Legalectric

Contact each member of the House Judiciary Committee and ask them to pass House Resolution 111!  What?!?!  Why?!?!?! Because this is really important!!!

On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee takes up House Resolution 111, which requests from the Office of the Attorney General any and all documents related to tRump’s “financial practices” — the requests are specified in great detail, check it out:

House Resolution 111

Tell each member of the Judiciary Committee to vote YES on House Resolution 111.  Call the Republicans at top of list:

House Judiciary_ALL Phone Numbers – Making it easy!!

• Here is the Downloadable Judiciary Committee Member List.
• Here is a Directory of Representatives where you can get their contact info.

Their contact page may restrict it to constituents, but remember that when they’re on a committee, they’re representing US, not just their constituents.  Maybe it will take phone calls, well worth your effort.

The Resolution is a step to hold tRump accountable, to disclose information about any criminal or counterintelligence investiation, any investment by foreign governments in tRump, tRump’s interests in businesses, profits from foreign governments use of his hotels or business holdings, Foreign Emoluments Clause, and about conflicts of interest.

This has been called the first step towards impeachment.  I regard it as the first, and very necessary, step toward accountability.  Turn up the heat.  Call today, tonight, just do it!

A couple of past lives ago, I was part of KFAI, Community Radio in South Minneapolis, as programmer, live tech, and on the Board of Directors.  I got into it with zero experience, and no idea what to expect, and between that “on the job” training and seat-of-pants learning, and some journalism and production courses, and the ongoing four or five years of more than “full time” work in radio, I got a good feel for the role of the press, and the importance of broad coverage of events.  More importantly, I learned how much important info was not reported on, was not covered, utterly ignored by “mainstream media,” and I saw what an important role Community and Public radio played, TV too, particularly public and public access TV, is coverage of this neglected news (though I’m biased against TV, don’t own one, haven’t for decades, due to onslaught of commercialism and cost of cable, obscene!).  That’s one of the reasons Reagan cut federal public media funding, that was during my time at KFAI.  This public radio and TV coverae is why tRump is planning to slash budgets and eliminate Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, devasting impacts for a teensy .016% of the federal budget:

Report: Trump Administration Plans to Privatize CPB, Cut NEA

tRump’s attack on corporate mainstream media and public media is shamefully transparent because his targets are the ones exposing truth, fact checking him and reporting on his constant lies, challenging his delusional rants.  He’s branding mainstream media, trying them in the court of public opinion using the “if you say it often enough, people will believe it” theory, because he can’t prevail legally because he’d have to prove that what they’re reporting is wrong, and he’d have to prove it was reported with “actual malice.”  He can’t prove it’s false because it’s true — they’re reporting his lies, exposing his incompetence, his tantrums, which all the world can see him displaying with wild abandon and arrogance in videos across the internet.  What’s so odd about tRump’s “enemy of the people” framing is that these are mainstream media, by tRump’s own admission,.  These are not leftist propaganda organs in any sense. Fake news?  CNN?  New York Times?  ABC?  CBS?  NBC?  LA Times?  WTF?

Look at tRump’s “survey” about “mainstream media” to see his agenda:

Trump “questionnaire” bizarre and revealing

This morning I listened to much of tRump’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) speech, it was packed full of lies, twisted logic (lack of logic) and projection of his actions and agenda outward on others — that’s in addition to his usual narcissistic rants.  Observers were quick to point that out, with specifics.

Here’s the CPAC speech, listen in bits and pieces, because it’s too much to stand all at once:

Full Speech: President Trump at CPAC – Video – NYTimes.com

And here are a couple fact checks of tRump’s CPAC speech:

Fact-checking President Trump’s CPAC speech – The Washington Post

Fact-checking Donald Trump at CPAC | PolitiFact

Fact-checking Donald Trump’s CPAC speech | Miami Herald

Fact-Check: Trump Blasts ‘Fake News’ and Repeats Inaccurate Claims

CPAC: Donald Trump Hits Media in Speech | Time.com

This particular one was hilarious, because he claimed the lines to get in went back six blocks, but no, they didn’t, and the venue’s city isn’t even six blocks long!

