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Trump Dictatorship and All Things Politics

He and Hegseth or however you spell his name got the general together to tell them the enemy is within.

I hope I get priority booking at the concentration camp at which I will spend the rest of my very short life. I would hate to be interred someplace muggy.
So dumb.

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The SCOTUS made racial profiling legal in the United States. These racial profiling incidents are known as “Kavanaugh stops”.


Gregory Bovino, the officer in charge of roving immigration enforcement in American cities, admitted this week that his agents arrest people based on “how they look.” Asked by a WBEZ reporter to elaborate, Bovino said the pertinent question was how “they” appear as “compared to” the reporter, a white man. Bovino’s candor stripped away any pretense: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are detaining individuals because they look Latino.

Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court greenlit that approach, effectively legalizing racial profiling in immigration enforcement by a 6–3 vote. Although the majority did not explain its decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh tried to muster a defense in a solo concurrence whose reasoning crumbled upon scrutiny. Kavanaugh insisted that ICE agents may use a person’s “apparent ethnicity” as a “relevant factor” when deciding whether to arrest them. But he assured readers that agents may use ethnicity only in combination with other, nonracial factors when deciding whom to target. He also insisted that these “immigration stops” are a minor inconvenience for “those individuals who are legally in the country,” writing: “The questioning in those circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States.”

In the short time since Kavanaugh wrote that opinion, his assertions have been proved demonstrably, almost laughably false too many times to count. As Sherrilyn Ifill notes, the justice’s claims were already belied by the factual record in that case, which showed ICE agents violently harassing and detaining American citizens for extended periods simply because they are Latino. Now the agency, freed from constitutional restraints by SCOTUS, has stopped pretending to be engaged in anything other than racial profiling. Bovino’s admission only confirms what we already knew: These detentions, far from the “brief” inconvenience Kavanaugh described, are often lengthy, violent, and dangerous. Ifill and Anil Kalhan, a professor of law at Drexel University, have proposed calling these detainments “Kavanaugh stops,” a label that’s quickly catching on.

Perhaps the most comprehensive account of Kavanaugh stops so far arrived last Thursday, in the form of a new lawsuit against the Trump administration brought by victims of racial profiling in the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs, a group of citizens and legal residents, describe ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents detaining them for hours—or even overnight—because they happen to be Latino. These accounts make a mockery of Kavanaugh’s insistence that these stops are brief and painless for those who have a right to live in this country.

On this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode of Amicus, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the lawsuit and how it exposes the brutal, racist reality of Kavanaugh stops. An excerpt of their conversation, below, has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Dahlia Lithwick: This is the stuff of nightmares. What is contained in this pleading is the kind of thing that, at any other time, would make you weep for how law enforcement is being conducted. Before we get into what the plaintiffs are claiming, I also want to note that this is a response to Kavanaugh’s breezy claims, on the shadow docket, of how ICE raids are not that bad.

Mark Joseph Stern:
This is, first and foremost, a series of harrowing stories of ICE engaging in racial profiling in Washington. One of the plaintiffs, José Escobar Molina, was grabbed by an ICE agent who called him “illegal” repeatedly, even after Molina said he had his papers. The officers did not let him verify that he was documented; instead, they threw him into detention and held him overnight. The next day, they finally let him go because they never had any legal basis to hold him in the first place. Another plaintiff was walking to the pharmacy to pick up medicine for her daughter when she was stopped, because—according to an ICE agent—she did not “look like a citizen” because she is Latina. In fact, she was a U.S. citizen.
 



Former Trump Aide Sounds Alarm Over ‘Orwellian’ White House Memo​


A former Trump administration official has called a recent presidential memo “one of the most alarming government documents” he has ever read.

Miles Taylor, who worked in the Department of Homeland Security as deputy chief of staff and chief of staff, highlighted Donald Trump’s national security memo from Sept. 25 titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” The implications of NSPM-7, Taylor argued, are dire.

In addition to allowing the White House and federal agencies to label “groups” domestic terrorist organizations, the memo—issued after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk—does the same for individual citizens over “minor legal infractions or none at all,” Taylor wrote on his Substack.

Being added to what’s called the terrorist watchlist is based on executive branch policies rather than legislation, Taylor explained.

“Until now, there hasn’t been much reason for ordinary Americans to worry about the abuse of that system against them. Why? Because the system itself had layers of oversight and was built primarily to combat overseas militant groups (which are clearly defined in the law by Congress and designated by presidents of both parties), as well homegrown extremists already under investigation for planning acts of violence," he wrote.


While at DHS in 2018, Taylor wrote an anonymous New York Times column describing a resistance group within the Trump administration. / The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Im

While at DHS in 2018, Taylor wrote an anonymous New York Times column describing a resistance group within the Trump administration. / The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Im
“But the Trump administration has just blown the potential criteria wide open,” Taylor continued. “The new order not only empowers the administration to treat U.S. political organizations or nonprofits as terrorist cells under sweeping and ambiguous criteria — i.e. basically anyone they use legalese to decry as an extremist group — but it also permits agencies to consider an individual as a domestic terrorism suspect for even indirectly encouraging violence, or for infractions like trespassing and vandalism."

