Connect with us

News

‘A New Low’: Democrats Blast Speaker Johnson’s Mockery of Border Agents

Published

on

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is under fire after mocking U.S. Border Patrol agents by baselessly suggesting the reason they support the Senate border bill is personal financial gain.

One day after the Senate released its massive border bill, which experts say includes many items House Republicans demanded, Johnson and much of his House GOP conference immediately rejected it, largely in response to Donald Trump’s direction. The ex-president has made clear he wants to keep Congress from improving the situation at the border so he will have an issue to use against President Joe Biden in the November election.

On Monday, the largely right-wing labor union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents and staff endorsed the Senate border bill, saying it “will drop illegal border crossings nationwide.”

READ MORE: Speaker Johnson’s Latest Move Adds to His Conflicting Quagmire of Divergent Border Positions

“The Border Act of 2024 will give U.S. Border Patrol agents authorities codified, in law, that we have not had in the past,” wrote Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council, in a statement supporting the Senate border bill. “This will allow us to remove single adults expeditiously and without a lengthy judicial review which historically has required the release of these individuals into the interior of the United States. This alone will drop illegal border crossings nationwide and will allow our agents to get back to detecting and apprehending those who want to cross our borders illegally and evade apprehension. While not perfect, the Border Act of 2024 is a step in the right direction and is far better than the current status quo. This is why the National Border Patrol Council endorses this bill and hopes for its quick passage.”

Judd just last week testified for House Republicans, declaring he believes Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas should be impeached. And the National Border Patrol Council endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2016 and 2020.

The Senate border bill was crafted by hardcore conservative Republican U.S. Senator Jim Lankford (R-OK), and liberal U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT). Despite its harsh changes to immigration law, it has the support of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden, who says he will sign it. It also had the support of Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has done an “about face,” telling his conference to oppose it.

READ MORE: ‘We Aren’t Monsters’: Top Senate Dem Slams Josh Hawley for Not Wanting to Help Kids

The bill includes “$20 billion in emergency funding for federal authorities — including the Homeland Security, Justice and State departments, as well as other agencies — to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents and asylum officers, increase detention capacity, and invest in technology to combat the smuggling of fentanyl and other narcotics,” The Washington Post reported.

But Monday night Speaker Johnson appeared to mock border patrol agents.

“The Border Patrol union has come out and said the bill is better than the status quo,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham told Speaker Johnson (full interview here). “Does that affect your thinking on this?”

Johnson has repeatedly said the Senate bill is “dead on arrival.”

Suggesting financial interest for border patrol agents, Speaker Johnson told Ingraham, “I think it does have something to do with the pay structure that’s in the bill. I understand they are desperate for measures that will assist.”

The bill does not appear to include pay increases for border patrol agents.

Johnson was sharply criticized.

“Wow,” declared U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NY), “the republicans are now mocking America’s border patrol officers for the crime of supporting bipartisan border security. A new low.”

The White House also took notice of Speaker Johnson’s remarks.

READ MORE: ‘Mutiny’: Far Right GOP Senators Start to Give McConnell the McCarthy Treatment

“In case you were wondering how desperate @SpeakerJohnson is to delay border security for political purposes,” wrote White House Deputy Press Secretary and Senior Communications Adviser Andrew Bates. He also quoted a Newsweek article: “Speaker Mike Johnson sparked laughter from Fox News host Laura Ingraham after suggesting the National Border Patrol Council had come out in support of a major bipartisan immigration and asylum bill because it could result in a pay rise for their members.”

Watch below or at this link.

Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students

Published

on

Donald Trump says the day he enters the Oval Office for a second term he will end anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students implemented by the Biden administration.

Serving up a scattershot series of complaints with the hosts from the Philadelphia-based right-wing talk radio show “Kayal and Company” on Friday, Trump compared LGBTQ+ protections to a “cuckoo’s nest.”

“A lot of things don’t make sense, having to do with what they’re doing, from the border to all of the men playing in women’s sports. I mean, the world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now with what they do,” Trump declared.

One of the hosts alleged President Joe Biden has engaged in “manipulation” of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. She claimed parents now have to “pinch some pennies” to be able to afford private Christian schools for their children, to remove them from the enhancements that go into effect this summer.

“Many schools are grappling with what they’re going to do,” she said, “because as of August 1, as you know, because of Biden’s manipulation of Title IX, these kids, the school boards, have no choice, they’re meeting right now they, many of them perplexed, and they don’t know what to do, Mr. President, because they’re so upset over this that at August 1 a biological boy can change in a locker room.”

READ MORE: ‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley

Trump replied, “It’s crazy. Crazy.”

