out Biden’s electors from Arizona. As in the Senate, they lost when 303 Representatives voted in favor.

Six senators and more than half of the House Republicans backed an attempt to overthrow our government, in favor of a man caught on tape just four days ago trying to strong-arm a state election official into falsifying the election results.

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

[Heather Cox Richardson is a Professor of History at Boston College. She has daily posts on Facebook that summarize the day's political events and puts them in historical context. The Facebook post link's first comment are her citations to sources.]