Just Another Day In Gunmerica

Steve M. on how Gunmerica has worked for decades:

 

To the members of the gun community, the danger to democracy is a feature, not a bug. Gun absolutists don't want to live in a society where people who disagree with them -- on guns or on most other issues -- wield enough power to enact laws they don't like. Outside of blue states and big cities, gun absolutists have democracy right where they want it: Large majorities of Americans support tighter restrictions on gun ownership, but the vast majority of white people always vote Republican, so it's next to impossible to tighten gun laws.

Gun absolutists want some citizens to be intimidated. They say they just want criminals to be fearful (as well as the government), but they know that many of the people they detest are unlikely to own guns, and the power inequality is precisely what they're after. They want liberals and LGBTQ people and feminists to feel like second-class citizens. They want the option of intimidating protesters they disagree with, in a potentially deadly version of the hecklers' veto. And, obviously, they want to scare off anyone who might support laws making it harder to obtain and brandish weapons. Hey, what do you think "Try That in a Small Town" was all about? It sure as hell wasn't about democracy or upholding the First Amendment right to protest.

It's possible to imagine a society in which everyone lives the way gunners say they want everyone to live -- every law-abiding citizen across the political spectrum might accept our gun culture as unchangeable and might decide that it's necessary to own weapons, and to wear them in public at all times wherever that's legal. Liberals might reluctantly do this. Feminists and queers might do this. In theory, even gun control advocates might do this, telling themselves that while an extremely armed society is bad, it's clear that we already live in one, and until that changes, it's suicidal to go unarmed.

But the gunners wouldn't like that. They like the advantage they have over the rest of us. They enjoy our fear.

 

Adding, if you're Black or brown, owning a gun gets you killed even faster. Police don't bother to check if you're a law-abiding citizen practicing your Constitutional Second Amendment rights for home ownership of a firearm, legal concealed carry, or god forbid, open carry. You'd get executed on the spot.

 

Firearms are a privilege afforded to white Americans only. Everyone else gets murdered. This is why I don't own a firearm. It would make no positive difference to increase my survivability rate as a Black man in America, and in fact it would massively increase my odds of being shot and killed by law enforcement. 

Nobody with a firearm would ever see a Black civilian as a "good guy with a gun". Ever. A group of armed Black people practicing open carry in an open carry state would be butchered by police.

Think about that really hard.

In Republican red state America, in 2023, your rights are solely determined by your race (and gender, when we talk about women also being second-class status.) Your "inalienable" rights are provisional depending on the situation and person, and that includes the right to bear arms.

Spare me the whining about your Second Amendment rights, and talk about mine for once.

Immigration Nation, Con't

In a battle 100% certain to be headed to the Supreme Court, Texas lawmakers have voted to allow state and local law enforcement to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants in contravention of, you know, federal law and the Constitution.

 

In a direct challenge to federal power over immigration, the Texas House on Thursday approved the creation of a state-level crime for entering the country from Mexico between ports of entry, allowing local police agencies to arrest and jail unauthorized migrants or order them back to Mexico.

The legislation had been called for by Gov. Greg Abbott in what would be a sharp escalation of his multibillion-dollar border security program, known as Operation Lone Star. The Texas House also approved an additional $1.5 billion for the state to use to construct its own barriers near the international boundary.

The arrest measure now returns to the Senate, which has already approved its own version, and then head to Mr. Abbott’s desk for his signature.

“It is a humane, logical and efficient approach,” Representative David Spiller, a Republican from west of Fort Worth, said in introducing his arrest bill before the vote. “There is nothing unfair about ordering someone back from where they came if they arrived here illegally.”

Emotions ran high during hours of arguments and motions on the House floor that stretched through the night and into Thursday morning, with Democrats objecting to what they said would be a new criminal enforcement regime that could end up inadvertently targeting Hispanic Texans. At one point, tempers flared as Republicans moved to halt amendments to the bill.

“My community is being attacked,” one Latino representative, Armando Walle, a Houston Democrat, told his Republican colleagues. “Y’all don’t understand,” he said. “It hurts us personally.”

For more than two years, Mr. Abbott and Republican lawmakers have been testing the boundaries of the state’s power to enact its own aggressive law enforcement policies in response to the surging number of migrants crossing into the state from Mexico.

But the creation of a criminal offense under state law — empowering Texas officers to arrest migrants, including those seeking asylum — went a step further into a realm of immigration enforcement that is typically reserved to the federal government.

The legislative move is likely to set up a consequential court fight over immigration and, for opponents of President Biden’s immigration policies, create a chance to revisit a 2012 Supreme Court case, originating in Arizona, that was decided 5 to 4 in favor of the federal government’s primary role in setting immigration policy.

 

Needless to say, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas GOP are picking this fight on purpose. They want the ruling against Arizona's 2021 "Papers, please" law overturned so they can start arresting Latinos left and right in the state.

 

You'd also better believe that Arizona, Florida, Georgia, NC and other big red states will follow suit should the Roberts Court allow them to, with the goal of filling as many detention centers as possible.

This is going to get bad, folks. It may not end up in front of SCOTUS before the 2024 election, but it's still potentially a horrific situation, and the GOP does not care one bit.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

Another day, another AR-15 rifle used in a mass shooting, another butcher's bill of the dead to account for, in what is being called the worst mass shooting massacre in Maine history.

At least 16 people were killed and dozens more injured in multiple shootings here Wednesday night, in what is likely the deadliest shooting in Maine’s history.

Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck refused to confirm the number of deaths in a news conference late Wednesday, but the Associated Press, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, reported 16 deaths. Earlier in the night, Androscoggin County Sheriff Eric Samson and a Lewiston city councilman had said that as many as 22 people died.

Maine State Police are searching for Robert Card, 40, in connection with the shootings at Sparetime Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille. By Thursday morning, more than 100 state and federal law enforcement officials were participating in the manhunt for Card.

Card, who lives in Bowdoin, is a trained firearms instructor who police believe is in the U.S. Army Reserve out of Saco. He recently reported mental health issues, including hearing voices, and made threats to shoot the National Guard base in Saco, according to state police, who said he spent two weeks at a mental health facility this summer.

They warned the public that Card should be considered armed and dangerous. In surveillance photos released by police, the man identified as Card can be seen lifting a rifle as he enters a building.

The car police believed he was driving, a white Subaru Outback, was found near the Lisbon boat dock on Frost Hill Avenue near Route 196. Police were knocking on doors of nearby homes while helicopters remained in the area Wednesday night.

The Lisbon Police Department wrote in an early morning Facebook post that police recommend Lisbon residents “continue to shelter in place with an emphasis on residents between Mill Street in Lisbon Center, along the Rt 196 corridor east to Main street in Lisbon Falls. Businesses located within this area especially will mostly be closed until safety concerns have been addressed.”

Shortly after 6 a.m. Thursday morning, state police said authorities were expanding shelter-in-place and school closing advisories to include the town of Bowdoin as well.

