House committee wants to know why Justice Department is blocking its investigation of Trump records
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The Justice Department is investigating how 15 boxes of official records, including classified materials, made their way to Mar-a-Lago when Donald Trump left the White House. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, as it investigates, the Justice Department is blocking a parallel investigation by Congress. And frankly, given how Attorney General Merrick Garland has dragged his feet on investigating the lawlessness of Trump and his associates, it’s not confidence-inspiring.
The Justice Department has blocked the National Archives from giving information about the 15 boxes of records to the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee chair, wants to know why.
RELATED STORY: Trump’s Mar-a-Lago document stash contained ‘top secret’ documents, information on COVID-19 pandemic
While the committee “does not wish to interfere in any manner with any potential or ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice,” Maloney does want an explanation. CNN notes, though, that “It is also common practice for the Justice Department to limit information that government agencies share with Congress while an investigation is ongoing.”
The problem is that this is a very timid Justice Department, more concerned with avoiding the appearance of responding to political pressure than with anything that looks like prompt or efficient justice. The investigations into Team Trump’s lawlessness may be moving forward in secret, but what we know at this point is that if anything is happening, it’s not happening in good time. And House Democrats likely have a limited amount of time left to control investigations.
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What Mitch McConnell didn't say in this interview is the scariest part
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Mitch McConnell sat for an interview with Jonathan Swan from Axios, and while McConnell offered commentary on everything from the Republican candidates accused of violent conduct toward women (more on that below) and whether he would support Trump again if he were the 2024 nominee (he would), it was what he didn’t say that is the most troubling.
In short, McConnell refused to say whether Republicans would allow a vote on a potential Supreme Court nomination next year if Republicans regain control of the Senate. Jonathan Swan sounded incredulous at McConnell’s refusal to answer and rightly said it sounded as if McConnell was formulating a plan to obstruct a future nominee during a non-election year. This is as big of a red flashing warning sign as I have ever seen. Pull up a chair and listen up:
RELATED STORY: Republicans show their hand: The Garland blockade now applies to all Democratic SCOTUS picks
Republicans like Mitch McConnell aren’t even pretending anymore. They have wrestled control of the Supreme Court from the majority and they intend to keep it at all costs. Norms, standards, decency, bipartisanship will all be cast aside if Republicans win again.
When questioned about Clarence Thomas’s highly questionable ethics, he repeatedly reiterated his “complete confidence” that Justice Thomas would recuse himself if needed. Except, as we all know, he didn’t do that when he had voted against turning over text messages to the January 6th Committee that implicated his wife in the January 6th planning.
As far as the two candidates in Senate races who have been accused of domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual violence, he can’t even muster a condemnation.
I know y’all are tired, but we are going to have to motivate, organize and get out to vote again in November. Are you up for the fight?
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Ketanji Brown Jackson gets her day in the Senate, will be confirmed to the Supreme Court
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Jimmy Kimmel claps back after Marjorie Taylor Greene says she reported his joke to the police
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene continued her clout-chasing ways on Wednesday afternoon with a tweet claiming to have reported comedian Jimmy Kimmel to the Capitol Police for a joke he made on network television.
“.@ABC, this threat of violence against me by @jimmykimmel has been filed with the @CapitolPolice,” Greene tweeted, along with a video clip of Kimmel talking about her tweet calling the three Republican senators who supported Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court “pro-pedophile.”
“Wow, where is Will Smith when you really need him,” Kimmel asked in the clip. In response to Greene’s tweet, Kimmel tweeted, “Officer? I would like to report a joke.”
RELATED STORY: Kevin McCarthy’s failure to act on Gosar and Greene’s white nationalist flirtation says it all
It’s all mission accomplished for Greene, who got Kimmel to quote-tweet her to his 11.8 million followers, a number Greene can only dream of.
But if Greene wants to talk about threats of violence, we can do that.
Greene recently escaped meaningful rebuke from Republican leaders when she and Rep. Paul Gosar spoke at a white nationalist event. Gosar, one of her main buddies in Congress, lost his committee assignments after he tweeted an edited video showing himself murdering Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden.
