Category: Justice Democrats

DEEP STATE REVOLT: Federal Judges to Hold Emergency Meeting Over Barr and Trump

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by Kristinn Taylor February 18, 2020

Just weeks after President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate of bogus partisan impeachment charges by the House of Representatives, a group of federal judges will hold an ’emergency meeting’ on Tuesday. 

The judges will meet to discuss the intervention by Attorney General William Barr against the abusive proposed sentence for Roger Stone and the criticism by President Trump of the proposed sentence and the federal judge overseeing the case, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, as well as other actions by Barr and Trump regarding ‘politically sensitive’ cases before the judiciary.

The emergency meeting will be held via conference call with officers and members of the executive committee of the 1,100 member Federal Judges Association because, association president Judge Cynthia Rufe (a Bush 43 appointee) said, “We just could not wait until April to discuss matters of this importance.” The judges’ annual meeting is set for April 18-19 in Denver.

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The meeting comes on the heels of a letter signed by over 1,000 former Justice Department Deep State operatives calling on Barr to resign for overruling the punitive sentence of 7-9 years in prison proposed by federal prosecutors for Stone. The four prosecutors in the case resigned in protest over Barr’s intervention.

Judge Jackson will preside over a phone hearing in the Stone case on Tuesday. Stone has asked for a new trial after it was reported last week the foreman of the jury that convicted him is a virulent anti-Trump Democrat who posted about Stone’s case.

USA Today reported on the emergency meeting:

A national association of federal judges has called an emergency meeting Tuesday to address growing concerns about the intervention of Justice Department officials and President Donald Trump in politically sensitive cases, the group’s president said Monday.

Philadelphia U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, who heads the independent Federal Judges Association, said the group “could not wait” until its spring conference to weigh in on a deepening crisis that has enveloped the Justice Department and Attorney General William Barr.

“There are plenty of issues that we are concerned about,” Rufe told USA TODAY. “We’ll talk all of this through.”

…Rufe said the judges’ association is “not inclined to get involved with an ongoing case,” but she voiced strong support for Jackson.

“I am not concerned with how a particular judge will rule,” Rufe said, praising Jackson’s reputation. “We are supportive of any federal judge who does what is required.”

Rufe said the group has not decided how it will report the result of its meeting, if at all. “We just could not …wait until April to discuss matters of this importance,” she said.

After Trump took Jackson to task on Twitter last week, another jurist – District of Columbia Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell – appeared to rally to Jackson’s side.

“The Judges of this Court base their sentencing decisions on careful consideration of the actual record in the case before them; the applicable sentencing guidelines and statutory factors; the submissions of the parties, the Probation Office and victims; and their own judgment and experience,” Howell said in a written statement. “Public criticism or pressure is not a factor.”

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The Federal Judges Association describes itself:

The Federal Judges Association (FJA) is a national voluntary organization of United States federal judges, appointed pursuant to Article III of the Constitution, whose mission is to support and enhance the role of its members within a fair, impartial and independent judiciary; to actively build a community of interest among its members; and to sustain our system of justice through civics education and public outreach.

The independence of Article III judges is assured under the Constitution by their appointment for life without diminution in pay. Nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate, Article III judges are thus protected from intimidation, undue influence, coercion, or domination so that they may judge fairly and independently in every case, as the law and facts require.

Inevitably, from time to time, some judicial decisions are unpopular. The FJA, as an independent organization, can speak in one voice to protect the independence of the judiciary and to explain its significance to a free society. The Association expresses the collective view of Article III judges to other branches of government and the public on issues related to fair and impartial courts.

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Lawmakers Introduce Bill That Would Stop Grants to Sanctuary States That Give Driver’s Licenses to Illegal Immigrants

by Cassandra Fairbanks February 17, 2020

House and Senate Republicans have introduced legislation that would block certain federal funds from sanctuary states that allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses.

The Stop Greenlighting Driver Licenses for Illegal Immigrants Act would stop Justice Department (DOJ) grants that are a top source of federal criminal justice funding for states.

