California Is Burning-- But Trump Told FEMA Not To Help Because Not Enough Californians Voted For Him In 2016

There are dozens of wildfires raging across northern California right now-- primarily in Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Lake and Yolo counties. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. At least 5 people, including 2 first responders, are dead. During his Convention segment Thursday night, Gavin Newsom said "If you are in denial about climate change, come to California." Led by Ted Lieu, the majority of California's congressional delegation has asked Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to open an investigation into allegations-- watch the video from the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff below-- that the federal government improperly denied or delayed aid to California wildfire victims. The letter follows allegations from a former Department of Homeland Security official that President Trump ordered FEMA to deny assistance to Californians because of the political demographics of the state. Taylor said that on a phone call with FEMA, Trump told them "to cut off the money and no longer give individual assistance to California. He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses had burned down from a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the state of California didn't support him."





Trump has lost whatever bit of sanity he ever had. Although only 31.6% of Californians voted for him, that's still 4,483,810 people-- more voters than from any other states other than Texas and Florida. And most of the worst devastation from the fires were in Republican areas in the northeast corner of the state, solidly Republican CA-01, where a notorious Trump apologist and enabler, Doug LaMalfa is the congressman.

Ted Lieu's letter to Cuffari asks 4 questions all Californians should want to hear answered:

• Did the President or DHS officials improperly influence the issuance of any fire management assistance grant?
• Did the President or DHS officials improperly delay granting or deny any requests for an emergency or major disaster declaration?
• Did the President or DHS officials attempt to revoke or delay the distribution of any assistance that had already been granted to California fire victims?
• Did the President or DHS officials improperly deny requests from the State of California to adjust state and local cost share requirements associated with debris removal and emergency protective measures assistance?

Lieu asked every member of the California delegation to sign onto his letter. Most did-- but not a single Republican did. They rejected it out of hand. Kevin McCarthy, Devin Nunes, Ken Calvert, Tom McClintock, Paul Cook, Mike Garcia and, most shockingly, Doug LaMalfa all showed they would rather stand with Trump politically than stand with their own constituents in a life or death situation. California has 53 House members but just 7 are Republicans. In a justice world, there wouldn't be single California Republican left in Congress.

Liam O'Mara is a history professor in Riverside County running for the last southern California seat the GOP has managed to cling onto. Yesterday, after reading Lieu's letter-- and seeing Ken Calvert wasn't a signatory-- O'Mara noted that "Calvert is a hyper-partisan creature, afraid to buck this president and act in the interests of Californians. His spinelessness is part of the reason he's never chaired a committee and authored so little legislation-- he's afraid to stand out from the crowd. Our 'Representative' will never have the courage to challenge his own party leadership, even when doing so is transparently in the interests of his constituents and his home state. Failing to speak up as Californians die and their houses are destroyed is unconscionable and almost criminally negligent."

There's another corrosive "Devin" in the Central Valley-- it's a popular name among Republicans-- Devon Mathis of Tulare County, widely considered one of the California legislatures very worst members. His opponent is a young progressive first-time candidate, Drew Phelps, who told us that "Once again, California is faced with an unprecedented wildfire season. Meanwhile, to find out recently that the federal administration may have withheld past wildfire aid is extremely alarming. While our state leaders and the federal administration can bicker over policy differences, putting human lives at stake over those differences is never acceptable and should not be tolerated."

Jackie Fielder is running for California Assembly also, but in a November contest that pits her-- a staunch progressive-- against another Democrat, Scott Wiener, a corporate shill and conservative lackey of special interests. Jackie told me yesterday that "Californians affected by the wildfires are Americans, too. Whether the President likes it or not, he is their president. It’s disgusting he would let politics get in the way of providing relief for people who are being asked to leave their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs in the middle of the night. We simply don’t have enough resources to fight these fires and save lives."

How Surprised Are You That Trump's Department Of Homeland Security Heads Are Serving Illegally?

Illegal appointment

If you're looking for the worst villains of the Trump era, your head will soon be spinning. That said, no list can possibly leave off the authors of Trump's military assault against Portland, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli. As congressional Democrats have asserted, neither is legally serving in the government. Yesterday Washington Post reporter Erica Werner wrote the Government Accountability Office has found that "Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and his deputy Kenneth Cuccinelli are serving under an invalid order of succession under the Vacancies Reform Act." Their appointments by Trump violated federal law. "The Vacancies Reform Act," she wrote, "governs how temporary appointments can be made to positions that require Senate confirmation. President Trump has repeatedly circumvented the Senate confirmation process by placing people in acting positions-- including Wolf and Cuccinelli."

GAO said it was referring the matter to the DHS inspector general for reviews, and that any further actions would be up to Congress and the IG.

Wolf was a deputy chief of staff in the Trump administration before rising through the ranks, in part because of his repeated public professions of support for Trump and his hard line views on immigration. Wolf has played a central role in the government’s controversial response to protests throughout the United States this summer, actions some former DHS officials from both parties have said crossed the line.

Cuccinelli, formerly the attorney general of Virginia, is also an immigration hard-liner who also served as acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In March, a federal judge ruled that his appointment to head USCIS was illegal and that he lacked the authority to issue policy directives tightening asylum rules.

GAO noted that it was not examining the question of the consequences of Wolf and Cuccinelli’s improper appointments, or the impact on the actions they have taken in those roles, instead referring those questions to the DHS inspector general.

DHS quickly issued a statement opposing GAO’s conclusion.

“We wholeheartedly disagree with the GAO’s baseless report and plan to issue a formal response to this shortly,” DHS spokesman Nathaniel Madden said in a statement.

The GAO conducted its review in response to inquiries from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.

In a statement responding to GAO’s findings, Thompson and Maloney called on Wolf and Cuccinelli to resign from their roles.

“GAO’s damning opinion paints a disturbing picture of the Trump administration playing fast and loose by bypassing the Senate confirmation process to install ideologues,” Thompson and Maloney said. “In its haste to circumvent Congress’s constitutional role in confirming the government’s top officials to deliver on the president’s radical agenda, the administration violated the department’s order of succession, as required by law.”