Greene herself lost her committee assignments after a series of revelations about her, including that she had liked other people’s Facebook comments calling for, in one case, “a bullet to the head” for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and in other cases for executing FBI agents. When Greene posted about the Iran deal, a commenter asked about hanging former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to which Greene responded, “Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.” Those posts were in 2018 and 2019.
While in Congress, Greene described congressional Democrats as “enemies to the American people” who “will be held accountable.” That’s a lot closer to a threat than, “Where is Will Smith when you need him?”
Marjorie Taylor Greene embraces violence. She called Jan. 6 a “1776 moment.”
She’s likely not even a little bit upset about that joke. She’s definitely thrilled by the attention. But fine, if she wants attention focused on threats of violence, let’s be clear about who she is and where the real threats of violence are coming from.
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'Jackson is immensely qualified. What Romney is actually doing is just his job': A word to remember
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In the days leading up to the historic confirmation vote making Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson the first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, there has been so much GOP criticism of the accomplished judge that a casual news observer might be persuaded to question her qualifications. The resounding response to that inclination from many Black women, both in the legal profession and watching from outside of courtroom doors, has been: Don’t. Not with Judge Jackson. Because despite Republican sentiment, this moment is not about them or their beliefs about critical race theory. This moment is about Black women, and one phenomenal one in particular.
Opinion writer Kimberly Atkins Stohr tweeted in response to a Washington Post analysis highlighting Sen. Mitt Romney’s historic flip from voting against Jackson’s nomination to an appeals court last year to announcing his intent to support her confirmation on Monday. “Here’s the problem with framing Romney’s vote as ‘historic’ or whatnot: (1) Romney has made a career of being a careful political tactician, doing what he thinks will serve him best at the time,” Stohr wrote in the tweet. “That’s why he was against Jackson before he was for her.”
RELATED STORY: Senate poised to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court
Stohr continued:
“He was fine with same-sex marriage before he wasn’t. He didn’t oppose abortion until he did. He thought Trump was a fraudulent phony before he tried to be his Secretary of State before he thought he should be removed from office. (…)
Romney knew he’d get praised for doing this now. And the political cost is low. But remember: Jackson is immensely qualified. What Romney is actually doing is just his job. Context, y’all.”
A U.S. circuit judge and former district judge, Jackson graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1996 after earlier graduating magna cum laude from Harvard-Radcliffe College in 1992, according to her circuit court profile. She served as a clerk for both a judge appointed by former president Bill Clinton and another appointed by the late President Ronald Reagan, and Jackson went on to become a public servant in a federal public defender’s office and on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which aims to underscore disparities in sentencing.
Abigail Hall, who belonged to the Harvard Black Law Students Association that Jackson is an alumna of, told The New York Times Judge Jackson has had to meet every single mark, and was not allowed to “drop the ball.” “And that’s something that’s ingrained in us, in terms of checking every box, in order to be a Black woman and to get to a place like Harvard Law School,” Hall said.
Catherine Crevecoeur, another member of the Harvard association, told the Times she watched with discomfort as lawmakers tried “to plant seeds of distrust” in Jackson during her confirmation hearings. “It’s not new. It’s very common, I think, to a lot of people of color in these spaces,” Crevecoeur said.
Even before Jackson’s confirmation hearings began, Fox News host Tucker Carlson demanded to see her LSAT scores, as if some flaw in the system had propelled her to success instead of the actual years of hard work she invested in her career.
Once the hearings got underway, Sen. Josh Hawley implied that Judge Jackson was too lenient on defendants in child pornography cases, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn accused Jackson of praising critical race theory, both allegations Jackson refuted.
RELATED STORY: GOP attack on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson with race-baiting could backfire
Still, she faced so much unwarranted criticism that Sen. Cory Booker was moved to passionately defend her during one hearing. “You have earned this spot,” he said. “You are worthy. You are a great American.”
Jackson said in opening remarks and in other remarks during the hearings that rising to the level of success she has achieved has not come without sacrifices. “It’s a lot of early mornings and late nights, and what that means is there will be hearings during your daughters’ recitals,” she said. “There’ll be emergencies on birthdays that you’ll have to (…) handle.”
RELATED STORY: Biden should release Ketanji Brown Jackson’s LSAT score same day Trump releases his academic record
Jackson said she ultimately hopes girls see her and know they don’t have to be perfect.
