Last Call For Murthy's Law

Somebody in the Trump regime finally noticed that US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy was still on the job, so of course one of the last Obama executive branch holdovers had to be canned. 

America’s “top doctor” and an Obama-appointee, Vivek Murthy, was dismissed and replaced by the Trump Administration on Friday.

In a statement, the administration said it asked Murthy to resign from his post as Surgeon General after he helped with “a smooth transition.”

"Dr. Murthy has been relieved of his duties as Surgeon General and will continue to serve as a member of the Commissioned Corps," a White House statement read, adding that Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price "thanks him for his dedicated service to the nation.”

The New York Times reported a somewhat different story: Murthy was asked to step down, refused, and was fired.

He’ll be replaced by Rear Admiral Sylvia Trent-Adams, a nurse who currently serves as Deputy Surgeon General. (In an acting role for now, she will be the first non-doctor to take the post of America’s “top doctor.”)

Murthy’s early departure came as a surprise to the public health community. It's unusual — but not unprecedented — for a surgeon general’s four-year term to be cut short. Murthy’s term should have run until the end of next year.

The surgeon general’s office is in charge of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, a team of 6,700 public health workers stationed across the US. Although he or she has little power to change policy, surgeons general have a history of creating unwantedcontroversy for the political leadership, and raising awareness about sometimes inconvenient or uncomfortable facts about public health.

Murthy, a graduate of Harvard and Yale University schools of medicine and business, holds views on gun control that are at odds with the new administration. When President Obama nominated Murthy back in November 2013, the Senate blocked his nomination for more than a year, particularly after the National Rifle Association criticized a letter Murthy had co-signed in support of gun control measures.

Murthy only got confirmed in December 2014 after some red-state Democrats who were losing their seats anyway decided to switch course and back him.

I suspect the real reason Dr. Murthy was fired was because the Trump regime demanded he put out a positive statement as the nation's top doc signing off on Trumpcare, not to mention toeing the line on the NRA and the uncomfortable truth of 30,000 plus firearm homicides a year being a public health issue.

I would suspect that he'll be replaced quickly by somebody who will be much less "problematic" with this whole "medical science" thing and will say whatever the regime wants them to say.

No Sanctuary From Trump, Con't

Jeff Sessions and the Trump Regime are upping the ante on America's most populous "sanctuary cities", giving the nation's largest local governments ten weeks to start complying with the DoJ's immigration orders or face tens of billions in federal grant cuts.

The Justice Department on Friday sent letters to eight cities, threatening to withhold federal grant money if they don’t demonstrate cooperation with immigration enforcement. 

President Donald Trump has promised to force “sanctuary cities” to follow the federal government’s lead on enforcement of immigration laws. Hundreds of jurisdictions across the U.S. limit to varying degrees their cooperation with federal authorities.

The letters were sent to New York City, Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Milwaukee and Sacramento, as well as Cook County, Illinois. DOJ asked these local governments to provide documentation that they're complying with a federal law that requires information-sharing by local, state and federal authorities on citizenship and immigration status. 

If the nine jurisdictions don’t present documentation of compliance by June 30, DOJ said it may withhold or terminate funds under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, which funds state and local criminal justice programs.

For now, the DoJ is only demanding information sharing, including identities of undocumented immigrants that come into contact with local police, and not demanding that these immigrants be handed over to ICE.  Yet. But cities are taking this lying down, and they're prepared to make a legal fight.

Of course, Trump just put a fifth conservative on the Supreme Court, so it's a fight these cities may very well lose.  Once that happens, local police all over the country could become part of Trump deportation force.

No sanctuary, indeed.

What First Amendment?

In the Trump regime, First Amendment rights don't pertain to you, citizen.  They are there to protect Glorious Leader Trump from dissent, as Our Founding Fathers intended.  Make America Great Again, Amen and Hallelujah!

President Donald Trump’s lawyers argued in a Thursday court filing that protesters “have no right” to “express dissenting views” at his campaign rallies because such protests infringed on his First Amendment rights. 

The filing comes in a case brought by three protesters who allege they were roughed up and ejected from a March 2016 Trump campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky, by Trump supporters who were incited by the then-candidate’s calls from the stage to “get 'em out of here!”

Lawyers for Trump’s campaign have argued that his calls to remove the protesters were protected by the First Amendment. But the federal district court judge hearing the case issued a ruling late last month questioning that argument, as well as the claim that Trump didn’t intend for his supporters to use force. 

The ruling cleared the case to proceed into discovery and towards a trial. 

Thursday’s filing by Trump’s campaign lawyers asks the judge to pause the proceedings and allow Trump’s legal team to appeal the ruling to a higher court “before subjecting the President to ‘unique’ and extraordinary burdens of litigation.” 

Specifically, Trump’s lawyers want the appeals court to reconsider whether Trump’s calls to remove the protesters were protected speech under the First Amendment and whether it’s reasonable to construe the calls as an incitement to violence.

Trump’s lawyers point out that he explicitly urged his supporters against roughing up protesters, following his calls to “get ‘em out of here,” with the plea “Don’t hurt ‘em.” 

Trump’s lawyers also argue that he had every right to call for the removal the protesters since they “obviously interfered with the Trump campaign’s First Amendment right” by “vigorously expressing their disdain for Mr. Trump,” including by chanting and holding up signs depicting Trump’s face on the body of a pig, among other anti-Trump messages.

Guys, this is actual, textbook, literal fascism right here, by saying that the First Amendment, which clearly spells out that the government cannot take action to abridge the freedom of speech and peaceable assembly doesn't apply to critics of Trump because he is above the law and supersedes the Constitution.

This is literally, not figuratively, what authoritarian regimes claim as the basis of staying in power.

This is dangerous as hell, guys.  We're heading off the cliff here, because the next steps after this in the autocrat playbook are that since Trump and Trump alone who chooses whether or not to enforce whatever the judiciary has to say about this, the judiciary only matters when Trump says they do.

But hey...her emails.