The legislation would target states that “defy federal immigration enforcement or that allow illegal aliens to get driver licenses without proof of lawful presence” and those that “prohibit or restrict a local or State government entity or official from collecting or sending to or receiving from the Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement information.”

In the Senate, the legislation is being introduced by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn and co-sponsored by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga.; Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Mike Rounds, R-S.D. Companion legislation is being introduced in the House by Colorado Rep. Ken Buck. His bill is co-sponsored by 21 other lawmakers.

“Tennesseans know all too well what can happen when illegal immigrants are granted driver licenses,” Blackburn said in a statement. “While Tennessee and many other states prohibit driver licenses for illegal aliens, a growing number of states are moving in the opposite direction and unleashing dangerous open borders policies. Immigrants must follow the proper federal process and obtain citizenship or lawful status before obtaining a state driver license.”

“In America, no one is above the law,” she added.

Blackburn’s office estimated that states that issued licenses to illegal aliens received nearly $53 million that would be impacted by this new legislation during the 2019 fiscal year.

The NCSL reports that fifteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain drivers licenses. These states—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington—issue a license if an applicant provides certain documentation, such as a foreign birth certificate, foreign passport, or consular card and evidence of current residency in the state.

“In 2019, New Jersey, New York and Oregon became the most recent states to enact legislation extending drivers licenses and identification cards to those without proof of lawful presence,” their report noted.

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More Americans infected with coronavirus

2/17/2020

The second of two flights carrying Americans home from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, quarantined in Japan, has landed in Texas. There were 380 Americans on board the ship, where dozens of passengers tested positive for the coronavirus.

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Customs and Border Patrol Set to Deploy Elite Units to Sanctuary Cities to Assist ICE

CBP is serious about enforcing immigration law, even in cities that intend to flout it.

By  

Customs and Border Patrol is preparing to redeploy some of the agency’s highly trained tactical personnel throughout the nation’s “sanctuary cities” in order to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The New York Times reported on the development Friday, that signals the Department of Homeland Security(which presides over both entities) is dead serious about national immigration enforcement, even in scofflaw municipalities that have sought to neuter it.

According to the report, more than 100 of CBP’s agents are being deployed throughout the nation to assist in ICE operations. It’s possible the agents could be tasked with apprehending illegal alien fugitives who are released onto the streets from local jail custody. They’ve been described as members of a unit known as BORTAC, an unit of personnel analogous to CBP’s SWAT team.

It’s common for sanctuary city jurisdictions to release individuals who are often violent criminals from custody, ignoring ICE detainer requests that the fugitives be instead handed over to face federal charges for immigration violations.

Sanctuary cities often create unnecessary risks to public safety by forcing ICE to arrest dangerous criminals off of the streets, when they could’ve been simply handed over from municipal jail systems to the federal agency. Eric Garcetti, the mayor of one of America’s biggest cities, openly admits that Los Angeles simply does not participate in immigration enforcement.

If scofflaw cities such as Philadelphia and Los Angeles are truly determined to undermine immigration law enforcement, then so be it. Attorney General Bill Barr has followed the lead of his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, in instituting new measures to punish the open borders cities, restricting them from federal law enforcement programs.

Conservatives shouldn’t be afraid of advocating for a strong federal government that will step in to perform the law enforcement duties sanctuary cities are cowering away from.

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“If You Show Up with Cancer and You’re 95 – We Should Say We Can’t Do Anything” – Bloomberg Explains How Healthcare will Bankrupt Us Unless We Deny Care to Elderly

by Jim Hoft

A new video posted on Sunday shows former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg explaining how healthcare will “bankrupt us,” unless we deny care to the elderly.

Mike Bloomberg: All of these costs keep going up. Nobody wants to pay anymore money. And at the rate we’re going healthcare is going to bankrupt us. So not only do we have a problem we’ve got to sit here and say which things we’re going to do and which things we’re not. Nobody wants to do that. If you show up with prostrate cancer and you’re 95 years old, we should say go and enjoy, you’ve had a long life, there’s no cure and we can’t do anything. If you’re a young person, we should do something about it. Society’s not willing to do that, yet.”

