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‘Target on the Back of Every Brown Person’: SCOTUS Slammed for ‘Show Me Your Papers’ Ruling

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The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a Biden administration emergency request and is allowing the State of Texas to enforce Governor Greg Abbott’s new anti-immigrant law that some say is largely similar to Arizona’s highly-controversial “show me your papers” law. SCOTUS struck down Arizona’s SB 1070 a dozen years ago, and a lower court has already ruled the Texas law is likely unconstitutional.

Calling it “one of the nation’s harshest immigration laws,” The Washington Post reports the “divided decision was preliminary and urged a lower court to quickly decide whether to allow the law to remain in effect while appeals continue. That approach drew dissent from the three liberal justices, two of whom said the majority was inviting ‘further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement.'”

SB 4 allows “Texas police to arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the Texas-Mexico border,” The Texas Tribune reports, noting in an explainer that the law allows people to “be charged with a Class B misdemeanor, which carries a punishment of up to six months in jail. For subsequent offenses, the person could be charged with a second-degree felony and face up to 20 years in prison.”

“Immigration advocacy organizations and the Department of Justice say the law encroaches on the federal government’s sole authority over immigration and will lead to racial profiling by police.”

READ MORE: Ramaswamy Eyed for Homeland Security Head if Trump Re-Elected: Report

Former Dept. of Homeland Security Deputy General Counsel Tom Jawetz, now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), took Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh to task, saying they “ben[t] over backwards to explain they are absolutely not evaluating the likelihood that Texas will succeed in appealing the order enjoining SB4.”

“They know it’s illegal. Not a hard call. I expect both of them–and maybe Roberts–ultimately will rule that way.”

Hope Border Institute executive director Dylan Corbett, wrote: “SCOTUS is greenlighting SB4, Texas’ extra-constitutional immigration regime, transparently fueled by dehumanizing xenophobia and disregard for federal and international law. All Texans are less safe today because the state will weaponize law enforcement against local communities.”

Sawyer Hackett, a Democratic strategist and senior advisor to Obama Cabinet Secretary Julián Castro, also blasted the decision.

“Incredible. One day after extending the injunction on SB4, the Supreme Court is now allowing the blatantly unconstitutional ‘show me your papers’ law to be enforced while litigation continues.”

“The Supreme Court just put a target on the back of every brown person in Texas,” Hackett warned, as he pointed to a portion of the dissent:

He also pointed out that the Supreme Court overturned Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, and asked, “How the hell does [Chief Justice] John Roberts square his decision not to dissent with his concurrence in Arizona v. U.S.?”

“This Court is losing all legitimacy,” Hackett laments.

Hackett believes this is an issue Democrats should take on, and noted the Biden administration just hours ago launched “Latinos con Biden-Harris.”

READ MORE: ‘Completely Wacko’: Trump Slammed for Suing Over ‘Rape’ Remark

“Democrats have a big opportunity to pick a fight on SB4,” he writes. “The Supreme Court just gave Texas its blessing to arrest, detain, and deport ANYONE suspected of being undocumented. They’ve put a target on the back of every brown person in the state.”

“It’s cruel. It’s dangerous. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s political overreach. Latino voters need to see Dems go to the mat to defend people who look like them from this insanity. It’s also a critical part of exposing the Court’s massive legitimacy crisis,” he says.

“My advice to Dems: pick the damn fight,” Hackett concludes.

American Immigration Council policy director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick also blasted the decision.

“Beginning this moment, Texas law enforcement officers can arrest any person in the state they believe crossed illegally,” he writes. “And judges can now order people to walk back into Mexico at threat of 20 years in prison if they don’t—even if the person has federal permission to be here.”

U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) warns, “Today’s decision by #SCOTUS gives the green light to Texas to racially profile & harass Brown communities across our state while #SB4 makes its way through the courts. No one deserves to live in fear. We must not back down until this anti-immigrant law is gone once & for all.”

READ MORE: ‘How Fascism Came to Germany’: Historian Warns Trump ‘Knew Exactly What He Was Saying’

 

 

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DOJ Takes Down Thousands of Epstein Documents After Privacy Concerns Raised

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The Trump Department of Justice reportedly has removed thousands of documents from its Friday dump of millions of pages of Epstein files.

Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney reported on Monday that the DOJ told “the court that it has taken down ‘several thousands’ of documents from the Epstein Files website after victim privacy concerns were raised.”

In its message to two U.S District Court judges, the DOJ wrote: “The Department has worked all hours through the weekend from the point when the first victim-related concerns were raised. To that end, out of the larger production described above, the Department now has taken down several thousands of documents and media that may have inadvertently included victim-identifying information due to various factors, including technical or human error.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the DOJ had “exposed the names of dozens of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, including many who haven’t shared their identities publicly or were minors when they were abused by the notorious sex offender.”

