Wednesday, November 30, 2016
The Truth About Young Immigrants and DACA - The New York Times
This is so important not just to these talented young people but to our country's future brain trust. "... As secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, I signed the June 15, 2012, directive that began, “I am setting forth how, in the exercise of our prosecutorial discretion, the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) should enforce the nation’s immigration laws against certain young people who were brought to this country as children and know only this country as home.” On the same day, President Obama announced DACA from the Rose Garden in a message heavy on common-sense law enforcement — and hope.
I arrived in the department as a former United States attorney, attorney general and governor of a border state, and I already knew that many of our immigration policies made little, if any, sense because they did not prioritize the use of enforcement resources.
As secretary, I changed enforcement policies to focus on those immigrants who posed a national security or public safety threat, such as gang members and violent felons, and not on veterans, nursing mothers and those with longstanding ties to their communities.
Prioritizing the use of resources in law enforcement is nothing new. It is known as “prosecutorial discretion,” and we can see it all around us — from local police departments deciding whom to pull over instead of stopping every speeding car to federal prosecutors focusing on larger financial fraud instead of going after every bad check.
Indeed, the authority of the federal government to exercise prosecutorial discretion has been repeatedly recognized by the Supreme Court, including in a seminal opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia.
Our efforts to use immigration enforcement resources wisely made a real difference. But when it became clear that Congress was not going to take action on comprehensive immigration reform, I realized that more needed to be done with respect to one special population — Dreamers.
Dreamers, among other requirements, came to the United States as children, developed deep roots in the country and have become valuable contributors to their community. They must be in high school or have a diploma, or be a veteran, and they cannot have been convicted of a felony or major misdemeanor.
For this population, we developed DACA. Under this program, qualifying individuals apply for what is known as “deferred action,” which provides recipients security against removal and the ability to work lawfully for two years, subject to renewal.
Contrary to the sometimes overheated political rhetoric, the program is not the same as amnesty. Each case is assessed on its own merits to ensure the applicant meets the criteria and poses no security threat. This is similar, but not identical, to how a prosecutor decides to charge a case. The program does not grant categorical relief to an entire group.
Today, there are nearly three-quarters of a million Dreamers who no longer have to constantly fear an encounter with an immigration enforcement agent. Instead, they can live, study and work freely. Many are now studying at the system I lead, the University of California.
They are the Berkeley graduate who emigrated to San Francisco at the age of 9 and is now in the system’s medical school there. They are the U.C.L.A. student who, at the age of 12, worked in construction to help support his family, an experience that led him to study urban planning and community development.
Some of the debate about the future of DACA suggests that it provides Dreamers an official immigration status or a pathway to citizenship. As the memorandum establishing the program made clear, this is not the case. Only Congress has the power to confer those rights.
Rather, the program reflects the executive branch doing what it properly does every day — making decisions about how to best use resources within the framework of existing law. There is no reason to abandon these sensible priorities now....."
The Truth About Young Immigrants and DACA - The New York Times
Mr. Trump, Meet the Constitution - The New York Times
"... When Donald Trump, hand on the Bible on Jan. 20, swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, we the people will have good reason to doubt he knows what he’s talking about. Consider what he tweeted out on Tuesday:
“Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”
Here’s where we explain what shouldn’t need explaining. Flag-burning is constitutionally protected speech. The Supreme Court has made this clear, in a ruling joined by Mr. Trump’s favorite justice, Antonin Scalia. It’s popular to want to punish flag-burners — pandering politicians, including Hillary Clinton, have tried. But the First Amendment exists to protect unpopular, even repulsive forms of expression. As the Supreme Court said in a 1990 decision finding a federal law against flag-burning unconstitutional, “Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering.”
It’s interesting that so many of the people, like Mr. Trump, who are eager to punish flag-burners are at the same time so untroubled by speech that offends minorities, women and other Americans. They rail against any concern about that kind of speech as “political correctness.” But in this country, flag-burning is about as politically incorrect as anything you can do. Where is their courageous defense of speech now? Isn’t Mr. Trump the man who stood up for the freedom to say brutally unpleasant things? Who said, at the Republican convention: “I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.”
The court, by the way, has also declared that citizenship cannot be stripped away, not by Congress or the president, not in this democracy..."
Mr. Trump, Meet the Constitution - The New York Times
“Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”
Here’s where we explain what shouldn’t need explaining. Flag-burning is constitutionally protected speech. The Supreme Court has made this clear, in a ruling joined by Mr. Trump’s favorite justice, Antonin Scalia. It’s popular to want to punish flag-burners — pandering politicians, including Hillary Clinton, have tried. But the First Amendment exists to protect unpopular, even repulsive forms of expression. As the Supreme Court said in a 1990 decision finding a federal law against flag-burning unconstitutional, “Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering.”
It’s interesting that so many of the people, like Mr. Trump, who are eager to punish flag-burners are at the same time so untroubled by speech that offends minorities, women and other Americans. They rail against any concern about that kind of speech as “political correctness.” But in this country, flag-burning is about as politically incorrect as anything you can do. Where is their courageous defense of speech now? Isn’t Mr. Trump the man who stood up for the freedom to say brutally unpleasant things? Who said, at the Republican convention: “I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.”
The court, by the way, has also declared that citizenship cannot be stripped away, not by Congress or the president, not in this democracy..."