Trump has publicly discussed his preference for having people in his administration serving in an acting capacity, saying this gives him “more flexibility.”

Trump ousted Nielsen in April 2019, and since then the White House has displayed an unprecedented disregard for the Senate confirmation process. McAleenan served seven months without a nomination, and though Trump has effusively praised Wolf, he has not received a nomination for the secretary position.

Across the department, career officials have retired or resigned from their jobs without replacement, and the White House has made no effort to push for the confirmation of its more recent appointees, despite GOP control of the senate.

The leadership page of the DHS website shows empty seats and interim appointments across the agencies charged with protecting the country from terrorist attacks and other threats, with more than 20 vacancies and acting chiefs among senior department positions.

In addition to the temporary appointments at DHS headquarters, none of the three agencies that run the country’s immigration system--U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)-- have a Senate-confirmed leader.

I frankly never really understood how the corruption-as-a-way-of-life New Jersey Democratic Party allowed a strong and effective progressive like Bonnie Watson Coleman to rise in the ranks and get all the way to Congress... but, then, Rep. Watson Coleman is a force of nature-- and now a senior member of the the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of its Subcommittee on Oversight, Management and Accountability. "DHS has been a serious problem in so many levels," she told me this morning in an informal conversation. "Can’t wait to change from the top down and looking forward to more humane policies. The Committee has called on Wolf to testify on the Portland nightmare (one of many); he declined saying we didn’t give him adequate notice. I’ve asked for him to resign. I honestly don’t see getting rid of him and or Cuccinelli until Trump is out. But we just need to keep calling them out for their lack of humanity, the chaos and disruption and their storm trooper-like actions. It’s disgusting, scary and as you know, threatens our democracy."

This is from the statement released yesterday by committee chairs Maloney and Thompson:

Why Hasn't Pelosi Pulled The Funding Bill For The Department Of Homeland Security?

Why hasn't the House Democratic Leadership pulled the bill for funding for Department of Homeland Security off the floor. It's supposed to be voted on next week? Are Pelosi and Hoyer actually contemplating funding an agency that is helping Trump deploy his private militia/secret police on our streets? Many people are wondering.

ACRE, the Action Center on Race and the Economy, is a campaign hub for organizations working at the intersection of racial justice and corporate accountability. They provide research and strategic support for organizations working on campaigns to win structural change by directly taking on the corporations that are responsible for pillaging communities of color, devastating working-class communities, and harming our environment. Maurice BP-Weeks, Co-Executive Director, was very clear about ACRE's reaction to Pelosi moving forward with the funding bill: "As Trump unleashes an all-out attack on our cities with his brutal, militarized, and out-of-control secret police, Democrats shouldn’t be appropriating another single penny for his out control and reckless fascist regime. Bringing any bill to the House floor to fund a DHS that is deploying a cold, calculated, and secret police force is not only unconstitutional, but also deeply immoral. Democrats ought to be pulling every lever they have in their power right now to defund and abolish Trump’s secret police not to pour more money into it. Unfortunately, their track record is lacking to say the least. Democratic leadership in the past supported some of the same heavily militarized DHS practices that disappeared, surveilled and terrorized the Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities around the country for decades, and refused to take action when undocumented people were detained in countless raids. We’re at another make or break moment for Democratic leadership. If despite all the calls to defund and abolish the police nationwide the House chooses to further fund Trump’s secret force, they will cement a leadership failure of epic proportions. The time for rhetoric and nuance is over."




PPP did a series of surveys for MoveOn, released this week, that show voters in Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina prepared to vote against Trump and his Senate enablers at least in part because of the way Trump is using military force against civilian protesters in Portland. "Majorities of voters in all three states," reported MoveOn, "oppose Trump’s militarized used of federal agents without identification, witnessed in Portland and pledged to expand into NYC, Baltimore, Detroit, Philly, and Chicago. And voters want Congress to act to rein Trump in on this front-- again, majorities in all states, and particularly strongly in North Carolina, where 61% of voters support the no-brainer policies included in Sen. Merkley’s Preventing Authoritarian Policing Tactics on America’s Streets Act (eg: must wear ID on uniform, no unmarked vans for detentions, etc.). This Resolution has 42 cosponsors in the Senate-- Tillis, McSally, and Collins are all absent... This is more evidence of the broader story we’ve all seen: Republicans in the Senate have been choosing Trump over their constituents and their country. Our poll also shows that this decision might cost Republicans their jobs and control of the Senate. In all three races, the Republican incumbents are trailing their Democratic challengers. 

• In Maine, Gideon leads Collins 47-42 (in the first poll since Gideon clinched the nomination).
• In North Carolina, Cal’s up on Thom 48-40.
• And in Arizona, Kelly leads McSally 51-42. 

If you follow Marianne Williamson on Twitter you have probably noticed that she is more than outraged by the Trump unconstitutional incursions in Portland and his threats to do the same thing in Albuquerque and Chicago. A few days ago she used a longer form to write that Trump has announced that his goon squad is "going to go into American cities with high crime rates and fill them up with militarized agents who will fix all that. How, exactly? Well, no one is sure, because violent criminals don’t wear signs that say, 'Me! I’m the bad guy! Come get me!' Our esteemed crime-busters from DHS will presumably do what they’ve done in Portland: pretty much take anyone around and grab them into unmarked vans, in one of those 'proactive arrests' meant to make people aware that they should not and will not do anything criminal… such as… standing around in public after 10pm. The situation would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous. My biggest fear-- I’m sure everyone’s biggest fear if they think about it-- is that someone’s going to get killed in all this. And then, my fellow Americans, expect all hell to break loose. The giant of the American spirit has been slow to awaken to the deeper problems in our midst, but it’s awakened now. And she’s pissed."

I don’t think the president’s goons from the Department of Homeland Security (I always thought that name was creepy), untrained though they apparently are, are being told to shoot lethal weapons at protestors. But that’s not the point. Situations like this are volatile and they shouldn’t even be happening. Only in a dictatorship do squads of secret police invade cities, presumably to establish “law and order” but doing nothing but spreading chaos and fury.

