The real horror, to me, lies in the fact that there is absolutely no vehicle in American journalism for the kind of “sensitive” and “intellectual” and essentially moral/merciless reporting that we all understand is necessary–not only for the survival of good journalism in this country, but for the dying idea that you can walk up to a newsstand and find something that will tell you what is really happening. ~Hunter S. Thompson
From: Fear and Loathing in America
Photograph of Thompson by Michael Ochs
#HunterThompson #MichaelOchs #HunterSThompson
Ha, great quote from the original Fake News guy w/ his Gonzo Journalism…lol. Come on man, how many swing and misses do you get???
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,522
The real horror, to me, lies in the fact that there is absolutely no vehicle in American journalism for the kind of “sensitive” and “intellectual” and essentially moral/merciless reporting that we all understand is necessary–not only for the survival of good journalism in this country, but for the dying idea that you can walk up to a newsstand and find something that will tell you what is really happening. ~Hunter S. Thompson
From: Fear and Loathing in America
Photograph of Thompson by Michael Ochs
#HunterThompson #MichaelOchs #HunterSThompson
As far as there being a vehicle for the kind of journalism Hunter was talking about, no, there's never enough. But that kind of journalism and writing has seeped through much of the time. Thompson did it. Charles Bowden sure as hell did. Bill Zimmerman, ditto. The list goes on, from the most pastorally intelligent like Wendell Berry, to the earthy and spiritual Terry Tempest Williams, to the enigmatic and philosophical Edward Abbey. And not all of these writers have been mutual fans of each. Thompson was particularly critical of his fellow writers. But they all had the heart, soul, guts, and brains to reach to the truth, unlike certain big-name fools who blather on talk shows, or tweet and spout bullshit, or people who rant mindlessly on social media.
As for who are the best of the current crop? The Guardian is right up there these days with Arwa Mahdawi, Margaret Sullivan, for example. But yeah, we need more strong, intelligent voices, and more vehicles to carry them... not to mention more ears to hear and listen and minds to think critically.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
He pardoned dudes who beat cops with his flag & the Stars and Stripes but he backs the blue this is how he says Thank you for your vote? 😂😂 most cops here on Long Island are MAGA voters
Extremely disappointing, yes. Surprising, no. The End of America, no.
He pardoned dudes who beat cops with his flag & the Stars and Stripes but he backs the blue this is how he says Thank you for your vote? 😂😂 most cops here on Long Island are MAGA voters
Extremely disappointing, yes. Surprising, no. The End of America, no.
Everything has a beginning!
The whole idea is nothing but a fear mongering tactic.
Good news is, I just looked out the window and America is still here.
He pardoned dudes who beat cops with his flag & the Stars and Stripes but he backs the blue this is how he says Thank you for your vote? 😂😂 most cops here on Long Island are MAGA voters
Extremely disappointing, yes. Surprising, no. The End of America, no.
Everything has a beginning!
The whole idea is nothing but a fear mongering tactic.
Good news is, I just looked out the window and America is still here.
What? The idea of pardoning rioters who stormed the capitol and assaulted is fear mongering?
He pardoned dudes who beat cops with his flag & the Stars and Stripes but he backs the blue this is how he says Thank you for your vote? 😂😂 most cops here on Long Island are MAGA voters
Extremely disappointing, yes. Surprising, no. The End of America, no.
Everything has a beginning!
The whole idea is nothing but a fear mongering tactic.
Good news is, I just looked out the window and America is still here.
What? The idea of pardoning rioters who stormed the capitol and assaulted is fear mongering?
Ha, no. The idea of "The End of the American Republic" is fearmongering.
He pardoned dudes who beat cops with his flag & the Stars and Stripes but he backs the blue this is how he says Thank you for your vote? 😂😂 most cops here on Long Island are MAGA voters
Extremely disappointing, yes. Surprising, no. The End of America, no.
Everything has a beginning!
The whole idea is nothing but a fear mongering tactic.
Good news is, I just looked out the window and America is still here.
What? The idea of pardoning rioters who stormed the capitol and assaulted is fear mongering?
Ha, no. The idea of "The End of the American Republic" is fearmongering.
Clearly, you haven’t read all the posts nor paid attention to the past 8 years, seemingly.
He pardoned dudes who beat cops with his flag & the Stars and Stripes but he backs the blue this is how he says Thank you for your vote? 😂😂 most cops here on Long Island are MAGA voters
Extremely disappointing, yes. Surprising, no. The End of America, no.
Everything has a beginning!
The whole idea is nothing but a fear mongering tactic.
Good news is, I just looked out the window and America is still here.
What? The idea of pardoning rioters who stormed the capitol and assaulted is fear mongering?
Ha, no. The idea of "The End of the American Republic" is fearmongering.
Clearly, you haven’t read all the posts nor paid attention to the past 8 years, seemingly.
Clearly, you have to read far less of this propaganda. Brunch?
He pardoned dudes who beat cops with his flag & the Stars and Stripes but he backs the blue this is how he says Thank you for your vote? 😂😂 most cops here on Long Island are MAGA voters
Extremely disappointing, yes. Surprising, no. The End of America, no.
Everything has a beginning!
The whole idea is nothing but a fear mongering tactic.
Good news is, I just looked out the window and America is still here.
What? The idea of pardoning rioters who stormed the capitol and assaulted is fear mongering?
Ha, no. The idea of "The End of the American Republic" is fearmongering.
Clearly, you haven’t read all the posts nor paid attention to the past 8 years, seemingly.
Clearly, you have to read far less of this propaganda. Brunch?
Pray do tell what has been posted as “propaganda “? Also, all empires eventually crash and burn. That’s history, not propaganda. Perhaps you’d like to contest a certain post and point(s) being made with counter arguments?
As in, you just keep waiting anxiously for America to "crash and burn" (history, right?). I hope you are not holding your breath, or else we are never making it to brunch.
As in, you just keep waiting anxiously for America to "crash and burn" (history, right?). I hope you are not holding your breath, or else we are never making it to brunch.
As in, you just keep waiting anxiously for America to "crash and burn" (history, right?). I hope you are not holding your breath, or else we are never making it to brunch.
Sounds like Eggs Benedict and Cheetos.
I’m not “waiting anxiously” but rather anticipating it. It’s just a matter of time at this point. Like I said, you’ve got about two to two and a half years. Spend it if you’ve got it.
Gross. And yea, who wants to pay for eggs laden with chicken flu?
As in, you just keep waiting anxiously for America to "crash and burn" (history, right?). I hope you are not holding your breath, or else we are never making it to brunch.
Sounds like Eggs Benedict and Cheetos.
I’m not “waiting anxiously” but rather anticipating it. It’s just a matter of time at this point. Like I said, you’ve got about two to two and a half years. Spend it if you’ve got it.