 

If the information about the suspect is correct, he's supposed to be "one of the good guys with a gun", a trained Army Reserve firearms instructor. Instead, police believe he is responsible for a multi-site rampage that happened so quickly and so brutally that officials are still as of this morning trying to fully determine the number of casualties. An entire county is locked down to prevent more.

 

This is one person terrorizing an entire community, with a weapon more than capable of causing mass death and destruction, using a weapon of war for its intended purpose of killing, sold as such, and showing that a person trained to use that weapon can kill many, injure hundreds, threaten thousands.

I hope to God they find this guy and put him in a box for the next thousand years, bt maybe even the state of Maine should be asking about what needs to be done to prevent the next shooting, and whether or not we have the will to do it.

Spoilers: we won't, and we don't.

Just another day here in Gunmerica.

Last Call For Israeli Getting Serious Out There, Con't

 Israel is still holding off on that Gaza ground offensive after intense pressure from the US and EU.

The US and several European governments are quietly pushing Israel to hold off on launching a ground invasion of Gaza following Hamas’s release of two hostages, fearing that the incursion will all but scuttle efforts to secure additional releases for the foreseeable future, a senior diplomatic official told The Times of Israel.

The Western governments currently pressuring Israel each have citizens among those unaccounted for and believe that the more time that passes, the harder it will be to secure the hostages’ release, the official said.

The senior diplomatic official said that the governments recognize that a ground invasion is very likely and are not telling Israel not to launch one at all, but rather hold off to try and see if additional diplomatic efforts can succeed.

Israel says its offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas’s infrastructure, and has vowed to eliminate the entire terror group that rules the Strip and carried out the deadly onslaught on October 7 in which 1,400 were killed in southern Israel, about 1,000 of them civilians.

Israel says it is targeting all areas where Hamas operates, while seeking to minimize civilian casualties.

Meanwhile, the White House walked back US President Joe Biden’s apparent comment that Israel should delay its expected offensive in Gaza until more hostages held by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups are released.

While boarding Air Force One earlier, Biden was asked by a reporter whether Israel should push off a military operation in Gaza, to which he responded, “yes.”

“The president was far away. He didn’t hear the full question. The question sounded like ‘Would you like to see more hostages released?’ He wasn’t commenting on anything else,” White House spokesperson Ben LaBolt was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Hamas on Friday night released two hostages — US-Israeli dual citizens Judith Raanan and her teenage daughter Natalie — who were vacationing in Israel from the US when they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the terror group’s assault.

It was the first release out of at least 203 hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’s infiltration and massacre in Israeli southern communities that started the ongoing war.

 

How much time Hamas can buy with international hostages, we'll see. Israel of course is not sparing the bombing campaign, with another evacuation order of Gaza City and norther environs issued Sunday, including two dozen hospitals.

Demands by Israel for the evacuation of Gaza hospitals amount to “a death penalty for patients,” according to the Palestinian Red Crescent

 

The organization said the Israeli military issued three evacuation orders for the Al-Quds hospital on Friday. Spokesperson Nebal Farsakh told CNN Sunday: “We do not have the means to evacuate them safely. Most of the patients are with critical injuries.”

A total of 24 hospitals, including Al-Quds, are under the threat of “being bombed at any second due to Israeli evacuation orders,” Farsakh said.

CNN has not independently verified this number. The Israel Defense Forces says Hamas frequently uses civilian facilities as cover for its military operations. The IDF told CNN Friday: "Hamas intentionally embeds its assets in civilian areas and uses the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields.”

The World Health Organization has condemned “Israel’s repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2,000 inpatients in Northern Gaza.”

Farsakh said her team is counting on the international community to take action ahead and “stand for humanity.

 

Aid trucks continue to trickle in from the Egypt side of the Gaza strip, but the UN says Gaza will run out of fuel and water later this week.

Meanwhile here in the US, we're seeing rabbis murdered.

Investigators are searching for a motive in the death of a Detroit synagogue leader found stabbed over the weekend, the city’s police chief said.

The body of Samantha Woll, president of the board of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, was discovered with multiple stab wounds at her home on Saturday morning, the Detroit Police Department said in a statement. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Responding officers had followed “a trail of blood leading officers to the victim’s residence,” where it is believed the crime happened, the Detroit Police Department said in a statement.

Police have not identified a suspect in the case, and it’s still unclear what led up to the killing.

“Understandably, this crime leaves many unanswered questions,” Detroit Police Chief James E. White said in a statement on social media site X. “This matter is under investigation, and I am asking that everyone remain patient while investigators carefully examine every aspect of the available evidence.”

“It is important that no conclusions be drawn until all of the available facts are reviewed,” White added.

 

No suspects, no motive, but the Detroit PD, Michigan State Police, and the FBI are on it. The police continue to say it's not related to antisemitism, but a stabbed Rabbi is still a tragedy. Some 4,500 Gazans have been killed over the last two weeks. Those all are tragedies as well.

A ground offensive in Gaza will be a slaughterhouse akin to ethnic cleansing. The people loudly pushing for that are the people we should trust the least. And President Biden and the Pentagon are likewise sending another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, while Israeli Defense Forces are now attacking the West Bank and Syria.

The odds of a catastrophic misstep that leads to a massive regional conflict are ludicrously high at this point, and things are only going to get worse.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The constant attacks by Donald Trump against federal law enforcement and his calls for his MAGA faithful to "fight together" has resulted in the Justice Department getting so many credible threats that the agency now has an anti-domestic terrorism task force to deal specifically with all the threats against agents and prosecutors.

 

Prosecutors and FBI agents involved in the Hunter Biden investigation have been the targets of threats and harassment by people who think they haven’t been tough enough on the president’s son, according to government officials and congressional testimony obtained exclusively by NBC News.

It’s part of a dramatic uptick in threats against FBI agents that has coincided with attacks on the FBI and the Justice Department by congressional Republicans and former President Donald Trump, who have accused both agencies of participating in a conspiracy to subvert justice amid two federal indictments of Trump.

The threats have prompted the FBI to create a stand-alone unit to investigate and mitigate them, according to a previously unreleased transcript of congressional testimony.

“We have stood up an entire threat unit to address threats that the FBI employees’ facilities are receiving,” Jennifer L. Moore, then an executive assistant director of human resources for the FBI, told the House Judiciary Committee in June. “It is unprecedented. It’s a number we’ve never had before.”

“It’s going to be about 10 people when it’s finished,” she said. “We are still in the process of staffing it right now. But their sole mission on a daily basis is threats to FBI employees at facilities.”

Moore told lawmakers that threats to FBI agents and facilities had more than doubled — there were more in the six months from October to March than in the previous 12 months. More recent data was not available; officials say the pace of threats increased after the FBI investigations of Trump became public last summer and has not slowed since.

The FBI declined to comment.

Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Agents Association, a nonprofit group that advocates for current and retired agents, said in a statement, “FBI Special Agents and their families should never be threatened with violence, including for doing their jobs. This is not a partisan or political issue. Calls for violence against law enforcement are unacceptable, and should be condemned by all leaders.”