When running for president, at my CNN Town Hall I said we needed to be aware of the risk of encroaching fascism. No wonder the political status quo didn’t think those the words of a serious candidate, huh? But what an insane system calls crazy might not be, and what it calls sane might be what is bound to drive all of us crazy. Such is the state of America today.

Am I hopeful? Yes, because hope is a moral imperative. Am I cynical? No, because to me that’s an excuse for not helping. In truth, I think that in the long run we’re going to be more than okay; I think we’re going to be magnificent. I think we’re going to have Lincoln’s proverbial “new birth of freedom.” But not immediately, not easily, and not without pain. Not in the short term, and perhaps not even in the middle term. There’s no reason to expect things will not get ugly very, very soon. The president is sending his troops to cities whose citizens simply will not have it.

Nor should they. This has gone too far. There are times when you have to draw a line, and now is such a time. A dangerous man is trying to destroy our democracy and we must not let him. America does not belong to him; it belongs to us. And millions of us are buckling up.

After she ended her presidential run, Marianne endorsed several progressive candidates for Congress this cycle. I asked a few of them if they're as disturbed by Trump's display of aggressive authoritarianism as she is. You can probably imagine that Shahid Buttar, running for the San Francisco seat occupied by Pelosi, is incensed. He told me that "the democracy of which we are rightfully proud is fragile. It has sustained brutal damage at the hands of Republicans-- and Democrats-- who have openly embraced authoritarian policies for generations. Mass incarceration, domestic surveillance, indefinite detention, executive secrecy, and militarized police are all facets of a problem far worse than the sum of its parts: fascism. The generations that preceded us fell asleep at the switch, but the sordid abuses of an aspiring tyrant have awakened in America a memory of our civic commitments. Today, from Portland to Washington, we are taking action reclaim our sovereignty, resist the unconstitutional orders of a criminal president, and hold the corporate opposition accountable for having funded authoritarian agencies for decades without meaningful oversight. I’m disgusted by our so-called leaders, and horrified by their mounting violations of our rights. At the same time, the growing movement to defend democracy makes me immensely proud of We the People of the United States."

West Virginia progressive Cathy Kunkel notes that even in the most Trump-friendly state, Trump has been turning toxic. "Congressman Alex Mooney has spent the last four years," she told me, "defining himself by his support for President Trump. And here in West Virginia-- as around the country-- voters are not impressed by Trump's handling of the pandemic. Running on Trump's coattails is not the strategy it was 4 years ago."

Eva Putzova, a former Flagstaff, Arizona City Council member, lived in Slovakia at one time and this authoritarian outburst from the dying-- but very dangerous-- embers of Trumpism is not her first brush with fascis, something she tweeted about yesterday. This morning she told me that "Trump's Homeland Security forces are no different than KGB, STASI, and my home country's ŠTB. What we see in the U.S. cities today is what we fought against in 1989 in former Czechoslovakia. I'm extremely worried about Trump's abuse of power and the long-term effects it can have on our democracy, especially when we consider how the public health crisis limits people's appetite to protest that power."

History professor and Riverside County congressional candidate Liam O'Mara noted that his district, the 42nd "has been changing along with the rest of Riverside, but went for Trump from a combination of progressive apathy and Trump's own populist rhetoric. But while he claims to stand for the common man, all he cares to do is line his own pockets and funnel taxpayer cash to the oligarchy. And that's totally Ken Calvert's jam. For 28 years now, #CrookedKenCalvert has been serving his corporate owners in the defense and real estate industries, and actively making life harder for people in the 42nd. He likes to brag that he's helped with freeway congestion, but what he's actually done is helped developers throw up bedroom communities for commuters, thus creating that traffic, and then funneled jobs to contractors to deal with the same traffic... and never mind all the pollution. People are starting to get wise to Calvert's lies, and his full-throated support for reopening schools is just to help Trump's own play for reëlection. Crooked Ken doesn't care if kids die or get permanent lung damage, or if they bring the infection home to vulnerable family members. He cares only about serving Trump and the oligarchy. And people are talking about it. Is DC a swamp of corruption? Oh yeah. And we could have started draining it four years ago by electing Bernie Sanders. Instead we elected a swamp-monster like Trump, who brought in dozens of lobbyists to top jobs. Naturally, the long-term corrupt like Calvert drifted into his orbit, and now we have to knock them both out in November."

David Kim, is a progressive Democrat running for Congress in Los Angeles, promising a more activist and grassroots approach to governance than the incumbent, Jimmy Gomez. "As an immigration attorney who defends people fleeing dangerous governments," said Kim this morning, "I am incredibly saddened and disturbed by Trump's escalating displays of authoritarianism. I am equally disgusted that Congress has taken no proactive measures to address the current situation, such as pulling the bill for funding DHS off the floor. If our leaders allow Trump to oppress and silence the people with his fascist goon squad, then they, along with Trump, will be sent home in November by a mass of voters fed up with our morally bankrupt system. The American people cannot, must not, and will not let this country devolve into an authoritarian dystopia."

This week Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced a bill in the House to restrict the ability of the U.S. Marshals Service to deputize other federal employees to perform the functions of a Deputy U.S. Marshal. The bill would also prohibit the Attorney General from designating Drug Enforcement Administration officers to enforce federal laws outside of their Title 21 authority. The bill allows for an exception when the federal support is requested by the state governor. The bill is in response to what the Trump goon squad has been doing in Portland, a city represented by Blumenauer. Lieu noted that "What happened in Washington, DC and Portland is outrageous... We cannot allow this Administration or any future one to abuse its authorities against Americans practicing their First Amendment right to protest. In light of reports that the Trump Administration may use authoritarian tactics in additional cities around the country, we are working at breakneck speed to reign in this unfettered and troubling use of force."

Blumenauer sees right through what Trump has been up to, "From the dramatic influx of unnecessary federal agents, to the egregious use of violent tactics, it’s clear that the Trump Administration’s goal in Portland is to inflame tensions for political gain, rather than to keep our city safe. No community should face such a siege from the very people sworn to protect them. In order to ensure the rights of all Americans, it’s clear that we must fundamentally change the way federal officials can be deployed and used."