Mr. Trump, Meet the Constitution - The New York Times
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Trump tweets on 'consequences' for flag burning. Trump is incredibly ignorant. Does he read newspapers? "Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that invalidated prohibitions on desecrating the American flag enforced in 48 of the 50 states." | MSNBC
Monday, November 28, 2016
Donald Trump’s Lies About the Popular Vote - The New York Times
"... On Sunday, President-elect Trump unleashed a barrage of tweets complaining about calls for recounts or vote audits in several closely contested states, and culminating in this message: “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
This is a lie, part of Mr. Trump’s pattern, stretching back many years, of disregard for indisputable facts. There is no evidence of illegal voting on even a small scale anywhere in the country, let alone a systematic conspiracy involving “millions.” But this is the message that gets hammered relentlessly by right-wing propaganda sites like InfoWars, which is run by a conspiracy theorist who claims the Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax — and whose absurdities Mr. Trump has often shouted through his megaphone, which will shortly bear the presidential seal. Mr. Trump added more fuel to the fire with the false claim of “serious voter fraud” in California, Virginia and New Hampshire — all states that went for Hillary Clinton.
In addition to insulting law-abiding voters everywhere, these lies about fraud threaten the foundations of American democracy. They have provided the justification for state voter-suppression laws around the country, and they could give the Trump administration a pretext to roll back voting rights on a national scale...."
Donald Trump’s Lies About the Popular Vote - The New York Times
This is a lie, part of Mr. Trump’s pattern, stretching back many years, of disregard for indisputable facts. There is no evidence of illegal voting on even a small scale anywhere in the country, let alone a systematic conspiracy involving “millions.” But this is the message that gets hammered relentlessly by right-wing propaganda sites like InfoWars, which is run by a conspiracy theorist who claims the Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax — and whose absurdities Mr. Trump has often shouted through his megaphone, which will shortly bear the presidential seal. Mr. Trump added more fuel to the fire with the false claim of “serious voter fraud” in California, Virginia and New Hampshire — all states that went for Hillary Clinton.
In addition to insulting law-abiding voters everywhere, these lies about fraud threaten the foundations of American democracy. They have provided the justification for state voter-suppression laws around the country, and they could give the Trump administration a pretext to roll back voting rights on a national scale...."
Donald Trump’s Lies About the Popular Vote - The New York Times
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Why black Americans love Fidel Castro — Quartz
"When it came to matching words with deeds on the topic of racial equality, the most stalwart leader of the Western hemisphere, over the course of the 20th century, was Fidel Castro.
I say this as a black American who came to bond closely with Latin America as an adult, living in Mexico for almost two years, traveling and staying with families in the Dominican Republic, and making more than half a dozen visits to Cuba, where I strolled through its enchanting cities and drove into the far reaches of the countryside, forging relationships with its people, especially those of darker hue."
Why black Americans love Fidel Castro — Quartz
Hundreds of churches offer sanctuary to undocumented migrants after election | US news | The Guardian
"Hundreds of churches in the US have said they are willing to provide sanctuary for undocumented migrants threatened with deportation following the election of Donald Trump as president.
About 300 churches nationally have come forward in the past two weeks, according to the Philadelphia-based New Sanctuary Movement. It has also seen the number of people in the city registering as volunteers for its “sanctuary in the streets” programme rise from 65 to more than 1,000 since the election."
Hundreds of churches offer sanctuary to undocumented migrants after election | US news | The Guardian
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Black-White Wealth Gap In Cities - The Atlantic
"The wealth discrepancy between blacks and whites is one of the most stark examples of inequality in America. White American families have, on average, around $142,000 in savings and assets, minus debt. Black families’, meanwhile, amounted to only $11,000, according to a 2014 Pew Research study. The gulf between black and white wealth is the worst it has been since the 1980s. Put differently, an average white family has 13 times the wealth of an average black family.
But as though the median numbers for the country as a whole weren’t bad enough, things look much worse in America’s cities, according to a new paper from the Urban institute—even cities such as D.C. where the prevalence of public-sector jobs, a large black population, and a high share of black business owners might make it seem like a place that black families could thrive. But in Washington D.C., the median white family has a staggering 81 times as much wealth as the median black family.
D.C. is not an outlier: In general, urban areas have much more severe racial inequalities, in part because of the concentration of white wealthy people, and the fact that their wealth has not “trickled down” to poor and middle-class black families. According to a 2015 National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Colors, D.C.’s racial wealth gap falls just behind Los Angeles’s, where median wealth for whites was closer to 89 times as much as blacks’. In Miami it was 30 times as high; in Tulsa, 18 times."
Black-White Wealth Gap In Cities - The Atlantic
Friday, November 25, 2016
American Dreamers - NYTimes.com
"The Times Editorial Board has called on the Trump administration to preserve Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that temporarily shields some young immigrants from deportation and allows them to work legally.
We’re featuring stories from young immigrants who were spared from deportation and permitted to work during the Obama administration."
American Dreamers - NYTimes.com
We’re featuring stories from young immigrants who were spared from deportation and permitted to work during the Obama administration."
American Dreamers - NYTimes.com
What Bernie Sanders Does Not Understand. The Populism Perplex - The New York Times
"Recently Bernie Sanders offered an answer: Democrats should “go beyond identity politics.” What’s needed, he said, are candidates who understand that working-class incomes are down, who will “stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry.”
But is there any reason to believe that this would work? Let me offer some reasons for doubt.
First, a general point: Any claim that changed policy positions will win elections assumes that the public will hear about those positions. How is that supposed to happen, when most of the news media simply refuse to cover policy substance? Remember, over the course of the 2016 campaign, the three network news shows devoted a total of 35 minutes combined to policy issues — all policy issues. Meanwhile, they devoted 125 minutes to Mrs. Clinton’s emails.
Beyond this, the fact is that Democrats have already been pursuing policies that are much better for the white working class than anything the other party has to offer. Yet this has brought no political reward.
