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alwaysinasnit
alwaysinasnit's Journal
alwaysinasnit's Journal
February 17, 2020
snip...
Under Donald Trump, the militarization of civil society is enmeshed with the over-criminalization of illegal entry. The administration decided to confiscate babies as a deterrent to unlawful border crossing. It created apparent “concentration camps” for immigrants and their families. Now, according to the Times, US Customs and Border Protection, or Border Patrol, is deploying 100 officers to so-called “sanctuary cities.”
The official goal is increasing deportations by 35 percent. But intimidation appears to be the real goal. Among agents, the Times said, are “members of the elite tactical unit known as BORTAC, which acts essentially as the SWAT team … With additional gear such as stun grenades and enhanced Special Forces-type training, including sniper certification, the officers typically conduct high-risk operations targeting individuals who are known to be violent, many of them with extensive criminal records.”
Before the Times broke the news, Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent turned civil rights activist, reported a conversation she had with a former senior agency official:
"Border Patrol does not believe they are a civilian law enforcement agency. They believe they are kin to the Marine Corps. They do not believe they are accountable to Congress, which is why they have no issues lying to them even while under oath.
They believe they are only accountable to … presidents like Trump. Border Patrol believes it is not required to answer to local police, FBI, CIA or any other law enforcement agency. They claim to be the “premiere” law enforcement agency, superior to all others. They say they will become a “national police force” to be used by a president to enforce laws even among citizens. (Italics are emphatically mine.)"
Border Patrol as 45's Secret Police?
https://stoehr.substack.com/p/a0eb8dbf-d44a-499b-a88e-a56bd0916f4dsnip...
Under Donald Trump, the militarization of civil society is enmeshed with the over-criminalization of illegal entry. The administration decided to confiscate babies as a deterrent to unlawful border crossing. It created apparent “concentration camps” for immigrants and their families. Now, according to the Times, US Customs and Border Protection, or Border Patrol, is deploying 100 officers to so-called “sanctuary cities.”
The official goal is increasing deportations by 35 percent. But intimidation appears to be the real goal. Among agents, the Times said, are “members of the elite tactical unit known as BORTAC, which acts essentially as the SWAT team … With additional gear such as stun grenades and enhanced Special Forces-type training, including sniper certification, the officers typically conduct high-risk operations targeting individuals who are known to be violent, many of them with extensive criminal records.”
Before the Times broke the news, Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent turned civil rights activist, reported a conversation she had with a former senior agency official:
"Border Patrol does not believe they are a civilian law enforcement agency. They believe they are kin to the Marine Corps. They do not believe they are accountable to Congress, which is why they have no issues lying to them even while under oath.
They believe they are only accountable to … presidents like Trump. Border Patrol believes it is not required to answer to local police, FBI, CIA or any other law enforcement agency. They claim to be the “premiere” law enforcement agency, superior to all others. They say they will become a “national police force” to be used by a president to enforce laws even among citizens. (Italics are emphatically mine.)"
February 13, 2020
Another wonderful person has given me a heart. My sincere thanks to you.
February 12, 2020
Glen Heck spent 28 years sweating in a Campti, Louisiana, paper mill that he likes to say was “hotter than nine kinds of hell.”
But now, Heck’s sacrifice may have been for nothing because his multiemployer pension plan is one of about 150 nationwide set to go broke. If that happens, the 78-year-old Heck will have to find a cheaper, lower-quality health plan and keep the beef herd he’s itching to sell.
The Democratic-controlled House passed—with bipartisan support—a commonsense plan to save Heck’s pension and those of another 1.3 million workers, retirees, and widows. But Republican leaders in the Senate refuse to consider it.
In the meantime, the futures of workers and retirees like Heck hang in the balance. Many face retirement with fear instead of anticipation.
snip...
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More GOP cruelty.
GOP-controlled Senate putting the pensions of 1.3 million Americans at risk.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/how-the-gop-controlled-senate-is-putting-the-pensions-of-1-3-million-americans-at-risk/Glen Heck spent 28 years sweating in a Campti, Louisiana, paper mill that he likes to say was “hotter than nine kinds of hell.”
But now, Heck’s sacrifice may have been for nothing because his multiemployer pension plan is one of about 150 nationwide set to go broke. If that happens, the 78-year-old Heck will have to find a cheaper, lower-quality health plan and keep the beef herd he’s itching to sell.
The Democratic-controlled House passed—with bipartisan support—a commonsense plan to save Heck’s pension and those of another 1.3 million workers, retirees, and widows. But Republican leaders in the Senate refuse to consider it.
In the meantime, the futures of workers and retirees like Heck hang in the balance. Many face retirement with fear instead of anticipation.
snip...
-------------
More GOP cruelty.
February 12, 2020
One more heart! Thank you so much!
February 12, 2020
Thank you kind DU'er for my recent heart (and the warm and fuzzies that came with it).
February 12, 2020
snip...
In a jaw-dropping opinion issued by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago on January 23, Judge Frank Easterbrook—a longtime speaker for the conservative Federalist Society and someone whom the late Justice Antonin Scalia favored to replace him on the U.S. Supreme Court—rebuked Attorney General William Barr for declaring in a letter that the court’s decision in an immigration case was “incorrect” and thus dispensable. Barr’s letter was used as justification by the Board of Immigration Appeals (the federal agency that applies immigration laws) to ignore the court’s ruling not to deport a man who had applied for a visa to remain in the country.
