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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Here's an excerpt from his Wikipedia page, namely his failed nomination to Alabama's district court.
Thomas Figures, a black Assistant U.S. Attorney, testified that Sessions said he thought the Ku Klux Klan was "OK until I found out they smoked pot." Sessions later said that the comment was not serious, but did apologize for it, saying that he considered the Klan to be "a force for hatred and bigotry."[26] Barry Kowalski, a prosecutor in the civil rights division, also heard the remark and testified that prosecutors working such a gruesome case sometimes “resort to operating room humor and that is what I considered it to be.” Another DOJ lawyer, Albert Glenn, said, “It never occurred to me that there was any seriousness to it.”[27][22][25][26] Figures testified that on one occasion, when the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division sent the office instructions to investigate a case that Sessions had tried to close, Figures and Sessions "had a very spirited discussion regarding how the Hodge case should then be handled; in the course of that argument, Mr. Sessions threw the file on a table, and remarked, 'I wish I could decline on all of them,'" by which Figures said Sessions meant civil rights cases generally. Kowalski, however, testified that he believed “[Sessions] was eager to see that justice was done in the area of criminal civil rights prosecutions.”[27]
Figures also said that Sessions had called him "boy," which Sessions denied. Figures testified that two assistant prosecutors had also heard Sessions, including current federal judge Ginny Granade. Granade denied this.[19][28] He also testified that "Mr. Sessions admonished me to 'be careful what you say to white folks.'"[29] In 1992, Figures was charged with attempting to bribe a witness by offering $50,000 to a convicted drug dealer who was to testify against his client. Figures claimed the charge was retaliation for his role in blocking the Sessions nomination. Sessions denied this, saying that he recused himself from the case. Figures was ultimately acquitted.[30][31][32]
In short, he's extremely racist, too racist to be a district justice for Alabama in the 1980s.
edited 30th Jan '17 7:59:05 PM by iflewaway
somethingNews:
Hidden Danger Of Trump Immigration Orders: Dismissal Of Court Orders
: "...Even as lawyers won temporary stays in federal courts, reportedly government officials ignored the full extent and continued to deport at least some travelers."
Feds Blow Off Judge and Congressmen to Enforce Trump’s Orders at Dulles
: "...immigration lawyers at Dulles said it didn’t get adequately enforced. Instead, CBP kept the Dulles detainees—and it still isn’t public how many lawful American residents were held there, and for how long—from having face-to-face conversations with attorneys."
Courts Stay Trump's Order Targeting Muslims, but Confusion Reigns
: "At Dulles International Airport on Sunday, lawyers and activists feared federal officials were ignoring court decisions staying the president’s executive order restricting travel from several mostly Muslim nations."
It seems most of the confusion is centered at Dulles International Airport.
Crisis Mode: What happens if Donald Trump refuses a federal court order.
: "...We reached out to a number of eminent constitutional-law scholars and asked them to handicap what will happen next if it appears that the federal government is intent on ignoring the orders of the courts. Most agreed that there is no clear modern precedent for the federal government deliberately defying a court order, and that if it turns out that is indeed what’s happening, we will be entering uncharted waters. But a few others offered some more specific guidance."
Basically, there will be "several rounds" before this becomes a genuine constitutional crisis.
How opponents may challenge Trump's order in court
: Discusses the legal basis for challenging Trump's executive order.
Rulings on Trump’s Immigration Order Are First Step on a Long Legal Path
: "...the court orders, from judges in at least four cities, were just the initial steps in litigation that may last for years.
The orders were provisional, aimed at maintaining the status quo. They were limited in scope, applying only to people on their way to the United States or already here. They did not rule on the larger question of whether Mr. Trump’s executive order was lawful."
Senate Democrats Call For Investigation Into Trump Officials’ Failure To Obey Court Orders
So we are probably looking at the early stages of what could be an extended legal battle. But good people are standing up and holding Trump accountible.
My own opinion is that Trump can hold out for awhile, but eventually he will be forced to backtrack. The further he goes with this, the greater the crash will be when he eventually has to back down. He is risking the credibility of his administration on a single issue the first month of his term. He doesnt have a master plan, he's acting on impulse and refusing to back down. But he isnt winning.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.![]()
I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Basically, she stood up to him for his illegal and immoral orders, and she was fired. It mostly means that Trump is very serious about the ban, and he will fire anyone who gets in his way, no matter how vital they are. Eventually, everyone with a spine will either be fired, quit, or worse, leaving Trump surrounded by useless yes-men and puppeteers like Bannon.
