So Minnesotans showed the fuck up tonight (like we do) – thousands in the street protesting tr*mp’s latest executive disorders. And guess what happened? The old proverb “What if an emergency vehicle needs to get where it’s going” came to life, and the sea went silent and parted to allow it through (swiftly…literally the truck was going about as fast as, if not faster than, it would have been if there had been cars it needed to go around).
Please share this. This was a rare occurrence where an emergency vehicle needed to go through the route of a protest, when usually they have predetermined alternative routes, and it went completely fine. Also for the love of god, have more respect for firefighters/EMTs…they know how to do their jobs. They’re ready for anything, including working around protests.
So folks can stop using that tired old argument now (not that it was ever backed up by sources anyway).
Dude, I’ve seen an ambulance move through the middle of the French Quarter down a street of partiers at a snails’ pace, and nobody was horrified but me. Protesters are better than that.
I was at that protest and I take the bus down that street just about every day, and lemme tell you that fire truck was making much better time through the crowd than they would ever have made through traffic. They barely had to slow down.
I have seen an ambulance, siren and lights going, sit in downtown traffic for twenty minutes plus without moving. That’s not even because people were being dicks, it was just because every street is a one-way, there’s cars parked on one side and buses stopped on the other, and snow piles up on the edges and makes it hard to pull out of the way.
Protesters were out last night trying to help people. We wanted to protect them and make them safe. Not only do we know better than to block an emergency vehicle that needs to get through, blocking it would be the antithesis of everything we were trying to do.
Eartha Kitt speaking truth to power at a 1968 luncheon at the White House hosted by Lady Bird Johnson which resulted in Kitt being blacklisted in the US for nearly a decade.
let it be known that on January 18th, 1968, Eartha Kitt stood in a room full of white women at The Women Doers Luncheon, GOT IN LADYBIRD JOHNSON’S FACE, and told her that the government was sending the best of the youth off to be shot and killed and, in not so many words, that THAT was the reason the youth were rebelling. She ALSO stopped President Johnson after he made a statement claiming that mothers should be responsible for stopping their kids from becoming criminals and asked about “the parents who have to go to work, for instance, who can’t spend time with their children as they should”. It was brushed off by LBJ who only mentioned the funding for day care centers put in place by the recently passed Social Security bill, and then more or less said that the women at that luncheon should figure it out for themselves.
She was blacklisted, but she defended every word she said that day.
Holy shit this is big! A potential way to keep Steve Bannon, unelected political advisor and white supremacist, from having the power to co-authorize assassinations and attacks on foreign powers.
Lawblr side of Tumblr, here. I don’t think anybody even understands how terrifying this is. If the Executive can ignore the Judiciary, then we have a full-on Constitutional Crisis on our hands. Our country immediately falls apart. The only options for enforcement of judicial orders are 1) U.S. Marshals (which are ordered around by the Judiciary but ultimately still a part of the Executive as part of the Department of Justice), in which case we have an ACTUAL ARMED CONFLICT BETWEEN TWO BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT, or if the Marshals refuse to comply, 2) the Governor of the state, say Virginia, sends in the National Guard of the state, which leads to AN ARMED CONFLICT BETWEEN A STATE MILITIA AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
In case you weren’t getting the picture, let me be blunt and dramatic: this is literally Civil War-level shit right here.
And Trump has been in office a week.
This is fucking terrifying.
I spent the day at SeaTac (Seattle-Tacoma International Airport). We got very little done because CBP refused to talk to us at all. When one of the attorneys with us annoyed them so much that they finally answered their office door (she literally knocked on it for 10 minutes straight), they directed her to the press release on their website (side note: I don’t know if there even is a press release on the CBP website). They told her they don’t care how many attorneys show up, they don’t take orders from attorneys or judges. Senator Patty Murray showed up just after 4:00 & CBP refused to talk to her, too. I will repeat that: Customs and Border Patrol refused to talk to a sitting United States Senator. They refused other senators at other airports, too, according to a WaPo article I read earlier.
I had to return to Portland tonight because I have work tomorrow. ACLU & International Refugee Assistance Project attorneys will be back at SeaTac tomorrow at 5:30 a.m. (including my law school bestie, I am so proud).
There were 13 people detained at SeaTac yesterday who were secretly transferred to a detention facility in Tacoma, so the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project is working with attorneys to straighten that right out.
Basically: Shit is going down, y’all. The women I went up with today? Both were Arabs. One was from Pakistan, the other was from Lebanon (a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew walk into an airport…). When I asked them if I was overreacting by feeling like this was a coup-in-progress, they said no. That’s precisely what this is.
I thought we had a coup-proof system. I was mistaken.
Keep fighting the good fight, lawyers. And if you’re in Portland, I’ll see you at Perkins-Coie tomorrow at 5:30 for the L4GG meeting.
At Dulles, CBP has been stonewalling four members of the US House of Representatives, the governer and attorney general of Virginia, and Senators Cory Booker (NJ) and Mark Warner (VA)–the latter of whom chewed out the head of CBP in person. No dice. Not even with a federal court order telling CBP at Dulles, only them, and them in particular to give detainees access to lawyers.
And they’re pulling an old trick from the national-security handbook that’s been used to evade the courts on issues like domestic surveillance: “Lawyers and advocates still didn’t know how many people were being held in the secondary inspection area at Dulles or what their immigration status was, which led to a catch-22: Attorneys couldn’t file for contempt of court without having proof that legal residents were being detained and not being given access to lawyers, but they couldn’t get proof without getting access.” (x)
At least two VA reps have found out (via friends and family) about constituents being detained at Dulles, at which point CBP released them in order to dodge the access-to-lawyers issue. The representative for my district is on the warpath–and also on the House Oversight Committee. Here’s hoping these fuckers get slapped with contempt of court so hard their ears ring, then get hauled in front of a committee hearing to see if they want to try their chances with contempt of Congress.