Gross. And yea, who wants to pay for eggs laden with chicken flu?
So you are laying down your markers that the end of the American Republic is coming in the next 2-2.5 years? Max, you gotta step away from all of this.
Oh good grief, here we go. What's the over/under on vaccines for the trendy new bird flu?
As in, you just keep waiting anxiously for America to "crash and burn" (history, right?). I hope you are not holding your breath, or else we are never making it to brunch.
Sounds like Eggs Benedict and Cheetos.
I’m not “waiting anxiously” but rather anticipating it. It’s just a matter of time at this point. Like I said, you’ve got about two to two and a half years. Spend it if you’ve got it.
Gross. And yea, who wants to pay for eggs laden with chicken flu?
So you are laying down your markers that the end of the American Republic is coming in the next 2-2.5 years? Max, you gotta step away from all of this.
Oh good grief, here we go. What's the over/under on vaccines for the trendy new bird flu?
If you don’t believe it’s begun, I can’t help you.
Trump pardons two D.C. officers convicted in fatal chase
Amid the nation’s racial reckoning of 2020, the pursuit killed a young Black man and sparked hours of destructive civil unrest in Northwest Washington.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned two D.C. police officers convicted of misconduct in a vehicle chase that killed a young Black man and sparked a night of destructive civil unrest in the city during the nation’s 2020 racial reckoning.
Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky were convicted on charges of conspiracy and obstructing justice, and Sutton also was found guilty of second-degree murder. They were sentenced to prison terms of 5½ years and four years, respectively, but remained free pending the outcomes of their appeals.
In ordering the clemency, Trump has waded into a case that set racial tensions ablaze in the Brightwood Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington and caused angry resentment between police and the U.S. attorney’s office in the District.
On Oct. 23, 2020, five months after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis spurred massive protests against police brutality across the country and abroad, Zabavsky and Sutton, both White, conducted what federal prosecutors said was an unjustified, illegally reckless vehicular pursuit. They were chasing 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a rented moped during the low-speed chase and crashed into an SUV in traffic.
Pardoning the two officers wipes out a jury’s finding of deadly police misconduct in the incident.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office hours after his inauguration Monday, Trump hinted at forthcoming pardons in the case.
Well, we’re looking at two police officers, actually, Washington police officers, who went after an illegal, and things happened and they ended up putting them in jail,” he said. “They got five-year jail sentences. You know the case. And we’re looking at that in order to give them — we got to give them a break.”
The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s comments.
On Tuesday, he addressed the topic again.
“I’m going to be letting the two officers from Washington police, D.C. — I believe they’re from D.C. — but I just approved it,” he said, without specifying what he had approved. “They were arrested, put in jail for five years because they went after an illegal,” Trump said. “And I guess something happened where something went wrong, and they arrested the two officers and put them in jail for going after a criminal. A rough criminal, by the way.”
D.C. Superior Court records do not list any adult felony cases against Hylton-Brown.
As for Hylton-Brown’s citizenship status, “he was a 100-percent American-born young Black man,” said David L. Shurtz, a lawyer representing Amaala Jones-Bey, the mother of Hylton-Brown’s child, in civil litigation related to his death. Hylton-Brown’s mother, Karen Hylton, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Shurtz described her reaction as “ballistic.”
“Honestly, I wasn’t surprised” by the pardons, Jones-Bey, 24, said. “I just think it’s unfair because this is not something they do for Black men in America, just let them skate like that. I think everybody should be held accountable for their actions.”Shurtz called the pardons “outrageous, especially with Sutton,” given his second-degree murder conviction. “By their actions afterward, the cover up, it’s implicit that they knew they were guilty.”
In a statement, the D.C. Police Department said it “acknowledges President Donald Trump’s executive action in this matter,” thanking him and the interim U.S. Attorney for the move.
“The prosecutions of Officer Terence Sutton and Lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky were literally unprecedented. Never before, in any other jurisdiction in the country, has a police officer been charged with second-degree murder for pursuing a suspect,” the statement said. “The Department recognizes the risks involved in vehicle pursuits, which are reflected in our pursuit policy. But violations of that policy should be addressed through training and discipline — not through criminal prosecution.”
Sutton, a plainclothes officer, and Zabavsky, his supervisor, were convicted in 2022. Zabavsky was not directly charged in Hylton-Brown’s death. Sutton is the first D.C. officer to be convicted of murder for on-duty actions.
Sutton’s attorney, J. Michael Hannon, did not respond to messages seeking comment. In an interview before the pardon was issued, Zabavsky’s lawyer, Christopher A. Zampogna, said his client would welcome clemency from Trump, even though accepting a presidential pardon entails an acknowledgment of guilt. Zampogna said Zabavsky fell seriously ill after his sentencing in September and only recently has begun returning to health.
As in, you just keep waiting anxiously for America to "crash and burn" (history, right?). I hope you are not holding your breath, or else we are never making it to brunch.
Sounds like Eggs Benedict and Cheetos.
I’m not “waiting anxiously” but rather anticipating it. It’s just a matter of time at this point. Like I said, you’ve got about two to two and a half years. Spend it if you’ve got it.
Gross. And yea, who wants to pay for eggs laden with chicken flu?
So you are laying down your markers that the end of the American Republic is coming in the next 2-2.5 years? Max, you gotta step away from all of this.
Oh good grief, here we go. What's the over/under on vaccines for the trendy new bird flu?
If you don’t believe it’s begun, I can’t help you.
Trump pardons two D.C. officers convicted in fatal chase
Amid the nation’s racial reckoning of 2020, the pursuit killed a young Black man and sparked hours of destructive civil unrest in Northwest Washington.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned two D.C. police officers convicted of misconduct in a vehicle chase that killed a young Black man and sparked a night of destructive civil unrest in the city during the nation’s 2020 racial reckoning.
Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky were convicted on charges of conspiracy and obstructing justice, and Sutton also was found guilty of second-degree murder. They were sentenced to prison terms of 5½ years and four years, respectively, but remained free pending the outcomes of their appeals.
In ordering the clemency, Trump has waded into a case that set racial tensions ablaze in the Brightwood Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington and caused angry resentment between police and the U.S. attorney’s office in the District.
On Oct. 23, 2020, five months after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis spurred massive protests against police brutality across the country and abroad, Zabavsky and Sutton, both White, conducted what federal prosecutors said was an unjustified, illegally reckless vehicular pursuit. They were chasing 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a rented moped during the low-speed chase and crashed into an SUV in traffic.
Pardoning the two officers wipes out a jury’s finding of deadly police misconduct in the incident.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office hours after his inauguration Monday, Trump hinted at forthcoming pardons in the case.