As Washington reels from the surprise withdrawals of Roger Stone‘s prosecutors, apparently triggered by Trump’s intervention in the upcoming sentencing of his long-time adviser, the Easterbrook broadside offers another window into the way the Trump administration is violating the division of power between the executive and judicial branches.
The 7th Circuit case involved an undocumented immigrant, Jorge Baez-Sanchez, who was subject to removal from the United States after being convicted of a crime. Baez-Sanchez applied for a special visa allowing him to remain in the U.S. if he was also a victim of a crime. An immigration judge twice granted Baez-Sanchez a waiver. But the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the immigration judge’s decision, claiming that only the attorney general personally could grant waivers—not immigration judges. Baez-Sanchez appealed to the 7th Circuit, which disagreed and remanded the case with a directive that the Department of Homeland Security comply with the immigration judge’s waiver. When it refused, Easterbrook, a 35-year veteran of the court, had had enough of the willful disregard for judicial authority.
“We have never before encountered defiance of a remand order, and we hope never to see it again,” Easterbrook wrote. “Members of the Board must count themselves lucky that Baez-Sanchez has not asked us to hold them in contempt, with all the consequences that possibility entails.”
snip...
----------------
Barr's arrogance is phenomenal, but if this behavior continues unchecked, 45 and cabal will have eviscerated the judiciary too (to the extent that they don't agree with judicial decisions).
A department of the DOJ defied a federal court order. This is a big deal IMO.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/02/12/a-conservative-judge-draws-a-line-in-the-sand-with-trump-administration-114185snip...
In a jaw-dropping opinion issued by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago on January 23, Judge Frank Easterbrook—a longtime speaker for the conservative Federalist Society and someone whom the late Justice Antonin Scalia favored to replace him on the U.S. Supreme Court—rebuked Attorney General William Barr for declaring in a letter that the court’s decision in an immigration case was “incorrect” and thus dispensable. Barr’s letter was used as justification by the Board of Immigration Appeals (the federal agency that applies immigration laws) to ignore the court’s ruling not to deport a man who had applied for a visa to remain in the country.
As Washington reels from the surprise withdrawals of Roger Stone‘s prosecutors, apparently triggered by Trump’s intervention in the upcoming sentencing of his long-time adviser, the Easterbrook broadside offers another window into the way the Trump administration is violating the division of power between the executive and judicial branches.
The 7th Circuit case involved an undocumented immigrant, Jorge Baez-Sanchez, who was subject to removal from the United States after being convicted of a crime. Baez-Sanchez applied for a special visa allowing him to remain in the U.S. if he was also a victim of a crime. An immigration judge twice granted Baez-Sanchez a waiver. But the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the immigration judge’s decision, claiming that only the attorney general personally could grant waivers—not immigration judges. Baez-Sanchez appealed to the 7th Circuit, which disagreed and remanded the case with a directive that the Department of Homeland Security comply with the immigration judge’s waiver. When it refused, Easterbrook, a 35-year veteran of the court, had had enough of the willful disregard for judicial authority.
“We have never before encountered defiance of a remand order, and we hope never to see it again,” Easterbrook wrote. “Members of the Board must count themselves lucky that Baez-Sanchez has not asked us to hold them in contempt, with all the consequences that possibility entails.”
snip...
----------------
Barr's arrogance is phenomenal, but if this behavior continues unchecked, 45 and cabal will have eviscerated the judiciary too (to the extent that they don't agree with judicial decisions).
February 11, 2020
The Attorney General of the United States has been facing a credibility crisis after paraphrasing special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in a manner that was later revealed to be completely misleading.
Since then, Barr’s credibility problems have continued to grow as his critics say his actions show him acting like the president’s defense counsel, instead of the top law enforcement official in America.
The critics worried that such action would undermine the legitimacy of the DOJ among the majority of Americans who do not approve of the president’s conduct in office.
Barr seemed to admit such a dynamic exists during a Monday speech to the National Sheriff’s Association when he noted the shooting of two New York City Police Department officers.
“And they come against a backdrop of cynicism and disrespect toward law enforcement that has propelled a cycle of violence and distrust between police officers and the communities they serve,” Barr warned.
“This is a very disturbing trend. Without trust between the public and the police, all of us will be less safe,” he admitted.
“It is therefore incumbent on everyone to work together to reverse this trend,” Barr urged.
=========
face plant
short article, nothing more
This a**hole apparently doesn't understand irony.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/embattled-ag-bill-barr-warns-of-cycle-of-violence-if-the-public-lacks-trust-in-law-enforcement/The Attorney General of the United States has been facing a credibility crisis after paraphrasing special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in a manner that was later revealed to be completely misleading.
Since then, Barr’s credibility problems have continued to grow as his critics say his actions show him acting like the president’s defense counsel, instead of the top law enforcement official in America.
The critics worried that such action would undermine the legitimacy of the DOJ among the majority of Americans who do not approve of the president’s conduct in office.
Barr seemed to admit such a dynamic exists during a Monday speech to the National Sheriff’s Association when he noted the shooting of two New York City Police Department officers.
“And they come against a backdrop of cynicism and disrespect toward law enforcement that has propelled a cycle of violence and distrust between police officers and the communities they serve,” Barr warned.
“This is a very disturbing trend. Without trust between the public and the police, all of us will be less safe,” he admitted.
“It is therefore incumbent on everyone to work together to reverse this trend,” Barr urged.
=========
face plant
short article, nothing more
February 8, 2020
I am feeling the love. Thanks kind DU'er!
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Name: DoloresGender: Female
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Member since: Thu Nov 30, 2017, 02:58 PM
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