RELATED STORY: What I see as a Black woman watching Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings
Call her Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
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In a historic 53-47 vote, the Senate has confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. The 51-year old Jackson will take the seat of the justice she once clerked for, Stephen Breyer, when he retires before the October term. Vice President Kamala Harris—who represents two firsts as a woman and person of color to serve in that office—presided, making the moment doubly historic.
Jackson’s impeccable qualifications have been well-documented. Her path to this confirmation was as heinous as Republicans could make it. But to paraphrase Sen. Cory Booker, those Republican senators can’t steal our joy.
“I want to tell you, when I look at you, this is why I get emotional,” Booker said to Jackson on her final day in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I’m sorry, you’re a person that is so much more than your race and gender. You’re a Christian, you’re a mom, you’re an intellect, you love books, but for me, I’m sorry, it’s hard for me not to look at you and see my mom, not to see my cousins—one of them who had to come here and sit behind you. She had to have your back. I see my ancestors and yours. Nobody’s going to steal the joy of that woman in the street or the calls I’m getting or the texts. Nobody’s going to steal that joy. You have earned this spot. You are worthy. You are a great American.”
That is the joy Jackson’s successors, young Black women in the Harvard Black Law Students Association, expressed in this New York Times profile, while at the same time reinforcing how hard it as been to get there, to have to be “near perfect” to do it. Here are a few of their reflections, but it is well worth your time to read the whole article.
Abigail Hall, who is 23, has always wanted to be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, but says “if I have to be second, I’m fine being second to K.B.J.” “She’s had to meet every single mark and she hasn’t been able to drop the ball,” Hall said. “And that’s something that’s ingrained in us, in terms of checking every box, in order to be a Black woman and to get to a place like Harvard Law School.”
Catherine Crevecoeur, 25, watched the hearings and gave side-eye to Republicans. “They were trying to plant seeds of distrust,” she said. “It’s not new. It’s very common, I think, to a lot of people of color in these spaces.” That makes Jackson’s confirmation all the more important. “That’s why it’s extra imperative for people to be represented and to see ourselves and to know that we belong in these spaces,” she said. Christina Coleburn added that “We’re our ancestors’ wildest dreams, some you’ve never gotten to meet.”
Virginia Thomas (not that Virginia Thomas) is already marking victories. She helped pass New York City’s ban on discrimination over hair, and reveled in the picture of Jackson “with sisterlocks, standing up there in her glory and her professionalism.” “It’s an opportunity for people to really visualize and see Black women doing what they do, which is being unapologetically successful, unapologetically confident in who they are,” Thomas said. She organized screenings of the hearings at Harvard, and said watching the support staff of the school—cafeteria staff, custodians, security guards—was a highlight for her. “Watching with the staff in the morning before students started trickling in after classes and realizing that this moment is bigger than just for law school nerds who love the Supreme Court,” she said. “It also matters for everyday people.” She added, “Everyday people who look at this woman and think to themselves, ‘Wow, she did it.’”
Gwendolyn Gissendanner grew up in working-class Detroit and works at the school’s student-run Legal Aid Bureau. “We always have to think about what we need to do to make my often Black low-income clients appeal to a white judge who doesn’t understand their experience,” she said. “But someone who you don’t have to take the extra leap to prove to them that race interacts with every aspect of your life makes a giant difference in what types of decisions can be made.”
“This is a Black woman who went to Harvard undergrad, who went to Harvard Law School,” Aiyanna Sanders said. “We are literally walking in her shoes as we walk through this hallway. And so it’s so close to home. Wow, these things are attainable. But also dang, why hasn’t it happened yet? Or why is it that in 2022 is the first time this has occurred?”
It won’t be the last time, Ms. Sanders.
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The genius of Rep. Raskin linking Republicans to the 'Trump-Putin axis'
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Shortly after a routine congressional outburst Wednesday from a Trump-aligned Republican, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland uttered a phrase that should quickly become a Democratic staple: the Trump-Putin axis.
The GOP offender was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Who knows exactly what she said—who even cares? It’s Raskin’s response that matters.
“The gentlelady said something about the Russian hoax—I accept the heckling, Mr. Speaker,” Raskin said from the well of the House floor. “If she wants to continue to stand with Vladimir Putin and his brutal, bloody invasion against the people of Ukraine, she is free to do so, and we understand there is a strong Trump-Putin axis in the gentlelady’s party.”
