June 26, 2018

The Supreme Court upheld Japanese internment too.

___________________________________

Adam Klasfeld @KlasfeldReports 3h3 hours ago
The Supreme Court upheld Japanese internment too.

...peversely, today's Supreme Court repudiated that 1944 ruling, even as it ignored the clear racial motive in the history of Trump's travel ban and allowed it to stand.

from NYDN:

The Supreme Court quietly overturned its 1944 ruling backing the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II on Tuesday as it upheld President Trump's travel ban.



While formally repudiating Korematsu v. United States, Chief Justice John Roberts also said it was “wholly inapt” to compare Trump’s travel ban to the court’s earlier decision.

Roberts wrote that the “forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of presidential authority.”

He added that “Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and — to be clear — has no place in law under the Constitution.”

Nancy Leong @nancyleong 4h4 hours ago
This is an incredibly disingenuous statement by Roberts. It is bizarre to say that "Korematsu has nothing to do with this case," when Trump literally invoked Japanese internment on TV in 2015 to justify the legality of a Muslim ban.

twitter.com/danepps/status/1011615388646477824

...so Trump was able to get around the '44 language by claiming 'national security' grounds for the ban (skirting around Robert's 'sole, explicit basis' test). He had repeatedly characterized his travel ban as president and candidate as a restriction on Muslims' travel to the U.S.. Indeed, the first two versions he presented to the courts were rejected by justices on those (religious discrimination) grounds.

There was a similar (mild rebuke) in today's ruling by the fraudulently conservative court, neglecting to restrict the president, but, cautioning him, nonetheless, that their decision ostensively did not address the merits or the value of his travel ban. I guess we'll have to wait a while before an untainted court comes back and overturns this with a ruling in keeping with this nation's true values.


Dan Epps @danepps 5h5 hours ago
Justice Sotomayor says the majority's decision in Trump v. Hawaii is like Korematsu, the Japanese internment decision. Strong words.

June 26, 2018

Trump began his presidency with a racist ban on Muslim immigration. It morphed into bad policy

...racist policy that, nonetheless, was able to pass the conservative-packed Supreme Court.

The ban they approved, however, is all about the authority of Trump to enact the third version of the order he presented to the courts, and less about the efficacy of the targets of his travel ban. It's still a discriminatory ban, but, unfortunately for the country, it's blatant discrimination by Trump which isn't checked by legislation from Congress or the courts.

The ban's allowed to stand on a 5-4 ruling, with the SC seat republicans stole from Pres. Obama that is Gorsuch, effectively casting a deciding vote. That's not a clear reflection of a divided nation, it's a consequence of the false rule of a Russian-compromised presidency, and an obsequious republican majority.

It's not coherent policy, and it doesn't even comport with Trump's original, racist, xenophobic intent (Muslims are still admitted from nations outside of the ban). It's a scattershot of arbitrary, contradictory targets from an ignorant president. It's not the way we should be presenting ourselves to the world, and it's a shameful example to those nations who would follow Trump's punitive example against their own minority populations.

Despite the numerous instances cited by previous courts of the president and candidate openly disparaging and denigrating one particular group of immigrants on the basis of their religion, under the guise of 'national security,' the Supreme Court's conservative majority ignored those sick words and gave the president wide latitude to define that security threat to the nation, no matter how specious and contrived.

This policy is an abomination which is being forced upon a disagreeing nation by an increasingly autocratic Executive and an anti-American republican majority in Congress. It's going to take a Democratic majority for this nation to return to the values which the majority of us embrace and share.

June 23, 2018

Reimagining Trump's 'Zero Tolerance' as 1940s Japanese-American Internment Propaganda

NYT Opinion @nytopinion Jun 21
A U.S. government film from 1943 justifying the detention of Japanese-Americans in internment camps has new relevance in light of the president’s immigration policies https://nyti.ms/2loQrvB

https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1009918102228930560

June 22, 2018

Families and children migrating from Mexico are being locked up out of pure bigotry

...there's no other reason for locking up people who pose no threat at all, whose only offense carries the same weight as jaywalking or speeding.