Well, we’re looking at two police officers, actually, Washington police officers, who went after an illegal, and things happened and they ended up putting them in jail,” he said. “They got five-year jail sentences. You know the case. And we’re looking at that in order to give them — we got to give them a break.”
The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s comments.
On Tuesday, he addressed the topic again.
“I’m going to be letting the two officers from Washington police, D.C. — I believe they’re from D.C. — but I just approved it,” he said, without specifying what he had approved. “They were arrested, put in jail for five years because they went after an illegal,” Trump said. “And I guess something happened where something went wrong, and they arrested the two officers and put them in jail for going after a criminal. A rough criminal, by the way.”
D.C. Superior Court records do not list any adult felony cases against Hylton-Brown.
As for Hylton-Brown’s citizenship status, “he was a 100-percent American-born young Black man,” said David L. Shurtz, a lawyer representing Amaala Jones-Bey, the mother of Hylton-Brown’s child, in civil litigation related to his death. Hylton-Brown’s mother, Karen Hylton, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Shurtz described her reaction as “ballistic.”
“Honestly, I wasn’t surprised” by the pardons, Jones-Bey, 24, said. “I just think it’s unfair because this is not something they do for Black men in America, just let them skate like that. I think everybody should be held accountable for their actions.”Shurtz called the pardons “outrageous, especially with Sutton,” given his second-degree murder conviction. “By their actions afterward, the cover up, it’s implicit that they knew they were guilty.”
In a statement, the D.C. Police Department said it “acknowledges President Donald Trump’s executive action in this matter,” thanking him and the interim U.S. Attorney for the move.
“The prosecutions of Officer Terence Sutton and Lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky were literally unprecedented. Never before, in any other jurisdiction in the country, has a police officer been charged with second-degree murder for pursuing a suspect,” the statement said. “The Department recognizes the risks involved in vehicle pursuits, which are reflected in our pursuit policy. But violations of that policy should be addressed through training and discipline — not through criminal prosecution.”
Sutton, a plainclothes officer, and Zabavsky, his supervisor, were convicted in 2022. Zabavsky was not directly charged in Hylton-Brown’s death. Sutton is the first D.C. officer to be convicted of murder for on-duty actions.
Sutton’s attorney, J. Michael Hannon, did not respond to messages seeking comment. In an interview before the pardon was issued, Zabavsky’s lawyer, Christopher A. Zampogna, said his client would welcome clemency from Trump, even though accepting a presidential pardon entails an acknowledgment of guilt. Zampogna said Zabavsky fell seriously ill after his sentencing in September and only recently has begun returning to health.
As in, you just keep waiting anxiously for America to "crash and burn" (history, right?). I hope you are not holding your breath, or else we are never making it to brunch.
Sounds like Eggs Benedict and Cheetos.
I’m not “waiting anxiously” but rather anticipating it. It’s just a matter of time at this point. Like I said, you’ve got about two to two and a half years. Spend it if you’ve got it.
Gross. And yea, who wants to pay for eggs laden with chicken flu?
So you are laying down your markers that the end of the American Republic is coming in the next 2-2.5 years? Max, you gotta step away from all of this.
Oh good grief, here we go. What's the over/under on vaccines for the trendy new bird flu?
If you don’t believe it’s begun, I can’t help you.
Trump pardons two D.C. officers convicted in fatal chase
Amid the nation’s racial reckoning of 2020, the pursuit killed a young Black man and sparked hours of destructive civil unrest in Northwest Washington.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned two D.C. police officers convicted of misconduct in a vehicle chase that killed a young Black man and sparked a night of destructive civil unrest in the city during the nation’s 2020 racial reckoning.
Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky were convicted on charges of conspiracy and obstructing justice, and Sutton also was found guilty of second-degree murder. They were sentenced to prison terms of 5½ years and four years, respectively, but remained free pending the outcomes of their appeals.
In ordering the clemency, Trump has waded into a case that set racial tensions ablaze in the Brightwood Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington and caused angry resentment between police and the U.S. attorney’s office in the District.
On Oct. 23, 2020, five months after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis spurred massive protests against police brutality across the country and abroad, Zabavsky and Sutton, both White, conducted what federal prosecutors said was an unjustified, illegally reckless vehicular pursuit. They were chasing 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a rented moped during the low-speed chase and crashed into an SUV in traffic.
Pardoning the two officers wipes out a jury’s finding of deadly police misconduct in the incident.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office hours after his inauguration Monday, Trump hinted at forthcoming pardons in the case.
Well, we’re looking at two police officers, actually, Washington police officers, who went after an illegal, and things happened and they ended up putting them in jail,” he said. “They got five-year jail sentences. You know the case. And we’re looking at that in order to give them — we got to give them a break.”
The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s comments.
On Tuesday, he addressed the topic again.
“I’m going to be letting the two officers from Washington police, D.C. — I believe they’re from D.C. — but I just approved it,” he said, without specifying what he had approved. “They were arrested, put in jail for five years because they went after an illegal,” Trump said. “And I guess something happened where something went wrong, and they arrested the two officers and put them in jail for going after a criminal. A rough criminal, by the way.”
D.C. Superior Court records do not list any adult felony cases against Hylton-Brown.
As for Hylton-Brown’s citizenship status, “he was a 100-percent American-born young Black man,” said David L. Shurtz, a lawyer representing Amaala Jones-Bey, the mother of Hylton-Brown’s child, in civil litigation related to his death. Hylton-Brown’s mother, Karen Hylton, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Shurtz described her reaction as “ballistic.”
“Honestly, I wasn’t surprised” by the pardons, Jones-Bey, 24, said. “I just think it’s unfair because this is not something they do for Black men in America, just let them skate like that. I think everybody should be held accountable for their actions.”Shurtz called the pardons “outrageous, especially with Sutton,” given his second-degree murder conviction. “By their actions afterward, the cover up, it’s implicit that they knew they were guilty.”
In a statement, the D.C. Police Department said it “acknowledges President Donald Trump’s executive action in this matter,” thanking him and the interim U.S. Attorney for the move.
“The prosecutions of Officer Terence Sutton and Lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky were literally unprecedented. Never before, in any other jurisdiction in the country, has a police officer been charged with second-degree murder for pursuing a suspect,” the statement said. “The Department recognizes the risks involved in vehicle pursuits, which are reflected in our pursuit policy. But violations of that policy should be addressed through training and discipline — not through criminal prosecution.”
Sutton, a plainclothes officer, and Zabavsky, his supervisor, were convicted in 2022. Zabavsky was not directly charged in Hylton-Brown’s death. Sutton is the first D.C. officer to be convicted of murder for on-duty actions.