For the past several months, I have been trying to identify attack lines Democrats can leverage against Republicans ahead of the midterms, and this particular phrase accomplishes so much in so few words—it’s just killer.
First, linking Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin passes the smell test. Every reality-based voter (the only ones we can reach) knows that Trump has been a loyal and dedicated Putin bootlicker for many years, including using his White House perch to do Putin’s bidding on the global stage for four years. What makes Trump’s actions even more grave now is the fact that Putin has turned himself into a global pariah through his butchery in Ukraine.
Second, “axis” is a potent word that Americans immediately get due to its historical underpinnings. From the disgraced Axis powers of World War II to President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil,” Americans inherently know “axis” is a word anchored in ignominy. Regardless of whether one agrees with Bush’s 2002 adaptation of it, his relatively recent usage helps.
Finally, as GOP congressional members and aspiring candidates continue to embrace Trump across the country, frequent reminders of the “Trump-Putin axis” is very simple shorthand for evoking all the turmoil Trump brought into the White House along with the consequences presently playing out in Ukraine. There’s no need to belabor the point, Democratic base voters are crystal clear about Trump’s corrosive effect on international relations, and at least some Trump-Biden voters actually defected in 2020 for that very reason. Trump’s Putin sycophancy may play well to the GOP’s white nationalist base, but it’s pretty cringey to that slice of reality-based Republicans. Some of them even voted for a Democrat in 2020 because of it.
So the term is really a twofer, reminding both the Democratic base why their votes matter and reality-based GOP voters why their party’s continued loyalty to Trump has dangerous and despicable real-world consequences. Perhaps those GOP voters, particularly in swing districts, will defect again if they find their candidate too repulsive, or maybe they’ll just stay home. Either one is a win for Democrats.
So yeah, Democrats should start hitting the term on the regular forthwith.
Ukraine update: The Kherson bulge, the Kramatorsk gap
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There was no doubt at all about Russia’s strategy when its troops rolled across the border on Feb 24: Take it all. Vladimir Putin meant to capture Kyiv, install a puppet government, declare victory, and then watch as the invincible Russian military drove tanks over dispirited Ukrainian holdouts while wearing their dress uniforms and singing the Soviet national anthem. According to Moscow, everything is going according to plan.
In the real world, Russia is now moving all its forces to the east and south of Ukraine and where a few days ago there were conflicts all over the nation, now there are just two zones that are the absolute focus of both militaries—and could decide the course of the war.
One of these areas is what might be described as “the Kherson bulge.” With the help of local officials who took a bribe, Russian forces managed to capture two intact bridges across the southern Dnieper River: one on the northern edge of Kherson, and another about 40 miles upstream at Nova Kakhovka.
These bridges allowed Russia to take control of the city of Kherson in the first week of the war. With a population just under 300,000, Kherson represents the only large urban center that Russia has been able to capture and hold since the invasion began. Once they had a grip on Kherson, Russian forces were able to achieve one of their key objectives — opening the flow of water to Crimea, without which conditions there were becoming extremely difficult for Russia to maintain.
Russian forces would like to achieve their second main objective in the area: capturing Odesa and cutting off Ukraine from the Black Sea. However, attempts to reach the city of Mykolaiv were strongly repulsed (in part by some of the same troops that had originally been in Kherson). Ukraine has been gradually pushing back down the same highway along which Russia advanced, recapturing towns and coming within about 20 miles of Kherson proper. In the past two days, Ukrainian forces have also been recapturing a series of towns and villages in the area of that blue arrow at the top of the map.
There were widespread rumors that Russia was going to retreat across the bridges and hold positions on the east side of the Dnieper, but in the past day Russian troops advanced again to capture the town of Snihurivka (that red dot directly east of Mykolaiv). That seems to indicate they have not given up their ambitions in this area.
A total victory for Ukraine would involve capturing one or more bridges and bagging a large number of Russian troops left trapped on the west side of the river. A more likely scenario is that Russia moves east and takes the bridges with them. But the move to take Snihurivka could signal a new advance on Mykolaiv.
In any case, what happens next here could decide whether Russia gets anywhere close to Odesa, because attempts to capture the city by amphibious landing look like a no-go.