They are jailed as a result of policy which is being openly driven by racist, bigoted, and xenophobic rhetoric - almost daily - from the president of the United States. These prosecutions are arbitrary, egregious, and disproportionate to any actual harm.

Our laws prohibit both individual instances and patterns or practices of discriminatory misconduct, i.e., treating a person differently because of race, color, national origin, sex, or religion. The misconduct covered by Title VI and the OJP (Office of Justice Programs) Program Statute includes, for example, harassment or use of racial slurs, unjustified arrests, discriminatory traffic stops...

Border law is being applied to Mexican migrants in an openly discriminatory manner - that discriminatory harassment being actively led and amplified by Pres. Trump - punishment often dispensed against groups of defendants, in bloc, in court proceedings.

We need a name for this new era of 'Jim Crow,' with racism and bigotry coming down from the highest levels of government, effectively sanctioning all other discrimination under it's umbrella of bias. The term has offensive roots, and doesn't really relate to anything concrete or meaningful, outside of the history it identifies.

I propose 'Trumpean,' 'Trumpish,' or the like. After all, modern history of our government's worst abuses against humanity will forever remember Trump for ripping children from migrant parents' arms in a cynical, punitive extension of his open bigotry.

June 21, 2018

Trump's new immigration order would essentially jail migrant families in internment camps

...Trump's order has direct parallels to the last time our government interned Americans of a particular ethnicity.

His order also carries with it extensive rhetoric from Trump and his administration about a nebulous 'threat' which he's been repeatedly claiming is inherent in migrants coming from Mexico - much like he insisted his Muslim ban directed at selected countries was a national security measure against a nebulous threat Trump claimed was inherent in immigrants and refugees from those nations he arbitrarily cut off from entry into the US.

More glaring, NYT confirmed today that Trump has requested the U.S. military set up what are basically internment camps to hold as many as 20,000 children:

https://twitter.com/shearm/status/1009889356335677440

update 6/22: Trump is asking the Pentagon to spend $1 billion to build militarized tent cities with the capacity to detain an additional 119,000 people

https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1010292639357374466

They are internment camps, because they are meant to hold individuals - children, possibly entire families) of one particular ethnic group. His border policy is the direct product of open bigotry and racism by the president of the United States, aimed squarely at Mexican migrants.

Jailing people for misdemeanors is cruel enough, but Trump is asking the military to set up internment camps to hold people whose only offense was seeking to enter the country for all opportunities of refuge and care. Moreover, jailing children apart from their families is a cruelty which even Japanese families weren't forced to endure in their own abominable ordeal.

"At least during the internment of Japanese-Americans, I and other children were not stripped from our parents," actor George Takei wrote on Tuesday. “We were not pulled screaming from our mothers’ arms. We were not left to change the diapers of younger children by ourselves."

“I cannot for a moment imagine what my childhood would have been like had I been thrown into a camp without my parents. That this is happening today fills me with both rage and grief: rage toward a failed political leadership who appear to have lost even their most basic humanity, and a profound grief for the families affected.”

This is immoral, and very likely highly illegal. Make no mistake. No matter how civil society may look in your neighborhood, a fascist state is quickly forming and using the power of government to deliberately injure people who pose no collective threat to the nation at all - our government lashing out with lawlessness and inhumanity - assaulting these families seeking refuge for their supporters' perverse goal of staving off a rising, non-white population.

It's a war waged by Trump against the sum of his own fears and antipathies. It's a war waged by our government which threatens to engulf each and every one of us in Trump's battle against his paranoid apparitions.

June 18, 2018

Dad was retro-bureaucrat cool

..when Dad came to D.C. at the end of the '50's he was wearing suits and hat everywhere he happened about. By the time I recognized him, the hats were tucked away in boxes in the attic, along with the curiously heavy fur coat and a faded WW2 uniform.