Federal prosecutor Lesley Wolf, who had been part of U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ team investigating Hunter Biden, got such a barrage of credible threats that she sought security help from the U.S. Marshals Service, according to previously unreleased testimony from an FBI official to the House Judiciary Committee last week. Two IRS agents on the case have accused Wolf of making decisions that appeared favorable to Biden. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Special counsel Jack Smith and his team have long been protected by an armed security detail, as is Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed to investigate classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home and office.

On Thursday, the Atlanta office of the FBI said in a statement that it is aware of threats of violence against officials in Fulton County, Georgia, and is working with the county sheriff's office. Trump and 18 other defendants face state charges in Fulton County in connection with alleged election interference.

The field office declined to provide details of any investigations, but said, "[E]ach and every potential threat brought to our attention is taken seriously. Individuals found responsible for making threats in violation of state and/or federal laws will be prosecuted."

 

Republicans have found agents ready to accuse FBI and Justice Department officials of wrongdoing in the Hunter Biden and Donald Trump cases, and those officials are being targeted by constant, consistent, credible threats to their lives. This includes Georgia officials prosecuting Donald Trump and his election interference case.

Nobody's been hurt, yet. But Trump and other GOP 2024 hopefuls keep turning up the heat, and eventually someone's going to get burned. Remember, we have an entire series of trials, convictions, and sentencings because Donald Trump fomented a violent insurrection against the federal government. People were hurt and killed as a result of Trump's statements leading up to January 6th, 2021.

The Justice Department is scrambling to contain the growing threats now. Remember, the FBI office here in Cincy was attacked for this reason last year. More violence leading up to the 2024 election has always been part of the GOP plan. This is being done deliberately.

Keep that in mind.

Last Call For Georgia On My Mind, Con't

Fani Willis may be going after Donald Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, but state GOP AG Chris Carr is going after protesters who were arrested over Atlanta's "Cop City" training facility, and the same Trump grand jury also leveled RICO charges against dozens of protesters in indictments unsealed on Tuesday.

More than five dozen activists were indicted on RICO charges last week over the ongoing efforts to halt construction of the city of Atlanta’s planned public safety training center in DeKalb County.

The sweeping indictment, handed up last Tuesday in Fulton County, is being prosecuted by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office.

A total of 61 protestors have been charged with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act. Some face additional charges of domestic terrorism and money laundering. Most are not from Georgia.

There has been numerous acts of violence and arrests over the past year and half at the training center site.

Arrests began back in May 2022, when protestors were taken into custody at the training center site and accused of throwing Molotov cocktails towards officers and causing a small fire as police officers tried to clear the site.

In December, five protestors were charged with domestic terrorism and other offenses after officials alleged they “threw rocks at police cars and attacked EMTs outside the neighboring fire stations with rocks and bottles.”

Protests turned violent in Downtown Atlanta in January, when protestors set a police car on fire and broke businesses windows. Five people were arrested that night and are the only co-defendants in the recent indictment that face domestic terrorism and arson in the first degree charges, in addition to the RICO charge.

The January protest were in response to the death of Manuel “Tortugita” Teran, who was shot and killed by Georgia State Patrol troopers during a “clearing operation” on Jan. 18. Officials allege Teran shot at officers first. The GBI turned over the case file to the Mountain Circuit District Attorney’s Office in April.

The bulk of the defendants named in the indictment involves protestors arrested on March 5 at the training center site. Twenty-three protestors were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism after allegedly throwing large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks at police officers at the site. All 23 only face one count of RICO in the indictment.

Three people accused of handing out flyers in April identifying one of the troopers involved in the Teran’s death were also indicted. The flyers were distributed in Bartow County, which is the area where the trooper is believe to live, according to The Intercept.

The indictment also names bail fund organizers, Marlon Scott Kautz, Adele Maclean and Savannah Patterson, who were arrested in May 2023 during a raid at a home on Mayson Avenue for alleged actions taken as executives with the nonprofit Network for Strong Communities, which supported the nonprofit Defend the Atlanta Forest. All three face one count of RICO and 15 counts of money laundering in the indictment.

In June, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced that she would withdraw her office from prosecuting cases relating to the training center, citing differences in “prosecutorial philosophy” with the AG’s Office.

Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee was originally assigned to the case but an order of recusal was filed by McAfee on Tuesday. According to the order, McAfee regularly collaborated with the Prosecution Division of the Attorney General’s Office during his time at the Georgia Office of the Inspector General, and discussed aspects of the investigation that led to the indictment.

The case has been reassigned to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Adams.

The Cop City Vote Coalition, a group of organizers aiming at putting the training center on the ballot, released a statement condemning the indictments and accusing Attorney General Chris Carr of seeking to “intimidate protestors, legal observers, and bail funds alike, and send the chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government.”

 

The state that can make a criminal conspiracy out of a plot to defraud the state's presidential election can also make one out of handing out flyers to inform citizens of a paramilitary training camp for Atlanta Metro cops. 

Georgia's still a fascist red state, even if they are prosecuting Trump.

The Moose Lady Is Loose: Civil War Edition

In a bid to make herself relevant in GOP politics again, Alaska's biggest loser called on people to rise up after Trump's arrest on Newsmax on Thursday night. 

 

Sarah Palin responded to Donald Trump’s arrest in Georgia on Thursday night by talking up the possibility of civil war. Speaking to Eric Bolling as the former president was booked at the Fulton County Jail on election interference charges, Palin slammed “those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice.” “I want to ask them: What the heck?” the former Alaska governor said. “Do you want us to be in civil war? Because that’s what’s going to happen. We’re not going to keep putting up with this.” Addressing Bolling, Palin went on to say: “I like that you suggested that we need to get angry. We do need to rise up and take our country back.

 

If you didn't have Moose Lady on your bingo card calling for open revolt against the US, well, nobody did because she's the kind of GOP "luminary" that has to go on Newsmax to get any attention at all, and while it's pretty disturbing to see he call for civil war, I'm betting she'll have a good time with the attention she'll get in the near future...from federal law enforcement. 

All proving that we dodged a bullet with John McCain's loss to Obama, Jesus.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Don't bother calling the cops on our little white supremacist domestic terrorism problem, because in an increasing number of counties around the US, your local sheriff's department are the domestic terrorists.

 

Against the background hum of the convention center, Dar Leaf settled into a club chair to explain the sacred mission of America’s sheriffs, his bright blue eyes and warm smile belying the intensity of the cause.

“The sheriff is supposed to be protecting the public from evil,” the chief law enforcement officer for Barry County, Michigan, said during a break in the National Sheriffs’ Association 2023 conference in June. “When your government is evil or out of line, that’s what the sheriff is there for, protecting them from that.”

Leaf is on the advisory board of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack. The group, known as CSPOA, teaches that elected sheriffs must “protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government” by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or “unjust.”

“The safest way to actually achieve that is to have local law enforcement understand that they have no obligation to enforce such laws,” Mack said in an interview. “They’re not laws at all anyway. If they’re unjust laws, they are laws of tyranny.”