A Handful Of Congressional Republicans Are Wondering If The Nazification Of U.S. Immigration Policy Will Hurt Them At The Polls Again

Monday evening there were a slew of reports that Capitol Hill Republicans were freaking out over the Trump-ordered mayhem at the Department of Homeland Security. And, believe me, virtually no one in Congress other than Steve King (R-IA) was excited to hear that the White House's pet neo-Nazi, Steve Miller, had been unleashed with full authority to reimplement his reviled "zero tolerance" agenda. What comes after babies in cages? Babies in gas chambers? Republican senators are grumbling that Miller was never nominated, investigated or confirmed for anything and that he's running the whole show. Trump breaking the law himself by explicitly instructing border agents to just ignore the law and defy the courts, isn't helping either. "If judges give you trouble, say, 'Sorry, judge, I can’t do it. We don’t have the room.'"

The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim reported that Grassley was raging against Trump, especially when he heard that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Francis Cissna was on Miller's purge list. By Tuesday morning the NY Times was blaring that "Trump’s purge of the nation’s top homeland security officials is a sign that he is preparing to unleash an even fiercer assault on immigration, including a possible return of his controversial decision last summer to separate migrant children from their parents... But the longer term effect of the eruption of Oval Office frustration is likely to be a burst of hard-line policies that stand out even in an administration that has pursued an unprecedented series of executive actions and rules changes aimed at reducing legal and illegal immigration into the United States."

Jonathan Swan at Axios had the details for Republicans already on slow burn, reporting that "Trump has directed top officials to execute the most aggressive changes in immigration policy since his inauguration… Some officials consider the moves legally and politically dubious." Executive orders are aimed at making it "more difficult for people to invoke their fear of returning to their home country in order to seek asylum in the U.S.," largely by pretending the Orwellian fascist dictatorships in the U.S. protectorates in Central America are lovely places for people to live. Trump and Miller want to "change rules to allow the government to detain migrant children for longer than the 20-day limit allowed under the so-called Flores agreement... Sources close to Nielsen tell us that Trump and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller have called for changes that are legally dubious and would therefore be operationally ineffective."

• Nielsen has found Trump's demands unreasonable, and he has privately described her as "weak on the border," even though she oversaw actions that many viewed as the most brutal in recent memory-- such as the "zero tolerance" policy that separated migrant parents from their children.
• These sources say that Trump’s desire to make it dramatically harder for people to seek asylum in the U.S. wouldn’t produce lasting changes because they would immediately lead to court challenges. 

Is this going to have any impact at the polls? In other words, will the evangelical base still loyal to Trump continue to be fine with what his regime is doing refugee and immigrant families? Team Politico reports that even some of Trump's congressional allies are starting to worry. Senators are "urging him not to fire more top officials and warning him how hard it will be to solve twin crises at the border and the federal agencies overseeing immigration policy." And they're worried that Miller has taken over. John Bresnahan wrote that after November elections in which suburban voters rejected Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda, the president is once again making it the centerpiece of the GOP’s platform.

Texas Senator Cornyn, McTurtle's top deputy told Politico he has "no idea what Miller’s agenda is in determining immigration policy because he isn’t Senate-confirmed and doesn’t correspond with the Hill."

Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the most senior GOP senator, is trying to head off even more dismissals as Trump tries to reshape DHS into a “tougher” mold.

In an interview, Grassley expressed concern that Trump may soon boot U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Francis Cissna and Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, who heads the office of policy and strategy at USCIS.

“I heard that they are on the list to be fired,” Grassley said. “They are doing in an intellectual-like way what the president wants to accomplish. So no, they should not go.”

Republicans empathize with Trump’s frustrations over the border and Congress’ languid pace at changing immigration laws. They mostly backed him on his 35-day government shutdown over the border wall, buckling only as the standoff dragged into its second month.

Most of them hated his emergency declaration on the southern border, but only 25 GOP lawmakers between the two chambers ended up bucking him. And when Trump and Miller sought to tank an immigration compromise last year, Senate Republicans overwhelmingly sided with the president and left Democrats holding the bag on the legislative collapse.

But on immigration, the party is not in lockstep with Trump. So even as the president pursues more aggressive strategies on the border, the GOP might not stick with him ahead of an election cycle that has the Senate up for grabs and with Republicans eager to take back the House.

“He thinks it’s a winning issue,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican whip. “It works for him. It may not work for everybody else.”

...Centrist GOP Rep. Will Hurd, who narrowly won reelection in 2018, said the turnover in the upper ranks of DHS isn’t helpful during a critical time at the southern border, though the Texan expressed confidence in Nielsen’s successor.

“When you’re dealing with something that’s the worst we’ve seen in 12, 13 years, having to deal with that problem and having new people come in and deal with it is always tricky,” said Hurd, whose district stretches along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Moderate GOP Rep. Tom Reed of New York said he would prefer to focus on issues like infrastructure, drug pricing and health care in the 2020 election cycle, saying the issue of immigration is being kept alive “for political purposes.”

Reed also took a veiled shot at Miller: “One hard-liner is not going to dictate the outcome of this.”

But Miller’s rise in the Trump administration is merely one more indication of how the president gravitates toward the restrictionist wing of his party.

“The president is really unhappy with the results and he’s trying to find a different formula that produces a different result,” said Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 4 Senate GOP leader. “Unless you either change the court directives or the asylum law, it’s very hard to quickly come up with a solution. And the president’s frustrated by that.”

The problem for Trump is that that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Congress’ dithering on immigration in the six years since the Senate passed its “Gang of Eight” comprehensive immigration bill, which died in the House, is no surprise.

Republicans have been signaling to Trump that with the election coming up so soon, they're not going to be able to confirm any more hard core neo-Nazis he sends over the the Hill. Xenophobic extremist Kris Kobach has been widely rumored to be the top choice of fellow-fascist Stephen Miller to replace Nielsen or one of her fired-- or soon-to-be fired-- lieutenants. Yesterday, the Kansas City Star reported that Kansas' retiring senior senator, Pat Roberts, warned, dramatically, "Don’t go there. We can’t confirm him."