(self-obliging re-post from earlier years. )


Dad and Equal Employment Opportunity in Black History




SOME of the most important and relevant aspects of our Black History Month celebrations have been our highlighting and honoring of our country's African American heroes whose efforts helped our nation advance and grow beyond our challenging, and often, tragic beginnings. Although most would be loath to call themselves 'heroes' or volunteer themselves for any special recognition at all for their deeds, there is certainly a benefit in framing and promoting these brave citizens' struggles and triumphs as a guide to future generations as they navigate their own inter-ethnic/inter-racial relationships among our increasingly diverse population. Their work and sacrifices form the foundation for the actions we took to reject and defend against discrimination, racism, and other abuses and injustices; as well as provide sustaining inspiration for the conduct of our own lives.

The most enduring and important legacy of these societal pioneers has been the uplifting of a people, and the promises gained, of opportunity and justice for black Americans (and, subsequently, other minorities, women, and the disabled) to be realized through the affirmative action of our federal government.

It was only through the tireless activism and advocacy of notables like Martin Luther King Jr. and others in the civil rights movement in the 1960's, who were protesting and demanding equal opportunity and access for African Americans, that politicians like John F. Kennedy and his political predecessors saw fit to introduce and advance legislation which would bring the federal government into compliance with the aim of equal employment opportunity and require contractors who were hired by government agencies to form 'affirmative action' programs within their own companies as a prerequisite for getting tax dollars from Uncle Sam.

Although President Kennedy didn't live to see the passage of the Civil Rights Act, he did manage to accommodate the lobbied demands of Dr. King in both, his Executive Order 10925, introduced. in 1961, establishing a 'Committee On Equal Employment Opportunity' (providing for the first time, enforcement of anti-discrimination provisions) ; and in his introduction of the Civil Rights Act to Congress on 19 June 1963.

Almost a year after President Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress and signed it into law. One of its major provisions was the creation of the 'Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.' The law provided for a defense by the federal government against objectionable private conduct, like discrimination in public accommodations; authorized the Attorney General to file lawsuits to defend access to public facilities and schools, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, and to outlaw and defend against discrimination in federal programs.

So, Dr. King and others in the civil rights effort, had done their part in agitating and promoting through demonstrations, the notion and the ideal of advancing equal opportunity into action and law. The passage of the Civil Rights Act was, by no means, the end of advocacy by black leaders. Neither was it the end of the political effort by Johnson and others committed to advancing and enhancing black employment and establishing anti-discrimination as the law of the land.

On September 24, 1965, President Johnson originated and signed Executive Order 11246 which established new guidelines for businesses who contracted with the Federal government agencies, and required those with $10,000 or more of business with Uncle Sam to take 'affirmative action' to increase the number of minorities in their workplaces and keep a record of their efforts available on demand. It also set 'goals and timetables' for the realization of those minority positions.

As far as the activists and politicians' abilities went, they had stepped up to the plate and hit the ball into the outfield. Now, the challenge was to bring the jobs home; to protect and defend the new employment provisions in the federal government, as well as, around the nation in the myriad of public facilities and other amenities which were connected to the federal government through funding. Enforcement was the key.

That would require reliance on a newly formed bureaucracy and its government managers and directors; some appointed by the president, most others brought into government on a less auspicious level.

One of those 'managers and directors' who was present and accountable in government at the time of these important changes in our employment law was my father, Charles James Fullwood.


Charles James Fullwood

In a bit of a self-indulgent look back at his almost 40 years in government -- in relation to some of the changes in the federal government's evolving embrace of its responsibility to defend and promote the remedies and benefits of the equal protection clauses in the Constitution -- we can see a tenuous, but, determined fight beyond the protests; beyond the political arena; to press on with the implementation and realization of some of the promises of the Civil Rights movement.

In Charles Fullwood's personal development and advancement in the military and in government, we can also see many of the dynamics of inclusion and adjustment in play which marked his coming of age in the midst of poverty and oppression, and also, the period beyond the bold actions and bold choices our nation subsequently undertook through their elected representatives.

