Last Call For Sugar Coats-ing The Problem

Donald Trump has found his yes man to dismantle the rest of the protections on our election system so that Russia can freely interfere, with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats resigning and now Coats's deputy Sue Gordon out as well.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday night that Joseph Maguire, the leader of the National Counterterrorism Center, is his new pick to be the acting director of national intelligence. 

"I am pleased to inform you that the Honorable Joseph Maguire, current Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will be named Acting Director of National Intelligence, effective August 15th," Trump tweeted. 

The announcement came not long after Trump tweeted that Sue Gordon, the country's number two intelligence official and an intelligence veteran of more than 30 years, would resign. White House officials had been signaling such a move for days, saying Trump would prefer to have a political loyalist in the role. 

Under normal protocol, Gordon would have become acting director after outgoing Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats resigned. But administration officials told CNN that the White House was reviewing whether it could legally choose an acting director outside the line of succession. 

And two sources told CNN that Gordon was interviewed by some in the administration as the type of political loyalist Trump wanted in the role. Maguire will take over for Coats, whose last day with the administration is on August 15.

Maguire's first move will be to fire or otherwise neutralize Shelby Pierson as the DNI's election protection czar, the move by Coats three weeks ago was the impetus for his summary termination.  Trump can't have anyone looking into nationwide patterns of election security and possible interference, at least not until the 2020 election is over.

Both Coats and Gordon were fired because the were insufficiently loyal to to Trump.  Keep that in mind as Maguire moves forward as semi-permanent acting DNI. No Senate confirmation needed, he was already confirmed 95-1 in December, so he can basically keep the job as long as Trump needs him there.

Don't be surprised if Pierson is gone by this time next week.

Deportation Nation, Con't

A lot going on this week on the deportation front.

First, with ICE raids unpopular in blue state metro areas and police not cooperating, the Trump regime is now turning to rural red state America in order to ramp up mass deportations and to terrorize the undocumented public with size being the sheer intimidation factor, hitting a series of Mississippi chicken processing plants in the largest single day of ICE action yet.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swept through seven work sites in six cities across Mississippi on Wednesday, arresting approximately 680 people the agency said were undocumented immigrants in what officials said is the largest single-state workplace enforcement action in U.S. history.

The raids targeted agricultural processing plants, part of a year-long investigation into illegal employment of immigrants in the state, officials said. They did not say how many individuals they were targeting in the operations, nor what proportion of those taken into custody were what ICE calls “collateral” arrests — those who were swept up along with those ICE was seeking.

ICE acting director Matthew Albence said at a news conference in Jackson, Miss., that some of those arrested will be prosecuted for crimes, others will be swiftly deported, and some will be released pending immigration court hearings. Albence said the raids were part of normal ICE operations that seek to enforce U.S. immigration laws.

The Trump administration has been openly stepping up pressure on the nearly 11 million immigrants believed to be in the United States illegally, threatening mass arrests of families who have arrived recently as part of an effort to deter migrants from coming to the country. The administration also has sought to turn away asylum seekers — forcing some to await their court hearings in Mexico — and now plans to deport some Central Americans to Guatemala to seek asylum there instead as part of an international agreement.

Although President Trump telegraphed the family raids several times, they have not gone forward in full force. But ICE has continued operations that it says primarily target immigrants with criminal convictions as well as those who have been deemed deportable in U.S. courts. The Mississippi raids were a stark reminder that the administration is continuing to press on immigration, with some of its largest enforcement efforts to date.

The clear signal is that this will be the new normal, and those arrested will be deported...even if it's to the wrong country.

A 41-year-old Detroit man deported to Iraq in June died Tuesday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and two people close the man’s family.

The man, Jimmy Aldaoud, spent most of his life in the U.S., but was swept up in President Donald Trump’s intensified immigration enforcement efforts. Edward Bajoka, an immigration attorney who described himself as close to Aldaoud’s family, wrote on Facebook that the death appeared to be linked to the man’s inability to obtain insulin in Baghdad to treat his diabetes.

Aldaoud was an Iraqi national, but he was born in Greece and came to the U.S. as a young child, his family friend said. He had never lived in Iraq and did not speak Arabic, according to Bajoka.
“Rest In Peace Jimmy,” Bajoka wrote. “Your blood is on the hands of ICE and this administration.”

The Trump administration has sought to deport more than 1,000 Iraqis with final orders of removal, including Chaldean Catholics in the Detroit metro area, of which Aldaoud was one. Chaldeans are an eastern branch of the Roman Catholic church who trace their roots to ancient Mesopotamia in present-day Iraq, where they are at high risk of being tortured or killed by the the terror group ISIS, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in a related legal case.