“We’re going to end it on day one,” Trump vowed. “We’re going to change it on day one. It’s going to be changed. We’re going to end it. That’s right.”

“The whole thing is crazy. Look, it’s like men playing in women’s sports. It’s like open borders for the world to come in. Send all their prisoners. We’ll take as many as you can give us. Send all their people from mental institutions.”

“We’ll get that changed. Tell your people not to worry about it. It’ll be signed on day one. It will be terminated,” Trump promised, vowing to end the LGBTQ+ protections which include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

On his first day in office, President Biden implemented “the most far-reaching of any federal protections yet” for LGBTQ+ people, according to NPR.

In an explainer on the new expanded rules, Ms. Magazine reports “The 2024 regulations prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

According to GLAAD, which is tracking “the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights,” President Biden has made 337 “moves” in 1206 days.

Listen to a short clip below or at this link.

READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict

Continue Reading

News

Ari Fleischer Offers Donald Trump Advice Attorney Says ‘Effectively’ Violates Gag Order

Published

on

A Fox News panel discussing the Trump New York criminal trial debated whether or not the indicted ex-president could attack the judge’s daughter, with former Bush 43 press secretary Ari Fleischer insisting he should, and claiming doing so would not violate the terms of the gag order.

“President Trump needs to stop calling the judge ‘conflicted.’ He needs to explain why he’s conflicted,” Fleischer said Friday to a panel that included former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “Every day of the trial he goes in there, he says, ‘the judge is conflicted, conflicted bigger than I’ve ever seen anywhere in my life.’ He doesn’t explain how or why. He needs to say that the judge’s daughter works for a Democratic political consulting firm that does anti-Trump business. He needs to explain it. Otherwise, it’s just an assertion with no proof. And the President if he’s going to say it, back it up. Explain.”

“I think that’s a violation of the gag order, is it not?” a Fox panelist replied.

“No, he can criticize the judge,” McEnany responded.

READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict

“Not the judge but the family,” the panelist added.

“But when he says the judge is conflicted, you can still explain how and why, and I think comply with a gag,” Fleischer insisted.

The panelists then agreed Donald Trump has been “measured” in his remarks.

National security attorney Brad Moss weighed in on social media, posting the relevant portion of the gag order and writing that Fleischer “effectively recommends Trump violate the terms of the gag order.”

The gag order in part reads: “Defendant is directed to refrain from” … “Making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, (2) members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or (3) the family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staffs work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to result.”

Despite Trump’s repeated attacks, an ethics panel last year cleared Judge Juan Merchan of any issues surrounding his daughter’s work.

On Monday, Judge Merchan warned Trump he may throw him in jail if he violates the gag order again.

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil

Continue Reading

News

Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict

Published

on

A federal appeals court panel of three judges has upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of Steve Bannon, the far-right provocateur and former Trump chief strategist and senior White House advisor. Legal experts say he can appeal but ultimately he will he headed to prison.

Bannon had refused to comply with a subpoena lawfully-issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

“Bannon was sentenced to four months in jail in 2022 by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols after a jury convicted him of two counts of contempt of Congress,” Politico reports Friday. “But Nichols, a Trump appointee, agreed to postpone the jail term while Bannon appealed the decision, agreeing that the complex mix of laws that govern executive privilege and testimonial immunity for White House aides could be overturned by higher courts.”

The appeals court panel includes judges appointed by President Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, according to CNN’s Zachary Cohen.

In their ruling the judges wrote: “Public accounts indicated that Bannon had predicted on a January 5, 2021 podcast that ‘all hell [wa]s going to break loose’ the next day,” and noted, “In addition to the podcast prediction, Bannon had reportedly participated in discussions in late 2020 and early 2021 about efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.”

READ MORE: House Ethics Committee Extends Investigation Into ‘Ultra MAGA’ Congressman

Politico noted the “three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bannon’s argument, saying the former aide and prominent podcaster had no legal rationale for his blanket refusal to appeal before the Jan. 6 committee — and that long-standing case law.”

Bannon is a peddler of conspiracy theories whose podcast “was crowned the top peddler of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among political podcasts,” according to The New York Times, citing a Brookings study.

“Bannon is unlikely to have to report to prison immediately,” NBC News reports.

Legal experts weighed in on the question of prison for Bannon.

READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil

“And now it’s time for Bannon to be given a date to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence,” remarked MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor.

“Bannon is effectively out of appeals,” observed professor of law and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney. “He can delay a little bit longer, asking for the full court to review the decision en banc & asking SCOTUS to hear his case on cert, but neither one of those things will happen. Bannon is going to prison.”

Professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter remarked, “it’s slammer time.”

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.