Trump falsely claims lines ‘go back 6 blocks’ for CPACspeech

Not much later, Spicer chose to specifically prohibit attendance at his “gaggle” today:

AP, Time boycott WH briefing after other news outlets excluded

White House Blocks Major News Outlets From Press Briefing | KTLA

CNN, New York Times, Other Outlets Excluded From White House

The White House just blocked The New York Times, Politico, and CNN

White House blocks news organizations from press briefing

White House Excludes Selected Outlets From Press Gaggle

Despite this prior pledge not to ban news outlets from White House — but of course, the White House mouthpieces are documented liars, particularly, or should I say spectacularly, Spicer:

Spicer: Trump admin won’t ban any news outlets from White House

tRump, get a grip, and have someone read the Constitution to you and explain it.

Stop shutting out the press, stop trying to shut down the press.

tRump seems to be trying to build the case for his treatment of the press.  Or to see how his spin is taking.  Does he really think we, or the press, are this stupid?

Take the time to fill out this questionnaire, using the essay option, to demonstrate that we’re not a bunch of sycophant toadies.  Here’s the link:

Mainstream Media Accountability Survey

Here are the questions, note the negative and double negative framing that is pretty tough to parse out.  Here’s a pdf to preview, with jpgs belo:

Mainstream Media Accountability Survey

Photo of Memorial taken yesterday at Manzanar — eerily similar to Wounded Knee

America’s internment of Japanese Americans… It began with an Executive Order, after some groundwork was laid.  Does this sound familiar?

Yesterday, Alan Muller and I visited the Manzanar National Historic Site.  Every American should be required to spend a day there and learn of our treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII.

Manzanar, near Independence, California (really, “Independence”).  It’s the site of one of the ten Japanese internment camps, and yes, it was a prison camp.  Guard towers, armed guards keeping people inside the camp.  People who were rounded up and “evacuated” from their homes, their businesses, their communities, and put behind barbed wire.

How did this happen the United States of America?  Look around, right now, at what is happening and you’ll see that we’re on the path to repeat this ugly history.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, the order directing capture, rounding up, and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.  It’s fairly short, with a misleading heading, and far-reaching impacts:

Executive Order 9066                  February 19, 1942

Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas

Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220, and the Act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 655 (U.S.C., Title 50, Sec. 104);

Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas.

I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area hereinabove authorized to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies.

I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services.

This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority heretofore granted under Executive Order No. 8972, dated December 12, 1941, nor shall it be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with respect to the investigation of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty and responsibility of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas hereunder.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The White House,

February 19, 1942.

These are the areas picked for “from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.”

The striped areas including all of California, and parts of Washington, Oregon and Arizona were deemed Over 100,000 Japanese Americans were torn out of their homes, picked up, and put in “internment” camps, concentration camps by another name.  The states on the west coast were declared “military areas” of exclusion.  Though the word “Japanese” was not stated in the Executive Order, it built on racism and fear racheted up by the government in years prior, pushed by hatred of powerful and wealthy ones who stood to gain from internment, and who stood to gain from the resources Japanese Americans were forced to leave behind.  With little notice, and no due process, Japanese Americans were rounded up, put on trains, trucks, or took their own vehicles to the assembly areas, staging for shipment to the internment camps like so much cattle.  The photos and films of this process are disturbing, much like Holocaust scenes of people shoved into the backs of trucks, peering out through gates; of trains tightly packed with children waving, even holding American flags; of people standing in line with whatever possessions they could carry; of so many with expressions of horror, fear, anguish, and anxiety.

Life in the camps was hard.  Camps were isolated in rugged and unforgiving terrain.  Make no mistake about it, they were prison camps, with guard towers and barbed wire — no one could go out, until later when some were allowed to move east, if they were able to demonstrate that they had a job, a home, and that they would not be a burden on society.  On arrival at the camps, they were assigned barracks, grouped by families or just put into a room with strangers, with nothing other than what little they could carry on their journey, and were given a straw mattress.  Showers and toilets were primtive with no privacy.  There was a network of mess halls for meals and prisoners did the cooking, making do with what resources they had, farming, raising poultry and livestock, with   Over time, people made minimalist furniture, sewed clothes, established a hospital, newspaper, gardens, cemetary, and a camp system of government.  There were jobs for prisoners, from cooking, to sewing camouflage nets, to construction at the camp.  There were schools for children and adults, a choir, sports, but it was not fun and games.  They could not leave, and knew they had lost everything when they were forced to leave.

During internment, prisoners were presented with a loyalty oath, which was problematic, because they were imprisoned, their human and civil rights were disregarded, yet they were asked to declare loyalty to America, the same America that had stolen their lives and possessions and imprisoned them!  At that time they were not allowed to become citizens, and yet if from Japan they were asked to renounce their Japanese citizenship, and would then be without a country.