White House Nazi Stephen Miller Is Revamping The Department Of Homeland Security

Late Sunday afternoon, after the White House announced Trump had "accepted the resignation of " (rather than fired, a more accurate representation of objective reality) Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, the member of Congress who is often the tip of the spear on progressive immigration policy, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), released this statement:

Secretary Nielsen will go down in history as presiding over an exceptionally cruel regime that separated children from their parents and violated human rights. I welcome her resignation. But, that does not end our quest for accountability for the abuses that occurred on her watch and at the direction of this president. I hope the next Secretary uses this opportunity to reset the Department’s approach and lead with humane, common-sense immigration policies that are based on American values instead of hate.

Mike Siegel is running for a House seat (TX-10) currently occupied by the congressional architect of  Trump's "babies in cages" policy, Michael McCaul

I'm certain that Rep. Jayapal knows the Trump is likely to appoint someone even worse than Nielsen as the next head of DHS. Meanwhile, he immediately announced that Kevin McAleenan, the Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, is taking over as Acting DHS Secretary. Remember, this "resignation" Nielsen comes just two days after Señor Trumpanzee, suddenly withdrew his nominee to run ICE-- who had already been given the thumbs up by one of the two Senate committees charged with vetting him-- because he said he wants ICE to go is a "tougher direction." He's been fighting with Nielsen for not being tough enough. Perhaps the cages were too spacious?

Babies in Cages by Nancy Ohanian

Eventually her departure will be viewed as part of a total overhaul of DHS engineered by Trump's in-house neo-Nazi, Stephen Miller-- kicking Nielsen out was part of Miller's grand plan. Trump tweeted her resignation before she had a chance to resign; he's a really foul person, although I can't say she hasn't earned the abysmal treatment she's getting from him. This afternoon Miller made his move to purge mainstream conservatives from the DHS so they can be replaced with his kind of neo-fascists. Miller-- de facto immigration czar with no congressional oversight whatsoever-- ordered the ouster of Francis Cissna, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Randolph Alles, the Secret Service director; and John Mitnik, the agency’s general counsel.

On CNN this morning, Jeffrey Toobin noted that Kirstjen Nielsen "is a great example of what happens when you go to work for Donald Trump. He is the great reputation killer. Here is this woman who was a reasonably admired bureaucrat. For the rest of her life people will look at her and think, 'Oh, that’s the woman who put children in cages.'"

CBS News reported that "it is unlikely McAleenan would be nominated as Nielsen's permanent replacement. It's unclear whether he would have to resign as CBP commissioner to take the job, and whether the line of succession at DHS would even allow for such a personnel move. Those legal issues would need to be sorted out." 

McAleenan has worked as CBP commissioner since the early days of Mr. Trump's administration, keeping a generally low profile. In a 2018 interview with the New York Times in the height of the concern over family separations at the border, McAleenan called Mr. Trump's attempt to halt the separations with an executive order an "important recalibration."

In recent days, Mr. Trump has threatened to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border or slap tariffs on cars made in Mexico coming into the U.S. if Mexico and Congress don't fix the situation at the border.

[After Trump publicly humiliated her and threatened to fire her] Nielsen became known for her vigorous defense of the "zero tolerance" policy resulting in family separations at the border, blaming Congress for a "loophole" in the laws that needs to be fixed. Nielsen claimed in a White House briefing last year that the administration was merely continuing a policy from "previous administrations" that mandates separating a child who is "in danger, there is no custodial relationship between 'family' members, or if the adult has broken the law."

"As long as illegal entry remains a criminal offense, DHS will not look the other way," Nielsen told reporters at the time. 

Revolving Door by Nancy Ohanian

One thing we can easily surmise is that Trump, who never had any respect for Nielsen to begin with, didn't fire her because of the horror of the admission to a court last week that his regime says it will take as much as two years to be able to identify 47,000 separated migrant children and return them to their parents. One has to wonder if the evangelicals who are a hefty majority of Trump's base can countenance even that most unholy possible action by their "president" in service to their hopes of overturning Roe v Wade. There doesn't seem to be any bottom at all to their adhesion to what is clearly-- at least to everyone else-- Satan's man on the planet.

This morning, NBC reported that the straw the broke the camel's back with Nielsen was Trump's demand-- sounds like Miller's demand-- that the child separation policy being reinstated. NBC's Julia Ainsley and Geoff Bennett reported that Trump has been carrying on about this "for months" and that it wants it reinstated in a big way. Miller has pounded it into Trump's head that the brutality of this policy has been the most effective tool they've deployed at deterring asylum-seekers.

And on CNN this morning, Frank Bruni noted that "[Nielsen] will go down more than Rex Tillerson and Jeff Sessions as what it’s like to work for Donald Trump in this administration. Your reputation is shredded. You compromise your principles, and at the end of the day, you end up paranoid... She was paranoid in recent weeks because she saw signs she was going to be canned even though the president wasn’t telling her. How do you work in this administration? It’s an acid bath, not a job... They are at [Trump's] mercy and whims."

Things Politicians Want To Achieve-- Trump's Real Spy-Gate

It was easy to back candidates Ted Lieu, Pramila Jayapal, Mark Pocan, Keith Ellison, Judy Chu, Jamie Raskin, Karen Bass... They had all been in state legislatures where they had created records that showed how awesome they would be in Congress. None of them have disappointed. This cycle, candidates like Jared Golden (ME-02), Lisa Brown (WA-05), Ellen Lipton (MI-09) and Kaniela Ing have built tremendous records of accomplishment in their state legislatures, each one demonstrating an ability to put forth successful cutting edge efforts on progressive policy initiatives. And each one a leader beyond just voting well, of course.