As humble beginnings go, it's hard to get more quaint than his first home near an Indian reservation in the mountains of Black Hills, North Carolina. He said his daddy used to run a speakeasy with a still in the cellar which he liked to nip at a little when he fetched and filled the jugs for the blues-loving customers partying upstairs. A run-in by my grandfather with a local sheriff was said to have sent the Fullwoods packing and making their way up North in a hurry. The family of eleven settled down in Reading, Pennsylvania, and, but for a few exceptions, like Dad, lived most of the rest of their entire lives there.


On the Sidewalk Outside of 4th Street Address

Reading was a hard-scrabble, mostly poor community which was mostly known, as my father liked to say, for it's 'pretzels, prostitutes, and beer.' In his neighborhood, at least, he described a people who were laid low by poverty and discrimination, and advantaged more by the 'mob' than by the government or its industry. Their burly representatives were said to bring food and clothing to some of the needy families in the neighborhood, once, as Dad described it, looking in the door and seeing all of the children running around, remarked, 'Look at all the hungry little bastards! Little bastards gotta eat.'

Dad said that they would come by occasionally with items like underwear that folks had discarded, and, they'd take them -- happily, because it might be their only opportunity. It's not as if their father hadn't worked to provide for his large family. In fact, James Beulo Fullwood, who immediately applied for 'Relief', upon arrival in town, refused to send his children to school unless the local government provided all nine of them with new clothes. I'm told he got the clothes.





Somehow, Dad and his sister Olivia (who was a young, tragic casualty of the seedy side of the town) managed to gain admission to a Quaker grade school nearby and enjoyed the benefits of educational integration well before most of the rest of the nation. He also worked with the conscientious objectors in the Quaker community as a member of the local Civilian Conservation Corps.


Dad and the Reading Civilian Conservation Corps

Like most endeavors in his life, Dad was on the cusp of a revolution of societal changes which would both advance his careers, and bring his life experiences to bear as he took advantage of the opportunities that the political community's (and the nation's) determination to implement the 'Great Society' ideals expressed and advanced by King, Kennedy, and Johnson into action or law afforded him.

Charles completed three years of high school (vocational school) without a degree and worked as a machinist apprentice operating a drill press. As far as opportunity went in that town, he had the best of it at the machine shop.

He joined the U.S. Army, in 1942, during WWII. He'd had enough of life in Reading and the world was beckoning. That summer as he trained in munitions handling and other military tasks, U.S. troops had landed on Guadalcanal. A year later, as Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met together for the first time, Dad was aboard a Navy carrier bound for New Guinea (the time of his life).



He was attached to the 628th Ordinance Company and their mission was to establish an ammo dump near Brisbane, Australia. The voyage was 'uneventful;' touching once at Wellington, New Zealand and eventually docking at Sydney, Australia.


Members of the 628th Ordinance Company

"Today is cruel:" he wrote, in a brief, but compelling journal of his first voyage and his first trip abroad. "the sky is cold. not a particle of cheery blue is seen. Nature has sketched a lifeless and deadly scene whose background is obscurity . . The elements are warring."


New Guinea -- Cadre and Locals

Dad gained a field promotion in New Guinea to Staff Sargent after his superiors recognized him as a leader among his unit of black soldiers. He had an experienced ability to relate with and communicate effectively with the majority of white commanders and superiors in the military and that also served to elevate his profile among the military leadership.

Dad returned from his voyage and two-month deployment to New Guinea and Australia, newly energized and ambitious. On the way home from the West, he had to repeatedly switch trains to ride on the 'colored' cars through the segregated states and towns. He arrived home to Reading and immediately threw his abusive, deadbeat father to the curb. He didn't plan to stay there long, though.


Dad and Sister

Charles received an honorable discharge in 1946. Four years later, he was a graduate student on the GI Bill at West Virginia State College. Dad met my mother there and married her after graduation. He received a degree there in Psychology and went on to further his education at Princess Anne College in Maryland, where he described living in a rundown, segregated, barrack-like dorm.





At WVa. State College, Dad became a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and joined the ROTC.


W.Va, College President, John W. Davis Presents the ROTC Unit's Colors to Senior Cadet, Lt. Charles Fullwood

He subsequently enlisted in the USAR in 1950 where he was assigned to work on civil affairs, recruiting, and personnel. Years after that, in 1963, Charles became a military policeman in the National Guard of the District of Columbia.