If you dig into the archives, you’ll also see photos and films of people dressed in finery, as if going on vacation — I’d guess these were the government propaganda photos, or films like this:

From that film, at 24:40:

We’re setting a standard for the rest of the world in the treatment of people who may have loyalty to an enemy nation. We are protecting ourselves without violating the principles of Christian decency.

Oh, right, this is an example of Christian principles?

Dorthea Lange – Inside a Barrack:

Dorthea Lange – Grandfather and Grandson:

Here’s a collection by Ansel Adams from the Library of Congress (Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication) showing day to day life in the Manzanar camp:

Ansel Adams’s Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar

From that collection, “Sumiko Shigematsu, foreman of power sewing machine girls, Manzanar Relocation Center, California”

Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project

Remember that this internment of Japanese Americans began with an Executive Order? Well, I’ve been tracking the tRump Executive Orders, and in particular the Muslim Ban of EO 13769 and the many court cases challenging it on behalf of particular plaintiffs, affected by the Executive Order, and most importantly, the Constitutional challenges of the states of Washington and Minnesota.

EO13769 -Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States

 This is how it starts, openly blatantly campaigning on a Muslim Ban, and don’t forget his statements at the airport hangar in Minneapolis:

It’s up to us to make sure this does not happen again.

Some previous Legalectric posts:

• tRump bans immigration from “certain” countries

• tRump loses again – Court upholds Restraining Order

Yesterday, I picked up a copy of “By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans,” written by Greg Robinson.

A review blurb on the back says it well, why we need to pay close attention NOW (more on this after I have some time to ruminate and digest):

Robinson’s book reminds us that panicky acts in a national crisis that sacrifice rights for which we claim to fight emerge not just from immediate insecurity but from deeper prejudices and fears…

Executive Orders… that’s how we got EO13769.  tRump’s EOs have been weird.  After making “Obama’s illegal Executive Orders” a campaign meme, he fires off messy, illogical, and yes, illegal ones of his own, and like Obama, it’s not just Executive Orders, it’s multiple Memoranda.  You can find them on the White House Presidential Actions page and at the Federal Register – Agencies – Executive Office of the President.  It wasn’t easy.  It took days for Executive Orders and Memoranda to show up, and so it was impossible to know exactly what he was doing, but then, it looks like he didn’t know what he was doing either.  For example, I was concerned about  his Dakota Access Pipeline action, Trump_Memorandum Dakota Access (note it is NOT an Executive Order).  In checking that out, I found an error (and fired off a missive to the White House Contact Page)!  You can see both versions here, they’ve filed a corrected one.

More importantly, this also happened with the Muslim Ban, EO13769, which I went over with a fine tooth comb because I don’t know much about immigration law.  The EO in Sec. 8 cites 8 U.S.C. 1222 which is about a physical examination, so I’d also sent a demand for correction to the White House.  It’s still wrong, LOOK AT SEC. 8, it’s not been corrected!!!  The Federal Register publication of EO13769 is correct.

Thankfully I wasn’t the only one looking.  Turns out there was a lot more than that, the versions published on the White House Presidential Actions page were not the same as those signed and sent for publication in the Federal Register.  WHAT?!?!  

WH posts wrong versions of Trump orders

White House posts wrong versions of Trump’s orders on its website

That there’s been insufficient thought and vetting of these Orders and Memoranda is obvious.  You’d think that where an Executive Order such as EO13769 takes such sweeping steps to exclude a classification of people from the US that they’d give best efforts toward accuracy.

Substantively, the Muslim Ban that is EO13769 is not about national security, that much is clear from the government’s arguments, more correctly the government’s lack of any evidence that it was about national security, and Washington’s evidence, as above, from tRump’s campaign website that the purpose was to prevent Muslim immigration.

Japanese internment.  Muslim ban.  Think it can’t happen here, again?  It’s been slowed, but EO13769 has not yet been revoked, and the anti-Muslim sentiments remain displayed on tRump’s campaign site.

NEVER AGAIN!

BE VIGILANT!

SPEAK UP!

TO DO: FIVE ACTIONS A DAY

It doesn’t take much to make a difference — and each of us must do what we can do.  We each have different unique skills and abilities which America needs right now.