What do I mean? Let me give you a simple example. Earlier this year, the Honolulu Star Advertiser gave a perfect and very typical instance in a report by Kevin Dayton-- State official wants study of government 'jobs for all'. If you guessed that state official is Kaniela, pat yourself on the back. He's proposing (House Bill 1992) a state task force to study whether Hawaii's state government can provide a job for everyone who needs one. That's a good way to signal constituents and to move worthwhile and cutting edge proposals forward.

The Trumpanzee Regime has a very different perspective on what to move forward. How about the Trump Regime moving ahead with its Orwellian-- i.e., fascist-- plans? The Department of Homeland Security has just announced that it intends to compile a comprehensive list of hundreds of thousands of "journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.," and collect any "information that could be relevant" about them.  Something tells me that conservatives are going to be as unenthusiastic about this as progressives. This is something that will separate the fascists from the conservatives. Neo-Nazis like Devin Nunes R-CA), Diane Black (R-TN), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Brian Babin (R-TX) might get excited about this kind of thing but mainstream conservatives will be pulling out their hair by the roots.

So if you have a website, an important blog or you are just very active on social media, the Department of Homeland Security is going to put you on a list and will start collecting information about you.  The DHS has already announced that it will hire a contractor to aid in monitoring media coverage, and they will definitely need plenty of help because it is going to be a very big job…

As part of its “media monitoring,” the DHS seeks to track more than 290,000 global news sources as well as social media in over 100 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Russian, for instant translation into English. The successful contracting company will have “24/7 access to a password protected, media influencer database, including journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.” in order to “identify any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event.”

“Any and all media coverage,” as you might imagine, is quite broad and includes “online, print, broadcast, cable, radio, trade and industry publications, local sources, national/international outlets, traditional news sources, and social media.”

If this sounds extremely creepy to you, that is because it is extremely creepy.

...Freedom of speech is one of our most foundational rights, and many are concerned that “monitoring and tracking” are initial steps that could lead to a significant crackdown on Internet activity. Just check out what is about to happen over in Europe.  The Internet has made it possible for ordinary people to communicate with one another on a massive scale, and any efforts by national governments to interfere with that must be greatly resisted.

Unfortunately, it appears that this new Department of Homeland Security program is moving ahead rapidly.  In fact, it is being reported that seven different companies have “already expressed interest” in participating…

Seven companies, mainly minority- or women-owned small businesses, have already expressed interest in becoming a vendor for the contract, according to the FedBizOpps web site.

All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to be nothing. Please spread word about this creepy new surveillance program to everyone that you know, because what they are doing is not right.

If you've spent any time reading DWT, you'd know I ran right to Alan Grayson with this. And he was ready. "There is a phrase," he told me, "that is already widespread in Europe, and codified in European law: the 'right to be left alone.' We’ll see how long it takes before we here wake up and realize that that’s our right, too."

The Trumpezoic Era

Sidd Bikkannavar

One of my friends is a senior VP at one of the major American investment firms. A couple of years ago her company took all the senior officers for a convention in China. They were instructed to leave their cell phones and computers at home and were all give clean electronics with no data. That seemed extreme to me. I recently spent a day in the Beijing airport. A friend of mine from one of the big Silicon Valley tech firms warned me to not turn on my phone unless I didn't mind all the data being compromised instantly. So I kept it powered down; never turned it on for a second. About a month later I got a bill for over $100 for calls from Beijing. I explained to my service provider that I never even turned the phone on in Beijing and after almost an hour of arguing with a couple of agents, they wiped the $100 off the bill. But they refused to discuss how the charges got there.

Who wants to live in a country like that? Have you heard about Sidd Bikkannavar? Although the name might give him a problem, Bikkannavar is entitled to run for president of the U.S. Unlike Ted Cruz, he was born in the U.S. He's an optics technology scientist working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Last month he was in Chile racing solar-powered cars in Patagonia. But when he tried returning home, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport apparently didn't like his South Indian last name. They detained him and demanded he hand over his phone's access PIN. The phone is NASA property and included sensitive data so he was reluctant to turn it over. The agents informed him they could detain him until he complied with their request which he eventually did. They took his phone (and PIN) away and returned it after getting whatever they wanted from it.

As The Verge reported, Bikkannavar is enrolled in Global Entry-- a Customs and Border Patrol program that allows individuals who have undergone background checks to have expedited entry into the country and made a strong case that there was no other reason to detain and search him other than illegal ethnic profiling.

“I asked a question, ‘Why was I chosen?’ And he wouldn’t tell me,” he says.

The officer also presented Bikkannavar with a document titled “Inspection of Electronic Devices” and explained that CBP had authority to search his phone. Bikkannavar did not want to hand over the device, because it was given to him by JPL and is technically NASA property. He even showed the officer the JPL barcode on the back of phone. Nonetheless, CBP asked for the phone and the access PIN. “I was cautiously telling him I wasn’t allowed to give it out, because I didn’t want to seem like I was not cooperating,” says Bikkannavar. “I told him I’m not really allowed to give the passcode; I have to protect access. But he insisted they had the authority to search it.”

Courts have upheld customs agents' power to manually search devices at the border, but any searches made solely on the basis of race or national origin are still illegal. More importantly, travelers are not legally required to unlock their devices, although agents can detain them for significant periods of time if they do not. “In each incident that I’ve seen, the subjects have been shown a Blue Paper that says CBP has legal authority to search phones at the border, which gives them the impression that they’re obligated to unlock the phone, which isn’t true,” Hassan Shibly, chief executive director of CAIR Florida, told The Verge. “They’re not obligated to unlock the phone.”

Nevertheless, Bikkannavar was not allowed to leave until he gave CBP his PIN. The officer insisted that CBP had the authority to search the phone. The document given to Bikkannavar listed a series of consequences for failure to offer information that would allow CBP to copy the contents of the device. “I didn’t really want to explore all those consequences,” he says. “It mentioned detention and seizure.” Ultimately, he agreed to hand over the phone and PIN. The officer left with the device and didn’t return for another 30 minutes.