The sheriffs group has railed against gun control laws, COVID-19 mask mandates and public health restrictions, as well as alleged election fraud. It has also quietly spread its ideology across the country, seeking to become more mainstream in part by securing state approval for taxpayer-funded law enforcement training, the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism found.

Over the last five years, the group has hosted trainings, rallies, speeches and meetings in at least 30 states for law enforcement officers, political figures, private organizations and members of the public, according to the Howard Center’s seven-month probe, conducted in collaboration with the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.

The group has held formal trainings on its “constitutional” curriculum for law enforcement officers in at least 13 of those states. In six states, the training was approved for officers’ continuing education credits. The group also has supporters who sit on three state boards in charge of law enforcement training standards.

Legal experts warn that such training — especially when it’s approved for state credit — can undermine the democratic processes enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and is part of what Mary McCord, a former federal prosecutor and executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University, called a “broader insurrectionist ideology” that has gripped the nation since the 2020 presidential election.

“They have no authority, not under their state constitutions or implementing statutes to decide what’s constitutional and what’s not constitutional. That’s what courts have the authority to do, not sheriffs,” McCord said.

“There’s another sort of evil lurking there,” McCord added, “because CSPOA is now essentially part of a broader movement in the United States to think it’s OK to use political violence if we disagree with some sort of government policy.”

At least one state, Texas, canceled credit for the sheriffs’ training after determining the course content – which it said included a reference to “this is a war” – was more political than educational. But other states, such as Tennessee, have approved the training, in part because it was hosted by a local law enforcement agency.

Unlike other law enforcement continuing education, such as firearms training, the sheriffs’ curriculum is largely a polemic on the alleged constitutional underpinnings of sheriffs’ absolute authority to both interpret and refuse to enforce certain laws. One brochure advertising the group’s seminars states: “The County Sheriff is the one who can say to the feds, ‘Beyond these bounds you shall not pass.’”

 

When the MAGA chuds say "Make America Great Again" what they mean is "take us back to a time where county and state law enforcement officials refused to enforce federal civil rights laws and engaged in violence against people who did try to enforce those laws".

 

We've got county sheriffs across the nation gladly saying they won't do that now, along with gun safety regulations and anything else they don't like. And nobody's doing a damn thing to remove these assholes from the offices they refuse to uphold.

 

These monsters are only growing in power and scope, and heading into 2024 I suspect we're going to see a lot more nefarious action of them the closer we get to Election Day.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

DC Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan is already getting death threats serious enough to prompt an arrest for being the presiding judge over his January 6th trial, months before the proceeding have even started.

A Texas woman was arrested and has been charged with threatening to kill the federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington and a member of Congress.

Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, called the federal courthouse in Washington and left the threatening message — using a racist term for U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan — on Aug. 5, court records show. Investigators traced her phone number and she later admitted to making the threatening call, according to a criminal complaint.

In the call, Shry told the judge, who is overseeing the election conspiracy case against Trump, “You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” the documents said. Prosecutors allege Shry also said, “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you,” and she threatened to kill U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat running for mayor of Houston, according to court documents.

A judge earlier this week ordered Shry jailed. Court records show Shry is represented by the Houston public defender’s office, which did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Wednesday.

Trump has publicly assailed Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, calling her “highly partisan” and “ VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!” because of her past comments in a separate case overseeing the sentencing of one of the defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Chutkan in a hearing Friday imposed a protective order in the case limiting what evidence handed over by prosecutors the former president and his legal team can publicly disclose. She warned Trump’s lawyers that his defense should be mounted in the courtroom and “not on the internet.”

 

How dare a Black woman preside over a federal criminal case against Donald Trump, right? Of course she's getting death threats, along with repeated Trump target Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, also Black. Hell, Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis has been getting death threats for years now. 

 

What they really hate is Black people - particularly Black women -- daring to have power over America's favorite white supremacist.  Don't think for a second that race isn't playing a heavy part in these threats against the prosecutors and judges involved in Donald Trump's dozens of indictments.

And don't think for a second that Trump will hesitate to turn up the heat until someone is hurt or killed.

Cop Out, Or, That's The Sound Of The Police (Leaving)

The small town of Goodhue, Minnesota is cop-free this week as the entire department resigned over pay issues.

 

A small city in southeast Minnesota is without a police force after its chief and officers resigned over low pay.

Goodhue — population 1,250, according to the 2020 census — accepted the resignation of its police chief, only full-time officer, and five part-time officers at a Monday city council meeting that was originally intended to discuss pay raises.

Mayor Ellen Anderson Buck said the Goodhue County Sheriff’s Office will patrol the city when the officers’ contracts expire later this month.

“We need to pursue other options. So at this point, there is no reason to really talk about pay increases since we no longer have a police force,” she said at the meeting Monday evening. “We will have police coverage in the City of Goodhue. That is not an issue.”

The county sheriff will also take over active criminal cases, she said.

The council was adamant on its intent to eventually re-form the department, which Anderson Buck called the “ultimate goal,” though she acknowledged the difficulty of hiring new officers. There are about 200 open police jobs in Minnesota, she said.

“We’re not the first, and we won’t be the last,” she said. “This is not unusual, it does happen.”

 

Cop-free, yes. County Mountie-free, no.  Still, if the county can handle it, why not use the money for the now defunct town PD for, say, a real service to the people of Goodhue like library books, school renovation,  or, you know, anything not police-related.

Just an idea.

 

Enemies Of The People, Con't

A small-town Kansas local newspaper was raided yesterday by county sheriffs hellbent on taking everything in the newsroom, and the odyssey over this is just starting.

 

In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home.

Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”

The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night.

The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, and revelations about the restaurant owner’s lack of a driver’s license and conviction for drunken driving.

Meyer said he had never heard of police raiding a newspaper office during his 20 years at the Milwaukee Journal or 26 years teaching journalism at the University of Illinois.

“It’s going to have a chilling effect on us even tackling issues,” Meyer said, as well as “a chilling effect on people giving us information.”

The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists. The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead. Viar didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story or explain why she would authorize a potentially illegal raid.

Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said the police raid is unprecedented in Kansas.

“An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know,” Bradbury said. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”

Meyer reported last week that Marion restaurant owner Kari Newell had kicked newspaper staff out of a public forum with LaTurner, whose staff was apologetic. Newell responded to Meyer’s reporting with hostile comments on her personal Facebook page.

A confidential source contacted the newspaper, Meyer said, and provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to use her vehicle without a driver’s license. The criminal record could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license for her catering business.

A reporter with the Marion Record used a state website to verify the information provided by the source. But Meyer suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. Meyer decided not to publish a story about the information, and he alerted police to the situation.

“We thought we were being set up,” Meyer said.

Police notified Newell, who then complained at a city council meeting that the newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents, which isn’t true. Her public comments prompted the newspaper to set the record straight in a story published Thursday.

 

A corrupt county law enforcement and judicial system rallying to the defense of a Republican congressman's donor by raiding the town newspaper sounds like something out of one of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, but Republicans using law enforcement against journalism and journalists is reality across the country.