Consider eastern Kentucky, a very white area which has benefited enormously from Obama-era initiatives. Take, in particular, the case of Clay County, which the Times declared a few years ago to be the hardest place in America to live. It’s still very hard, but at least most of its residents now have health insurance: Independent estimates say that the uninsured rate fell from 27 percent in 2013 to 10 percent in 2016. That’s the effect of the Affordable Care Act, which Mrs. Clinton promised to preserve and extend but Mr. Trump promised to kill.
Mr. Trump received 87 percent of Clay County’s vote.
Now, you might say that health insurance is one thing, but what people want are good jobs. Eastern Kentucky used to be coal country, and Mr. Trump, unlike Mrs. Clinton, promised to bring the coal jobs back. (So much for the idea that Democrats need a candidate who will stand up to the fossil fuels industry.) But it’s a nonsensical promise.
Where did Appalachia’s coal mining jobs go? They weren’t lost to unfair competition from China or Mexico. What happened instead was, first, a decades-long erosion as U.S. coal production shifted from underground mining to strip mining and mountaintop removal, which require many fewer workers: Coal employment peaked in 1979, fell rapidly during the Reagan years, and was down more than half by 2007. A further plunge came in recent years thanks to fracking. None of this is reversible.
Is the case of former coal country exceptional? Not really. Unlike the decline in coal, some of the long-term decline in manufacturing employment can be attributed to rising trade deficits, but even there it’s a fairly small fraction of the story. Nobody can credibly promise to bring the old jobs back; what you can promise — and Mrs. Clinton did — are things like guaranteed health care and higher minimum wages. But working-class whites overwhelmingly voted for politicians who promise to destroy those gains.
So what happened here? Part of the answer may be that Mr. Trump had no problems with telling lies about what he could accomplish. If so, there may be a backlash when the coal and manufacturing jobs don’t come back, while health insurance disappears.
But maybe not. Maybe a Trump administration can keep its supporters on board, not by improving their lives, but by feeding their sense of resentment.
For let’s be serious here: You can’t explain the votes of places like Clay County as a response to disagreements about trade policy. The only way to make sense of what happened is to see the vote as an expression of, well, identity politics — some combination of white resentment at what voters see as favoritism toward nonwhites (even though it isn’t) and anger on the part of the less educated at liberal elites whom they imagine look down on them."
The Populism Perplex - The New York Times
But is there any reason to believe that this would work? Let me offer some reasons for doubt.
First, a general point: Any claim that changed policy positions will win elections assumes that the public will hear about those positions. How is that supposed to happen, when most of the news media simply refuse to cover policy substance? Remember, over the course of the 2016 campaign, the three network news shows devoted a total of 35 minutes combined to policy issues — all policy issues. Meanwhile, they devoted 125 minutes to Mrs. Clinton’s emails.
Beyond this, the fact is that Democrats have already been pursuing policies that are much better for the white working class than anything the other party has to offer. Yet this has brought no political reward.
Consider eastern Kentucky, a very white area which has benefited enormously from Obama-era initiatives. Take, in particular, the case of Clay County, which the Times declared a few years ago to be the hardest place in America to live. It’s still very hard, but at least most of its residents now have health insurance: Independent estimates say that the uninsured rate fell from 27 percent in 2013 to 10 percent in 2016. That’s the effect of the Affordable Care Act, which Mrs. Clinton promised to preserve and extend but Mr. Trump promised to kill.
Mr. Trump received 87 percent of Clay County’s vote.
Now, you might say that health insurance is one thing, but what people want are good jobs. Eastern Kentucky used to be coal country, and Mr. Trump, unlike Mrs. Clinton, promised to bring the coal jobs back. (So much for the idea that Democrats need a candidate who will stand up to the fossil fuels industry.) But it’s a nonsensical promise.
Where did Appalachia’s coal mining jobs go? They weren’t lost to unfair competition from China or Mexico. What happened instead was, first, a decades-long erosion as U.S. coal production shifted from underground mining to strip mining and mountaintop removal, which require many fewer workers: Coal employment peaked in 1979, fell rapidly during the Reagan years, and was down more than half by 2007. A further plunge came in recent years thanks to fracking. None of this is reversible.
Is the case of former coal country exceptional? Not really. Unlike the decline in coal, some of the long-term decline in manufacturing employment can be attributed to rising trade deficits, but even there it’s a fairly small fraction of the story. Nobody can credibly promise to bring the old jobs back; what you can promise — and Mrs. Clinton did — are things like guaranteed health care and higher minimum wages. But working-class whites overwhelmingly voted for politicians who promise to destroy those gains.
So what happened here? Part of the answer may be that Mr. Trump had no problems with telling lies about what he could accomplish. If so, there may be a backlash when the coal and manufacturing jobs don’t come back, while health insurance disappears.
But maybe not. Maybe a Trump administration can keep its supporters on board, not by improving their lives, but by feeding their sense of resentment.
For let’s be serious here: You can’t explain the votes of places like Clay County as a response to disagreements about trade policy. The only way to make sense of what happened is to see the vote as an expression of, well, identity politics — some combination of white resentment at what voters see as favoritism toward nonwhites (even though it isn’t) and anger on the part of the less educated at liberal elites whom they imagine look down on them."
The Populism Perplex - The New York Times
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Trump Foundation admits to violating ban on ‘self-dealing,’ new filing to IRS shows
The Trumpgate investigation has begun.
"President-elect Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has admitted to the Internal Revenue Service that it violated a legal prohibition against “self-dealing,” which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families.
The admission was contained in the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s IRS tax filings for 2015, which were recently posted online at the nonprofit-tracking site GuideStar. A GuideStar spokesman said the forms were uploaded by the Trump Foundation’s law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius."
