Patrick's Notebook

by Hamilton Nolan

Trump has realized that our vast post-9/11 security state can be used to police internal bogeymen like antifa

A strange and necessary ingredient of America’s descent towards fascism is that it will have little impact on the majority of people. As militarized federal agents are deployed into major cities to snatch protesters and charge them with harsh federal crimes for daring to deface the ruling party’s monuments, most Americans will continue living their normal lives with no discernible changes, at least for the time being. People wake up and eat breakfast and spend their days doing mundane tasks in fascist countries, too.

If there was ever a tipping point, we are past it. Trying to stare hard at the daily news to determine the exact point at which we slip into fascism is like staring at a baby to see when it turns into an adult. By the time you perceive it, it’s already happened. It is important to understand that the crackdown phase that we are now in – the unaccountable government forces, the riot police, the teargas, the targeted political prosecutions that will come next – are not something new, but something old. This isn’t about Donald Trump. This is about America, baby. This is what we do. » Read the rest of this entry «

by W.E.B. DuBois

The South cared only for State Rights as a weapon to defend slavery

Historian and civil rights organizer, W.E.B. DuBois, wrote this short essay in 1928.

Each year on the 19th of January, there is renewed effort to canonize Robert E. Lee, the greatest confederate general. His personal comeliness, his aristocratic birth and his military prowess all call for the verdict of greatness and genius. But one thing–one terrible fact–militates against this, and that is the inescapable truth that Robert E. Lee led a bloody war to perpetuate slavery. Copperheads like The New York Times may magisterially declare, “Of course, he never fought for slavery.” Well, for what did he fight? State rights? Nonsense. The South cared only for State Rights as a weapon to defend slavery. If nationalism had been a stronger defense of the slave system than particularism, the South would have been as nationalistic in 1861 as it had been in 1812.

No. People do not go to war for abstract theories of government. They fight for property and privilege, and that was what Virginia fought for in the Civil War. And Lee followed Virginia. He followed Virginia not because he particularly loved slavery (although he certainly did not hate it), but because he did not have the moral courage to stand against his family and his clan. Lee hesitated and hung his head in shame, because he was asked to lead armies against human progress and Christian decency and did not dare refuse. He surrendered not to Grant, but to Negro Emancipation. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Chris Robertson, news.sky.com

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman to be elected to the US House of Representatives, has delivered a powerful speech in response to a congressman who allegedly verbally abused her.

The Democratic congresswoman claims that Republican Ted Yoho called her a “fucking bitch” and said she was “out of [her] freaking mind” on the steps of the Capitol Building in Washington DC.

Mr Yoho issued a public apology the following day but denied using the alleged language, saying it was a “policy discussion”.

In a passionate 10-minute speech in the House on Thursday, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who is known as AOC, rejected Mr Yoho’s apology and called out a culture of accepting “violence and violent language against women [and] an entire structure of power that supports that”.

She said: “I have waited tables in restaurants. I have ridden the subway. I have walked the streets in New York City. And this kind of language is not new.

“I have tossed men out of bars that have used language like Mr Yoho’s, and I have encountered this type of harassment riding the subway in New York City. This is not new.” » Read the rest of this entry «

by Mara Hvistendahl at theintercept.com

While doctors and politicians still struggle to convince Americans to take the barest of precautions against Covid-19 by wearing a mask, the Department of Homeland Security has an opposite concern, according to an “intelligence note” found among the BlueLeaks trove of law enforcement documents: Masks are breaking police facial recognition.

The rapid global spread and persistent threat of the coronavirus has presented an obvious roadblock to facial recognition’s similar global expansion. Suddenly everyone is covering their faces. Even in ideal conditions, facial recognition technologies often struggle with accuracy and have a particularly dismal track record when it comes to identifying faces that aren’t white or male. Some municipalities, startled by the civil liberties implications of inaccurate and opaque software in the hands of unaccountable and overly aggressive police, have begun banning facial recognition software outright. But the global pandemic may have inadvertently provided a privacy fix of its own — or for police, a brand new crisis. » Read the rest of this entry «

from rt.com

Den Hollander; Esther Salas; Jeffrey Epstein

The attorney suspected of shooting Judge Esther Salas’ son and husband is being portrayed as a misogyny-crazed “anti-feminist,” but there seems to be more to the story, including links to the Deutsche Bank case Salas was hearing.

Roy Den Hollander, found dead of an allegedly self-inflicted gunshot wound in a car in the New York Catskills on Monday, has been fingered by authorities as the primary suspect in the shooting of Salas’ son and husband at their New Jersey home on Sunday. Other than the FedEx uniform he was wearing when discovered and a package in his car addressed to the judge, however, it’s not clear what links him to the scene – or what his motive was, if indeed he was the shooter.

Den Hollander described himself on his website as a specialist in “anti-feminist litigation, investigations, and advice on general corporate matters.” The media explanation suggested the lawyer hated Salas, whom he once dissed as a “lazy and incompetent Latina judge appointed by Obama,” enough to hunt her down five years later and attempt to kill her family. While he had a case before the judge in 2015 that didn’t go well, that motive doesn’t explain why he’d shoot her male relatives without trying to find her, or why he would then kill himself. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Jill Colvin and Colleen Long, Associated Press

Trump sees a threat within the U.S. and one that similarly plays to his base

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is planning to deploy federal agents to Chicago and possibly other Democrat-run cities as he continues to assert federal power and use the Department of Homeland Security in unprecedented, politicized ways.

DHS is slated to send about 150 Homeland Security Investigations agents to Chicago to help local law enforcement deal with a spike in crime, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

The agents, which are generally used to conduct investigations into human trafficking, drugs and weapons smuggling, were expected to stay in Chicago at least two months, according to the official. It’s not clear exactly how they will back up local law enforcement or when they will arrive, but they will make arrests for federal crimes, not local ones. » Read the rest of this entry «

by John Yoo

DACA recipients and their supporters celebrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. June 18, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

According to Chief Justice Roberts, the Constitution makes it easy for presidents to violate the law, but reversing such violations difficult — especially for their successors.

Suppose President Donald Trump decided to create a nationwide right to carry guns openly. He could declare that he would not enforce federal firearms laws, and that a new “Trump permit” would free any holder of state and local gun-control restrictions.

Even if Trump knew that his scheme lacked legal authority, he could get away with it for the length of his presidency. And, moreover, even if courts declared the permit illegal, his successor would have to keep enforcing the program for another year or two.

That incredible outcome is essentially what happened with the Supreme Court decision last week in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California (the latter being my employer, I might add). Regents blocked President Trump’s repeal of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which halted the deportation of aliens brought to the U.S. illegally as children, and a parallel 2014 program that suspended the removal of their parents (DAPA). Until the Trump administration goes through the laborious result of enacting a new regulation to undo DACA and DAPA, approximately 6 million aliens can remain in the U.S. in defiance of federal immigration statutes. » Read the rest of this entry «