Eventually, the phone was returned to Bikkannavar, though he’s not sure what happened during the time it was in the officer’s possession. When it was returned he immediately turned it off because he knew he had to take it straight to the IT department at JPL. Once he arrived in Los Angeles, he went to NASA and told his superiors what had happened. Bikkannavar can’t comment on what may or may not have been on the phone, but he says the cybersecurity team at JPL was not happy about the breach. Bikkannavar had his phone on hand while he was traveling in case there was a problem at work that needed his attention, but NASA employees are obligated to protect work-related information, no matter how minuscule.

Yesterday Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to John Kelly, Trump's new Secretary of Homeland Security about the incidents forcing Americans to unlock their phones. "These reports are deeply troubling, particularly in light of your recent comments suggesting that (Customs and Border Protection) might begin demanding social media passwords from visitors to the United States. With those passwords, CBP may then be able to log in to accounts and access data that they would otherwise only be able to get from Internet companies with a warrant. Circumventing the normal protections for such private information is simply unacceptable... In addition to violating the privacy and civil liberties of travelers, these digital dragnet border search practices weaken our national and economic security. Indiscriminate digital searches distract CBP from its core mission and needlessly divert agency resources away from those who truly threaten our nation. Likewise, if businesses fear that their data can be seized when employees cross the border, they may reduce non-essential employee international travel, or deploy technical countermeasures, like 'burner' laptops and mobile devices, which some firms already use when employees visit nations like China." Wyden's letter makes it clear that he is about to introduce legislation that will ensure that the "4th Amendment is respected at the border."

The term "Trumpezoic Era" comes from Alan Grayson. It's his idea. It came in a note to his supporters yesterday, a note about how, specifically, he would have made a difference in the Senate had the corrupt and stupid DSCC-- he blames Reid; I blame Schumer-- not sabotaged his campaign on behalf of yappy blue chihuahua, Patrick Murphy, Wall Street's favorite candidate of 2016 (FL- $2,161,722). Grayson, who once told me to expect that all the phone calls between him and I are monitored, wrote that he has a favorite drinking game-- "not taking a drink every time Donald Trump makes a fool of himself. That would make me an alcoholic overnight. The game is noting each time I would have altered the outcome if I had been elected to the Senate last year. So far, in Month One of the Trumpezoic Era, I count three instances."

Number One (Jan. 6):

When the Presidential electoral votes are counted, there is an opportunity to object in writing, and demand a House vote on the objection. By statute (3 USC 15), the objection can be on any grounds. There is only one catch: the objection has to be signed by at least one Congressman and one Senator. (FWIW, this is the only time I know when this particular 1+1 can do anything in our government.) There was no shortage of gutsy Representatives on the day of the Trump electoral vote count: Reps. McGovern, Raskin, Jayapal, Lee, Jackson-Lee, Grijalva and Waters all objected. (Waters also objected in 2000, to George W. Bush’s coronation.) Waters declared, pointedly, "I wish to ask: Is there one United States senator who will join me in this letter of objection?” The 48 Democratic Senators sat stone-silent.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have objected to the investiture of Donald Trump.  You bet your patootie I would have.

Number Two (Jan. 4):

Senators normally require sixty votes to clear their throats, blow their noses, etc., but there are a few exceptions. One of them is called “reconciliation,” The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 limited Senate debate on the annual budget bill to “only” twenty hours-- 20 very boring hours. A filibuster, in contrast, means unlimited Senate debate, terminable only by sixty Senate votes. Since the Congressional Budget Act limits Senate debate automatically, it prevents a filibuster for certain budget bills, known as reconciliation bills. Knowing this, right after the new Congress was sworn in on Jan. 3, the Senate GOP wasted no time and put a budget resolution to repeal Obamacare to a vote on Jan. 4. But on Jan. 4, the President was named “Obama,” and the Veep was named “Biden.” There were 52 GOP Senators on Jan. 4, but Rand Paul (R-KY) voted against the resolution. If a certain Senator Grayson had been there in lieu of a certain Senator Rubio, there would have been only 50 votes to begin the repeal of Obamacare, and the 50-50 tie would have been broken by Vice President Biden, sending the resolution to repeal Obamacare down in flames.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have voted to prevent the repeal of Obamacare, just as I did on 63 occasions in the House. You bet your patootie I would have.

Number Three (Feb. 7):

It irks me that Betsy DeVos testified that student loans increased by 980% during the past eight years, while Sen. Franken pegged the actual figure at 118%. Percentages-- isn’t that something that you learn by fifth grade? However, if gross inaccuracy doesn’t disqualify you to be President-- let us pray for the victims of Muslim terrorism in Sweden, amen!-- then why should it disqualify you from being Education Secretary? No, what really chaps my lips is the point that Sen. Sanders made about DeVos, which is that she can wear this t-shirt with pride:

“My Family Gave $200 Million to the GOP, and All I Got Was This Lousy Cabinet Post.”

DeVos paid good money for that cabinet position.

Which begs the question: America, oligarchy or plutocracy? We report, you decide. Because I remain uncomfortable with the concept that public office can be bought, I would have voted against Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. (I reserve judgment as to whether I would vote for her for Secretary of Religion, which probably is the gig she really wants.) And with Senator Grayson serving in lieu of Senator Rubio, Betsy DeVos would have lost. That would have taught her a lesson.

If I had been in the Senate, I would have defeated the nomination of Betsy DeVos. You bet your patootie I would have.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of nominees, I sure wouldn’t have opened the 115th Congress with those first few appeasement votes we saw on Trump nominees, until rank-and-file Democrats evinced their displeasure with that approach. I would have put the screws to every one of them.

Alas, I haven’t had that opportunity, because the corrupt Democratic Party leadership (first name, Harry) was enchanted, mesmerized, spellbound, bewitched and enthralled by the promise by my primary opponent’s father to provide $10 million for his vicious, vacuous campaign. (In the end, his father gave $500,000, not $10 million, and it sure was much-fun to watch my beclowned party cancel those TV buy reservations, week by week, waiting for Daddy’s money to show up.) I would say that the rest is history, but actually, the Trumpocalyptic history still unfolds, moment by moment, vote by vote, and drink by drink.