Sutton’s attorney, J. Michael Hannon, did not respond to messages seeking comment. In an interview before the pardon was issued, Zabavsky’s lawyer, Christopher A. Zampogna, said his client would welcome clemency from Trump, even though accepting a presidential pardon entails an acknowledgment of guilt. Zampogna said Zabavsky fell seriously ill after his sentencing in September and only recently has begun returning to health.
But here we are. Who you gonna call when a class have their civil rights violated and don’t have the resources to take on the state? Might want to invest in the prison industrial complex.
Justice Department issues freeze for civil rights division
The directives halt ongoing civil rights cases and could jeopardize police reform agreements finalized in recent months in Minneapolis and Louisville.
The Justice Department has ordered the civil rights division to halt much of its investigative activity dating from the Biden administration and not pursue new indictments, cases or settlements, according to a memo sent to the temporary head of the division that was obtained by The Washington Post.
The letter instructs Kathleen Wolfe — designated by the Trump administration as supervisor of the division — to ensure that civil rights attorneys do not file “any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest.”
Cases that have already been filed would be subject to the discretion of the judge overseeing them.
A separate memo sent to Wolfe on Wednesday says the civil rights division must notify the Justice Department’s chief of staff of any consent decrees the division has finalized within the last 90 days. That directive suggests that police-reform agreements the Justice Department has negotiated with cities including Minneapolis, Louisville and Memphis could be in jeopardy.
The first memo doesn’t state how long the freeze will last, but it largely shuts down the civil rights division for at least the early weeks of the Trump administration. Harmeet K. Dhillon, a Republican lawyer and activist who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the department, is awaiting Senate confirmation.
The Justice Department could not immediately be reached for comment about the memo, which was sent by Chad Mizelle, the department’s new chief of staff.
It states that officials are implementing the freeze to be “consistent with the Department’s goal of ensuring that the Federal Government speaks with one voice in its view of the law and to ensure that the President’s appointees or designees have the opportunity to decide whether to initiate any new cases.”
Within the Justice Department, the civil rights division typically experiences the sharpest shift in priorities between Republican and Democratic administrations. Department officials interviewed after the November election said they expected that change to be even more drastic between the Biden and Trump administrations.
But the division typically decides on a case-by-case basis what litigation to pursue from the previous administration.
“It’s beyond unusual — it’s unprecedented. We’ve never seen this before at this scale with any transfer of power, regardless of the ideology of any incoming president or administration,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “This should make Americans both angry and deeply worried. This is more than just a changing course of philosophy — this is exactly what most people [in the civil rights community] feared: a Justice Department that was created to protect civil rights literally abdicating its duty and responsibility to protect Americans from all forms of discrimination.”
In all, the Justice Department launched a dozen investigations into state and local law enforcement agencies during President Joe Biden’s tenure. They issued findings in nine of them. But Biden’s administration was slow to lock in reform agreements, putting a major civil rights initiative in jeopardy.
After the November election, the Justice Department rushed to finalize at least some police reform agreements, knowing that such agreements could be opposed by Trump appointees.
In December, the department announced a federal oversight agreement with the city of Louisville, where the 2020 police killing of Breonna Taylor helped spark nationwide justice protests. In early January, the civil rights division forged a police accountability plan with city leaders in Minneapolis, where the police killing of George Floyd galvanized the nationwide protests even further. Neither has been approved by a judge.
Trump did not pursue similar police accountability investigations during his first term in the White House. As a candidate in this year’s election, he clearly signaled his intent to abandon Biden’s use of federal power to try to curb excessive police force and racial discrimination.
He said on the campaign trail that police at times must be “extraordinarily rough” to stamp out urban mayhem and endorsed more aggressive tactics from police, including the use of stop-and-frisk to search suspects.
What, exactly, does one fathom what may happen when so many aspects of the checks and balances are broken at the same time? What is the end result of such idiocy? And it’s only day two. From Letter From An American:
Marc Caputo of Axios reported today that Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of all the January 6 rioters convicted of crimes for that day’s events, including those who attack police officers, was a spur of the moment decision by Trump apparently designed to get the issue behind him quickly. “Trump just said: ‘F*ck it: Release ‘em all,’” an advisor recalled.
Rather than putting the issue behind him, Trump’s new administration is already mired in controversy over it. NBC News profiled the men who threw Nazi salutes, posted that they intended to start a civil war, vowed “there will be blood,” and called for the lynching of Democratic lawmakers. These men, who attacked police with bear spray, flag poles, and a metal whip and choked officers with their bare hands, are now back on the streets.
That means they are also headed home to their communities. Jackson Reffitt, who reported his father Guy’s participation in the January 6 riot and was a key witness against him, told reporters he fears for his life now that his father is free. Jackson recorded his father’s threat against talking to the authorities. “If you turn me in, you’re a traitor,” his father said, “and traitors get shot.” “I’m honestly flabbergasted that we've gotten to this point," Jackson told CNN. “I’m terrified. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The country’s largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has spoken out against the pardons, as has the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote: “Law and order? Back the blue? What happened to that [Republican Party]?” “What happened [on January 6, 2021] is a stain on Mr. Trump’s legacy,” it wrote. “By setting free the cop beaters, the President adds another.”
Mark Jacob of Stop the Presses commented: “Republicans—the Jailbreak Party.”
One of the pardoned individuals is already back in prison on a gun charge, illustrating, as legal analyst Joyce White Vance said, why Trump should have evaluated “prior criminal history, behavior in prison, [and] risk of dangerousness to the community following release. Now,” she said, “we all pay the price for him using the pardon power as a political reward.” On social media, Heather Thomas wrote: “So when all was said and done, the only country that opened [its] prisons and sent crazy murderous criminals to prey upon innocent American citizens, was us.”
MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reported that Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, who was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 18 years in prison, met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this afternoon.
For the past two days, the new Trump administration has been demonstrating that it is far easier to break things than it is to build them.
In his determination to get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures, Trump has shut down all federal government DEI offices and has put all federal employees working in such programs on leave, telling agencies to plan for layoffs. He reached back to the American past to root out all possible traces of DEI, calling it “illegal discrimination in the federal government.” Trump revoked a series of executive orders from various presidents designed to address inequities among American populations.
Dramatically, he reached all the way back to Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in September 1965 to stop discriminatory practices in hiring in the federal government and in the businesses of those who were awarded federal contracts. Johnson put forward Executive Order 11246 shortly after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to protect minority voting and a year after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, both designed to level the playing field in the United States between white Americans, Black Americans and Americans of color.
In an even more dramatic reworking of American history, though, the Trump administration has frozen all civil rights cases currently being handled by the Department of Justice and has ordered Trump’s new supervisor of the civil rights division, Kathleen Wolfe, to make sure that none of the civil rights attorneys file any new complaints or other legal documents.