 

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign team today contacted law enforcement in an attempt to prohibit Iowa Starting Line reporters from covering his campaign in the Hawkeye State, according to Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies.

Two reporters—including Starting Line’s Chief Political Correspondent Ty Rushing—were greeted by multiple sheriff’s deputies at the entrance of the American Legion in Harlan on Friday afternoon, where DeSantis was making his second campaign stop of the day.

“They said it’s a private event. They don’t want you. It is what it is,” Deputy Bill McDaniel said, refusing to elaborate on why the campaign sought to block Starting Line’s access to the event today.

“I can’t (tell you why). I don’t work for them. It’s a private event,” he said. “It is what it is.”

 

Republicans don't want, don't believe in, and think they don't need reporters in America. So they are trying to get rid of as many of them as they can, especially local and state outfits.

Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis's authoritarian tyranny continues as he has summarily removed a second Black state attorney for failing to give in to his diktats.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has once again suspended an elected local prosecutor, a move that comes as his presidential campaign struggles amid a continued reset.

DeSantis on Tuesday suspended Orlando-area State Attorney Monique Worrell, a Democrat who is the only Black woman serving as a local prosecutor in Florida.

It’s the second time he has used his authority as governor to take such action. DeSantis suspended Tampa-area prosecutor Andrew Warren in August 2022 for signaling he would not bring charges under Florida's new 15-week abortion ban. A federal judge called that decision unconstitutional but said he could not overturn the suspension. A challenge filed by Warren was later thrown out by the DeSantis-friendly Florida Supreme Court.

Both Warren's and Worrell’s 2020 campaigns received help from a committee that got money from Democratic megadonor George Soros, a frequent target of Republican attacks. In fundraising emails and in speeches, DeSantis has boasted that he is the “only elected official in America to remove a ‘progressive’ Soros-funded district attorney,” a reference to Warren's suspension.

DeSantis made the announcement during a hastily called press conference in Tallahassee. It included top law enforcement officials and a room packed with his administration staffers, who were apparently given a heads-up the day before to show up at the 8:15 a.m. press conference. DeSantis alerted the media to the event less than 30 minutes before it began.

The press conference was held one day after DeSantis' presidential campaign elevated his gubernatorial chief of staff, James Uthmeier, to campaign manager. Uthmeier was chief of staff when DeSantis suspended Warren in 2022.

DeSantis is trailing in public polling to former President Donald Trump, and over the past few weeks, he has fired roughly 40% of his staff as part of an ongoing reboot of his presidential campaign.

Worrell’s held a press conference in Orlando hours after the DeSantis announcement, calling him a "weak dictator."

"I am your duly elected state attorney, and nothing done by a weak dictator can change that," she said.

In an interview with NBC News, Worrell said that the country was "in danger of losing our democracy."

"This man is running for president and the country should be afraid," she said. "The country should be afraid of an individual who removes duly elected officials because they are not politically aligned with him. The country should be afraid of a man who dares to teach our children that slavery was somehow a benefit to the African Americans in this country. ... Our country should be afraid of the impact that this could have across this country if he were to be elected."

Worrell’s suspension comes after months of political fights with Republicans, including with DeSantis directly, over her handling of a string of Orlando-areas shootings — most notably a March shooting spree in the Orlando area that left three dead, including a 9-year-old and a local television journalist. The alleged gunman had eight felonies and 11 misdemeanors, but those all came while he was a juvenile. His only crime as a legal adult in 2021 was when he was in possession of drug paraphernalia and cannabis. 

Worrell, whose office announced it is seeking the death penalty in the case, said Republicans were playing politics with the issue, and noted her office closed almost 3,000 cases this year. But conservatives blasted her for allowing someone with such an extensive criminal record, even though most of it came while he was a juvenile, to remain on the streets.

 

DeSantis is systematically removing Black prosecutors from office, point blank. The state Supreme Court will continue to side with him. And even as his presidential aspirations rightfully fail, the people of Florida will continue to be ruled over by a petty tinpot dictator until they decide they've had enough, and even then it may already be too late.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Terrorism Problem, Con't

A Provo, Utah man who made multiple online threats against President Biden was shot and killed by FBI agents trying to serve a warrant for those threats.

 

A suspect shot and killed by FBI agents early Wednesday in Provo was connected to alleged threats against President Joe Biden and other officials.

The FBI says its agents were attempting to serve arrest and search warrants in Provo when they shot and killed a suspect, now identified as Craig Deleeuw Robertson, at around 6:15 a.m.

Court documents show Robertson threatened to "inflict bodily harm" on Biden during his visit to Utah in a social media message sent on or about Aug. 7.

"I hear Biden is coming to Utah. Digging out my old Ghille suit and cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle," Robertson allegedly wrote.

President Biden is scheduled to arrive in Salt Lake City on Wednesday afternoon for an overnight stay.

In March, Robertson had also claimed he was heading to New York to kill New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who was overseeing the criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump.

"I’ll be waiting in the courthouse parking garage with my suppressed Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm to smoke a radical fool prosecutor that should never have been elected," he posted. "BYE, BYE, TO ANOTHER CORRUPT B______!!!”

While conducting surveillance on Robertson's home on March 19, a special agent attempted to speak with Robertson about his posts, to which Robertson replied, "I said it was a dream!"

Robertson then told the agent that they shouldn't return without a warrant.

 

They came back with the warrant, and apparently a gunfight ensued. It's tragic, but the MAGA terrorists are apparently willing to die for their master.

As I said all during the Obama administration and the thousands of threats he got as President: the bad guys only have to get lucky once.

 

That's The Sound Of The Police, Con't

The sound of these six white former Mississippi sheriff's deputies who tortured two Black men and shot one in the mouth is a guilty plea deal on federal civil rights charges.

 

Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers have pleaded guilty to charges related to the torture of two Black men, US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Darren LaMarca said in a Thursday news conference.

The announcement comes after federal charges were filed against the former law enforcement officers, who “called themselves ‘The Goon Squad’ because of their willingness to use excessive force and not to report it,” according to a federal charging document.

“The people of Mississippi and those of Rankin County expect those who enforce the laws to follow the law, clearly these men did not – they held themselves above the law,” LaMarca said.

The charges include conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights under color of law, conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice, according to online federal court records.

Former Rankin County Sheriff’s Department deputy Hunter Elward faces the most serious of charges – discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. Court documents name the other officers charged as Brett McAlpin, Jeffrey Middleton, Christian Dedmon, Daniel Opdyke and Joshua Hartfield.

The incident occurred on January 24 in Braxton, Mississippi, just southeast of Jackson. It came to light after two men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, filed a federal civil lawsuit. Many of the claims in the lawsuit were reflected in the federal charging document.

The two men, who are Black, say six White law enforcement officers entered the home they were in and tortured them for nearly two hours, culminating with Jenkins being shot in the mouth.

“The defendants in this case tortured and inflicted unspeakable harm on their victims, egregiously violated the civil rights of citizens who they were supposed to protect, and shamefully betrayed the oath they swore as law enforcement officers,” US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Jermicha Fomby described the alleged actions as “horrific.” He added, “I did not expect this to be the actions that we would have subjected upon our citizens in the year 2023.”