It's not hard to find cracks in the system in need of fixing -- like this Secret Service security gap

by Ken

Sure, I'm still processing, even though I think I was reasonably well prepared intellectually for an election outcome similar to what actually happened. My first thought: Now we know who will appoint -- subject to confirmation by a still-Republican-controlled Senate -- at least two new Supreme Court justices: replacements not just for Antonin Scalia but for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and possibly for Anthony Kennedy and/or Stephen Breyer as well. (Yes, I'm steamed that "Miss Mitch" McConnell and Company won their extra-constitutional gamble in refusing to consider the Garland nomination. Now, alas, there's nothing for it but to hope that this gambit can be made to come back and bite their smelly butts.)

But for now, I don't want to go there. I'm going to try to think, well, not optimistically, but (let's say) within the realm of possibility. Let's say that President Trump really means to begin repairing our broken system. The Washington Post's Joe Davidson, whose "Federal Insider" beat is the seamy underbelly of the federal government, sensibly had one such instance ready to roll today regardless of the election outcome, under the headline "Secret Service IT management slammed following Chaffetz breach" (links onsite):

Now that the votes are in and the presidential campaign is done, the Secret Service can close an incredibly busy election season.

Perhaps it can turn some of that energy to protecting its computer systems, which suffer from neglect, ignorance and bad management, according to a watchdog’s report.

The report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Homeland Security is related to the agency’s breach and leak of personal information belonging to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) last year. That was another in a string of embarrassments for a law enforcement agency that has had such a proud tradition.

A 2015 OIG investigation found that 45 employees got into Chaffetz’s 2003 Secret Service job application. Only four had a legitimate need, leaving the rest in violation of the Privacy Act and agency policies. The file snooping began minutes after Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, opened a hearing into allegations of agents’ misconduct.

Chaffetz said the current report, issued last month, shows that “despite past warnings, USSS [U.S. Secret Service] is still unable to assure us their IT systems are safe.” In a letter to Inspector General John Roth, Chaffetz also said the discipline for some agents in his case “is not adequate to deter similar behavior in the future” and asked Roth to continue his investigation.

The October report goes well beyond the Chaffetz case and dissects the agency’s information technology operation in scathing particulars.

Summing up the report, the inspector general’s office offered this mouthful: The “audit uncovers a myriad of problems with Secret Service’s IT management including inadequate system security plans, systems with expired authorities to operate, inadequate access and audit controls, noncompliance with logical access requirements, inadequate privacy protections, and over-retention of records. The OIG concluded that Secret Service’s IT management was ineffective because Secret Service has historically not given it priority. The Secret Service CIO’s [Chief Information Officer] Office lacked authority, inadequate attention was given to updating IT policies, and Secret Service personnel were not given adequate training regarding IT security and privacy.”

The Secret Service agreed with the report’s 11 recommendations, even though officials believe it does not reflect the agency’s recent IT progress. In a memorandum responding to the report, Secret Service Director Joseph P. Clancy noted last year’s hiring of retired Marine Brig. Gen. Kevin Nally as CIO and “the sweeping and unprecedented improvements” under his leadership.

THERE'S ONE OBVIOUS CAVEAT TO THE ABOVE

Of course the "Chaffetz breach" became an issue, to the extent that it became an issue, almost entirely because in this instance the victim of governmental abuse was not just a right-winger but a far-far-right-winger and the loudest of loudmouths (maybe somebody out there can help? I'm racking my brain for a kinder and gentler term than "crackpot") as well. I think it's safe to say that such instances have been overwhelmingly the exception even in a Democratic administration. Projecting ahead to a federal government staffed with Trump appointees . . . well, you can finish that sentence for yourself. And with a Republican Congress still in charge -- and overseen by people we know only too well -- it's hard to imagine much impulse to reforms that would clamp down on all governmental abuses.

Then again, maybe the president-elect is serious about fixing our broken system. (Did I hear somebody laugh? Or was that crying?)


COMING UP FRIDAY --

For my next post, I promise one with (almost) no reference at all to the election or the present political mess. It's something I had in mind for today, but I thought we needed to do a smidge of transitioning.

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National Security Watch: Congress just manages to eke out an extra week to take another stab at doing its job

by Ken

Feel free to "Read more" if you like. Myself, I just clicked through to get the link for you, to the piece headlined "Congress averts Homeland Security shutdown with one-week extension." I'd just as soon not dwell on the combination of savagery and imbecility we now have passing itself off as a "government."

I just have one small thought to toss in in response to this national disgrace. It seems to me that the people who have made the funding of DHS undoable are part of the chorus of red-blooded patriots who bray and screech at every opportunity about all the limp-wristed America-haters whose inability or unwillingness to act like real manlymen causes the world, and in particular the villains of the world, to treat America with contempt. You know, wimps like our Kenyan Muslim president, the one who doesn't love America.

(This is, of course, the gutless weak President Obama, not to be confused with the blood-thirsty tyrannical dictator who is the most massively executively overreaching tyrant since the heyday of Caesar Augustus, Ivan the Terrible, and Hitler. We'll be sure to let you know when we're talking about that President Obama.)

So my small thought for today is: What might the rest of the world, including all those dastardly villains, think of an America that is overrun, and even run, by grotesque buffoons like these?

Buffoons who preach the gospel of "National Security" but whose ranks are filled with war wimps who love preaching war but who themselves never served in the military and pulled every string they could get their grubby mitts on to make sure that no blood relation of theirs ever did. Gutless piles of puke who, although themselves from families of immigrants, bray and screech about immigrants who in reality do the nationi's grunt jobs at near-slave wages but are imagined to be savage hordes penetrating our borders to deliver the country unto godless Commies, or godless Ebola, or godless Islam -- whichever demon their tiny brains are salivating over at the moment. Mental defectives who routinely come up empty when it comes to the things that really do affect our actual nationial security.

Yes, I bet the rest of the world -- both would-be enemies and would-be friends -- is mightily impressed to learn that that 20-day extension of DHS funding, a goal that apparently represented the very height of their ambitions, proved just impossibly out of reach.

That's all. You can go back to whatever you were doing.

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