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Monday, November 21, 2016
We need to talk about the online radicalisation of young, white men | Abi Wilkinson | Opinion | The Guardian
For several years now, I’ve had a dark and fairly unusual hobby. When I’m alone and bored and the mood strikes me, I’ll open up my laptop and head for a particularly unsavoury corner of the internet.
No, not the bit you’re thinking of. Somewhere far worse. That loose network of blogs, forums, subreddits and alternative media publications colloquially known as the “manosphere”. An online subculture centred around hatred, anger and resentment of feminism specifically, and women more broadly. It’s grimly fascinating and now troubling relevant.
In modern parlance, this is part of the phenomenon known as the “alt-right”. More sympathetic commentators portray it as “a backlash to PC culture” and critics call it out as neofascism. Over the past year, it has been strange to see the disturbing internet subculture I’ve followed for so long enter the mainstream. The executive chairman of one of its most popular media outlets, Breitbart, has just been appointed Donald Trump’s chief of strategy, and their UK bureau chief was among the first Brits to have a meeting with the president-elect. Their figurehead – Milo Yiannopoulos – toured the country stumping for him during the campaign on his “Dangerous Faggot” tour. These people are now part of the political landscape.
We need to talk about the online radicalisation of young, white men | Abi Wilkinson | Opinion | The Guardian
No, not the bit you’re thinking of. Somewhere far worse. That loose network of blogs, forums, subreddits and alternative media publications colloquially known as the “manosphere”. An online subculture centred around hatred, anger and resentment of feminism specifically, and women more broadly. It’s grimly fascinating and now troubling relevant.
In modern parlance, this is part of the phenomenon known as the “alt-right”. More sympathetic commentators portray it as “a backlash to PC culture” and critics call it out as neofascism. Over the past year, it has been strange to see the disturbing internet subculture I’ve followed for so long enter the mainstream. The executive chairman of one of its most popular media outlets, Breitbart, has just been appointed Donald Trump’s chief of strategy, and their UK bureau chief was among the first Brits to have a meeting with the president-elect. Their figurehead – Milo Yiannopoulos – toured the country stumping for him during the campaign on his “Dangerous Faggot” tour. These people are now part of the political landscape.
We need to talk about the online radicalisation of young, white men | Abi Wilkinson | Opinion | The Guardian
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Dreams of undocumented young people start to crumble after Trump victory | US news | The Guardian
"Fears that the imminent arrival of Donald Trump in the White House could force hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants back into the shadows have already started to materialize, as young Hispanics are giving up hope of acquiring legal status just days after the presidential election.
Immigration lawyers are advising undocumented youths, known as “Dreamers”, to stop applying for temporary work permits under a program introduced by Barack Obama on the grounds that it could expose them to potential deportation once Trump is in power. The president-elect has plans to scrap the scheme, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), as one of his first acts in office.
The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is now giving standard guidance to all Dreamers that “if you do not currently have Daca and are considering whether to apply for it for the first time, we recommend that you NOT do so at this time”.
The evidence that undocumented young people are already turning away from the legal status program is the first sign that Trump’s victory has begun to push people into forms of hiding. It is also the first sign that Obama’s legacy, built partly around his attempt to bring the Dreamers into the light, has rapidly started to unravel."
Dreams of undocumented young people start to crumble after Trump victory | US news | The Guardian
Immigration lawyers are advising undocumented youths, known as “Dreamers”, to stop applying for temporary work permits under a program introduced by Barack Obama on the grounds that it could expose them to potential deportation once Trump is in power. The president-elect has plans to scrap the scheme, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), as one of his first acts in office.
The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is now giving standard guidance to all Dreamers that “if you do not currently have Daca and are considering whether to apply for it for the first time, we recommend that you NOT do so at this time”.
The evidence that undocumented young people are already turning away from the legal status program is the first sign that Trump’s victory has begun to push people into forms of hiding. It is also the first sign that Obama’s legacy, built partly around his attempt to bring the Dreamers into the light, has rapidly started to unravel."
Dreams of undocumented young people start to crumble after Trump victory | US news | The Guardian
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Pure Evil - Jeff Sessions as Attorney General: An Insult to Justice - By The Editorial Board, New York Times
By The Editorial Board, www.nytimes.com November 19th, 2016
"In 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Jeff Sessions, then a United States attorney from Alabama, to be a federal judge. The Republican-controlled Senate rejected Mr. Sessions out of concern, based on devastating testimony by former colleagues, that he was a racist.
Three decades later, Mr. Sessions, now a veteran Alabama senator, is on the verge of becoming the nation’s top law-enforcement official, after President-elect Donald Trump tapped him on Friday to be attorney general.
It would be nice to report that Mr. Sessions, who is now 69, has conscientiously worked to dispel the shadows that cost him the judgeship. Instead, the years since his last confirmation hearing reveal a pattern of dogged animus to civil rights and the progress of black Americans and immigrants.
Based on his record, we can form a fairly clear picture of what his Justice Department would look like:
For starters, forget about aggressive protection of civil rights, and of voting rights in particular. Mr. Sessions has called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a “piece of intrusive legislation.” Under him, the department would most likely focus less on prosecutions of minority voter suppression and more on rooting out voter fraud, that hallowed conservative myth. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Sessions brought voter-fraud charges against three civil rights workers trying to register black voters in rural Alabama. The prosecution turned up 14 allegedly doctored ballots out of 1.7 million cast, and the jury voted to acquit.