Public Safety Officer With D.C. National Guard

Back in his community, Mr Fullwood had also organized a civic association in his home named the Raritan Valley Association which was founded to further the goal of racial equality and for "greater awareness among Negroes of their own responsibility to the community."





It was also at this time -- right at the point in 1963 where President Kennedy is introducing the Dr. King-inspired Civil Rights bill of his to a divided Congress -- that Charles Fullwood was hired as an Employee/Management Relations Specialist in the Office of Undersecretary of the Army overseeing and processing complaints that passed through the Army Policy and Grievance Board.

When the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, Mr. Fullwood had been promoted to a Personnel Staffing Specialist, Chief of Employee Services Section, at NASA, with responsibility for managing equal employment, mentally ill, and affirmative action programs; along with responsibility for recruiting and outreach. By 1966, he was NASA's 'principle action,' Equal Opportunity Employment Specialist for the Federal Government, and assisted in the implementation of Kennedy and Johnson's 'affirmative' action-based Executive Orders, 10925 and 11246.


Dad at NASA

By 1967, Charles had advanced to the U.S Civil Services Commission, assisting in developing general and special inspection plans for employer compliance with affirmative action laws and participating in EEO reviews.


Graduating Class at Judge Advocate General's School

In 1968, after being a rare bird in the Judge Advocate General's School and completing its International Law course, he was, simultaneously appointed Deputy Chief, Placement at the Office of Economic Opportunity Personnel and Job Corps. The remnants of the OEO that were reorganized into the Department of Health and Human Services. were the last vestiges of Sargent Shriver's hopes and dreams which Nixon had dismantled and tried to underfund and eliminate.

The next year, Charles Fullwood was moved to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a senior consultant top legislative officers of state, local governments, and private industry in providing ways to implement Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.



By 1970, he was promoted to a position as Deputy EEO Officer, responsible for implementing and evaluating a program of equal employment opportunity for employees of the Public Health Service hospitals, clinics, and major health services divisions.

Later, as Deputy Director of OEEO and HSMHA in 1972, Mr. Fullwood would direct the implementation and administration of affirmative action, upward mobility programs, and the processing of the Federal Women's and the Spanish-Speaking Program which had also been folded under EEO's mantle. This was the period where EEO had been granted actual authority to file lawsuits against violators. In the past, those cases were processed and prosecuted by the Labor Dept., with EEO merely providing friend-of-the-court briefs in support or opposition.

Dad took advantage of this period to play 'Lawrence of Arabia' and leave his paperwork-laden office and go out in the field to bonk some heads. He'd take a sheaf full of the new regs and new authority and put on his best angry administrator face for the code violators and abusers he encountered along the way. Not to diminish the effect of the enforcement ability afforded EEO, there were several landmark cases which were quickly prosecuted by the government and won.

____ It was also during this period that my father had become frustrated over being ignored, yet again, for a promotion in his membership as a major in the Army Reserve. He had been with the Reserve for over 20 years at that point, attending to that career at the same time he was submerged in his government one. Three times he had achieved the required service for consideration for advancement, and twice he had been passed-up.

Anxious that this third bid was destined to be rejected, he wrote then- Brigadier General Benjamin L. Hunton, USAR Minority Affairs Officer, and complained about a process where there were never enough blacks available in the pool to ever stand a chance of any minority gaining the promotion.

"There are a total of 61 officers in the unit," he wrote. "Two are minority group members; a total of 67 officers in another -- two are minority group members . . . a total of 63 in yet another unit with three minority members. The first cited has seven officer vacancies."

"The normal promotional procedure has been to select company and field-grade officers from the companies to fill headquarters vacancies. The procedure of promoting from within is as it should be. My only reservation," he wrote, "is that there are too few black officers at the company grade level available for consideration -- and when available, not selected for promotion."

450th - First Year With Unit

After little more than lip service from the general, Major Fullwood wrote then-Major General Kenneth Johnson:

"I am concerned that, despite the rhetoric and regulations, the Army Reserve and Command, have not now, nor in the past, initiated programs designed to seek and encourage blacks and other minorities to enlist in the Reserve forces . . ."