The other area is that “gap” in Russia’s control of the Donbas region south of the town of Isyum. This area is the key to whether or nor Russia can complete its number one goal at this point: capturing all of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The east side of the yellow area on this map represents well-established defensive positions where Ukrainian forces are dug in to prevent a direct westward advance by Russia or its supporters. In order to bypass this position and potentially capture a large number of Ukrainian troops along with their equipment, Russia is pushing south from Izyum and north from the Donetsk.
The simple fact that we’re talking about Izyum as a town under Russian control shows that Russian forces have managed to advance in this area over the past week. Once again working with local officials who—due to either threat or bribery—went over to Putin, Russian forces managed to locate an area where they could successfully ford/bridge the small river running through Izyum, circled around the small local garrison from the southeast, and captured the hold-out town. Now those forces are continuing on to the south.
Russia could continue down the M03 highway toward Slovyansk. If Russia took Slovyansk, its troops would have the option of continuing south or of cutting east along another highway to cut off a portion of the Ukrainian troops along the Donbas defensive line. However, there are indications that’s not what Russia intends to do. Troops may swing west around the town of Kramatorsk, putting them closer to the oblast border and allowing the troops to give the recently discovered oil field in the area a warm hug.
Or …
This would be the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass on the part of Russia. Izyum is already at the end of a long and complex salient that is vulnerable to a possible Ukrainian attack from Kharkiv. But an attempt to go all the way out to Pavlohrad (near the left edge of the map of the Kramatorsk area), would put them way-the-hell out on a limb.
If Russia pulled it off, it would be an amazing feat, and could potentially cut off a sizable portion of the whole Ukrainian army. On the other hand … this looks impossible. They would have a salient that, by that point, would be hundreds of miles long, under assault from every direction, and subject to attack at dozens of locations.
Still, Russia has shelled multiple locations west of Kramatorsk on Thursday, including points along the highway leading to Pavlohrad. That could indicate that they are trying to soften up the route in advance of moving that way.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is well aware of Russia’s intentions in the Kramatorsk gap, and has also repositioned forces. On Wednesday several Russian tanks and a helicopter were destroyed by Ukrainian troops moving in southwest of Izyum, and some of those same vehicles that were involved in building the bridge that allowed Russia to cross the river now look like this:
(Bonus points: Can you name all the items Russian troops were trying to steal when these vehicles were destroyed?)
One other zone of major conflict which I failed to circle: Mariupol. While the battle there may seem to have been decided, that’s not how local Ukrainian forces are behaving. On Thursday, at least one Russian ML-TB armored vehicle was destroyed in the city, and Ukrainian forces are still putting up something that’s far greater than token resistance.
All of this is taking place as Russia has also taken away the city’s last hospital staff at gunpoint and continues to relocate thousands of the city’s residents to unknown locations in Russia.
One of those Russian missile strikes west of Slovyansk has blocked efforts to evacuate civilians from the area in anticipation of the coming battle.
'I am disgusted': Amir Locke's mom speaks after prosecutors refuse to charge cop who killed her son
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Prosecutors announced on Wednesday that they are “declining” to file criminal charges in the shooting death of Amir Locke, a Black man who was lying on a couch when police barged into a downtown Minneapolis apartment and killed Locke after he reached for a gun. Authorities were executing a no-knock search warrant just before 7 A.M. on Feb. 2, according to the offices of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman. “Amir Locke was not a suspect in the underlying Saint Paul criminal investigation, nor was he named in the search warrants. Amir Locke is a victim,” prosecutors said in a news release. “This tragedy may not have occurred absent the no-knock warrant used in this case.”
Still, prosecutors said the law prevents them from filing charges against Mark Hanneman, the officer who shot Locke. “After a thorough review of all available evidence, however, there is insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case,” prosecutors said in their release. “Specifically, the State would be unable to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements of Minnesota’s use-of-deadly-force statute that authorizes the use of force by Officer Hanneman.”
RELATED STORY: Family wants answers after 22-year-old Black man, Amir Locke, shot and killed during no-knock raid
“Nor would the State be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal charge against any other officer involved in the decision-making that led to the death of Amir Locke.”