Forget, also, any federal criminal-justice reform, which was on the cusp of passage in Congress before Mr. Trump’s “law and order” campaign. Mr. Sessions strongly opposed bipartisan legislation to scale back the outrageously harsh sentences that filled federal prisons with low-level drug offenders. Instead, he called for more mandatory-minimum sentences and harsher punishments for drug crimes. The one bright spot was his working with Democrats to reduce the 100-to-1 disparity between punishments for crack and powder cocaine offenses.
But Mr. Sessions can do plenty of damage without any congressional action. As attorney general, he would set the guidelines prosecutors follow in deciding what cases and charges to bring. In 2013, Eric Holder Jr. ordered his prosecutors to avoid the most severe charges in low-level nonviolent drug cases, which has helped cut the number of absurdly long sentences for minor players. Mr. Sessions could reverse that with the stroke of a pen. He could just as easily reverse Mr. Holder’s decision not to interfere with state marijuana laws, likely ramping up prosecutions even as states continue to legalize the drug for medicinal or recreational use. “Good people don’t smoke marijuana,” he said at a Senate hearing in April.
Mr. Sessions has been the Senate’s most ardent opponent of fixing the immigration system. In 2015 he proposed a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone re-entering the country illegally after being deported. That could increase the federal prison population by as much as 30 percent. As Mr. Trump’s chief law enforcer, he is likely to fully support efforts to enlist local law enforcement in a widening dragnet for people without papers. He also, during the campaign, endorsed the idea of a ban on Muslim immigrants.
Count Mr. Sessions, as well, among those Trump allies calling for a special prosecutor to continue investigating Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, a decision that, if he is attorney general, would be his to make.
Donald Trump ran a presidential campaign that stoked white racial resentment. His choice for attorney general — which, like his other early choices, has been praised by white supremacists — embodies that worldview. We expect today’s senators, like their predecessors in 1986, to examine Mr. Sessions’s views and record with bipartisan rigor. If they do, it is hard to imagine that they will endorse a man once rejected for a low-level judgeship to safeguard justice for all Americans as attorney general."
"In 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Jeff Sessions, then a United States attorney from Alabama, to be a federal judge. The Republican-controlled Senate rejected Mr. Sessions out of concern, based on devastating testimony by former colleagues, that he was a racist.
Three decades later, Mr. Sessions, now a veteran Alabama senator, is on the verge of becoming the nation’s top law-enforcement official, after President-elect Donald Trump tapped him on Friday to be attorney general.
It would be nice to report that Mr. Sessions, who is now 69, has conscientiously worked to dispel the shadows that cost him the judgeship. Instead, the years since his last confirmation hearing reveal a pattern of dogged animus to civil rights and the progress of black Americans and immigrants.
Based on his record, we can form a fairly clear picture of what his Justice Department would look like:
For starters, forget about aggressive protection of civil rights, and of voting rights in particular. Mr. Sessions has called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a “piece of intrusive legislation.” Under him, the department would most likely focus less on prosecutions of minority voter suppression and more on rooting out voter fraud, that hallowed conservative myth. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Sessions brought voter-fraud charges against three civil rights workers trying to register black voters in rural Alabama. The prosecution turned up 14 allegedly doctored ballots out of 1.7 million cast, and the jury voted to acquit.
Forget, also, any federal criminal-justice reform, which was on the cusp of passage in Congress before Mr. Trump’s “law and order” campaign. Mr. Sessions strongly opposed bipartisan legislation to scale back the outrageously harsh sentences that filled federal prisons with low-level drug offenders. Instead, he called for more mandatory-minimum sentences and harsher punishments for drug crimes. The one bright spot was his working with Democrats to reduce the 100-to-1 disparity between punishments for crack and powder cocaine offenses.
But Mr. Sessions can do plenty of damage without any congressional action. As attorney general, he would set the guidelines prosecutors follow in deciding what cases and charges to bring. In 2013, Eric Holder Jr. ordered his prosecutors to avoid the most severe charges in low-level nonviolent drug cases, which has helped cut the number of absurdly long sentences for minor players. Mr. Sessions could reverse that with the stroke of a pen. He could just as easily reverse Mr. Holder’s decision not to interfere with state marijuana laws, likely ramping up prosecutions even as states continue to legalize the drug for medicinal or recreational use. “Good people don’t smoke marijuana,” he said at a Senate hearing in April.
Mr. Sessions has been the Senate’s most ardent opponent of fixing the immigration system. In 2015 he proposed a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone re-entering the country illegally after being deported. That could increase the federal prison population by as much as 30 percent. As Mr. Trump’s chief law enforcer, he is likely to fully support efforts to enlist local law enforcement in a widening dragnet for people without papers. He also, during the campaign, endorsed the idea of a ban on Muslim immigrants.
Count Mr. Sessions, as well, among those Trump allies calling for a special prosecutor to continue investigating Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, a decision that, if he is attorney general, would be his to make.
Donald Trump ran a presidential campaign that stoked white racial resentment. His choice for attorney general — which, like his other early choices, has been praised by white supremacists — embodies that worldview. We expect today’s senators, like their predecessors in 1986, to examine Mr. Sessions’s views and record with bipartisan rigor. If they do, it is hard to imagine that they will endorse a man once rejected for a low-level judgeship to safeguard justice for all Americans as attorney general."
Friday, November 18, 2016
The nominatiob of this avid eacist is unaccetable. Donald Trump Selects Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General - The New York Times
"While serving as a United States prosecutor in Alabama, Mr. Sessions was nominated in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan for a federal judgeship. But his nomination was rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee because of racially charged comments and actions. At that time, he was one of two judicial nominees whose selections were halted by the panel in nearly 50 years.
