Supreme Court Takes Coward’s Way Out on Trans People’s Rights

From the New York Times…

Prompted by the Trump administration’s reversal of the federal government’s position on transgender rights, the Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would not decide whether a transgender boy in Virginia could use the boys’ bathroom at his high school.

The decision not to take his case, which came as the court is awaiting the appointment of a ninth member, means there will be no ruling on the highly charged issue of transgender rights this term. The issue will almost certainly return to the Supreme Court, probably in a year or two.

Until then, lawsuits in the lower courts will proceed, the political climate and public opinion may shift, and the court’s composition will almost certainly change.

Monday’s development was a setback for transgender rights advocates, who had hoped the Supreme Court, which established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage two years ago, would aid their cause.

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In More Very Obvious News, Jeff Session is a Lying Liar Who Lies

From the Washington Post…

Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race.

The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election. As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department and the FBI, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates. He has so far resisted calls to recuse himself.

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So Now These Anti-Semitic Attacks are False Flag Operations…?

From the Washington Post…

President Trump seemed to suggest Tuesday that the recent bomb threats and vandalism at Jewish community centers and cemeteries across the country might be false flags, according to a Democratic attorney general who met with him. And Trump’s comments came the same day that one of his top advisers suggested the culprits could be Democrats.

It wouldn’t be the first time Trump went down this road.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) told reporters Tuesday that Trump expressed horror at the situation but also appeared to suggest it might not be anti-Semitism and that it could be “the reverse,” The Post’s Mark Berman confirmed.

It’s not anti-Semitism, folks! It’s Democrats fomenting unrest and anger!

Yet Another Man Who Called Himself a Feminist and Clearly Wasn’t

(Content note: discussion of abuse)

I started listening to Citizen Radio back in, I think, 2012… or possibly earlier. It was the very first truly left-wing podcast I had ever heard. In fact, I think it was the first podcast I ever listened to at all.

At the time, I was still pretty right-wing/Libertarian in my thinking. I found them while looking for something that would challenge my thinking/worldview, and, as should be obvious by now, it worked. Through them I found Radio Dispatch, Democracy Now, Tell the Bartender (and through that podcast I found The Struggle Bus), and Best of the Left. Through Best of the Left I found This Week in Blackness Prime, and through them I found The Black Guy Who Tips, The Read, the Three Fifs podcast, Keith and the Girl, Applying it Liberally, the Friend Zone, and many more.

So I always rather loved Allison Kilkenny and Jamie Kilstein. I even saw Jamie live at one of his improv shows in NYC.

So maybe that’s why, despite the fact that, in hindsight, I really shouldn’t be surprised, this was like a punch in the gut to me:

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So… ICE Employees are Saying That Their Job is “Fun Again”

I’m watching TWiBPrime live right now, and they are currently talking about this, from the New York Times…

The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said on Tuesday that the president wanted to “take the shackles off” of agents, an expression the officers themselves used time and again in interviews to describe their newfound freedom.

“Morale amongst our agents and officers has increased exponentially since the signing of the orders,” the unions representing ICE and Border Patrol agents said in a joint statement after President Trump issued the executive orders on immigration late last month.

…

Two officials in Washington said that the shift — and the new enthusiasm that has come with it — seems to have encouraged pro-Trump political comments and banter that struck the officials as brazen or gung-ho, like remarks about their jobs becoming “fun.” Those who take less of a hard line on unauthorized immigrants feel silenced, the officials said.

Yup. Their job is becoming “fun”… because Agent Orange has rolled back President Obama’s regulations on ICE (basically, he wanted them to only focus on the worst criminal offenders, whereas Agent Orange basically wants them to intimidate and arrest anyone who isn’t white).

This is even grosser because one of President Obama’s nicknames was “Deporter in Chief” for a reason (though there is some nuance to be discussed with this one).

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

From AlterNet: Did the Government Doctor Legal Documents in Order to Illegally Deport a Dreamer?

It actually looks like they did…

As a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Daniel Ramirez-Medina’s status as a legal resident of the U.S. should have been fully ensured. Despite that protection, Ramirez-Medina was arrested by federal agents during a raid of his home near Seattle, Washington, on February 10. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contends Ramirez-Medina is a “self-admitted” gang member who filled out documentation attesting to that fact. But his attorneys say the document upon which the government’s case rests has been doctored to intentionally create a gang affiliation, and grounds for deportation, where none exists.

Ramirez-Medina is currently being held at a facility in Tacoma. Last week, he petitioned to be removed from a unit that houses gang members. In the request, Ramirez-Medina wrote, “I came in and the officers said I have gang affiliation with gangs so I wear an orange uniform. I do not have a criminal history and I’m not affiliated with any gangs.” But according to his lawyers, when the document made its way back to Ramirez-Medina five days later, a key phrase had been deleted.

“I have gang affiliation with gangs so I wear an orange uniform,” the paperwork now read. “I do not have a criminal history and I’m not affiliated with any gangs.”

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In Obvious and Obviously Horrible News…

From AlterNet…

In early 2016, few evangelical leaders were on Team Trump, as they had Ted Cruz and other conservative Christians to choose from in a crowded Republican presidential field. After Donald Trump embarrassed his GOP competition and became the party’s nominee, prominent evangelicals began changing their tune. Some, including a number of outspoken anti-LGBT activists, worked with the Trump campaign on a large evangelical advisory board. After Trump won the presidency with 81 percent of the white evangelical vote, most far-right Christian leaders who hadn’t endorsed him came around. Many were gleeful, and some even pronounced that God had stepped in and handed Trump the job.

That excitement has grown since the election as Trump prepared for and took office, nominating several ultra-conservative Christians for key posts and promptly following through on several of his campaign promises tailored to evangelical voters. Trump had already picked far-right evangelical Mike Pence for vice president. Then he nominated Betsy DeVos, who was raised in a Calvinist community in Michigan, for secretary of education and Seventh-Day Adventist Ben Carson for Housing and Urban Development secretary, and appointed several other conservative Christians to additional top positions in the administration.

Ronnie Floyd, an Arkansas megachurch pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, told the Washington Post that the Trump administration was full of “followers of Christ,” not just DeVos but Health and Human Services Sec. Tom Price, EPA head Scott Pruitt, Energy nominee Rick Perry, Agriculture nominee Sonny Perdue and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

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ICE Has Detained a Brain Tumor Patient

In case you were wondering how fucking evil they are…

From AlterNet:

Less than a week after reports surfaced that an undocumented immigrant in El Paso, Texas, was detained after claiming to be a victim of domestic abuse and receiving a protective order, yet another undocumented immigrant has been rounded up while at her most vulnerable.

An undocumented Salvadoran immigrant known only as Sara was involuntarily taken to Prairieland Detention Center despite her having a brain tumor, according to a report by The Hill. At the time she was apprehended, Sara was a patient at Huguley Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, and receiving treatment for her illness.

Melissa Zuniga, a member of Sara’s legal team, told The Hill, “She told us they tied her hands and ankles in her condition. She’s complaining of a lot of pain.” Sara has been denied the ability to speak with her family and lawyers despite having received clearance from the hospital and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to The Hill.

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