Whew, what a long train ride.  This was not exactly relaxing, and was an example of the extreme weather of climate change.  There were two avalanches in Montana that shut down the rails, one, then tracks closed and reopened, then another, and tracks reopened the day before our train left (panic, looking at flights just in case), and then a mudslide that took out Amtrak service between Portland and Seattle and it’s still out, that affected both Coastal Starlight and Empire Builder, though they did get Empire Builder back in service in time for us to get to Portland.  Then the Oroville dam, OMFG, 180,000+ people evacuated  (and late yesterday, order just lifted for some).  Horses evacuated too, people taking over county fair grounds, how on earth do you evacuate 180,000 people?!?!?  And that meant that the Amtrak Coast Starlight couldn’t go through northern California past Redding, and had to go around the evacuation area, so it was to be a bus from 2:30 a.m. in Redding to 6:30 a.m. Sacramento, but that was delayed too as we sat on sometimes napping on a siding in the train until the busses of passengers arrived from the delayed northbound train at 6:30 a.m.  We were lucky and got to go on the nearly vacant crew bus down to Sacramento, and from there back on the train to Paso Robles.  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.  More on that later…

On the train, over dinner, it’s luck of the draw for dining companions.  One dinner on the Empire Builder, we were in the mountains where the avalanche was (dark, couldn’t see a thing). They seated us with a guy our age, and then a younger woman came in and joined us. Near the end of the meal (whew, good timing!) she said she’d seen this huge building in Chicago, and snapped a photo, and looked at it later and saw it was TRUMP! She said she was surprised and aghast!  Wanted to do some photoshopping.  Well, that opened the door, and the guy next to her, a recently retired intelligence service staff, boasted he was a Trump supporter and there was no excuse for all the violence (who’s being violent, 1 million women, NOT!) and he started going off on refugees, particularly Syrian, that the camps are ISIS infiltrated, and then how the courts were all wrong about the EO13769 because tRump’s Executive Order was about “national security” (doubt he’s even read the Executive Order or the Court Orders). The latter, he knows nothing about.

Blatant misstatements like that, despite our captive situation in the booth, AAARGH, I just can’t let slide.  I brought up the challenged language of the EO pretty much verbatim, the sections challenged which gives priority on those who are minority religions in those seven predominately Muslim countries, so on its face is discriminatory and unconstitutional.

… to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.

And of course there’s tRump’s repeated anti-Muslim campaign promises, and pledge to end Muslim immigration, which he leaves up on his website (I-N-T-E-N-T anyone?):

And then there’s the court order, held up by the Federal appellate panel that upholds the District Court Order granting the Restraining Order, where it was noted that even though specifically asked, the gov’t had provided no proof of any security basis, nothing, no evidence at all, and WA/MN had provided much evidence that it was religion based. The diner advocated for it to work its way through the legal system, but didn’t even acknowledge that 5 of 5 judges taking this on ruled against it, and this case is the general constitutional challenge, not plaintiff specific, and it IS in the legal system, losing at every turn.  He of course did not acknowledge tRump’s vocal public dissing of the judge and the Order, and now the 3 judge appellate panel and their order — HELLO — we’re looking at a constitutional crisis (tRump’s choice to hang a portrait of “Pres. constitutional crisis” Andrew Jackson should be evidence too!).

But our dining companion is not a lawyer, and not a reader or curator of the facts or law of EO13769,  just an “intelligence” worker if he’s going to raise it should be conversant of the Executive and Court Orders, who should know the backgrounds of those who have been terrorists in the U.S. (clue: not those 7 countries), and who should be well aware of the white U.S. citizen terrorists in our midst that tRump is removing from scrutiny by focusing only on those 7 countries and Muslims generally.  This tRump devotee is one of so many who don’t care about facts.  Expect that you will be challenged!

Then Flynn’s ejection happened, and I looked for our “intelligence” retiree yesterday to get his take (SNORT!) as I’ve been seeing rumblings of intelligence community revolt.  One would think that as a former member of this “intelligence community” that Flynn’s (and others) Russian involvement would trigger significant concerns about his leader tRump.  But as my ex would say, “Goes to show you don’t think.”

The tRump Regime is slowly coming apart, each day there’s something new.  Access to ability to challenge these things in the courts takes immense resources that most of us don’t have.  But each of us does have the ability to spend a little time every day to make more phone calls (202-456-1414, they answer now, but won’t take a message, forward to staff person, or open Comment line), send more emails, fill out more contact page forms, attend more Town Hall Meetings, and spread the word.  Figure out your focus, what issues you know best, and get to it.  It is having an impact.

Now, where is it that we apply to be “paid protesters?”