Basically, this:
edited 30th Jan '17 8:05:06 PM by iflewaway
somethingLot of stuff happening tonight...
Tomorrow's executive order on cybersecurity has supposedly been leaked.
It would...place the Department of Education under the authority of the Secretary of Defense? The fuck? (Relevant passage here.
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Senior staffers on the House Judiciary Committee helped Orange House aides draft the executive order implementing the Muslim ban, without the knowledge of party leadership.
Separation of powers? What separation of powers? That's for democracies.
Bannon praises Sessions, calling him the fiercest advocate of Trump's agenda and saying that we are "witnessing the birth of a new political order.
No, asshole, I think we're actually witnessing the rebirth of a very, very old one.
What they're saying: "We need to give future generations a competitive advantage in computer security."
What I'm concerned they're actually thinking: "We want to use the education system as a propaganda and indoctrination tool note under the guise of national security."
Might be a stretch, but I am at the point where I will not rule anything out.
Considering who would be in charge of the Dep. of Education otherwise, I'm thinking that I'd rather have James Mattis over Betsy DeVos any day.
This just goes to show, though, that Trump indeed wants to muddy up the waters with inter-department squabbling and disunity.
The real tragedy of all this is that absolutely none of this is new. Not a single thing.
The world has seen multiple xenophobic, ultranationalist autocracies, and most of them are very well-documented with tons of historiographical and sociological work put into understanding the factors that led to those regimes existing, how the government functioned during those regimes, and finally the effects they had on the population and the rest of the world. The most famous one of them all has been immortalized as the greatest evil known to mankind.
But all for that bluster it feels like way too much of the american public learned absolutely nothing from what they were taught in school or the media, beyond some shallow action movie narrative about how the nazis were the ultimate evil that was fought back by the great America. Apparently some people fail to understand how and why they were so bad and how their feelings about muslims, black people, homosexuals and whoever else that isn't white and straight is exactly the kind of attitude that led to people like the nazis being created and seizing power in the first place.
And this isn't a case of an insidious political mastermind putting on a convincing face and then quietly installing fascism and kleptocracy into the government. All the information that could have prevented this from happening was there for everyone to see.
The media put a spin on things and definitely made it all worse, but at the end of the day that doesn't change the fact that people saw Trump. They saw him being a complete idiot, they saw the horrible autocratic things he was saying, they saw his incendiary statements towards minorities, they saw his sexism and casual disregard for women, they knew he had no political experience, they saw him backpedal on multiple things, they saw it all.
And what really gets me isn't the conscious virulent racists like the alt-right. They're scum but white nationalism has been around for a very long time, and obviously they'd support fascism.
No, what gets me are the "average", mild-mannered people who made excuses (and continue to make them, whether it be for their choice of voting for him in the first place, or everything he's done so far just a little over w eek in) and managed to justify voting for him...because of what? A vaguely defined antipathy for Clinton rationalized via a bunch of scandals, all the accusations of which Trump was equally guilty of? His nostrum salespitch about their jobs coming back, despite him never explaining how he's going to do it? Wanting to "drain the swamp" despite him being part of the elite they so despise and being the very example of the slimy and amoral Corrupt Corporate Executive?
Were ANY of those things worth installing what will at best be a foul, illiberal kleptocracy where the people have no voice or power to change things anymore and minorities are continuously the victims of casual racism and police brutality? Not even getting into how it could be even worse than that.
We've read all those articles about Trump voters in rural enclaves who don't have much contact with the outside world or much education. It makes sense to me that they would become the people who would vote for Trump but I don't think I can ever forgive them, much less anyone else who has even less of an excuse.
Sorry for preaching to the choir here but this week has really made all of this sink in.
edited 30th Jan '17 9:13:40 PM by Draghinazzo
For sure.
American liberal democracy met yet go down the drain not with a bang, but a whimper. The idea of an illiberal, Russia, Turkey or Venzuela-esque state gives me a visceral reaction that can only be described as grossing me out. The alternative, of course, is darkest-timeline fascism. If that happens...ugh.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison

@ Convoy on the last page, probably militia nutters. The ones where I live have a load of old surplus vehicles in various states of disrepair.