In testimony before the committee, former colleagues said that Mr. Sessions had referred to the N.A.A.C.P., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other civil rights groups as “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” An African-American federal prosecutor then, Thomas H. Figures, said Mr. Sessions had referred to him as “boy” and testified that Mr. Sessions said the Ku Klux Klan was fine “until I found out they smoked pot.” Mr. Sessions dismissed that remark as a joke.
Mr. Sessions was also accused of speaking disparagingly of the Voting Rights Act and the stringent oversight it placed on Southern states.
Mr. Sessions, who was elected attorney general of Alabama in 1995, has long considered it a personal triumph that he was able to be elected to the Senate in 1997 and become a member of the panel that rejected his nomination to become a federal judge. "
Donald Trump Selects Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General - The New York Times
In testimony before the committee, former colleagues said that Mr. Sessions had referred to the N.A.A.C.P., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other civil rights groups as “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” An African-American federal prosecutor then, Thomas H. Figures, said Mr. Sessions had referred to him as “boy” and testified that Mr. Sessions said the Ku Klux Klan was fine “until I found out they smoked pot.” Mr. Sessions dismissed that remark as a joke.
Mr. Sessions was also accused of speaking disparagingly of the Voting Rights Act and the stringent oversight it placed on Southern states.
Mr. Sessions, who was elected attorney general of Alabama in 1995, has long considered it a personal triumph that he was able to be elected to the Senate in 1997 and become a member of the panel that rejected his nomination to become a federal judge. "
Donald Trump Selects Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General - The New York Times
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Immigration hardliner says Trump team preparing plans for wall, mulling Muslim registry | Reuters
By Mica Rosenberg and Julia Edwards Ainsley | NEW YORK/WASHINGTON
An architect of anti-immigration efforts who says he is advising President-elect Donald Trump said the new administration could push ahead rapidly on construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall without seeking immediate congressional approval.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview that Trump's policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.
Kobach, who media reports say is a key member of Trump's transition team, said he had participated in regular conference calls with about a dozen Trump immigration advisers for the past two to three months.
Trump's transition team did not respond to requests for confirmation of Kobach's role. The president-elect has not committed to following any specific recommendations from advisory groups.
Trump, who scored an upset victory last week over Democrat Hillary Clinton, made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border a central issue of his campaign and has pledged to step up immigration enforcement against the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. He has also said he supports “extreme vetting” of Muslims entering the United States as a national security measure.
Immigration hardliner says Trump team preparing plans for wall, mulling Muslim registry | Reuters
An architect of anti-immigration efforts who says he is advising President-elect Donald Trump said the new administration could push ahead rapidly on construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall without seeking immediate congressional approval.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview that Trump's policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.
Kobach, who media reports say is a key member of Trump's transition team, said he had participated in regular conference calls with about a dozen Trump immigration advisers for the past two to three months.
Trump's transition team did not respond to requests for confirmation of Kobach's role. The president-elect has not committed to following any specific recommendations from advisory groups.
Trump, who scored an upset victory last week over Democrat Hillary Clinton, made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border a central issue of his campaign and has pledged to step up immigration enforcement against the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. He has also said he supports “extreme vetting” of Muslims entering the United States as a national security measure.
Immigration hardliner says Trump team preparing plans for wall, mulling Muslim registry | Reuters
Monday, November 14, 2016
Sunday, November 13, 2016
\NAACP | NAACP STATEMENT ON PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
"Baltimore, MD – NAACP National President and CEO Cornell William Brooks issued the following statement regarding the results of the 2016 presidential election:
“Even as we extend our congratulations to President-Elect Donald J. Trump, the NAACP, as America’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, must bluntly note that the 2016 campaign has regularized racism, standardized anti-Semitism, de-exceptionalized xenophobia and mainstreamed misogyny. Voter suppression, as the courts have declared, has too become rampant and routine.
From the day that General George Washington accepted the people’s charge to become their first commander-in-chief, to the day that we elected Barack Obama as our country’s first African-American president, America has come together to ensure a peaceful transition of power. This most recent presidential election must meet this distinctly American standard. President-Elect Trump’s victory speech avoided a divisive tone and thus invoked this standard.
During this critical period of transition, we are now calling upon the next president to speak and act with the moral clarity necessary to silence the dog-whistle racial politics that have characterized recent months and have left many of our fellow citizens snarling at one another in anger and even whimpering in fear. The more than 120 million Americans who cast ballots in this election – as well as the more than 100 million more eligible voters who declined to vote – deserve no less.
The NAACP stands ready to work with a new administration to realize the racial justice concerns that not only compelled millions of people to go to the polls on Election Day but also inspired millions to protest in the streets in the preceding days and months. Depending upon the new administration’s fidelity to America’s ideals of liberty and the NAACP’s agenda for justice, we will either be at its side or in its face. We will not let this election distract or dissuade us; the NAACP will continue to stand strong at the frontlines, advocating for voting rights, criminal justice reform and equality for all."
NAACP | NAACP STATEMENT ON PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
“Even as we extend our congratulations to President-Elect Donald J. Trump, the NAACP, as America’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, must bluntly note that the 2016 campaign has regularized racism, standardized anti-Semitism, de-exceptionalized xenophobia and mainstreamed misogyny. Voter suppression, as the courts have declared, has too become rampant and routine.
From the day that General George Washington accepted the people’s charge to become their first commander-in-chief, to the day that we elected Barack Obama as our country’s first African-American president, America has come together to ensure a peaceful transition of power. This most recent presidential election must meet this distinctly American standard. President-Elect Trump’s victory speech avoided a divisive tone and thus invoked this standard.