"Where they do exist, implementation of programs designed to recruit and maintain minority members has been delegated to local commanders with authority to implement according to local needs, but, without specific guidance or compliance review. Herein lies the problem; historically, the Reserve program, as you know, has been a haven for white boys. It has not changed . . . "

450th - Two Years Later

"I have approximately 22 years of combined service in the National Guard and Reserve Corps and am now being denied the opportunity for advancement. If local commanders can capriciously and unilaterally make the decision to deny me, an officer, opportunities that have been offered in abundance to whites, it doesn't require a great deal of imagination to realize the treatment black applicants to the reserve are being subjected to . . . The Reserve recruiting proedures and the Reserve program are, in the main, designed for whites, and consequently, mitigate against recruiting career-minded blacks," he wrote.

Dad's in the far back row, third from the left, behind a soldier

Major Fullwood recieved his commission to Lieutenant Colonel almost 3 years after he had lodged his complaints, and he retired from the Reserve at that rank in 1981.

Ironically, one year after that promotion, LTC Fullwood was assigned by the U.S. Army as an Education and Training Officer, providing support and assistance to U.S. Army Race Relations/Equal Opportunity Staff in preparation and presentation of the Unit RR Discussion Leader Course.



In a validating, but dumbfounding review by his commander, of his new promotion and new 'race relations' assignment, LTC Fullwood was described as 'diligent' and 'exemplary' in the performance of his duties. "His background as Director of Equal Opportunity for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare enabled him to greatly assist First U.S. Army in establishing the Unit Race Relations Discussion Leaders Course," the recommendation read.

No kidding.

Charles Fullwood would serve as Acting Director of OEEO and the Health Services Administration from August 1973 to September 1974. Next, he would serve as Special Assistant to the Administrator for Civil Rights, and then, as Director of the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity.



"The HSA Administrator is responsible for the administration of the EEO and Civil Rights programs," Mr. Fullwood told the 'Health Services World' magazine in 1976, after gaining his appointment, "And Dr. Hellman, HSA Administrator, has appointed me to implement them. I intend to do just that, with the help of all of the HSA employees," he said.

That's the long and short of Dad's military and public service. He advanced in the military and the government -- almost Gump-like in his relative obscurity; an uncomfortable aberration in the images capturing the racial make-up of his peer groups -- working to elevate and implement so many of the ideals and initiatives contained in the civil rights legislation that Martin Luther King Jr. and others fought for; working to implement the orders and initiatives from two successive presidents determined to make the 'Great Society' programs a reality (and Nixon, curiously providing the first actual governmental language), and serving as administrator for the inevitable outgrowths and expansions of those initiatives into the federal workforce and beyond; recruiting countless African Americans into the federal workforce, in his time, and providing some of the early backbone for the nation's new impetus in the hiring and advancement of blacks in government.

Most interesting to me, is that image after image shows the extent that, in those early days, Mr. Fullwood was usually, either the only black official in the rooms where important decisions were made concerning equal employment and other vestiges of the Civil Rights Act; or he was one of just a few. It's remarkable how steadfast he appeared over the years as he navigated his way to the senior positions he held in government and in the military.




Office of Equal Employment Opportunity Moves to HSA

In our nation's democracy, social, economic, and legal changes are advanced by a combination of activism, political initiative, and administrative implementation and interpretation. We are advantaged in the realization of our individual and collective ideals by activists, politicians, and bureaucrats. They all contribute.

It's wise to avoid getting too sentimental about the role of government in carrying out our ideals and addressing our concerns in the form of legislation or Executive actions. We, correctly, continue to press our concerns, even after we've passed our legislative remedies and tasked them to administrators and managers to implement. However, it doesn't hurt to recognize the tenacious, principled individuals inside of government who are driven by a determination to make it all work for as many Americans as possible to carry out our political mandates.