“On behalf of our clients Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, Black Lawyers for Justice thanks the United States Department of Justice for the historic legal results choices achieved today,” Malik Shabazz, the lead attorney for the victims, said in a statement.

In an interview last month, Parker told CNN: “Justice is what it all boils down to. I’m just like them, you know, whether they in uniform or not.”

 

These assholes are still facing state charges to boot and a plea deal on those charges is expected later this month, and I guarantee you that nothing would have happened to these bastard cops if Trump's "Justice Department" had been the ones in charge still. Merrick Garland got this done in seven months.

 

And yes, in 2023 we're still having to turn to Reconstruction-era anti-Klan laws to prosecute white supremacist bastard cops. Not a hell of a lot has changed for us Black folk, either.

 

Black Lives Still Matter.

 

Last Call For The Road To Gilead, Con't

A Nebraska teenager was sentenced this week for violating the state's abortion ban after Facebook turned over her private messages between herself and her mother, taking a plea deal for 90 days in jail, and if this isn't exactly what reproductive rights advocates have been warning about for years now, it's definitely the new reality of how having a womb of child-bearing age is now probable cause for law enforcement.

Police in Norfolk, Nebraska went to great lengths to build a case against the teen and her mother, seeking both her medical records — to determine how far along her pregnancy was — and private Facebook messages exchanged between the two.

Nebraska currently bans abortion at 12 weeks gestation; at the time, in April 2022, Nebraska law prohibited abortions after 20 weeks. Telemedicine abortions are also prohibited by Nebraska law. (The FDA has approved Mifepristone and Misoprostol to end pregnancies up to 10 weeks.)

According to messages that Facebook’s parent company, Meta, turned over to police in Nebraska, the teenager spoke about being anxious to end the pregnancy and worried about “evidence” of her illegal abortion being discovered. Burgess admitted to police that she miscarried after taking the pills and, with the help of her mother and a third person, burned and buried the remains.

At the sentencing hearing on Thursday, Burgess told the judge that her family would not have been able to afford a proper cremation or burial, “financial-wise.”

“I wanted to do the right thing, but I didn’t know if what I was doing at the time was the right thing,” the 19-year-old said. “I do regret my decisions very much.”

In addition to 90 days in jail — she had faced up to two years — Celeste Burgess was sentenced to two years probation.

 

The teenager's mother is facing years in jail after pleading guilty earlier this year in helping her daughter.

Jessica Burgess has pleaded guilty to three charges: Providing an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, false reporting and tampering with human skeletal remains. It is the first time that anyone has been charged with illegally performing an abortion after 20 weeks in Nebraska, the county prosecutor said. She is scheduled to be sentenced in September.

 

Putting thousands in jail is the point, folks. They want people to see having a womb means reproduction, and never sex for any other reason, something that has to be controlled and regulated under pain of the carceral state. The message is "If you have sex for any reason other than to reproduce along with a male, there are consequences up to and including prison time."

And sometimes, that choice is made by others. That's the real message. You don't own your own body. Men do. "Maybe you should settle, ladies."

Again, the GOP plan to end of the civil rights era doesn't mean we're going back to the 1950's just on issues of race, folks.

Indepen-Dunce Week: All Coked Up

Somebody decided that planting cocaine at the White House made the ultimate "suspicious powder found" prank just so the right could make Hunter Biden, Junkie jokes.

 

A preliminary test indicated that the white powder found inside the White House Sunday evening, prompting a brief evacuation, was cocaine, according to two officials familiar with the matter and the recording of a dispatch from a D.C. fire crew that responded to the incident.

A spokesman for the Secret Service, Anthony Guglielmi, said the substance is undergoing further testing to determine what it is, and authorities are looking into how it got into the White House. He said the D.C. fire department determined the substance, which was found in a “work area of the West Wing,” did not present a threat.

The discovery prompted an elevated security alert and a brief evacuation of the executive mansion, Guglielmi said. He said President Biden was not in the White House at the time. Guglielmi said there is “an investigation into the cause and manner” of how the substance entered the White House.

Guglielmi declined to say specifically where in the White House the substance was found or how it was packaged. He said it was found by members of the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service conducting routine rounds through the building.

In a dispatch with an 8:49 p.m. timestamp, a firefighter with the D.C. department’s hazardous materials team radioed the results of a test: “We have a yellow bar saying cocaine hydrochloride.”

The brief broadcast is logged on a website called openmhz.com, which allows people to listen to live and archived radio transmission from police and fire departments. One of the officials familiar with the investigation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open case, said the 8:49 transmission was from the White House call Sunday night. The official described the amount of the substance as small.

 

The ghouls on the right are having a field day with this nonsense. Yes, Occam's Razor says somebody on the White House staff lost their stash and should be spending several years in both treatment and the slammer, but the bigger issue is again how the Secret Service managed to screw up so badly here and on the White House grounds.

Dunces, indeed...

Insurrection Investigation, Con't

Apparently, Attorney General Merrick Garland fielded calls from his own to slow-walk Trump on January 6th for more than a year after taking office, with Chris Wray and the FBI openly refusing to go directly after Trump.

Hours after he was sworn in as attorney general, Merrick Garland and his deputies gathered in a wood-paneled conference room in the Justice Department for a private briefing on the investigation he had promised to make his highest priority: bringing to justice those responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021

In the two months since the siege, federal agents had conducted 709 searches, charged 278 rioters and identified 885 likely suspects, said Michael R. Sherwin, then-acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, ticking through a slide presentation. Garland and some of his deputies nodded approvingly at the stats, and the new attorney general called the progress “remarkable,” according to people in the room.

Sherwin’s office, with the help of the FBI, was responsible for prosecuting all crimes stemming from the Jan. 6 attack. He had made headlines the day after by refusing to rule out the possibility that President Donald Trump himself could be culpable. “We are looking at all actors, not only the people who went into the building,” Sherwin said in response to a reporter’s question about Trump. “If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged.”

But according to a copy of the briefing document, absent from Sherwin’s 11-page presentation to Garland on March 11, 2021, was any reference to Trump or his advisers — those who did not go to the Capitol riot but orchestrated events that led to it.

A Washington Post investigation found that more than a year would pass before prosecutors and FBI agents jointly embarked on a formal probe of actions directed from the White House to try to steal the election. Even then, the FBI stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation.

A wariness about appearing partisan, institutional caution, and clashes over how much evidence was sufficient to investigate the actions of Trump and those around him all contributed to the slow pace. Garland and the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, charted a cautious course aimed at restoring public trust in the department while some prosecutors below them chafed, feeling top officials were shying away from looking at evidence of potential crimes by Trump and those close to him, The Post found.

In November, after Trump announced he was again running for president, making him a potential 2024 rival to President Biden, Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to take over the investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

On June 8, in a separate investigation that was also turned over to the special counsel, Smith secured a grand jury indictment against the former president for mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Trump was charged with 31 counts of violating a part of the Espionage Act, as well as six counts arising from alleged efforts to mislead federal investigators.