During this critical period of transition, we are now calling upon the next president to speak and act with the moral clarity necessary to silence the dog-whistle racial politics that have characterized recent months and have left many of our fellow citizens snarling at one another in anger and even whimpering in fear. The more than 120 million Americans who cast ballots in this election – as well as the more than 100 million more eligible voters who declined to vote – deserve no less.
The NAACP stands ready to work with a new administration to realize the racial justice concerns that not only compelled millions of people to go to the polls on Election Day but also inspired millions to protest in the streets in the preceding days and months. Depending upon the new administration’s fidelity to America’s ideals of liberty and the NAACP’s agenda for justice, we will either be at its side or in its face. We will not let this election distract or dissuade us; the NAACP will continue to stand strong at the frontlines, advocating for voting rights, criminal justice reform and equality for all."
NAACP | NAACP STATEMENT ON PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Trump’s Racial Time Machine - The New York Times
"James Baldwin, for example, argued relentlessly that whites believe they are white because they consistently forget their history. In failing to deal honestly with the legacy of white supremacy, whites embrace their sense of identity as bound up with American virtue and in doing so they obscure notions of responsibility and culpability for historical wrongs and horrors that no reasonable person can deny took place. Baldwin felt that in refusing to deal honestly with the fact that their prosperity depends entirely on a history of black exploitation, rape, murder and pillage, whites imbue their identity with an innocence that allows them to see the future as open and free and their minutes and days as pregnant with possibility and power.
What happens in these instances is indeed a warping of time. The laws of the universe are experienced without friction for white Americans because a willful denial of the past leaves them with no sense that their present is insecure or that their future is in question. It will always be O.K. in exactly one minute, day, or year from now. But this is not many blacks’ experience of time. Rather, many blacks are now morbidly amused by America’s newfound horror over black death at the hands of the state. “We must do something to stop this tragedy!” the newly awakened shout.
But for us there is nothing new in this. Indeed, if we had been truly listened to so many decades ago the timeline of many innocent blacks would have been extended; the histories of so many families would be marked by more Christmases spent together; the futures of so many of the young and living would not be tinged with the apathy born of doubt and skepticism. These people — I suspect my graduate student is among them — would not look to tomorrow wondering if it really is in their power to change. We talk unceasingly in this country about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, but doing so isn’t only a matter of managing action, it is also about planning action, and doing that depends on what one really thinks an American minute amounts to.
To say at this point that his candidacy was controversial is, well, uncontroversial. In the time he made his case to the people we came to learn that he believes “the” African-Americans live in hell — linguistically defining us as a monolithic block of existential misery worthy of pity and more police. We learned that racial paranoia can be expressed openly by whites and left unchallenged; that nonwhite voters left unmonitored would “steal” the election; that the powerful can grab women by the genitals without remorse; that finding every way he could to avoid paying taxes and betting on a housing crisis was just called “business.”
All this indicates a man for whom normal expectations — what is supposed to happen a minute from now — are null and void. That he has been elected to the nation’s highest office indicates a largely white electorate that believes that the country’s future should be in the hands of a man to whom the present has no causal relationship to the past, and thinks that the future is what we make of it."
Trump’s Racial Time Machine - The New York Times
What happens in these instances is indeed a warping of time. The laws of the universe are experienced without friction for white Americans because a willful denial of the past leaves them with no sense that their present is insecure or that their future is in question. It will always be O.K. in exactly one minute, day, or year from now. But this is not many blacks’ experience of time. Rather, many blacks are now morbidly amused by America’s newfound horror over black death at the hands of the state. “We must do something to stop this tragedy!” the newly awakened shout.
But for us there is nothing new in this. Indeed, if we had been truly listened to so many decades ago the timeline of many innocent blacks would have been extended; the histories of so many families would be marked by more Christmases spent together; the futures of so many of the young and living would not be tinged with the apathy born of doubt and skepticism. These people — I suspect my graduate student is among them — would not look to tomorrow wondering if it really is in their power to change. We talk unceasingly in this country about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, but doing so isn’t only a matter of managing action, it is also about planning action, and doing that depends on what one really thinks an American minute amounts to.
To say at this point that his candidacy was controversial is, well, uncontroversial. In the time he made his case to the people we came to learn that he believes “the” African-Americans live in hell — linguistically defining us as a monolithic block of existential misery worthy of pity and more police. We learned that racial paranoia can be expressed openly by whites and left unchallenged; that nonwhite voters left unmonitored would “steal” the election; that the powerful can grab women by the genitals without remorse; that finding every way he could to avoid paying taxes and betting on a housing crisis was just called “business.”
All this indicates a man for whom normal expectations — what is supposed to happen a minute from now — are null and void. That he has been elected to the nation’s highest office indicates a largely white electorate that believes that the country’s future should be in the hands of a man to whom the present has no causal relationship to the past, and thinks that the future is what we make of it."
Trump’s Racial Time Machine - The New York Times
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Donald Trump's presidency: What to expect on immigration, infrastructure, Obamacare, the TPP, and the US Supreme Court — Quartz
"Under the policy known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), implemented by Obama as an executive order in 2012, more than 700,000 immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children have been allowed to temporarily stay and work in the US. DAPA is a similar policy for the undocumented parents of American citizens; it has been challenged in court by several states.
Trump has vowed to end DACA, DAPA, and so-called “catch-and-release” policies, or the practice of not detaining immigrants while they wait for their cases to be processed. He’s also said he’s going to triple the number of US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents and will “move criminal aliens out day one.”
None of this will result in mass deportations in the short term—the US Department of Homeland Security does not have the funding to deport all 11 million people who are thought to be in the country illegally, and it’s unclear where Trump would get it. There’s also a question of physical resources; thousand of Central American women and children who showed up at the border in the summer of 2014 quickly overwhelmed existing detention facilities."
