StrangeSox

So obviously the story of child concentration camps in the desert is taking up a lot of space this week, as it should, but at the same time there's story of more massive corruption within the Trump administration. This time it features Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross. Lies, China And Putin: Solving The Mystery Of Wilbur Ross' Missing Fortune drain that swamp

Yeah, it's a fun game they're trying to play. They're shutting down portals and refusing to let people legally seek asylum, so the people then cross and find border checkpoints instead. But now they're "criminals" and we'll steal their children and more likely than not lose them. Comparisons to arrests and jailing before trials (which itself is rife with injustice) are of course wildly off the mark. We managed to not have this deliberate "zero tolerance, send toddlers to tent concentration camps" policy for decades prior to Trump. Now we have this policy that has a goal of being a painful deterrent according to the words of the administration itself. Trying to pass this off as "we're just enforcing the law" rather than this being how they choose to do things to punish these people is completely dishonest. So at the same time, Trump and Co. are pushing for drastic cuts to legal immigration and have already stripped hundreds of thousands of Latin American residents of their protected status, forcing them to leave. They've essentially stopped refugee resettlement. They're ramping up a legal office to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship and deport them. They've drastically curtailed asylum claims. This isn't about stopping legal immigration, it's about stopping immigration, period.

They're literally concentration camps. Not all concentration camps are the same as Nazi death camps, but they're concentration camps.

here's a joke from somewhat notable lawyer and fierce free speech advocate Popehat An 8 month old. Telling parents kids are going to "the showers" and then they disappear, potentially completely lost track of. No plans at all on how to reunite them in the future. This is torture that will do life-long mental damage to these children, to infants. And it's all 100% deliberate policy by the administration so they can extract political concessions to build a stupid fucking wall and drastically cut down on legal immigration.

monsters

e.g.

It's only going to get worse when the climate crisis kicks into high gear imo. We'll see some Children of Men style stuff. Italy's recent elections resulted in coalition of right wing and some explicitly pro-fascist groups coming into power already. Hungary's gone full fasc, too. Meanwhile, the administration is again going on TV and lying about their own policies. Also, comparing their child concentration camps to....how we hold chattel live stock? And they think this is a favorable comparison?

lmao

One tweet that jumped out to me: Photos (handout images, so these are the goddamn best CBP could find): happy fathers day.

I dunno, I think the sitting President and most of his children getting sued for defrauding a charity by the State of New York is a pretty notable event. The last time this happened, a scant two years ago, Trump settled the massive fraud case against Trump University for $20M. I'm not sure what the NY AG is seeking here in monetary damages, but they are looking for the Trump Foundation to be dissolved and for the Trump family to be barred from serving on charitable boards for 10 years. The lawsuit by the NY AG is a civil matter, but they did refer the case to both the FEC and IRS for potential criminal violations. The IRS's criminal enforcement arm has slowly eroded into a fraction of what it was, we rarely prosecute the wealthy for their many "white-collar" crimes, plus he's the sitting President, so who knows if they'll actually be charged with anything, but I've read several stories that talked to both election and tax law experts who said "yeah, this looks pretty flagrantly illegal". E.g.

I think it's a little weird that the big IG report on the Clinton Email Investigation mentions all of the leaks coming out of the NY FBI office to Trump's team as what forced Comey's hand but apparently didn't bother to look into it at all. Nunes said today that he had gotten NY FBI leaks about Weiner's laptop in September. Guilliani bragged about stuff back in October 2016. Why isn't that being investigated?

nearly 2000 children ripped from their families, some as young as 4 months old, in just over 6 weeks.

I'm starting to get a feeling that Trump and his administration deliberately target minority immigrants for harsh treatment. But I thought it was just about MS-13??

Semi-daily Scott Pruitt corruption update: credit where credit is due, this guy is taking this to the next level. MVP of grifting '17, strong showing in '18 so far.

I mentioned the NY AG's lawsuit against the Trump crime family though?

I am dense and missed the obvious joke!

ok not sure if this can be topped today, Time and time again, Trump has shown that he has no appreciation or respect for democratic governance. He routinely displays disgust with our democratic allies and their elected leaders, but he never hesitates cozying up to and praising dictators around the world regardless of if they're friend or foe. He sees the way they wield power, stamp out dissent, and get "admiration" from their people, and he's jealous. 2020 is gonna be wild.

this dude takes grifting to the next level

Yeah, Corey Robin has written some interesting stuff on that over the years and especially recently. When you can no longer build majority coalitions, you retreat to procedural tricks and every anti-democratic trick in the book to maintain power. Speaking of, Roberts eliminating the voting rights act's most important part with zero legal justification while ignoring the explicit powers granted to Congress is working exactly as intended. Democrats should be pushing for a voting rights amendment, probably federalization of voting laws as well. At least minimum standards and requirements.

we're building concentration camps for children out of tents in the desert

trump is symptom not disease, part forty thousand