Taylor, who previously was an appointee in the George W. Bush White House and a congressional adviser on counterterrorism, foreign policy and national security, admitted that he had “never seen anything like this.


“The opportunities for misuse are virtually limitless,” he said. “What if you graffiti an anti-Trump protest sign on a park bench at night? Well, taken literally, this order could allow federal agencies to put you on a blacklist alongside the likes of ISIS suicide bombers and al Qaeda attack plotters.”


Trump and Vice President JD Vance have talked about problems on

Trump and Vice President JD Vance have talked about problems on
Taylor, who broke with the president during his first term by anonymously calling himself part of the “resistance,” described last week’s memo as “Orwellian beyond belief.”

“Under the new framework, a group that organizes protests, circulates politically charged rhetoric, or challenges federal policy could hypothetically be branded a ‘domestic terrorist organization,’ even if it has no history of violence,” Taylor warned. “And once that label is applied, the administration can investigate anyone tied to it, like donors, event attendees, volunteers, or perhaps even people who shared a supportive post online.”

When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast in a statement, “Left-wing organizations have fueled violent riots, organized attacks against law enforcement officers, coordinated illegal doxing campaigns, arranged drop points for weapons and riot materials, and more. The Trump Administration will get to the bottom of this vast network inciting violence in American communities, and the President’s executive actions to address left-wing violence will put an end to any illegal activities.”

Taylor himself was the target of one of Trump’s executive actions earlier this year. In April, the president ordered an investigation into Taylor’s public service work, as well as that of another former DHS official, Chris Krebs. Trump revoked both their security clearances as well.

Read more at The Daily Beast.
 



Former Trump Aide Sounds Alarm Over ‘Orwellian’ White House Memo​


A former Trump administration official has called a recent presidential memo “one of the most alarming government documents” he has ever read.

Miles Taylor, who worked in the Department of Homeland Security as deputy chief of staff and chief of staff, highlighted Donald Trump’s national security memo from Sept. 25 titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” The implications of NSPM-7, Taylor argued, are dire.

In addition to allowing the White House and federal agencies to label “groups” domestic terrorist organizations, the memo—issued after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk—does the same for individual citizens over “minor legal infractions or none at all,” Taylor wrote on his Substack.

Being added to what’s called the terrorist watchlist is based on executive branch policies rather than legislation, Taylor explained.

“Until now, there hasn’t been much reason for ordinary Americans to worry about the abuse of that system against them. Why? Because the system itself had layers of oversight and was built primarily to combat overseas militant groups (which are clearly defined in the law by Congress and designated by presidents of both parties), as well homegrown extremists already under investigation for planning acts of violence," he wrote.


While at DHS in 2018, Taylor wrote an anonymous New York Times column describing a resistance group within the Trump administration. / The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Im

While at DHS in 2018, Taylor wrote an anonymous New York Times column describing a resistance group within the Trump administration. / The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Im
“But the Trump administration has just blown the potential criteria wide open,” Taylor continued. “The new order not only empowers the administration to treat U.S. political organizations or nonprofits as terrorist cells under sweeping and ambiguous criteria — i.e. basically anyone they use legalese to decry as an extremist group — but it also permits agencies to consider an individual as a domestic terrorism suspect for even indirectly encouraging violence, or for infractions like trespassing and vandalism."

Taylor, who previously was an appointee in the George W. Bush White House and a congressional adviser on counterterrorism, foreign policy and national security, admitted that he had “never seen anything like this.


“The opportunities for misuse are virtually limitless,” he said. “What if you graffiti an anti-Trump protest sign on a park bench at night? Well, taken literally, this order could allow federal agencies to put you on a blacklist alongside the likes of ISIS suicide bombers and al Qaeda attack plotters.”


Trump and Vice President JD Vance have talked about problems on

Trump and Vice President JD Vance have talked about problems on
Taylor, who broke with the president during his first term by anonymously calling himself part of the “resistance,” described last week’s memo as “Orwellian beyond belief.”

“Under the new framework, a group that organizes protests, circulates politically charged rhetoric, or challenges federal policy could hypothetically be branded a ‘domestic terrorist organization,’ even if it has no history of violence,” Taylor warned. “And once that label is applied, the administration can investigate anyone tied to it, like donors, event attendees, volunteers, or perhaps even people who shared a supportive post online.”

When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast in a statement, “Left-wing organizations have fueled violent riots, organized attacks against law enforcement officers, coordinated illegal doxing campaigns, arranged drop points for weapons and riot materials, and more. The Trump Administration will get to the bottom of this vast network inciting violence in American communities, and the President’s executive actions to address left-wing violence will put an end to any illegal activities.”

Taylor himself was the target of one of Trump’s executive actions earlier this year. In April, the president ordered an investigation into Taylor’s public service work, as well as that of another former DHS official, Chris Krebs. Trump revoked both their security clearances as well.

Read more at The Daily Beast.
As dangerous as it gets. Democratic agencies on the terrorist watch list.
 
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