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Sunday, November 06, 2016
Al Franken: FBI's James Comey should face Senate hearings - CNNPolitics.com
"Washington (CNN)Sen. Al Franken called Sunday for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on FBI Director James Comey's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server. And the Minnesota senator said he thinks Hillary Clinton can rely on his state's voters despite a last-minute visit from Donald Trump, though he said he's always "nervous."
Al Franken: FBI's James Comey should face Senate hearings - CNNPolitics.com
"I think that there should be hearings, and I'm certain there will be hearings in the Judiciary Committee on this matter," the Franken told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."
His comments reflected the Democratic frustration with Comey telling lawmakers 11 days before the November 8 election that the FBI was reviewing new emails potentially connected to its investigation into whether Clinton mishandled classified information."
Al Franken: FBI's James Comey should face Senate hearings - CNNPolitics.com
Saturday, November 05, 2016
AP Just Confirmed Melania Trump Worked Illegally As An Immigrant
"Melania Trump was paid for 10 modeling jobs in the United States worth $20,056 that occurred in the seven weeks before she had legal permission to work in the country, according to detailed accounting ledgers, contracts and related documents from 20 years ago provided to The Associated Press."
AP Just Confirmed Melania Trump Worked Illegally As An Immigrant
Giuliani brags about connections to reactionary FBI agents.
"Top Trump ally and former federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani has boasted more than once about being in touch with FBI agents who are hot after Hillary. One example, from Oct. 28, via the Daily Beast:
“The other rumor that I get is that there’s a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI about the original conclusion [not to charge Clinton] being completely unjustified and almost a slap in the face to the FBI’s integrity,” said Giuliani. “I know that from former agents. I know that even from a few active agents.”
Giuliani brags about connections to reactionary FBI agents.
Friday, November 04, 2016
Remember When Hillary Clinton Ripped Giuliani Over Amadou Diallo's Murder? | Hinterland Gazette
""The police even accused Clinton of poisoning the well after she spoke out about the shooting. But did she? She was pointing out the beginning of a dangerous trend that continues to this very day with the assault on black life by the police.
Further, many people either have conveniently forgotten or don’t know that Mrs. Clinton spoke out loud and clear about Diallo’s execution by cops in the Bronx. Diallo, who was unarmed, was shot 41 times in front of his home in the Soundview section of the Bronx.
NY Post: “Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday assailed Mayor Giuliani for ignoring serious racial problems with the NYPD — saying Amadou Diallo’s death must spark reforms. “The leadership in this city refuses to reach out to work with a community that is in pain, to even acknowledge there is a problem,” Clinton told more than 2,000 worshipers at a packed Riverside Church.”
Giuliani accused Clinton of making the shooting about race and said she knew nothing about the matter. In fact, Mrs. Clinton was right. It was about race then. And it still is today.
Racial tensions were simmering in New York City for a long time and as mayor Giuliani didn’t help matters. So, it’s laughable when he dares to criticize Black Lives Matter because he has had an abysmal record on unifying the city. He is now saying that black children must learn to the respect the police. Um, really? How about former NYPD officer Justin Volpe who sodomized Abner Louima with a broken broomstick? Volpe would later brag to fellow officers, “I broke a man down.” Louima suffered a ruptured bladder and a ruptured colon. He almost died. Should he have respected him too? How about the police officers that murdered an elderly woman, Kathryn Johnson, in Atlanta and lied repeatedly after kicking down her front door trying to serve a no-knock warrant on the wrong house. They were charged and sent to prison. Should she have respected them too?
Giuliani claimed that black children have “a 99% chance” of killing each other. Um, so I guess we shouldn’t be worried about police brutality. No research has ever shown that statistic, but it didn’t stop him from citing it anyway."
Remember When Hillary Clinton Ripped Giuliani Over Amadou Diallo's Murder? | Hinterland Gazette
Further, many people either have conveniently forgotten or don’t know that Mrs. Clinton spoke out loud and clear about Diallo’s execution by cops in the Bronx. Diallo, who was unarmed, was shot 41 times in front of his home in the Soundview section of the Bronx.
NY Post: “Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday assailed Mayor Giuliani for ignoring serious racial problems with the NYPD — saying Amadou Diallo’s death must spark reforms. “The leadership in this city refuses to reach out to work with a community that is in pain, to even acknowledge there is a problem,” Clinton told more than 2,000 worshipers at a packed Riverside Church.”
Giuliani accused Clinton of making the shooting about race and said she knew nothing about the matter. In fact, Mrs. Clinton was right. It was about race then. And it still is today.
Racial tensions were simmering in New York City for a long time and as mayor Giuliani didn’t help matters. So, it’s laughable when he dares to criticize Black Lives Matter because he has had an abysmal record on unifying the city. He is now saying that black children must learn to the respect the police. Um, really? How about former NYPD officer Justin Volpe who sodomized Abner Louima with a broken broomstick? Volpe would later brag to fellow officers, “I broke a man down.” Louima suffered a ruptured bladder and a ruptured colon. He almost died. Should he have respected him too? How about the police officers that murdered an elderly woman, Kathryn Johnson, in Atlanta and lied repeatedly after kicking down her front door trying to serve a no-knock warrant on the wrong house. They were charged and sent to prison. Should she have respected them too?
Giuliani claimed that black children have “a 99% chance” of killing each other. Um, so I guess we shouldn’t be worried about police brutality. No research has ever shown that statistic, but it didn’t stop him from citing it anyway."
Remember When Hillary Clinton Ripped Giuliani Over Amadou Diallo's Murder? | Hinterland Gazette
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