I think my father (with the help of countless others assuming the same responsibilities of implementing the dream) fulfilled that role with a characteristic routineness that mirrored the disciplined, principled personal life this African American sought to lead against so many obviously threatening odds; mirroring the unflagging commitment to the nation's advancement that countless generations of black Americans have repeatedly demonstrated, against all odds.

With all of the controversies today about corruption and greed influencing our political and governmental leaders, it's nice to know that there was a sober and trustworthy individual working on these issues behind the scenes. Charles Fullwood was transparently, if nothing more, a decent and principled man. That seems to be a rarity in government these days. It's certainly worth celebrating.

We're left to wonder just what we'd do without them; these good guys in government . . . I look optimistically to the future for more Chuck Fullwoods to run the bases after we've hit our political balls deep into the nation's outfield. How have we ever managed without him?

June 16, 2018

The truth will set (most of) us free

.
..for some folks, not so much.

It's to be expected that there is cynicism and real concern over whether Donald Trump will ever face justice. Trump has many ways at his disposal to avoid prosecution. That's just the reality.

The political system, with Trump's party auguring obsequiously to defend him, is primed and oiled for a free ride for all of his crimes and transgressions. The prospect of corrective elections ahead, the promise of a 'blue wave,' is a hope and a prayer, expecting that this same political system which fosters and protects such deep and corrosive corruption can somehow set our democracy right again.

Even the courts hold out promise for Trump's campaign to subvert justice. Money and prestige work wonders in affording prominent defendants wide benefit of the doubt, the elixir of acquittals.

However, there is another, overriding factor in court cases which is almost always inviolable. It's the integrity of the court, itself - to be more exact. It's basic respect for the rule of law which most animates jurists and others who sit in judgment.

It's precisely that flagrant abuse of and disregard for the law Trump has demonstrated that's sure to set any court's hair on fire which sits in his judgment. If the judge revoking Manafort's bail agreement and jailing him is any guide to the future, Trump and his carefree romp through the criminal code, is in deep trouble.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of United States District Court for the District of Columbia, delivering what should be the operating guide to jurisprudence concerning anything Trump, gave an iconic admonition to Manafort before jailing him:

“This is not middle school,” she said. “I can’t take away his cellphone.”

“This hearing is not about politics. It is not about the conduct of the office of special counsel. It is about the defendant’s conduct.”Jackson said.

“You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago, I’m concerned you seem to treat these proceedings as another marketing exercise.”

More important, though, are the other reasons Judge Jackson gave for her ruling:

"The law is clear that I can't impose pretrial detention to punish this defendant for the alleged conduct in the new allegations..." she said. "While the grand jury has found probable cause to believe the defendant has corruptly persuaded people to lie, there's been no evidence of even a threat of harm to any person."

"We don't have what one might consider the typical sort of harm to the community at large; dangerous substances being peddled on the corner; unlawful possession of firearms."

"The harm in this case is the harm to the administration of justice. It is the harm to the integrity of the court system... The indictment alleges a corrupt attempt to undermine the integrity and truth of the fact-finding process upon which our system of justice depends."

The truth, or rather Trump's aversion to it, is the reef upon which his ship of state will eventually run aground. We can only hope and pray that there are jurists like Judge Amy Berman Jackson out there to deliver the respect for the law that the vast majority of courts expect and demand from defendants and prosecutors alike.

June 12, 2018

President under active investigation for colluding with Russia allowed to negotiate with NK dictator

...allowed to steer America's foreign policy in the direction of normalizing relations with yet another barbaric megalomaniac.

It's frightening just how easily the press, pols, and other observers are settling into legitimizing this bizarre deconstruction of decades of resolve against these national and world security threats by such an openly compromised U.S. president.

It's extremely unsettling to see the two autocratic leaders meeting in private for nearly an hour. If there is some sort of subversive purpose to Trump's eager embrace of Russia and North Korea, we're already so deep into the con that there's no easy way back.

What happens to the nation when the facilitator of this coddling of these major adversaries is found to have been illegally colluding with one of them in the effort leading up to his election? What position is America really in tonight, with our felonious president acceding to such a compromised and illegitimate union with unrepentant enemies of America?