While both offices of the Hennepin County Attorney and Minnesota Attorney General agreed in a joint report that existing policies need “rethinking,” they said as prosecutors, they are limited in their role “to considering only whether criminal charges are warranted against any of the police officers involved in Mr. Locke’s death.”
They wrote in the report:
“To file a criminal charge against any of the police officers, and specifically against Officer Hanneman, the State must possess sufficient admissible evidence to prove every element of the criminal offense and disprove at least one element of any available affirmative defense beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a high burden, and it is one which is not met here.”
Prosecutors also cited the expert report of retired Capt. John Ryan, who concluded that “the use of deadly force by Officer Hanneman was consistent with the Minneapolis Police Department when considered in conjunction with generally accepted practices and training in law enforcement.”
Activist Al Sharpton, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, and Amir Locke’s mother, Karen Wells, made a case during a press conference Wednesday at Sharpton’s National Action Network Convention that those generally accepted standards need to change. ”I’m not gonna give up,” Wells said. “Right now, the Minneapolis police officer that executed my baby boy on 2/2/22, be prepared for this family because every time you take a step we’re going to be right behind you. This is not over.”
She directed her message directly to Hanneman and said, “the spirit of my baby is going to haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“I am not disappointed. I am disgusted with the city of Minneapolis,” Wells said.
Although Minneapolis police promised they wouldn’t use no-knock search warrants some two years ago, they went on to seek some 90 of them between November 2020 and September 2021 alone, according to the journalism nonprofit MinnPost. Following the death of 26-year-old emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey issued a policy in November 2020 requiring officers to identify themselves before executing no-knock warrants. Taylor was killed when police raided her home executing a no-knock warrant on Mar. 13, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was sleeping when officers smashed through her door.
“Outside of limited, exigent circumstances, like a hostage situation, MPD officers will be required to announce their presence and purpose prior to entry,” Frey’s office said in a 2020 statement the Star Tribune obtained. The city tightened the restriction in March, implementing a new policy prohibiting the application for and execution of all no-knock warrants.
Ellison called for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, an endeavor Republicans sabotaged in pandering to special interest groups working to protect the very people targeted with reform measures. The policing act is a comprehensive police reform bill to ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants and require body cameras, among other reform measures.
Crump said on Wednesday that the National Rifle Association should be joining their fight to get rid of no-knock warrants “because if it can happen to Amir, it can happen to Breonna Taylor, it can happen to your children, too.”
RELATED STORY: Shocking! Negotiations on police reform bill hampered by the very people who need to reform
Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott peddles horrific plan to kidnap immigrants, then backtracks
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Right-wing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday declared that he would round up and forcibly bus asylum-seekers and other migrants to Washington, D.C., in retaliation for the Biden administration’s just decision to end use of Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum order by end of May.
“To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden Administration to Washington, D.C.,” Abbott offensively claimed in front of cameras.
But while Abbott puffed up his chest to make the kidnapping threat to the press and cameras, he was notably sedate in the state’s official release, which stated that the busing would actually be completely voluntary. Yes: Providing asylum-seeking families and individuals with Texas taxpayer-funded transportation to a region heavy with pro-immigrant advocacy groups to own the libs.
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The response to the initial reporting of Abbott’s plan was obviously abject horror. “This is literally kidnapping, right?” tweeted American Immigration Council senior policy counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “It’s not just me. You can’t just ‘send people’ places against their will. That’s a crime.” It would seem that way. “Any forcible busing of migrants across the country would be outrageous and blatantly unconstitutional,” ACLU of Texas staff attorney Kate Huddleston said in a statement reported by The Texas Tribune.
Did Abbott then backtrack on his threat because “someone mentioned to him that busing people across state lines against their will is felony kidnapping,” as posited by Texas Monthly senior editor Jack Herrera? Or was this the plan all along, because he has a reelection campaign to win and knew it would be breathlessly reported by mainstream outlets and right-wing propagandists?
Then, possibly in response to backlash from racists really angry that it’s all voluntary, Abbott on Fox News refused to say if it was all voluntary:
We know Abbott’s reelection has been heavy on the anti-immigrant stunts. While he’s touted the multibillion dollar Operation Lone Star scheme as a success story, he refuses to be transparent about the data that would back up that lie.