READ MORE: Trump to Bongino: ‘Republicans Ought to Nationalize the Voting’

“A review of 47 victims’ full names on Sunday found that 43 of them were left unredacted in files that were made public by the government on Friday, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Several women’s full names appeared more than 100 times in the files,” the Journal noted, “The Justice Department was required to redact all victims’ names prior to releasing the files. Officials said they had spent weeks doing so after receiving lists of names from victims’ attorneys.”

Late Monday morning, attorney and journalist Aaron Parnas identified two of the Epstein files he said were missing. According to Parnas, they included references to Trump having parties at Mar-a-Lago called “calendar girls.”

On Friday, DOJ blocked access to a document originally released as part of Friday’s Epstein files document dump. That document included language related to accusations against President Donald Trump and others. In just under an hour, access was restored after CNN anchor Jake Tapper noted the block on social media.

The DOJ’s removal of the files on Monday comes as some, including members of Congress, are asking for more files to be released.

“Where are the rest of the Epstein Files?” asked U.S. Senator Mark Warner, the prominent Intelligence Committee vice chairman, on Monday afternoon.

READ MORE: ‘We Don’t Have Much Time’: George Conway Issues Dire Warning About Donald Trump

 

Image via Reuters 

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Trump to Bongino: ‘Republicans Ought to Nationalize the Voting’

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President Donald Trump called into the podcast of his former Deputy FBI Director, Dan Bongino, and said that Republicans should “nationalize” the voting process, especially in fifteen “crooked” states, while insisting that undocumented immigrants are voting in America.

Saying that there are “millions and millions” of undocumented immigrants and “we have to get them out,” Trump warned that “if Republicans don’t get them out, you will never win another election as a Republican.”

He claimed that undocumented immigrants are told, “Oh, well, you can vote, you can do whatever you want.”

“It’s crazy,” he added. “I mean, it’s crazy how you can get these people to vote, and if we don’t get them out, Republicans will never win another election.”

READ MORE: ‘We Don’t Have Much Time’: George Conway Issues Dire Warning About Donald Trump

He went on to say that “they vote illegally, and the, you know, amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it. The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting,’ the voting in at least many, 15 places.”

“The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” he added, “and we have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes, we have states that I won, that show I didn’t win.”

Mediaite reported that Trump “said a big issue with Minnesota is that it has too many Somalis — who he then claimed are, by and large, known for their ‘theft.'”

“Notably, the vast majority of Somalis in Minnesota came to the U.S. legally through refugee programs in the 1990s and are today U.S. citizens,” Mediaite added.

 

READ MORE: Gabbard Spokesperson Goes Off the Rails Spinning Explosive WSJ Report

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‘We Don’t Have Much Time’: George Conway Issues Dire Warning About Donald Trump

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Republican never-Trump attorney and critic turned Democratic congressional candidate George Conway issued a dire warning on Monday about President Donald Trump and his “megalomania.”

“The way things are going in America, it should be clear we don’t have much time,” Conway wrote on social media. “We certainly don’t have three years. We need to help ourselves by pushing for impeachment and removal as hard as we can and carrying it out as soon as humanly possible.”

Reiterating that he sees this as “a race against time,” Conway asked, “How quickly does the megalomaniac lose strength versus how quickly he destroy[s] everything around him. The one thing you can depend on is that the megalomaniac gets more destructive and dangerous over time before he’s done.”

Conway kicked off his social media thread with a New York Times opinion piece by history professor Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on fascism and authoritarian leaders.

He quoted Dr. Ben-Ghiat, who wrote: “I have seen this brand of strongman megalomania and the adverse effects it can ultimately have on leaders and their governments. I call it autocratic backfire.”

READ MORE: Gabbard Spokesperson Goes Off the Rails Spinning Explosive WSJ Report

“As autocrats surround themselves with loyalists who praise them and party functionaries who repeat their lies, leaders can start to believe their own hype,” the excerpt continued. “As they cut themselves off from expert advice and objective feedback, they start to promulgate unscrutinized policies that fail. Rather than course correct, such leaders often double down and engage in even riskier behavior — starting wars or escalating involvement in military conflicts that eventually reveal the human and financial tolls of their corruption and incompetence. The result: a disillusioned population that loses faith in the leader and elites who begin to rethink their support.”

Conway added that the word “megalomania” is “essentially a synonym for narcissistic sociopathy or malignant narcissism.”

“All three terms accurately describe Trump,” he charged.

He offered some “good news,” saying that, as Ben-Ghiat pointed out, “megalomaniacal leaders ultimately blow themselves up politically or militarily. The bad news is that the longer they survive, the bigger the figurative blast radius.”

Conway ended the social media thread by saying this is why he is running for Congress and posted a link to his campaign website.

READ MORE: ‘Snowflake’ Trump Mocked for 1 A.M. Lawsuit Threat Over Trevor Noah’s Epstein Island Jab

 

Image by Presia Debauch via Flickr and a CC license

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