Spoken like a true heartless socialist.
How horrible.

 

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EVIDENCE: ANTI-STONE JUROR LIED DURING JURY SELECTION, TWEETED ABOUT TRUMP DURING TRIAL

EVIDENCE: Anti-Stone Juror Lied During Jury Selection, Tweeted About Trump During Trial

Mistrial!

National File – FEBRUARY 14, 2020

Tomeka Hart, foreperson of the Roger Stone trial jury, clearly lied during the jury selection process to obscure her own political activism and obvious bias in the Stone case.

Tomeka Hart, former congressional candidate and member of the Memphis school board, has recently worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She tweeted anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton material while the Stone trial was in progress, and she also previously re-tweeted a hateful comment about Stone from CNN’s Bakari Sellers, which referred to Stone’s arrest. (READ: Court Transcripts Show Russian Set-Up Agent Who Met With Stone Was A Mueller FBI Informant).

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Tomeka Hart lied to get selected to the Stone jury.

“So nothing that I can recall specifically. I do watch sometimes paying attention and sometimes in the background CNN. So I recall just hearing about him being part of the campaign and some belief and reporting around interaction with the Russian probe and interaction with him and people in the country, but I don’t have a whole lot of details. I don’t pay that close attention or watch C-Span,” said Tomeka Hart, identified by her life details matching a juror who was interviewed, according to a transcript of the jury selection process.

But Tomeka Hart does watch C-Span. She said so herself on Twitter.

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Tomeka Hart, who has been photographed with former DNC acting chairwoman Donna Brazile, is a political activist.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2012: “An Arkansas jury found Erickson Dimas-Martinez guilty of murder in March 2010. This past December, the conviction was thrown out. The reason: A juror had been tweeting during the trial. This case and others across the country show how the use of social media is disrupting the jury trial. While juror misbehavior is nothing new, social media have made it extremely easy—and tempting—to break the rules, and lawyers are increasingly using that as a reason for appeals, legal experts say.”

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Maxine Waters: CA Should Have More Say In Primary Because Of Big Money Raised At Beverly Hills Parties (VIDEO)

This is hilarious.

by Aleister February 14, 2020

For years now, Democrats have been claiming they want big money out of politics. Yet Maxine Waters just claimed on national television that California should have more sway in the Democrat primary process because of all the big cash generated for Democrats at fancy parties in Beverly Hills.

You couldn’t make this up.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Maxine Waters: California Should Have More Say Over Primary Process Because of Its Rich Donors and Fancy Parties

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) said that California should have more influence over the Democratic primary process because the state has so many wealthy donors.

“We have candidates who fly out to Los Angeles from everywhere to raise money,” Waters said Thursday on CNBC. “You would have two, three, four at a time in Beverly Hills having dinners and some of our contributors, who are very rich, were holding fancy parties, trying to accommodate the requests for donations and contributions.”

“The thinking is that if we are supplying tremendous dollars to candidates, we ought to have more say,” she added.

Watch the video below:

Does Waters have any idea how awful this sounds? Apparently not.

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Trump Slashes Neocon Dreams by Cutting Bloated F-35 Budget to Pay for Border Wall

By Jose Nino – 2/14/2020

The Pentagon is looking to divert $3.8 billion, mostly from its fiscal 2020 weapons procurement budget, to help fund President Donald Trump’s border wall, according to a report from Defense News.

Defense News listed the items that are expected to be cut:

A mass of aircraft purchases including F-35 joint strike fighters, C-130J cargo aircraft, MQ-9 Reaper drones and P-8 maritime surveillance planes, as well as ground vehicles and

In sum, the plan would take $2.202 billion in FY20 defense appropriations and $1.629 billion in FY20 overseas contingency operations funding and direct it towards the wall. The wall on the southern border is a crucial plank of President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Air Force and Navy aviation spending make up the bulk of the Pentagon’s cuts, with aircraft procurement being slashed by $558 million for Navy and Marine Corps and $861 million for the Air Force.