The effort to investigate Trump over classified records has had its own obstacles, including FBI agents who resisted raiding the former president’s home. But the discovery of top-secret documents in Trump’s possession triggered an urgent national security investigation that laid out a well-defined legal path for prosecutors, compared with the unprecedented task of building a case against Trump for trying to steal the election.

Whether a decision about Trump’s culpability for Jan. 6 could have come any earlier is unclear. The delays in examining that question began before Garland was even confirmed. Sherwin, senior Justice Department officials and Paul Abbate, the top deputy to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, quashed a plan by prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office to directly investigate Trump associates for any links to the riot, deeming it premature, according to five individuals familiar with the decision. Instead, they insisted on a methodical approach — focusing first on rioters and going up the ladder.

The strategy was embraced by Garland, Monaco and Wray. They remained committed to it even as evidence emerged of an organized, weeks-long effort by Trump and his advisers before Jan. 6 to pressure state leaders, Justice officials and Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Biden’s victory.

In the weeks before Jan. 6, Trump supporters boasted publicly that they had submitted fake electors on his behalf, but the Justice Department declined to investigate the matter in February 2021, The Post found. The department did not actively probe the effort for nearly a year, and the FBI did not open an investigation of the electors scheme until April 2022, about 15 months after the attack.

The Justice Department’s painstaking approach to investigating Trump can be traced to Garland’s desire to turn the page from missteps, bruising attacks and allegations of partisanship in the department’s recent investigations of both Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Inside Justice, however, some have complained that the attorney general’s determination to steer clear of any claims of political motive has chilled efforts to investigate the former president. “You couldn’t use the T word,” said one former Justice official briefed on prosecutors’ discussions.

This account is based on internal documents, court files, congressional records, handwritten contemporaneous notes, and interviews with more than two dozen current and former prosecutors, investigators, and others with knowledge of the probe. Most of the people interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal decision-making related to the investigation.

Spokespeople at the Justice Department and FBI declined to comment or make Garland, Monaco or Wray available for interviews.

 

Garland had to be dragged kicking and screaming into investigating Trump because that's where all the evidence of the J6 small fry that they prosecuted led to. Trump forced Garland's hand. 

And as Marcy Wheeler notes, the story means former FBI Washington Field Office head Steve D'Antunio was the biggest purveyor of protecting Trump.

 

The WaPo has a story that many Merrick Garland attackers claim confirms their fears about the DOJ investigation. Except the story has really important gaps, most importantly in its portrayal of the fake electors investigation, which is the damning part of the story about Garland or Lisa Monaco’s direct decisions (as opposed to those of FBI).

Moreover, the one thing it proves definitively is that former FBI Washington Field Office head Steve D’Antuono repeatedly shot down investigative prongs of this investigation, just like he did the stolen documents investigation. That the head of the WFO was running interference for Trump raises key questions about FBI missteps with people like Brandon Straka, someone arrested early who had direct ties to the scheme in the Willard, to say nothing about WFO’s ineptitude in advance of the attack.

Here are the main disclosures.

The story describes that — after such time as Brandon Straka was being treated as a cooperative witness — JP Cooney pitched an idea to get to Stone through the Oath Keepers, not the Proud Boys.

But a group of prosecutors led by J.P. Cooney, the head of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. attorney’s office, argued that the existing structure of the probe overlooked a key investigative angle. They sought to open a new front, based partly on publicly available evidence, including from social media, that linked some extremists involved in the riot to people in Trump’s orbit — including Roger Stone, Trump’s longest-serving political adviser; Ali Alexander, an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the riot; and Alex Jones, the Infowars host.

[snip]

According to three people who either viewed or were briefed on Cooney’s plan, it called for a task force to embark on a wide-ranging effort, including seeking phone records for Stone as well as Alexander. Cooney wanted investigators to follow the money — to trace who had financed the false claims of a stolen election and paid for the travel of rallygoers-turned-rioters. He was urging investigators to probe the connection between Stone and members of the Oath Keepers, who were photographed together outside the Willard hotel in downtown Washington on the morning of Jan. 6.

[snip]

D’Antuono called Sherwin. The two agreed Cooney did not provide evidence that Stone had likely committed a crime — the standard they considered appropriate for looking at a political figure. Investigating Stone simply because he spent time with Oath Keepers could expose the department to accusations that it had politicized the probe, they told colleagues.

D’Antuono took the matter to Abbate, Wray’s newly named deputy director. Abbate agreed the plan was premature.

It’s genuinely hard to believe this was the plan. To be sure, FBI did investigate Stone’s ties to the Oath Keepers, starting no later than March 2021. But that wasn’t the obvious route to get to Trump.

The route to get there, importantly, was via a route that Bill Barr had affirmatively dismissed in advance of the attack: through the Proud Boys, not the Oath Keepers. Stone’s ties to the Oath Keepers was not obviously criminal; it still may not be. His ties to the Proud Boys are central.

In any case, Steve D’Antuono — who stalled the stolen documents case investigation last summer — shot down this angle of the investigation early on. 

 

So it wasn't Garland's direct call, but he was in charge of the mess that followed. Bill Barr and Chris Wray protected Trump, and stalled out Garland for months.

 

Still a lot of questions to be answered, including when Trump gets J6 charges.

 

If ever.

Black Lives Still Matter

Once again, in the cities "rocked by Antifa violence" in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the real issue is large urban police departments are racist garbage fires that routinely hunt and punish Black and brown folks with excessive, lethal force.

 

A federal investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department, launched in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, found that the police department and the city itself engage in a "pattern or practice" of excessive force and racial discrimination that violates both the United States Constitution and federal law.

The so-called pattern-or-practice investigation — like the federal investigations into police departments in cities including Baltimore; Ferguson, Missouri; and, most recently, Louisville, Kentucky — focused on widespread issues within the police department rather than individual incidents.

The Minneapolis Police Department, the probe found, “uses excessive force, including unjustified deadly force and other types of force”; “unlawfully discriminates against Black and Native American people in its enforcement activities”; “violates the rights of people engaged in protected speech”; and discriminates against people with behavioral health issues.

As was the case in several other cities, the DOJ investigation found "persistent deficiencies in MPD’s accountability systems, training, supervision, and officer wellness programs," which contributed to the constitutional violations.

The Trump administration, under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, backed away from investigations of police departments, saying that such probes harmed law enforcement. Attorney General Merrick Garland rescinded Sessions' memo in early 2021, and the Minneapolis probe was launched in April of that year.

Under Garland and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, the Justice Department has worked to forge collaborative relationships with the law enforcement community. Gupta, a former American Civil Liberties Union official, had the backing of major law enforcement leaders when she was nominated in 2021.

The report acknowledges "the considerable daily challenges" of being a police officer who "must often make split-second decisions and risk their lives to keep their communities safe." The report said that officers "work hard to provide vital services" and said that many officers spoke about their "deep connection" to the city and their desire to see the police department do better.