Congress created the Department of Justice in 1870…to prosecute civil rights cases.
Today, Erica L. Green reported for the New York Times that Trump’s team has threatened federal employees with “adverse consequences” if they refuse to turn in colleagues who “defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies.” Civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill commented: “Can’t wait until these guys have to define in court a ‘DEI hire’ and ‘DEI employees.’”
Trump’s team has told the staff at Department of Health and Human Services—including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—to stop issuing health advisories, scientific reports, and updates to their websites and social media posts. Lena H. Sun, Dan Diamond, and Rachel Roubein of the Washington Post report that the CDC was expected this week to publish reports on the avian influenza virus, which has shut down Georgia’s poultry industry.
Trump has also set out to make his mark on the Department of Homeland Security. Trump yesterday removed the U.S. Coast Guard commandant, Admiral Linda Lee Fagan, and ordered the Coast Guard to surge cutters, aircrafts, boats and personnel to waters around Florida and borders with Mexico and to “the maritime border around Alaska, Hawai’i, the U.S. territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” to stop migrants.The service is already covering these areas as well as it can: last August, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday, told the Brookings Institution that the service was short of personnel and ships.
As Josh Funk reported in the Associated Press, Trump also fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), responsible for keeping the nation’s transportation systems safe. He also fired all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, mandated by Congress after the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, to review safety in airports and airlines.
Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, and Kara Scannell of CNN reported that Trump has pushed aside senior Department of Justice lawyers in the national security division, prosecutors who work on international affairs, and lawyers in the criminal division, all divisions that were involved in the prosecutions involving Trump.
Trump has also suspended all funding disbursements for projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, laws that invested billions of dollars in construction of clean energy manufacturing and the repair of roads, bridges, ports, and so on, primarily in Republican-dominated states.
Breaking things is easy, but it is harder to build them.
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly teased the idea that he had a secret plan to end Russia’s war against Ukraine in a day. This morning, in a social media post, he revealed it. He warned Russian president Vladimir Putin that he would “put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”
In fact, President Barack Obama and then–secretary of state John Kerry hit Russia with sanctions after its 2014 invasion of Ukraine, and under President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the U.S. and its allies have maintained biting sanctions against Russia. At the same time, Russia’s trade with the U.S. has fallen to lows that echo those of the period immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union.
“Making a ridiculous post about tariffs on Truth Social was his secret plan to end the war in 24 hours?” wrote editor Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews. “What a ridiculous clown show. Idiocracy.
What, exactly, does one fathom what may happen when so many aspects of the checks and balances are broken at the same time? What is the end result of such idiocy? And it’s only day two. From Letter From An American:
Marc Caputo of Axios reported today that Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of all the January 6 rioters convicted of crimes for that day’s events, including those who attack police officers, was a spur of the moment decision by Trump apparently designed to get the issue behind him quickly. “Trump just said: ‘F*ck it: Release ‘em all,’” an advisor recalled.
Rather than putting the issue behind him, Trump’s new administration is already mired in controversy over it. NBC News profiled the men who threw Nazi salutes, posted that they intended to start a civil war, vowed “there will be blood,” and called for the lynching of Democratic lawmakers. These men, who attacked police with bear spray, flag poles, and a metal whip and choked officers with their bare hands, are now back on the streets.
That means they are also headed home to their communities. Jackson Reffitt, who reported his father Guy’s participation in the January 6 riot and was a key witness against him, told reporters he fears for his life now that his father is free. Jackson recorded his father’s threat against talking to the authorities. “If you turn me in, you’re a traitor,” his father said, “and traitors get shot.” “I’m honestly flabbergasted that we've gotten to this point," Jackson told CNN. “I’m terrified. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The country’s largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has spoken out against the pardons, as has the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote: “Law and order? Back the blue? What happened to that [Republican Party]?” “What happened [on January 6, 2021] is a stain on Mr. Trump’s legacy,” it wrote. “By setting free the cop beaters, the President adds another.”
Mark Jacob of Stop the Presses commented: “Republicans—the Jailbreak Party.”
One of the pardoned individuals is already back in prison on a gun charge, illustrating, as legal analyst Joyce White Vance said, why Trump should have evaluated “prior criminal history, behavior in prison, [and] risk of dangerousness to the community following release. Now,” she said, “we all pay the price for him using the pardon power as a political reward.” On social media, Heather Thomas wrote: “So when all was said and done, the only country that opened [its] prisons and sent crazy murderous criminals to prey upon innocent American citizens, was us.”
MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reported that Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, who was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 18 years in prison, met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this afternoon.
For the past two days, the new Trump administration has been demonstrating that it is far easier to break things than it is to build them.
In his determination to get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures, Trump has shut down all federal government DEI offices and has put all federal employees working in such programs on leave, telling agencies to plan for layoffs. He reached back to the American past to root out all possible traces of DEI, calling it “illegal discrimination in the federal government.” Trump revoked a series of executive orders from various presidents designed to address inequities among American populations.
Dramatically, he reached all the way back to Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in September 1965 to stop discriminatory practices in hiring in the federal government and in the businesses of those who were awarded federal contracts. Johnson put forward Executive Order 11246 shortly after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to protect minority voting and a year after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, both designed to level the playing field in the United States between white Americans, Black Americans and Americans of color.
In an even more dramatic reworking of American history, though, the Trump administration has frozen all civil rights cases currently being handled by the Department of Justice and has ordered Trump’s new supervisor of the civil rights division, Kathleen Wolfe, to make sure that none of the civil rights attorneys file any new complaints or other legal documents.
Congress created the Department of Justice in 1870…to prosecute civil rights cases.
Today, Erica L. Green reported for the New York Times that Trump’s team has threatened federal employees with “adverse consequences” if they refuse to turn in colleagues who “defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies.” Civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill commented: “Can’t wait until these guys have to define in court a ‘DEI hire’ and ‘DEI employees.’”
Trump’s team has told the staff at Department of Health and Human Services—including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—to stop issuing health advisories, scientific reports, and updates to their websites and social media posts. Lena H. Sun, Dan Diamond, and Rachel Roubein of the Washington Post report that the CDC was expected this week to publish reports on the avian influenza virus, which has shut down Georgia’s poultry industry.
Trump has also set out to make his mark on the Department of Homeland Security. Trump yesterday removed the U.S. Coast Guard commandant, Admiral Linda Lee Fagan, and ordered the Coast Guard to surge cutters, aircrafts, boats and personnel to waters around Florida and borders with Mexico and to “the maritime border around Alaska, Hawai’i, the U.S. territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” to stop migrants.The service is already covering these areas as well as it can: last August, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday, told the Brookings Institution that the service was short of personnel and ships.