"Jimmy Aldaoud ... should have never been sent to Iraq," Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) said in a written statement. "My Republican colleagues and I have repeatedly called on the executive branch to cease deportation of such vulnerable people. Now, someone has died."

Meanwhile, any remaining internal resistance to Stephen Miller's white supremacist tactics are met with instant purges of those not loyal enough to the regime, the latest ouster being the State Department's top immigration official.

Kimberly Breier, assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere since October, has resigned, leaving a key vacancy at the top of the diplomatic office in charge of the Trump administration’s efforts to control immigration from Mexico and Central America and to build stronger partnerships in South America.

U.S. officials said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week accepted her letter of resignation, which cited personal reasons. Her departure is expected to be announced Thursday.

Earlier in her government career, Breier, who holds degrees in Spanish and Latin American studies, also handled regional issues as a CIA analyst and at the National Security Council under president George W. Bush. Immediately before becoming assistant secretary, she handled Latin American issues in the department’s policy planning office.

Breier, 46, referred questions about her status to the State Department press office, which declined to comment. Several senior administration officials discussed the matter on the condition of anonymity because it concerns personnel.

She is the latest in a steady turnover at the assistant secretary level. Although Pompeo has filled many of the jobs left vacant by his predecessor, Rex Tillerson, a number are still held by acting officials, and at least four have departed this year, including A. Wess Mitchell, the top diplomat in charge of European affairs.

It gets worse.

Officials said Breier, a Mexico expert, was not necessarily opposed to administration policies in the region but chafed at the level of control exerted by the White House over immigration and trade-dominated relations with Mexico and other matters.

One senior administration official said she had been chastised, in a particularly unpleasant recent email chain, by White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, who considered her insufficiently committed to publicly defending last month’s sudden agreement over asylum between President Trump and the government of Guatemala.

The safe third country agreement requires Central American migrants to seek asylum in Guatemala and be rejected there before the United States will consider their asylum requests here. Pompeo reportedly objected to the White House-negotiated deal on grounds that Guatemala, one of the world’s most violent countries, was not equipped to provide secure refuge for migrants fleeing Honduras and El Salvador.

Stephen Miller punched her ticket out.  It's clear that anyone standing in the way of the coming mass deportations to Guatemala will be expelled from the Trump regime.

And millions of undocumented will be expelled from the US.

Kentucky In Black And White

Kentucky's Republican candidate for Attorney General is Daniel Cameron, who is black.  If elected, he would be only the second black statewide officeholder in history, after current Lt. Gov. Jaenean Hampton.  Cameron is trying to make inroads with the black community in Kentucky, but it's not going nearly as well as it did for Hampton.  In fact, it's going disastrously wrong.

Kentucky Republicans are rallying behind attorney general candidate Daniel Cameron, who was labeled by a black civil rights attorney as a submissive race traitor for being endorsed by President Donald Trump.

"Liberals will stop at nothing to attack anyone and everyone who dares to think for themselves," said Sarah Van Wallaghen, the state GOP's executive director, in a statement.

But Dawn Elliott, who said Cameron needs to "stop eating the 'coon flakes' the White House is serving," isn't backing down. The outspoken radio show host said the association with Trump is a slap in the face to African Americans and that Cameron needs to explain his position to black voters.

"To sit there and be so proud of someone who is an open racist is shameful," said Elliott, an attorney who co-hosts a political talk show on WLOU 1350 AM. "Why would anyone of color want to side with someone who is trying to destroy us?"

Cameron, who worked as general counsel for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, also defended himself on Twitter.

"I am a proud lifelong Republican, part of a diverse Kentucky Republican Party ticket, and yes I support Donald Trump," Cameron tweeted Wednesday. "It's time to stop telling black Americans what we're allowed to believe."

Cameron, a former University of Louisville football player, is running against Democrat Greg Stumbo in an increasingly nasty contest filled with personal attacks and negative advertisements. 

Here's the thing.

Daniel Cameron is black.

And I wouldn't vote for him if he was the last black man on Earth besides myself.

Dawn Elliott isn't wrong, and Greg Stumbo shouldn't pretend she is.

StupidiNews!

• US and Canadian Air Force jets intercepted two long-range Russian bombers off the coast of Alaska this week, warning them away from Alaskan airspace.
• Walmart says it will no longer carry ads for violent video games under pressure from Republican lawmakers, but the retailer will continue to sell rifles and shotguns in stores.
• Chinese officials have issued an alert for the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang as Super Typhoon Lekima bears down on the mainland while bringing up to three feet of rain.
• Hong Kong officials are bracing for sit-in protests to shut down the city's airport all weekend as demonstrators continue to call for the resignation of city administrator Carrie Lam.
• A new UN report on land usage warns that humans will have to use less farmland less grazing land, and plant more forests in order to counter effects of climate change.