"Still, since the spring of 2020, hundreds of MPD officers have left the force, and the morale of the remaining officers is low. Policing, by its nature, can take a toll on the psychological and emotional health of officers, and the challenges of the last few years have only exacerbated that toll for some MPD officers," the report states.

The report says that the Justice Department anticipates working collaboratively with the city and police department, and said federal officials appreciated the cooperation and candor of the police and city officials during the investigation.

The report noted the particular challenges in Minneapolis, a city with "stark" racial inequality that is known, along with neighboring St. Paul, as the "Twin Cities."

 

As with Louisville, police departments are trained to hurt Black and brown folks. To Merrick Garland's credit, he's at least working to identify the problem, but the fact of the matter is America's police departments need a massive, national overhaul of personnel, training, and leadership.

 

Black Lives Still Matter.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Should Donald Trump (or any Republican who can pass the MAGA primaries for that matter) win the White House in 2024, the notion of an independent Justice Department, rather than one used for arrest and prosecution of Democrats as a matter of course, is gone.

 

When Donald J. Trump responded to his latest indictment by promising to appoint a special prosecutor if he’s re-elected to “go after” President Biden and his family, he signaled that a second Trump term would fully jettison the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence.

“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on Tuesday night after his arraignment earlier that day in Miami. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”

Mr. Trump’s message was that the Justice Department charged him only because he is Mr. Biden’s political opponent, so he would invert that supposed politicization. In reality, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, two Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and the financial dealings of his son, Hunter.

But by suggesting the current prosecutors investigating the Bidens were not “real,” Mr. Trump appeared to be promising his supporters that he would appoint an ally who would bring charges against his political enemies regardless of the facts.

The naked politics infusing Mr. Trump’s headline-generating threat underscored something significant. In his first term, Mr. Trump gradually ramped up pressure on the Justice Department, eroding its traditional independence from White House political control. He is now unabashedly saying he will throw that effort into overdrive if he returns to power.

Mr. Trump’s promise fits into a larger movement on the right to gut the F.B.I., overhaul a Justice Department conservatives claim has been “weaponized” against them and abandon the norm — which many Republicans view as a facade — that the department should operate independently from the president.

Two of the most important figures in this effort work at the same Washington-based organization, the Center for Renewing America: Jeffrey B. Clark and Russell T. Vought. During the Trump presidency, Mr. Vought served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Clark, who oversaw the Justice Department’s civil and environmental divisions, was the only senior official at the department who tried to help Mr. Trump overturn the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump wanted to make Mr. Clark attorney general during his final days in office but stopped after the senior leadership of the Justice Department threatened to resign en masse. Mr. Clark is now a figure in one of the Justice Department’s investigations into Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power.

Mr. Clark and Mr. Vought are promoting a legal rationale that would fundamentally change the way presidents interact with the Justice Department. They argue that U.S. presidents should not keep federal law enforcement at arm’s length but instead should treat the Justice Department no differently than any other cabinet agency. They are condemning Mr. Biden and Democrats for what they claim is the politicization of the justice system, but at the same time pushing an intellectual framework that a future Republican president might use to justify directing individual law enforcement investigations.

Mr. Clark, who is a favorite of Mr. Trump’s and is likely to be in contention for a senior Justice Department position if Mr. Trump wins re-election in 2024, wrote a constitutional analysis, titled “The U.S. Justice Department is not independent,” that will most likely serve as a blueprint for a second Trump administration.

Like other conservatives, Mr. Clark adheres to the so-called unitary executive theory, which holds that the president of the United States has the power to directly control the entire federal bureaucracy and Congress cannot fracture that control by giving some officials independent decision-making authority.

There are debates among conservatives about how far to push that doctrine — and whether some agencies should be allowed to operate independently — but Mr. Clark takes a maximalist view. Mr. Trump does, too, though he’s never been caught reading the Federalist Papers.

In statements to The New York Times, both Mr. Clark and Mr. Vought leaned into their battle against the Justice Department, with Mr. Clark framing it as a fight over the survival of America itself.

“Biden and D.O.J. are baying for Trump’s blood so they can put fear into America,” Mr. Clark wrote in his statement. “The Constitution and our Article IV ‘Republican Form of Government’ cannot survive like this.”

Mr. Vought wrote in his statement that the Justice Department was “ground zero for the weaponization of the government against the American people.” He added, “Conservatives are waking up to the fact that federal law enforcement is weaponized against them and as a result are embracing paradigm-shifting policies to reverse that trend.”

 

You can draw a direct line from the Dubya administration and Dick Cheney and John Woo to this particular theory, where the entire Justice Department would become an extension of the MAGA White House, and Democrats in previous administrations and very possibly current state executives would be rounded up and charged with "crimes" and disposed of.

The DOJ would not only cease to be independent, but by definition would be controlled by the person in the Oval Office, and arrests and prosecutions would be directed by the White House.

You know, secret police, only not exactly secret. To solution to a "politicized" Justice Department is to actually politicize the Justice Department.

Image

Tales Of The Shattered Rainbow, Local Edition

A Pride Month rally near Lexington last weekend nearly turned deadly as armed bigots showed up and broke up the proceedings.

On June 3, Hensley and Osborne say they and about six other people set up in downtown Corbin with signs and chairs to support Pride and the LGBTQ community.

“It was just to inspire change and help people be confident,” Hensley said.

Things turned more aggressive that afternoon when Osborne said two men approached, one on a motorcycle and the other in a car. He said the men flipped the group off and proceeded to pull over and approach them.

“They began spouting slurs and hateful slander. The F-slur was said on multiple occasions, when the two men approached they each had their hands on their guns which were hidden in their pockets,” Osborne recalled.

Osborne said he confronted them about the weapons. One of the men pulled a card from his pocket, which Osborne said he recognized as a “KKK card.”

“They even proudly proclaimed to be homophobic, and racist,” Osborne said. “At one point the man who pulled his weapon later in the altercation looked at me and said ‘I’ll burn you and that sign.’”

The situation escalated further when the man allegedly put his card in Hensley’s face, and they began to slap each other’s arms until the man unholstered his weapon and put it down by his side. Both Hensley and Osborne said they began to yell out for help, and police arrived shortly thereafter.

In video footage of the incident, Hensley appears to shout expletives at the men and flip them off.

According to Osborne, the police demanded the man drop his weapon and confiscated both men’s firearms, one of which was not in a holster and was hidden in his shorts pocket. Police allegedly took the guns apart and removed the bullets that “were in the chamber and ready,” Osborne said.

“The police then do an investigation to find out what is happening, then ask us to leave as we have no permit, and they escort the men to their vehicles, giving their weapons back and sending them off,” he recalled.

The men in the video have not been publicly identified. Corbin police did not return phone calls Thursday afternoon to address the incident or whether anyone had been charged. The Corbin mayor was not immediately available for comment either.

 

The cops told the rally-goers to leave. It wasn't an issue of course until the two openly armed bigots showed up with loaded guns and the intent to harm people.

Oh, and cops gave the terrorists -- because that what this was, terrorism -- their firearms back.

Nobody was hurt this time. Next time it may be another mass shooting.