“In the fight against fentanyl, DPS has seized over 288 million lethal doses throughout the state,” Abbott’s office has claimed. But a recent joint investigation from Marshall Project, ProPublica, and The Texas Tribune found that Texas has been citing drug seizures from areas that included “counties that did not receive additional resources from the operation, and some of the newly credited actions included work already conducted by troopers stationed there before the governor’s initiative began.” The report said that his office has fought dozens of public records requests.
The stunt this week drew support from Ted Cruz, who endorsed Abbott for reelection to boos last summer. Cruz, who last year was caught infamously vacationing in beautiful Cancún while Texans froze, said he supported sending migrants to regions including California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Maybe Ted is unaware, but all have immigrant-rich communities where families would assuredly be welcome. Once again, Texas taxpayer-funded rides to own the libs.
Greg Abbott is a fucking jackass but it doesn’t change the fact that his rhetoric is disgusting—and dangerous. “I see Greg Abbott wants to smuggle migrants,” America’s Voice campaign director Mario Carrillo initially tweeted in response to Abbott’s claim. “All jokes aside, just a truly despicable act by a nasty person who will stop at nothing to dehumanize migrants to score political points. He’s learned nothing from the attack in El Paso in 2019 and doesn’t care if it happens again.”
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Tribal and state waterways once again threatened by Trump-era water regulation
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The Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” was in full effect on Wednesday when Justices chose to reinstate a Trump-era water rule that threatens waterways on state and tribal land. In a 5-4 ruling in which all three Trump-appointed Justices were part of the majority, the nation’s highest court chose to allow the 2020 Rule created by the Trump administration to take effect temporarily. The rule concerns Section 401 of the Clean Water Act and limits states’ and tribes’ abilities to review projects like pipelines, from shortening the review period to allowing federal oversight that could overturn a state and tribe’s findings. It is also on states and tribes to prove that projects will harm water quality. Polluters cheered the ruling, while environmental groups and even states themselves sued over what was effectively a gutting of the Clean Water Act.
This led to a federal judge in 2021 rejecting the EPA’s request to keep the rule on the books. An appeal failed, but oil and gas groups and fossil fuel-loving states stayed persistent, filing a request to the Supreme Court to get the rule reinstated, which leads us to Wednesday’s order in the case of Louisiana v. American Rivers. Unsurprisingly, the states interested in keeping antiquated oil and gas ventures in existence included the usual suspects, like Louisiana, Texas, and West Virginia. The groups joining them in the lawsuit include the American Petroleum Institute and Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. It was Justice Elena Kagan who issued the dissenting opinion. She was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. The final paragraphs are damning.
“The applicants… have failed to meet that burden.They claim that the vacated rule gave them ‘protections’ against States that previously ‘abuse[d]’ their statutory authority to review infrastructure projects for compliance with water-quality standards. But the applicants have not identified a single project that a State has obstructed in the five months since the District Court’s decision. Still more, they have not cited a single project that the court’s ruling threatens, or is likely to threaten, in the time before the appellate process concludes. The request dissenting for a stay rests on simple assertions—on conjectures, unsupported by any present-day evidence, about what States will now feel free to do. And the application fails to show that proper implementation of the reinstated regulatory regime—which existed for 50 years before the vacated rule came into effect—is incapable of countering whatever state overreach may (but may not) occur. Even the applicants’ own actions belie the need for a stay… The applicants have given us no good reason to think that in the remaining time needed to decide the appeal, they will suffer irreparable harm. By nonetheless granting relief, the Court goes astray.”
The Sierra Club issued a statement urging the EPA to act quickly to right this wrong. The Biden administration promised that a new draft rule would be issued this spring, with a final rule issued next spring. But even a smidgen of time in which oil and gas companies can threaten states and tribes and worsen climate change conditions is a moment too long. EarthJustice, which filed a lawsuit against the Trump-era rule, similarly demanded action from the EPA and called out the Supreme Court. “The Court’s decision to reinstate the Trump administration rule shows disregard for the integrity of the Clean Water Act and undermines the rights of tribes and states to review and reject dirty fossil fuel projects that threaten their water,” Senior Attorney Moneen Nasmith said in a statement. “The EPA must ensure that its revised rule recognizes the authority of states and tribes to protect their vital water resources in its ongoing rule-making under Section 401.”