As Josh Funk reported in the Associated Press, Trump also fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), responsible for keeping the nation’s transportation systems safe. He also fired all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, mandated by Congress after the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, to review safety in airports and airlines.
Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, and Kara Scannell of CNN reported that Trump has pushed aside senior Department of Justice lawyers in the national security division, prosecutors who work on international affairs, and lawyers in the criminal division, all divisions that were involved in the prosecutions involving Trump.
Trump has also suspended all funding disbursements for projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, laws that invested billions of dollars in construction of clean energy manufacturing and the repair of roads, bridges, ports, and so on, primarily in Republican-dominated states.
Breaking things is easy, but it is harder to build them.
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly teased the idea that he had a secret plan to end Russia’s war against Ukraine in a day. This morning, in a social media post, he revealed it. He warned Russian president Vladimir Putin that he would “put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”
In fact, President Barack Obama and then–secretary of state John Kerry hit Russia with sanctions after its 2014 invasion of Ukraine, and under President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the U.S. and its allies have maintained biting sanctions against Russia. At the same time, Russia’s trade with the U.S. has fallen to lows that echo those of the period immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union.
“Making a ridiculous post about tariffs on Truth Social was his secret plan to end the war in 24 hours?” wrote editor Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews. “What a ridiculous clown show. Idiocracy.
The Felon's over-the-top shit-show drama can be looked at as a weak and faulty strategy... to the point of being non-strategy. More like impetuous knee jerk moves. The letter actually left me feeling slightly optimistic.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
But former leaders of AFL, founded by top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, are now at the center of power in the White House.
Miller, who could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday, serves as President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, directing immigration enforcement and other key elements of the president’s agenda. Gene Hamilton, the AFL’s former vice president and general counsel — who wrote the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025’s chapter about the Justice Department — is senior counsel at the White House.
Meanwhile, the America First Legal attorney who signed the letters, James Kenneth Rogers, is trying to start a new religion that, among other things, decries “Wokism” and prohibits the consumption of gluten.
“When Troy, Rome and Constantinople fell, their olive groves burned and their vineyards were trampled underfoot, the fruits of their past labors kept out of reach,” says a prescription for Easter rites laid out in Rogers’s self-published book, called “The Triple Path,” echoing a Judaic rite for Passover when instructing adherents to eat gluten-free crackers with grated horseradish. “All they had to eat were the bitterness of poverty, humiliation and subjugation. Let us eat bitter herbs to remember the bitterness of those times.”
Miller, a chief architect of the first Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies, began organizing America First Legal within weeks of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and Trump’s departure from office.
The idea behind AFL was to challenge Biden administration policies as a conservative version of the American Civil Liberties Union. That March, former Trump aides met during an “investors meeting” at his Mar-a-Lago Club to woo wealthy donors, The Washington Post previously reported.
Happy to wake up and see She is still here. Beautiful as ever.
Helpful tip of the day- Instead of paying attention to eggs and gas and bird flu, take a look at your 401k that should ease your mind. Be well my fellow Americans.
Happy to wake up and see She is still here. Beautiful as ever.
Helpful tip of the day- Instead of paying attention to eggs and gas and bird flu, take a look at your 401k that should ease your mind. Be well my fellow Americans.
You are assuming that my own personal wealth is all I worry about. I worry about those less fortunate than myself, those that are being persecuted and deported, people who are losing their jobs, and a government that doesn’t seem to care about maintaining democracy. My retirement fund could double and it won’t be worth all this.
Happy to wake up and see She is still here. Beautiful as ever.
Helpful tip of the day- Instead of paying attention to eggs and gas and bird flu, take a look at your 401k that should ease your mind. Be well my fellow Americans.
You are assuming that my own personal wealth is all I worry about. I worry about those less fortunate than myself, those that are being persecuted and deported, people who are losing their jobs, and a government that doesn’t seem to care about maintaining democracy. My retirement fund could double and it won’t be worth all this.
Happy to wake up and see She is still here. Beautiful as ever.
Helpful tip of the day- Instead of paying attention to eggs and gas and bird flu, take a look at your 401k that should ease your mind. Be well my fellow Americans.
You are assuming that my own personal wealth is all I worry about. I worry about those less fortunate than myself, those that are being persecuted and deported, people who are losing their jobs, and a government that doesn’t seem to care about maintaining democracy. My retirement fund could double and it won’t be worth all this.
Ya, I don’t focus on things that are out of my control, I find that to be a waste of energy. I do admire your efforts. Someone has to do it, right glowgirl?
Happy to wake up and see She is still here. Beautiful as ever.
Helpful tip of the day- Instead of paying attention to eggs and gas and bird flu, take a look at your 401k that should ease your mind. Be well my fellow Americans.
You are assuming that my own personal wealth is all I worry about. I worry about those less fortunate than myself, those that are being persecuted and deported, people who are losing their jobs, and a government that doesn’t seem to care about maintaining democracy. My retirement fund could double and it won’t be worth all this.
Ya, I don’t focus on things that are out of my control, I find that to be a waste of energy. I do admire your efforts. Someone has to do it, right glowgirl?
All of what, exactly?
People worrying about things is what can help spur social change and social movements. We see that throughout history. So, I try my best to participate in actions that can help. During the first Trump administration I volunteered for causes that were important to me and donated to charities, went to marches, etc. This time around I do admit I feel a bit defeated, but the more I am learning about things going on that I detest, I am starting to get motivated again.
I am glad you can turn it off. Life would be more pleasant. But it is hard for me. At my job we are required to do an EQ training. I took it yesterday and my EQ score for worrying about the feelings and well being of others was higher than my one for worrying about myself. So, I do have to work on that a bit. But I am glad I am an empathetic person.
Comments
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Good news is, I just looked out the window and America is still here.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
I don’t think we share the same tastes in food.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
That's a wild assumption. Funyuns?
No, Cheetos. See?
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Sounds like Eggs Benedict and Cheetos.
Gross. And yea, who wants to pay for eggs laden with chicken flu?
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Oh good grief, here we go. What's the over/under on vaccines for the trendy new bird flu?
Trump pardons two D.C. officers convicted in fatal chase
Amid the nation’s racial reckoning of 2020, the pursuit killed a young Black man and sparked hours of destructive civil unrest in Northwest Washington.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned two D.C. police officers convicted of misconduct in a vehicle chase that killed a young Black man and sparked a night of destructive civil unrest in the city during the nation’s 2020 racial reckoning.
Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky were convicted on charges of conspiracy and obstructing justice, and Sutton also was found guilty of second-degree murder. They were sentenced to prison terms of 5½ years and four years, respectively, but remained free pending the outcomes of their appeals.