All of which doesn’t even get into the Monday Night Massacre clusterfuck inside the executive branch, when the acting attorney general of the United States refused to make the DoJ defend the lawfulness of the immigration order in court. And was summarily fired and replaced with someone more compliant. So here’s also hoping the Senate puts Jeff Sessions through absolute hell on his role in all this before they vote to confirm him as AG.
One order deals with work visas; the other addresses social services for legal immigrants who are already in the United States. It’s an indication that the many immigration restrictions Trump has signed are not the full scope of what key advisers have discussed. The draft dealing with legal immigrants’ use of social services could have further-reaching implications for legal immigrants currently in the US than anything the president’s already signed.
Legal immigrants currently get access to some public benefits in some circumstances. But the federal government — already, under existing law — can bar someone from coming to the US, or from becoming a permanent resident, if there’s any evidence he or she will become a “public charge.”
Currently, the federal government looks at use of cash benefits (like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) when it’s making “public charge” decisions, but not in-kind benefits like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
This executive action, though — according to the draft obtained by Vox, which seems consistent with the Post’s reporting — would ask the Department of Homeland Security to issue a rule saying that an immigrant can’t be admitted to the US if he’s likely to get any benefit “determined in any way on the basis of income, resources, or financial need.”
People who use any of those benefits and are in the US on visas would be subject to deportation. And the order would even require the person who sponsored an immigrant into the US to reimburse the federal government for any benefits the immigrant used (something that the government can theoretically ask for in individual cases now, but rarely does).
This is draconian. It seeks to punish not only legal immigrants in the US and their families, but their US-citizen relatives. It’s a reflection of a worldview in which any benefit that an immigrant gets from the government is, in some way, a theft of American tax money — and punishes immigrants as thieves accordingly.
The draft order (or at least the draft obtained by Vox last week) would also seek to show this to the public, by using government reports to make the case against immigrants’ use of public services.
It would direct the government to publish regular reports on the benefits used by immigrants in the US — and how that money could be “reinvested” in the inner cities, something Trump proposed as a candidate.
One of the reports requested in the order would be a report on the cost of the entire Refugee Assistance Program — the program by which the US helps refugees get settled, obtain jobs, and learn English. Refugees are responsible for much of immigrant welfare use in the US because they’re not selected for their high earning potential — they’re selected because of their humanitarian need. But consistent with the forthcoming order restricting refugee admissions entirely, this memo sees refugees as a drain on the public coffers.
Unauthorized immigrants aren’t spared by the order: It would prevent families from getting the child tax credit if the parents are unauthorized (even if the children are US citizens), and it would prevent an unauthorized immigrant from being eligible for Social Security during the time he was unauthorized (even if he was paying into the system, as many do, using a fake Social Security number). But for the most part, this order doesn’t crack down on unauthorized immigrants to protect legal immigrants; it cracks down on immigrants, and their US citizen children, for the sake of the native-born citizens.
Trump’s immigration brain trust, including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions, have long been animated by the belief that immigrants are a drain on America — and their use of social services is one way to demonstrate that. Whether or not this particular executive order is signed, “walling off the welfare state” from immigrants in the US may well remain in the White House’s sights.
So, in effect, would this prohibit immigration of people with disabilities? Or families with people with disabilities?
Completely locked-in participants report being ‘happy’.
The study is in PLOS Biology. (full access paywall)
As someone who has met several people with locked-in syndrome, this is absolutely marvelous news. This opens up the potential for communication and all kinds of control over their environment.
“What do you mean, there aren’t any more rogue reapers?”
Crowley shrugged, reaching for his drink. “Seems that Death has been cracking down on that.”
“Death?” Sam and Dean exchanged glances. “Death’s been gone for over a year.”
“Death has,” Crowley said smugly. “But now there’s Death.”
“Hey.”
Sam and Dean spun around. “Billie?”
Billie smirked at them. “S’up.”
“But you–Cas–” Dean started to mime a gesture, realized there was nowhere good it could go and stopped.
“Yeah, he did,” Billie said. “Took long enough.”
“How—?”
“So, here’s the thing,” Billie said. She looked the same—almost the same, except for the fathomless depth in her eyes. “Losing Death made things…difficult. But filling a position like that’s not easy; someone’s got to be right for the job. So there’s a requirement. Whoever of us immortal beings proves they are the master of death can take on the role.”
“A master of death…” Sam frowned. “You mean, whatever Reaper can die?”
“Seriously?” Dean said. “You guys made a bet that the first one to kick it gets the crown?”
“Pretty much.” Billie shrugged one shoulder. “And of course we couldn’t just kill ourselves—can’t make it too easy.”
“So instead you’ve been following us around for the last year and a half…”
“Making crazy deals with us…”
Billie’s smirk widened. “Given your track records, I figured it was a sure thing.”
“So now you’re…”
“Death,” Billie said. “But you can still call me Billie. Just don’t bother asking for my scythe or my ring.”
“Hold on,” Dean said. “If you were playing us—all those threats you made before, about things staying dead, and throwing us into the Empty…”
“Were to rile you up,” Billie said. Paused. Kept smiling. “And because I believe in them. That’s why I dropped by—wanted to let you know that there’s some new rules, now that there’s someone to make rules again. It doesn’t matter if it’s me who comes for you or anyone else. You’re getting a one-way ticket when you die.”
Sam swallowed. “A-awesome,” Dean said, and pretended he hadn’t stuttered it.
“And Sam, Dean?” Billie said, over her shoulder as she started for the door. “Thanks for the promotion.”
Hearseeno 