In the Navy’s case, the Pentagon plans on cutting two of the six F-35B short takeoff and landing aircraft that Congress tacked on to the FY20 budget. It will also slash two MV-22 Ospreys, claiming that “current funding is more than sufficient to keep the production line open.” Further, the Navy plans on eliminating funding for one of the nine P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft funded in FY20, declaring that the additional aircraft is “[in] excess to the 117 aircraft required.”

As far as the Air Force’s budget is concerned, the Pentagon cut funding for four of the eight C-130Js that Congress added for the Reserve and Air National Guard. The department said that funding for those aircrafts can be re-allocated for fiscal year 2021.

The request would get rid of eight MQ-9 Reaper drones, cutting off most of the funding Congress added for an increase of 12 MQ-9s. “The program is currently undergoing a strategic review,” the department noted in a written justification. “Procurement, if necessary, can be rescheduled to a later fiscal year.”

It additionally peels off $156 million for advanced procurement for the F-35A and cuts $180 million for light attack aircraft for the Air Force.

The Army expects to lose $100 million in funding for National Guard Humvee modernization and $194.5 million in Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck funding.

The reprogramming request also implements cutbacks of $650 million in advanced procurement funding for an America-class Amphibious Assault Ship, LHA-9. This ship is currently being built in Mississippi at Ingalls Shipbuilding. According its website, Huntington Ingalls Industries claims that the advanced funding Congress provided, “enables a hot production line and a supplier base of 457 companies in 39 states to build this powerful warship.”

The reprogramming also reduces funding for one expeditionary fast transport ship, which is built in Alabama at Austal USA. The Republican Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby has taken a particular interest in this project. According to the reprogramming document, the ship was viewed as “excess to current programmatic need.”

“The procurement exceeds the program-of-record requirement,” the document highlighted. “This is a congressional special interest item.”

Furthermore, the National Guard and reserves are set to lose approximately $1.3 billion in what the reprogramming request views as unnecessary funding. This decision was made due to historic under-execution of the previous year’s funds.

This is a solid win for America First and big blow against neoconservatives, neoliberals, and other factions that suck up the military-industrial complex.

The quicker that Trump’s wall can be built, the better.

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TRUMP HATER MISTAKES RED CAP FOR MAGA HAT, PUNCTURES EX-NYPD COP’S FACE

Trump Hater Mistakes Red Cap For MAGA Hat, Punctures Ex-NYPD Cop's Face

Man celebrating 50th birthday wore a hat saying ‘Make Fifty Great Again’

  – FEBRUARY 12, 2020

A former NYPD detective who was celebrating his 50th birthday in Nashville, Tennessee was sucker-punched by a woman who thought his red cap was a MAGA hat.

Staten Island resident Daniel Sprague was talking with his wife and friends at a bar called The Stage in downtown Nashville when a stranger spun him around and hit him in the face, shouting, “How dare you?”

“I was outside with my friends when some grabbed me from behind, spun me around and punched me in the face,” Sprague said.

On Facebook, Sprague wrote, “A misguided soul possibly not alone, who I’m assuming was not very literate, spun me around, punch (sic) me in the face and grabbing (sic) my hat while she was yelling ‘how dare you’ leading me to think she thought it was a MAGA hat.”

However, the hat actually read, “Make Fifty Great Again,” to commemorate Daniel’s birthday.

He was also wearing a t-shirt that said, “Making America Great Since 1970.”

When the woman hit Sprague, she may have been wearing a ring or holding a key because it left a gash in his cheek that was “pretty deep and goes to the bone.”

“She has issues, I feel bad for her,” he told WSMV.

Sprague and the assailant were escorted out of the bar by bouncers before he could call the police, but he did file a report the following day.

The former NYPD cop did say The Stage is a “great bar with great security and very professional.”

Touching on the political climate that likely led to the attack, Sprague told WSMV, “This is wrong,” and said people can’t just go around assaulting others “because somebody has a political opinion that doesn’t match theirs.”

“I love Trump, but I wouldn’t hit someone who had a Bernie hat on,” he added.

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department confirmed they received Sprague’s report and he’s currently waiting to hear back from detectives.

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