In ordering the clemency, Trump has waded into a case that set racial tensions ablaze in the Brightwood Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington and caused angry resentment between police and the U.S. attorney’s office in the District.
On Oct. 23, 2020, five months after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis spurred massive protests against police brutality across the country and abroad, Zabavsky and Sutton, both White, conducted what federal prosecutors said was an unjustified, illegally reckless vehicular pursuit. They were chasing 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a rented moped during the low-speed chase and crashed into an SUV in traffic.
Pardoning the two officers wipes out a jury’s finding of deadly police misconduct in the incident.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office hours after his inauguration Monday, Trump hinted at forthcoming pardons in the case.
Well, we’re looking at two police officers, actually, Washington police officers, who went after an illegal, and things happened and they ended up putting them in jail,” he said. “They got five-year jail sentences. You know the case. And we’re looking at that in order to give them — we got to give them a break.”
The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s comments.
On Tuesday, he addressed the topic again.
“I’m going to be letting the two officers from Washington police, D.C. — I believe they’re from D.C. — but I just approved it,” he said, without specifying what he had approved. “They were arrested, put in jail for five years because they went after an illegal,” Trump said. “And I guess something happened where something went wrong, and they arrested the two officers and put them in jail for going after a criminal. A rough criminal, by the way.”
D.C. Superior Court records do not list any adult felony cases against Hylton-Brown.
As for Hylton-Brown’s citizenship status, “he was a 100-percent American-born young Black man,” said David L. Shurtz, a lawyer representing Amaala Jones-Bey, the mother of Hylton-Brown’s child, in civil litigation related to his death. Hylton-Brown’s mother, Karen Hylton, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Shurtz described her reaction as “ballistic.”
“Honestly, I wasn’t surprised” by the pardons, Jones-Bey, 24, said. “I just think it’s unfair because this is not something they do for Black men in America, just let them skate like that. I think everybody should be held accountable for their actions.”Shurtz called the pardons “outrageous, especially with Sutton,” given his second-degree murder conviction. “By their actions afterward, the cover up, it’s implicit that they knew they were guilty.”
In a statement, the D.C. Police Department said it “acknowledges President Donald Trump’s executive action in this matter,” thanking him and the interim U.S. Attorney for the move.
“The prosecutions of Officer Terence Sutton and Lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky were literally unprecedented. Never before, in any other jurisdiction in the country, has a police officer been charged with second-degree murder for pursuing a suspect,” the statement said. “The Department recognizes the risks involved in vehicle pursuits, which are reflected in our pursuit policy. But violations of that policy should be addressed through training and discipline — not through criminal prosecution.”
Sutton, a plainclothes officer, and Zabavsky, his supervisor, were convicted in 2022. Zabavsky was not directly charged in Hylton-Brown’s death. Sutton is the first D.C. officer to be convicted of murder for on-duty actions.
Sutton’s attorney, J. Michael Hannon, did not respond to messages seeking comment. In an interview before the pardon was issued, Zabavsky’s lawyer, Christopher A. Zampogna, said his client would welcome clemency from Trump, even though accepting a presidential pardon entails an acknowledgment of guilt. Zampogna said Zabavsky fell seriously ill after his sentencing in September and only recently has begun returning to health.
continues
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Justice Department issues freeze for civil rights division
The directives halt ongoing civil rights cases and could jeopardize police reform agreements finalized in recent months in Minneapolis and Louisville.
The Justice Department has ordered the civil rights division to halt much of its investigative activity dating from the Biden administration and not pursue new indictments, cases or settlements, according to a memo sent to the temporary head of the division that was obtained by The Washington Post.
The letter instructs Kathleen Wolfe — designated by the Trump administration as supervisor of the division — to ensure that civil rights attorneys do not file “any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest.”
Cases that have already been filed would be subject to the discretion of the judge overseeing them.
A separate memo sent to Wolfe on Wednesday says the civil rights division must notify the Justice Department’s chief of staff of any consent decrees the division has finalized within the last 90 days. That directive suggests that police-reform agreements the Justice Department has negotiated with cities including Minneapolis, Louisville and Memphis could be in jeopardy.
The first memo doesn’t state how long the freeze will last, but it largely shuts down the civil rights division for at least the early weeks of the Trump administration. Harmeet K. Dhillon, a Republican lawyer and activist who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the department, is awaiting Senate confirmation.
The Justice Department could not immediately be reached for comment about the memo, which was sent by Chad Mizelle, the department’s new chief of staff.
It states that officials are implementing the freeze to be “consistent with the Department’s goal of ensuring that the Federal Government speaks with one voice in its view of the law and to ensure that the President’s appointees or designees have the opportunity to decide whether to initiate any new cases.”
Within the Justice Department, the civil rights division typically experiences the sharpest shift in priorities between Republican and Democratic administrations. Department officials interviewed after the November election said they expected that change to be even more drastic between the Biden and Trump administrations.
But the division typically decides on a case-by-case basis what litigation to pursue from the previous administration.
“It’s beyond unusual — it’s unprecedented. We’ve never seen this before at this scale with any transfer of power, regardless of the ideology of any incoming president or administration,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “This should make Americans both angry and deeply worried. This is more than just a changing course of philosophy — this is exactly what most people [in the civil rights community] feared: a Justice Department that was created to protect civil rights literally abdicating its duty and responsibility to protect Americans from all forms of discrimination.”
In all, the Justice Department launched a dozen investigations into state and local law enforcement agencies during President Joe Biden’s tenure. They issued findings in nine of them. But Biden’s administration was slow to lock in reform agreements, putting a major civil rights initiative in jeopardy.
After the November election, the Justice Department rushed to finalize at least some police reform agreements, knowing that such agreements could be opposed by Trump appointees.
In December, the department announced a federal oversight agreement with the city of Louisville, where the 2020 police killing of Breonna Taylor helped spark nationwide justice protests. In early January, the civil rights division forged a police accountability plan with city leaders in Minneapolis, where the police killing of George Floyd galvanized the nationwide protests even further. Neither has been approved by a judge.
Trump did not pursue similar police accountability investigations during his first term in the White House. As a candidate in this year’s election, he clearly signaled his intent to abandon Biden’s use of federal power to try to curb excessive police force and racial discrimination.
He said on the campaign trail that police at times must be “extraordinarily rough” to stamp out urban mayhem and endorsed more aggressive tactics from police, including the use of stop-and-frisk to search suspects.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/01/22/justice-civil-rights-freeze-shutdown/
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Marc Caputo of Axios reported today that Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of all the January 6 rioters convicted of crimes for that day’s events, including those who attack police officers, was a spur of the moment decision by Trump apparently designed to get the issue behind him quickly. “Trump just said: ‘F*ck it: Release ‘em all,’” an advisor recalled.
Rather than putting the issue behind him, Trump’s new administration is already mired in controversy over it. NBC News profiled the men who threw Nazi salutes, posted that they intended to start a civil war, vowed “there will be blood,” and called for the lynching of Democratic lawmakers. These men, who attacked police with bear spray, flag poles, and a metal whip and choked officers with their bare hands, are now back on the streets.
That means they are also headed home to their communities. Jackson Reffitt, who reported his father Guy’s participation in the January 6 riot and was a key witness against him, told reporters he fears for his life now that his father is free. Jackson recorded his father’s threat against talking to the authorities. “If you turn me in, you’re a traitor,” his father said, “and traitors get shot.” “I’m honestly flabbergasted that we've gotten to this point," Jackson told CNN. “I’m terrified. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The country’s largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has spoken out against the pardons, as has the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote: “Law and order? Back the blue? What happened to that [Republican Party]?” “What happened [on January 6, 2021] is a stain on Mr. Trump’s legacy,” it wrote. “By setting free the cop beaters, the President adds another.”
Mark Jacob of Stop the Presses commented: “Republicans—the Jailbreak Party.”
One of the pardoned individuals is already back in prison on a gun charge, illustrating, as legal analyst Joyce White Vance said, why Trump should have evaluated “prior criminal history, behavior in prison, [and] risk of dangerousness to the community following release. Now,” she said, “we all pay the price for him using the pardon power as a political reward.” On social media, Heather Thomas wrote: “So when all was said and done, the only country that opened [its] prisons and sent crazy murderous criminals to prey upon innocent American citizens, was us.”
MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reported that Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, who was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 18 years in prison, met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this afternoon.
For the past two days, the new Trump administration has been demonstrating that it is far easier to break things than it is to build them.
In his determination to get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures, Trump has shut down all federal government DEI offices and has put all federal employees working in such programs on leave, telling agencies to plan for layoffs. He reached back to the American past to root out all possible traces of DEI, calling it “illegal discrimination in the federal government.” Trump revoked a series of executive orders from various presidents designed to address inequities among American populations.
Dramatically, he reached all the way back to Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in September 1965 to stop discriminatory practices in hiring in the federal government and in the businesses of those who were awarded federal contracts. Johnson put forward Executive Order 11246 shortly after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to protect minority voting and a year after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, both designed to level the playing field in the United States between white Americans, Black Americans and Americans of color.
In an even more dramatic reworking of American history, though, the Trump administration has frozen all civil rights cases currently being handled by the Department of Justice and has ordered Trump’s new supervisor of the civil rights division, Kathleen Wolfe, to make sure that none of the civil rights attorneys file any new complaints or other legal documents.
Congress created the Department of Justice in 1870…to prosecute civil rights cases.
Today, Erica L. Green reported for the New York Times that Trump’s team has threatened federal employees with “adverse consequences” if they refuse to turn in colleagues who “defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies.” Civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill commented: “Can’t wait until these guys have to define in court a ‘DEI hire’ and ‘DEI employees.’”
Trump’s team has told the staff at Department of Health and Human Services—including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—to stop issuing health advisories, scientific reports, and updates to their websites and social media posts. Lena H. Sun, Dan Diamond, and Rachel Roubein of the Washington Post report that the CDC was expected this week to publish reports on the avian influenza virus, which has shut down Georgia’s poultry industry.
Trump has also set out to make his mark on the Department of Homeland Security. Trump yesterday removed the U.S. Coast Guard commandant, Admiral Linda Lee Fagan, and ordered the Coast Guard to surge cutters, aircrafts, boats and personnel to waters around Florida and borders with Mexico and to “the maritime border around Alaska, Hawai’i, the U.S. territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” to stop migrants. The service is already covering these areas as well as it can: last August, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday, told the Brookings Institution that the service was short of personnel and ships.
As Josh Funk reported in the Associated Press, Trump also fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), responsible for keeping the nation’s transportation systems safe. He also fired all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, mandated by Congress after the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, to review safety in airports and airlines.
Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, and Kara Scannell of CNN reported that Trump has pushed aside senior Department of Justice lawyers in the national security division, prosecutors who work on international affairs, and lawyers in the criminal division, all divisions that were involved in the prosecutions involving Trump.
Trump has also suspended all funding disbursements for projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, laws that invested billions of dollars in construction of clean energy manufacturing and the repair of roads, bridges, ports, and so on, primarily in Republican-dominated states.
Breaking things is easy, but it is harder to build them.
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly teased the idea that he had a secret plan to end Russia’s war against Ukraine in a day. This morning, in a social media post, he revealed it. He warned Russian president Vladimir Putin that he would “put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”
In fact, President Barack Obama and then–secretary of state John Kerry hit Russia with sanctions after its 2014 invasion of Ukraine, and under President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the U.S. and its allies have maintained biting sanctions against Russia. At the same time, Russia’s trade with the U.S. has fallen to lows that echo those of the period immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union.
“Making a ridiculous post about tariffs on Truth Social was his secret plan to end the war in 24 hours?” wrote editor Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews. “What a ridiculous clown show. Idiocracy.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
The Felon's over-the-top shit-show drama can be looked at as a weak and faulty strategy... to the point of being non-strategy. More like impetuous knee jerk moves. The letter actually left me feeling slightly optimistic.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
But former leaders of AFL, founded by top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, are now at the center of power in the White House.
Miller, who could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday, serves as President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, directing immigration enforcement and other key elements of the president’s agenda. Gene Hamilton, the AFL’s former vice president and general counsel — who wrote the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025’s chapter about the Justice Department — is senior counsel at the White House.
Meanwhile, the America First Legal attorney who signed the letters, James Kenneth Rogers, is trying to start a new religion that, among other things, decries “Wokism” and prohibits the consumption of gluten.
“When Troy, Rome and Constantinople fell, their olive groves burned and their vineyards were trampled underfoot, the fruits of their past labors kept out of reach,” says a prescription for Easter rites laid out in Rogers’s self-published book, called “The Triple Path,” echoing a Judaic rite for Passover when instructing adherents to eat gluten-free crackers with grated horseradish. “All they had to eat were the bitterness of poverty, humiliation and subjugation. Let us eat bitter herbs to remember the bitterness of those times.”
Miller, a chief architect of the first Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies, began organizing America First Legal within weeks of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and Trump’s departure from office.
The idea behind AFL was to challenge Biden administration policies as a conservative version of the American Civil Liberties Union. That March, former Trump aides met during an “investors meeting” at his Mar-a-Lago Club to woo wealthy donors, The Washington Post previously reported.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
-EV 8/14/93